I look out at my classes now and again. Sometimes, my students are bored. I try to yell, inflect my voice, shock them back to reality–anything–but they just get bored here and there.
Can you blame them?
We’re reading Antigone in Sophomore English. My Honors kids are reading it along with my regular class. We are going at the same pace for all classes. It’s my attempt to see just how far off the two classes are, if at all. But Greek tragedy doesn’t really inspire much. It’s 2500 years old, the translation is profoundly British, and I’m not sure about its merit.
In my 6th period today, one of my students read to me from her book. She asked to read Antigone the other day, but I have it on cassette (yep!) so I didn’t let her. But today she read from the second page of her book–the writing was crazy, her reading was fine, AND she was excited to share the craziness of the prose. You see, she was excited to read something that wasn’t even assigned for school just because it interested her and a friend suggested it.
Now, I love old Sophocles and Antigone and Greek Tragedy, and it doesn’t take much time for the overall class–a couple of weeks at most. It’s essential, especially because of Oedipus and the fact that his name will come up again at some point in their lives, and because Aristotle’s definition of tragedy applies to most media they watch today, especially those in the soap opera format.
There’s the quandary for me. Many are not going to remember Antigone in a few months, maybe even a few weeks. Some might, but we are boring our students. I walk by other classes at school and I might as well be walking past a tomb. And nowhere does it say that school has to be this exciting place where teachers yawn and rainbows appear, but there has to be a happy medium.
Maybe I’m just old, but I don’t think so. I want to change with the times, but I keep battling kids who want the worksheet because it’s easy points and no challenge. Maybe THEY are to blame??? We’ll see. Today was only the 14th day.