September's Bells and Schools Thread

[Conspire]

When I hear somebody call a person a retard, I defend the so called retarded person by calling the agitator a drater (look closely). They then look at me like im the idiot and quietly walk away. I defend the honor of everyone everywhere.

[Blarg]

Sounds like: 1) exhausting; 2) too easy to be self-righteously smug and incredibly passive-aggressive about. The former is an individual choice, but the latter strike me as by turns much worse and much more purposefully offensive than what they are ostensibly commenting on.

And I say ostensibly, because I think the point of politically correct scolding is so very often much more about the now distressfully socially acceptable release of amorphous rage than about making a point worth hearing. Frankly, the politically correct people I see manifesting it on hapless others are often among the least evolved, most hypocritical douchebags I've known.

[Mrs. Utah]

[ QUOTE ]
It's that time of the year. Hope everyone (the Americans at least) enjoys their Labor Day weekend.

[/ QUOTE ]

I cannot wait for the weekend to end because my kids go back to school!! Yay!!! [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]
Utah is traveling for a few weeks so I get so well deserved "me" time. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[John Cole]

Hell, I have to start work tomorrow for the first time since June 20th. One class at 11. Big whine.

[katyseagull]

[ QUOTE ]
Hell, I have to start work tomorrow for the first time since June 20th. One class at 11. Big whine.

[/ QUOTE ]

You poor thing. So early, too. What's the class? Are you preparing tonight?

[John Cole]

Introduction to Literature, and I have already prepared. Basically we're supposed to go over the syllabus, but I start teaching right away and save the syllabus for the following class. Too many students move around too much after the first class and during the first week.

I'll spend forty minutes or so on the first page of Moby Dick.

[katyseagull]

[ QUOTE ]
Introduction to Literature, and I have already prepared. Basically we're supposed to go over the syllabus, but I start teaching right away and save the syllabus for the following class. Too many students move around too much after the first class and during the first week.



[/ QUOTE ]

I like this approach. Good plan, John Cole. Any other classes this semester?

(do you actually learn your students' names?)

[John Cole]

Katy,

I also teach two Comp. courses, a film class, and a short story class. I do learn the students names, but it usually takes a couple weeks.

But I practice the hard ones before class so I can say them perfectly. Try "Olufunlola Olundijoi"; it's not that easy.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Introduction to Literature, and I have already prepared. Basically we're supposed to go over the syllabus, but I start teaching right away and save the syllabus for the following class. Too many students move around too much after the first class and during the first week.

I'll spend forty minutes or so on the first page of Moby Dick.

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha, that should keep your class load light! "On the Whiteness of the Whale" should clear out any stragglers. Maybe top it off with a painfully slow, wheezy reading of Poe's The Bells, while talking as if you had a mouthful of marbles. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

"...bells bells bells bells bells bells bells, the ringing and the singing of the ..."

News the next day, "200 Freshmen Crushed in Doorway Panic During Poetry Reading"

[John Cole]

Blarg, you should see the looks on their faces when we spend about fifteen minutes on the title of the first chapter and the first sentence. I leave the poetry part for later.