Day 112: The Praxis of Pedagogy

Good health and happiness to you. For what it's worth, I offer you blessings. How corny is that? Blessings for everyone! Even the terrorists. Terrorists get different blessings, but still a blessing. They get the Jackie Chan blessing to one day sit down and have a drink of tea together. Peace.

Chinese love stories of morality. In Japan Lisa Simpson is how they sell the show. In the US it's Bart and Homer. Lisa is a fascinating character. A child genius surrounded by kitschy Americana. I bet much of the world feels like that. But no one goes off like the French. Bless them for freaking out too. They would know about cultural imperialism. They got that universalist cultural attitude too. Nationalism and the French Revolution anyone. The French empire. I learned French in middle school. What the fuck does a Chinese kid living in the Bay need French for? Give me an Asian language or Spanish or Portuguese. I think French hating Americans are secretly jealous that French does sound so cool. I admit it. The shit is smooth. Like the Merovingian in the Matrix that loves to swear in French cause it's like wiping his ass with silk.

So today I read Disposable People with my first period class. I just read it to them and they followed along. In 2nd and 3rd I read "The Second Coming" by WB Yeats. This was the poem that Chinua Achebe got the name for his book "Things Fall Apart." I got every kid in the class to interpret something in that poem. I just asked them the right questions. It fucking rocked. I stressed to them that I wanted them to decode things. Break it down. Be in on the code the secret. The 411. Then I had them draw me a picture of how they imaged the poem. Visualize the poem. I'm trying to get to the other types of intelligences. I would have hated that shit in school. I hated arts and craft and drawing and all that shit. But it was no doubt enrichening for the sheer and simple fact that I knew I could never make a living doing arts and craft. It's not my gig. I'm going to have to bring in the Book on CD of Things Fall Apart so that I'm not reading all the time. I don't know how to pronounce those African names. Seriously. It's some hard shit. I know I'm mangling it.

After doing that shit, I put up a transparency that I made of the 3 elements and various questions. Then I paired students up and had them group the metacognition questions onto a piece of paper that they had folded up into 3 sections. At the end of class, I went over the questions and grouped it with them. I also told them there was going to be a test on metacognition tomorrow. But I don't think I'll give it to them. I think postponing it will be good for me and them. Why give myself more to grade over break and I'll give them more time to learn it later. Plus telling them that there was going to be a test will have forced some to study, so at least they'll get it.

Good health and happiness to you.