Brace yourselves. This is what it has come to. Period. No room for discussion.
One of our best teachers at North High, the great Jay Estabrook, applied for a research project last year that involved kids. Along with the paperwork, he had to interview. Needless to write, our environmental savior got selected. He ended up choosing 15 days in the Peruvian Amazon, living on a research vessel, and going off and exploring and be all scientific and stuff. That’s the short version. Oh, wait, one more thing–it’s all FREE. As in, no charge.
So, he gets to take 10 (yes, TEN!) students with him. The only catch is that they have to be in any honors class next year at North. There may be smaller ones, but that’s the biggest. There were some bulletin announcements, I talked to kids about it since I teach Honors English, but there wasn’t really a buzz about it. However, I guess kids went to the first informational meeting because I heard them talking about the program the next day. And though I did not listen to them directly, their tone was not very positive.
Estabrook walked by my room today and I asked him the gory details. From November to May of this year and next, students start setting up and doing some groundwork on whatever they’re doing. It totals 40 hours. Then, NEXT August they get to spend time doing field research in the Amazon, going on hikes and treks, reporting back with information. I don’t know–it pretty much sounds like they’d be working with scientists doing scientific things for science. In the Amazon of Peru. For free. Free.
I talked to my students and asked how many were still thinking of going. A few raised their hands, but not very definitively. They claimed that they’d have to spend time on a boat. That they’d have to work during that time. That there was all that prep from November to May. That they didn’t know what else they would do. That the boat in the picture didn’t look very nice. The bottom line–for all the work they would have to do, it wasn’t really worth it in the end.
Trip to Peru. Free. Being a scientist for two weeks in the summer. Free. Mind you, some of these kids are going to apply to colleges with some science major, but this wasn’t worth it. One of ten kids with the chance to do this. And I’m worried when they don’t read!
There. Is. No. Hope. Only Fitzcarraldo.
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The horror! The horror!