Tuesday

My Science Fiction class is watching The Matrix. Several of them are seeing it for the first time. How I envy them.

I used to show The Matrix with every Sci Fi class, but then everyone began to see it and get caught up in the trilogy craze. Since so many had seen it, I decided to stop showing it.

However, since kids no longer have a limited amount of films to watch (as I did when I was their age) nor do they watch as many films, one can now show more films without having to worry about kids already having seen them. This is especially true for movies released prior to 2000.

I told those who have not seen it, that I truly envy them. I never saw the film in theaters. I misjudged it from the trailers. I thought it was some type of kung fo film. Plus, it had Keanu Reeves (I gave up on him after Johnny Neumanic and Dracula) in it.

However, I rented it on a whim and was completely blown away. It was unlike anything I had ever seen.

When Neo (Reeves’ character) wakes up from “The Matrix” in the vat and sees what the world is really like, I was totally sucked in. It was so unlike anything I had ever witnessed before. As I type, that scene is taking place right now. I can only imagine what they are thinking.

I have had a few moments watching films like that – Pulp Fiction (mainly because of the dialogue . . . it was a movie where I could just sit there and listen to the characters talk) and Seven (when the detectives find that drug abuser and pedophile completely emaciated and strapped to the bed . . . I was so amazed that I just had to hang on for dear life for the rest of the film).

It’s still interesting, even though this is maybe the hundredth time I’ve seen The Matrix. But nothing is like that first time.

I told the students I envied them yesterday too when the read Rasmey Campbell’s “The Pattern,” which is the greatest horror story I’ve ever read. When the climax is reached and all the pieces fit together and that resolution slams into you, there is nothing like it.

I think we can have an excellent discussion on The Matrix later this week. One of its main messages is that we are our memories. If someone were to alter them, they would change our reality. Or if we could somehow transfer memories, our realities would be changed too. Let’s say you have the ability to buy someone’s memories of a vacation to the Caribbean, How would you know you didn’t really go? This is addressed by Philp K. Dick in his classic “We Can Remember it for you Wholesale” (which the movie Total Recall is loosely based on).

I like that idea, for I spend a lot of time in my memories.

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We had our school handbook policy meeting yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised. Things went very well.

There seems to be a real faction among teachers. There are the ones who want the administration to set the rules for ALL. Then there are those who want to be able to set their OWN classroom rules. So far the administration has been very lenient and allowed the latter group to hold sway.

In my survey, it was clear that the teachers have accepted this. Now, they want certain issues (cell phones for one or attendance) to be handled by administration for all, while they want others (food in the classroom) to be handled by individual teachers.

I don’t know if this will be able to work.

On our committee there was a strong division too. One veteran teacher runs his class very, very effectively. He believes others should do just as he does: run a very tight ship, set your own rules, and only involve administration when your rules are repeatedly broken.

It works, as I said, very well for him. However, he has – as far as I know – all electives. He also –as far as I know – teaches mostly underclassmen. Even the upper classmen he teaches are there of their own volition since his classes are mostly electives.

So if he wants to get rid of a student, he can simply march them down to the student affairs office and have them removed since it is an elective class.

However, for those of us who teach required classes (and I don’t teach all required classes – Sci Fi is an elective and College Comp can be treated that way) we can’t simply march a student down and have them removed. What is administration supposed to do with them?

This frustrated me toward the end of the first quarter when I had a senior who was pushing my limit. It came to a head and I kicked him out. However, he was not removed from my class. Instead he supposedly spent his time working in the counseling office, which he didn’t and he failed (should have just been removed).

However, had this teacher marched this same kid down for his elective class, the kid would have been history. I also have a suspicion that had the teacher had that kid in a required class, he would have been gone too.

But this teacher tends to be in the minority. Most don’t run their classes that way. Most want to be able to have set administrative rules in place to fall back on our use as their own classroom rules. I am one of those.

In terms of cell phones, it was decided that all teachers have two options for cell phones in their classrooms. First, they can confiscate them. Or, they can give the offenders detention.

I am for the former solution.

This was decided on to appease both those who want the freedom to decide what to set policy in their classrooms (mainly, the previously mentioned teacher who gives detentions for cell phones in his classes) and for those of us who want a stiffer penalty from administration.

We’ll see how it goes.

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In fifteen minutes, I’ll be off to a dentist appointment. Time for a crown. If I could make one of those little frowny faces with punctuation, I would.

That leaves a sub to oversee my third block College Composition class. They will complete their final in-class essay today. The prompt is -- A critic once said, “Some say literature is like a window [showing us new glimpses of the world around us]; some say it is like a mirror [reflecting our own beliefs and desires].” Using one of your novels you read, tell me if it worked as a window or mirror for you.


Then my fourth block Lit and Language 11 class will be reading Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” Talk about being envious!

I doubt they will get it on the first reading. So I have an assignment where they will re-read it after being given some basic information (that “the simple operation” where “they just let a little air in” is really an abortion; that the setting is as vital to the story as any I have ever read). Can't wait to see what they think of it then.