After today, there will only be double digits left to go for the year. Unfortunately, there will be 99 days left.
Today was a pretty monumental day for kids and teachers. There’s this new President in town named Donald Trump and, BOY, is he shaking things up in these United States. Just this last weekend, millions upon millions of women from all over our country went out on Saturday and marched in solidarity of one another, in recognition of female equality, and, in many instances, to protest this fella Trump.
I have 160 students. One of them marched. She went to Los Angeles to join close to a million others. Gillian Hart, with whom I teach APN, marched in Redondo Beach. I always claim that kids want to be a part of something, to feel like they belong to anything. This was an easy opportunity to belong to something rather historic, and one person went. Maybe if it had been extra credit.
In one of my classes we discussed why it would have been a good thing to join one of the marches. And they were very stoic and thought I wanted that certain lesson-plan answer.
“To show support for women,” they said.
“To protest Trump,” they said.
“To be involved,” they said.
I told them that those reasons were all good and fine, but that, if they remembered correctly, it was a beautiful day on Saturday, sandwiched between two storms, so the city was a little less dirty.
“Oh, but the public trains would still have been gross,” they said.
“There would have been so many people,” they said.
“There might have been weirdos and hobos,” they said. Students won’t say “bums.” They think that the correct word is “hobo.” I have no idea why.
But I kept at them, hoping that this certain word might come out of their mouths, a word taken for granted in education these days, and one that doesn’t enter their lives much either, I’m guessing. “Come on,” I said. “It was nice out, you didn’t have to be at school. You might even have had–”
I waited for the word. It didn’t come quickly.
“You know? Being out and about and trying new things. That’s all–”
Finally someone said “Fun,” but almost as a question. Fun? As if they had all forgotten.
Every day we laugh in class. Each of my classes. Kids will be passing in the hallways, looking like they’ve joined the zombie apocalypse, and stare a little longer when we’re laughing, or having fun, or I’m playing music, or overacting (English teachers are great failed actors). They stare because they, too, have forgotten.
Our principal, in his UC Santa Cruz days, was featured in Life magazine. Pretty cool stuff that our head guy had an article about him in the early 1970s in a hugely popular and much-read magazine. Our principal was probably in his early twenties and offered this quote–“Education must begin with an exposure to joy and variety. Ideas have a way of creating people.” I’m sure if you search those words, the entire article will come up.
I think of that quote all the time when I see lifeless teenagers walking around campus because that’s where they are forced to go. If we gave them an opportunity for variety and joy, if there was a chance for them to take a fun class (gosh, that word again), I swear they would do it. They would be awakened from their slumbers if there was something to be awake for. They’d have something to talk about other than YouTube videos.
At this writing, though, on Day 80, it’s a zombie apocalypse that speaks of YouTube videos. Only one thing will change it, too. Day 180.