No. 400

My 400th blog entry!

More good news. Kristie called as I was blogging about her job interview at the elementary school. She applied for some jobs at UND last week. Today she got a hit. She has another interview on Tuesday. A few days ago she was lamenting that she couldn’t find anything, now the opportunities are finally coming in.

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I tried to read the selections for tomorrow, but I got so damn frustrated by the very first handout that I said screw it and chucked it. The copying was shoddy. The pages were copied so that one couldn’t simply read through the handout. One had to flip flop the pages as if they were on a scavenger hunt. In fact, when I took it out of my binder, it was so out of order that I began reading a chapter on the aftermath of Bull Run. I got two pages into the account - which was quite interesting - but when I flipped the pages, I found that I was at the end of the handout. I was to read on the battle of Bull Run, not the aftermath. But the handout never made that clear. Obviously whoever made this has never taught before. Whenever I use a story, I go to pains to make sure that the only thing that makes it into the handout is the story I want the students to read. If I want them, for example, to read “The Lottery,” I don’t include the last few pages of the previous story in the book from which I copy it. Likewise, when “The Lottery” ends, I don’t include the first page or so of the next story. Now I’m glad that I do that.

So I’ve chucked the reading. It’s not worth it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love our discussions, but the reading are useless for me.

If they were ever to do these summer session again, they would do well to have us read only two selections a day: one literary and one historical. This would appease both English and history teachers. We could spend the first part of the day reading the historical piece and then discuss the second piece the last half. The historical document would lead right into the literary piece or vice versa.

If we were to do this, we could go into greater depth on the two pieces. As we do it now, we still go into depth on a few pieces, but the other ones we were to read are never discussed and wasted. Otherwise, we never dig into any of the pieces and just cut our discussions short on each piece.

On the bright side, I have only one day left. For now I will underline passages quickly to make it look like I read it. Just like my kids do. Ironic.

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Here is a prompt from the RRVWP. It was roughly 100 degrees out. For a change of scenery for lunch I ventured over to a GF coffee shop called The Urban Stampede. It was a fun and enlightening piece to write.

The Urban. This is just how I remembered it. If I had gone to UND or lived in GF, I have a feeling I would have been a resident. I love coffee. I love writing and reading. What a perfect spot.

This place has personality. Not like the Starbucks and Caribou places. I like to think in terms of teaching, that this place would be me. Full of personality. Open to all different styles and ideas. I think too often teachers end up like Star bucks - cookie cutter places offering top of the line standards and teach to the test curriculum. But so much is lost in that.

Teaching - or so I will always believe - is an art. Like an art, it is constantly evolving (at least for me). It has its movements and its spurts. It has its fads and its downward spirals.

But one cannot walk into this place and miss its charm and uniqueness. Is there another coffee shop like this anywhere? Not with the hard metal ceiling, not with the kid in the army shirt and scuffed Doc Martens smoking a cigarette and reading a Hemingway paperback. Not with the office lady who comes in for her trendy iced coffee drink. Not with the waitress singing along to the opera on the speakers. For better or worse, this place is one of a kind.

Starbucks? They’re all the same. Fine coffee but it’s a sterile enviroment. The one I stopped at for morning coffee while chaperoning the choir trip in New York was the same one on South Washington in GF.

I don’t want to teach like that.