
Say Hello to My Little Friend
Mamacita says: This is a caffeine molecule. We hang out far too much. I had thought about writing a humorous essay about how I’ve been known to drive to WalMart at 3 a.m. for Diet Coke because we were out and I couldn’t wait for morning to go get some.
But that isn’t really funny – it’s just sad. Besides, ever since I discovered the “People of WalMart” website, I’ve been afraid I’d end up on there with keywords like “dowdy” and “hoarder” under my not-even-lucky-enough-to-be-blurry picture.
So I thought I’d talk about how even my students know I’m happier when there’s a Diet Coke on my desk, and when the professor is happy, everybody in the room is happy. And how sometimes, a student will even bring me a Diet Coke.
Diet Coke is the new apple for the teacher.
But that’s not really humorous, either.
Then I thought about mentioning how people who know me make a point of having Diet Coke in their refrigerators when they invite me over or know I’ll be there. People who wouldn’t touch a Diet Coke with a ten foot pole will make sure they’re a few for me, even in, among, and around their own wholesome, nutritious spring waters and fruit juices.
Again, not funny.
Well, how about a piece about how flavored colas are Satan Juice, especially the lime ones?
Naw. Silly isn’t humorous; it’s just silly.
Finally, I thought about turning my original idea from humor to a serious talk about health and well-being, figuring that it might help a few people battle their own obsessions.
“My poor personal example might inspire someone to take charge of his/her own nutritional requirements and make wiser choices, ” thought I.
Like that’s going to happen.
So I’m showing you all what a caffeine molecule looks like because I think it’s all cute and stuff, and it makes me snicker to imagine an ice-cold bottle full of these little wiggly jobbers being sucked down someone’s throat on a hot day science is important.
In fact, science is one of my favorite things. That’s because science is ALL things, a wonder at a time.
Oh, and the melted Mentos and Diet Coke dregs left in the bottle after the Geyser goes off are delicious.
And, I’m sure, quite good for us. No, I’m not sharing. Back off.
Are Our Children Really Overprotected? I Think They Are.
Mamacita says: Are we protecting our children too much? Everything is so bland, so effortless, so sanitary, so entitled, so sterilized, so soft, so completely without risk, requiring little or no talent or skill, so full of self-esteem and so lacking in merit, that it is little wonder so many of our young adults wouldn’t survive three days on a desert island without a camera crew on hand to keep them alive when push comes to shove. There’s no WiFi on a desert island. Many people would die in less than a week without their WiFi. (They don’t know how to grow or hunt their own food or make a fire or a shelter, etc. They’re pathetic.)
We’ve got children who not only wouldn’t know how to climb a tree to save themselves from a bear attack, they probably wouldn’t know any better than to assume the bear was a sweet thing that welcomed a Kodak moment. We’ve got children who’ve never walked around their own block without at least one adult present. We’ve got children who have never in their entire lives played in their own back yard without adult supervision.
Our kids have never organized their own games, made their own friends, walked to the neighborhood store, jumped rope, been outside after dark, put lightning bugs in a jar, or gotten dirty without a scolding.
Today’s kids get passing grades without really passing, sports trophies without really playing, and attendance awards even when they’ve missed six days for orthodontia appointments. Bullies receive more sympathy and help than their victims. Disruptive students are allowed to remain in our classrooms, destroying the learning opportunity for other kids. (Disability or not, no child should be included IF that student presents a danger to other children, or in any way prevents other children from learning. I’m not backing down on this one.)
These kids have no organizational skills because all their school supplies are in big bins that everyone helps himself/herself to – many of these students will go to college and expect their professors to provide the pencils and paper. How do I know this? I am a college professor, and every semester, at least one younger student wonders where the paper, pencils, paper clips, and staplers are kept. When they are told to supply their own, these students are absolutely flabbergasted.
Many kids these days would not know what “flabbergasted” means.
Their playgrounds look like the toddler room in the church basement, not a single pair of jeans has had to be patched, they’re chastized if they get dirty, and they have never had a broken bone or stitches from just being a kid and playing in their lives. Simple falls, slips, bumps, and bruises are Benadryl foddder. They’re not allowed to climb because they might fall. They can’t whirl and twirl because they might fall. They can’t run because they might fall – or make some child who can’t run as fast feel bad. They can’t throw or kick baseballs or footballs or kickballs because someone might get hit, or get upset at witnessing another child’s skill. Imaginative play is forbidden lest it include a pirate sword or a finger gun or some kind of sexist, non-PC labeling.
What’s next? No walking, because they might fall? It wouldn’t surprise me.
Many kids are not allowed to make their own friends because unless the parents can also be friends, it just ain’t happening.
Children are allowed to run wild in public places, eat and drink anywhere they want, talk during movies, and pretty much rule the roost in their own homes and anyone else’s, too.
