Today is the start of the 4th quarter. 10 more weeks to go. For some, I don’t know why we are still doing the dance. For others, they are/and have been doing great all year. For me–I’m tired.
Yesterday I hurt my back, which had me limping around school today. It’s painful, but more annoying than anything else, for there are many positions where it doesn’t hurt. Needless to say, though, it makes me feel old.
My students are good at that, too. Here I was, hipster that I be, ready to talk a little 13 Reasons Why with my kids, since it’s one of the only things they seem to care about. However, even though they are watching/or have watched the show about people in their age range, they just don’t seem intellectually curious about the media in the show.
Not a lot of new Lord Huron fans, even though their song is featured prominently in a slow dance scene that plays in more than one episode. Lots of blank stares on that one. Surely the days can’t be gone where you hear or see or experience something new and, because you initially like it, you do a little research and find out more.
I had a student today mention that they played Ultravox on the show (I think it was “Europa”), which was great to hear after all these years. He’s the same student who knew some of the pivotal scenes (we’ll leave the description at that) from the movie Deliverance.
And, no, not everyone has to be a hipster, or know stuff, but you’re watching the show anyway. Doesn’t anything resonate enough to make a student seek more?
Gah.
We started Macbeth today for sophomores. We’ll be done in two weeks. I wish it were even quicker. Never have I understood the reasoning behind spending forever on a book–you don’t read a book by yourself and take forever. Same in school. Why spend months on Macbeth when we should just play it straight through, have some discussion, see what they learned, maybe watch a movie version. and move on? People in Shakespeare’s times didn’t go see one act one day, then another act, then do a worksheet. You know?
We also started Bowling for Columbine in APN Senior English. That movie never gets old. As dated as it is, for it has to be about 15 years old as a movie–and it’s the week of 18 years since the Columbine shooting–it still shows a country obsessed with violence and race and social status. It’s awful to watch in parts, but that’s what makes it good.
47 more days. Thanks, Bill and Mike, for taking care of this week, and giving us all something to talk about forever.
And now, a minority opinion in a room filled with people who have lots of stuff.