To quote Gurney Halleck from "Dune", "Mood's a thing for cattle and love-play." Gurney then goes on to teach Paul a lesson in hand-to-hand combat. I'm in a "mood" this morning, one that could be described as irritated and annoyed. It was a long week, I had a few instances where people just want to argue with me, and I'm tired of doing homework. I'm a bit fed-up with my Composing Process class, and I feel that I'm not only learning nothing really new, but the view into what the youngling teachers learn is doing nothing for my perception of the profession.
This past week we had to read about how teachers teach to "children of color" (their words, not mine) and poor children. The point was that white people are privileged and have a culture of power because English is the common language. The papers and class argued that for COC and the poor, apparently they don't speak English in the same way and therefore are disadvantaged because of not being able to communicate on that same level. We were instructed to pair up with a classmate and then we were put into larger groups after that and then we discussed as a class. Nowhere in the entire night's class did we discuss writing other than these kids need to be handled differently because they don't speak English.
The person I paired up with wouldn't let me speak. My sentence was this..." If they speak street jargon..." and then she would interrupt and say, "but it isn't street jargon to them." To which I would reply, "yes, but to the interviewer it is. If they speak street jargon..." and she'd cut me off and say, "you keep saying that, but it isn't jargon to them." and I'd reply my see above answer and would then try to make my point. She kept cutting me off instead of listening to what I was going to say. The majority of the class decided that these kids are disadvantaged because need to learn two languages. Their own and standard English. And then they also decided that standard English speakers need to learn "their" language. I was done talking at this point because I had just spent a half-hour with my classmate and the group and listening to their kumbyeya moment of how we should just all speak everyone's language with no regard to the rules of language. Young, idealistic, and idiotic.
Kyle, this one's for you. I then brought up the term "lingua franca" for the younglings and told them how my Spanish teacher told me that I had no reason to fear that English would ever be replaced by Spanish. (I had told him that I'd be in trouble if English ever did get replaced by Spanish) He's right. It won't be replaced by Spanish, it will be replaced with whatever-you-feel-like-saying lingo. I'm convinced that these self-centered and self-righteous Millennials will no doubt educated the future generations that whatever you believe is just fine. Who cares if there are rules because they are just meant to be broken and our way is the better way! One girl in class came very close to saying this, everything up to the point of "our way is the better way!"
I get it. I understand that everyone has a different level of language skills. However, at some point there needs to be a common core of basic skills that will enable everyone to communicate on some level or things will just de-volve into chaos. Expecting children to at least be able to follow commands and communicate back is not too much to ask. It is probably a good thing that I won't be going into teaching. While I think teaching is important, I don't think I'd survive the process of becoming a teacher. If I'm irritated at this level, I can't imagine what the rest of the classes are like. I'd be that angry teacher no one likes. I'm still irritated at this class. And with that, I need to go do the homework for it. Yeah....