Excuses, reasons, and rationalizations are made for all misbehavior. It is never the child’s fault. He can’t help it.
Many children eat what they want whenever they want it. Parents are so afraid little Lulu and little Tubby will be hungry or their self-esteem will be eroded that they cater to these little monsters in every way. If anyone objects or finds fault, that person must be a child-hating ogre who just doesn’t underSTAND how sensitive Lulu and Tubby are.
Teachers are too strict and require too much. Theater patrons who glare have forgotten how it was to be a free-spirited child. Restaurant servers and customers are just hateful selfish beasts who ought to appreciate children and not expect them to be sentient. Fast-food restaurants FORCE families to eat there every night, and that we are all fat isn’t our fault -it’s the restaurant’s fault for MAKING us go there.
Am I in a bad mood? Not at all. I am actually more amused, in a head-shaking, disgusted, sarcastic, snarky way, at so many young parents these days who are making it so difficult all the time when it really shouldn’t be.
When people allow children to be in charge, life is going to be hell. Plus, these parents are also responsible for encouraging their children to grow into adults who must be ever entertained from without, who can’t sit still for thirty seconds, who have poor eating habits, shoddy entertainment preferences, and a sense of entitlement and blamelessness that should shame the nation.
P.S. Parents who allow their children to be in charge DESERVE the hell they are nurturing. Is that harsh? Bite me. The truth hurts.
Yes, I am aware that such things have been said about the younger generation for thousands of years. That doesn’t make it any less true.
I love children too much to stay quiet. We need to nurture them, love them, cherish them, and require them to genuinely grow up, and that means, to have the knowledge and skills to take care of themselves and of others.
Nobody has the right to be helpless unless he/she really is.
Good Teaching Is Like Good Stand-Up.
Mamacita says: I love children, and I love students of all ages, and I love teaching, and I love genuine education in all of its 6-degrees-of-separation wonder. Everything is connected – everything in the known and unknown universe is connected. Nothing exists only within the four walls of a classroom. It often happens – I sincerely hope – that in the course of our education we are required to learn something we simply do not understand.
“Whyyyyyyyy do I have to learn this? (Best said in a whiny, nasal tone.)
There are many answers to this question, all correct, although “Because it’s going to be on the test” is the poorest answer, even though it might be the only answer the student is capable of understanding AT THE MOMENT. Education is so full of wonders that it’s difficult to highlight just one, but I’ll give it a shot.
One of my favorite educational wonders is the simple fact that there are many things we learn for which we know no immediate reason. This not “knowledge for knowledge’s sake,” although I love to know things just to know them. This is “life prep.”
Hasn’t it ever happened to you, that five, ten, thirty, sixty years later, something pops in your brain and suddenly you make a connection to that little poem your mean third grade teacher made you memorize much against your will, and you are able to comprehend something?
I thought so.
THAT’S why you “have to learn this stuff” now. Some of it is for today, and some of it is for tomorrow, and some of it is for when you’re seventy-two years old and struggling with questions far more difficult than school ever made you do. Each of your teachers is trying to prepare you not merely for the next grade up, but for all of the rest of your life. Everything you have ever learned is stored away in your head, somewhere, waiting to serve you “later.” Good teachers know this, and do their level best to encourage students to find and understand the connections and relationships between and among “things.”
That’s what I’ve always tried to do, anyway. I didn’t learn that in college. I learned it from some of my own teachers. Not all; just the good ones. I learned plenty from the bad teachers, too, and not just because bad examples are as useful – and sometimes more so – than good examples. The many good teachers in my life taught me much more than their job description required, and it was these “tangents” that taught me the most. I do this with my students, too, and often those tangents end up being more important than the actual lesson.
If our children learn nothing else in school, I hope they learn about the connections, which are, of course, also relationships. Connecting the dots between math and English and science and history, etc, will help us all want to learn more, and more, and more, and never stop learning more. I consider that to be my primary goal. Perhaps knowing these things about me will soften what I am about to say next, which is simply this:
It’s no surprise to me that a student doesn’t much like to sit still and pay attention when the instructor is boring, lackluster, monotonous, incompetent, and uninformed. (Or any one of those things.) Excellent lessons require much more than books, paper, and pencils; they require the skills of a savvy standup. You can’t teach Period 7 the same way you taught Period 2; it’s a different audience.
However, I still maintain that the majority of responsibility for learning lies with the student, not the teacher. A person who desires to learn will learn in spite of all of the obstacles our modern educational system puts in his/her path, and believe me, modern educational systems put all the obstacles in the path of our students that they possibly can.
It’s still – mostly – the student’s responsiblity.
Bring it on.
(Another re-run. We’re moving this week. I’m buried alive in stress, mess, & junk. This house is a hoarder’s dream.)