Listen, I am a recovering mess right now. This year has been personally hard; it began near the New Year with my husband being laid off, then my father passed away, then my father-in-law, and my bestie is moving, and between grief and being stressed about money, it’s been rough.
I didn’t have to talk my husband into seeing the Barbie movie, he went gladly. His only hesitation was we’re still cautious and worried about COVID-19 and going to a movie theatre.
Yes, I played with Barbies as a kid. My Barbies, mostly Weird Barbies after my little ADHD hands got a hold of them, had amazing lives. My mom didn’t want me to have Barbies because many feminist moms in the 1970s didn’t want their daughters to have Barbies. She relinquished, and my Barbie days are things of family legend.
I’m beginning to think the Barbie movie is a litmus test for those who understand patriarchy: one side understands it and how it harms us all, and limits our potential. The other side, usually those who refuse to see it, think patriarchy is something that “happens to other women,” or in the case of a close relative of mine, thinks #smashingthepatriarchy means hurting her son. I guess, literally? Mkay.
The movie made me cry– not sure I could pinpoint why at the time; just the vague, unease and disquiet, for dreams of equality unrealized. And when I watched it the second time, I cried, too. I saw it with my mom, and she asked me why — and the more I’ve thought about it, the more deeply disappointed and depressing the idea of being alive almost sixty years and nothing really has changed. In fact, it’s gotten worse. Mojo-dojo-case-house is a cute way of easing into the dystopian hellscapes Olivia Butler and Margaret Atwood warned us about.
I have written before or at least shared in other spaces about my experience as a new mom in the 1990s, at least regarding no maternity leave. Families still have to plan to bring new humans into the world with so much fear of a financial burden, at least in the United States. I bet Midge wouldn’t have to beg for maternity leave. The cognitive dissonance in our nation is enough to make anyone cry. I guess things are “better,” but right now, they’re not. “Barbie” was like watching one of Quintin Tarantino’s ‘wish fulfillment’ movies — ‘Inglorious Basterds,’ ‘Django Unchained,’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ are examples. Movies that give us the ending we wish had happened. If Tarantino directed “Barbie” (let’s not talk about the foot issue), would it have had a different ending? “Barbie” gave us the blueprint for how much better we can be.
I’d like to don a pink jumpsuit and de-program several patriarchal cult members right now.
(We shall return to some other posts on writing, writing workshop, etc. soon.)
I have a guilty…well, wouldn’t exactly call it ‘pleasure’…past time, hobby, compulsive process addition, and play a Blizzard game called Hearthstone. It’s a card game based on the archetypal characters in World of Warcraft. It is a value-added app, meaning it’s ‘free’ to those who subscribe to WoW, I think. Maybe. Maybe it’s a a free app. Okay, it is. Yeah. And it makes money from micro-transactions of buying card packs, but one can also earn points and trade those points in for cards, disenchant them, and add to deck sets. I’ve been playing it longer than I care to admit; oftentimes while watching TV, etc.
The cycle is a month: from the 1st to the 30/31 you build up your rank. If you fall down a rank, and it’s on the last day of the month, you start off at a lower rank on the 1st. For example, I ended at Rank 17 this month, and I started at Rank 21 today.
If you lose a game, you lose a star. You have three stars per rank. If you have a winning streak, you can bump to the next level. If you lose a single game, you can get bumped down to the lower level.
You can build your decks, study strategies, but have no control how to organize the cards you receive, except like poker, throw away three and get three replacements.
If you play a “dungeon run” if you lose one game you have to start all over again. Looking at you, Rastakhan’s Rumble.
There are daily quests, and if you lose those games, your ranking goes down.
I’m not really a good sport. My Avatar is, though.
At the beginning of every game, I immediately “squelch” the opposing player. I don’t want to hear the taunts, jeers, or smarmy “Well Played!” How do I know it’s smarmy? I just do.
Ah, what if we could mute naysayers and mean people?
The parallels with how students might feel during their year in the classroom: it never feels like one is ‘moving up’ and it’s three stars forward and four stars back. A loss is not simply a ‘learn and growth mindset’ fix, because the system is rigged. Even if I studied strategies, the cards fall where they will, and I don’t receive any benefit or boost from my study of skills and strategies. I’m surprised if I make it to Level 17. With each character/avatar, if you win 500 games you receive a golden portrait. Whoop-dee-doo. So like many things in school: all show, no substance.
If students could identify this same feeling, this Sisyphean futility of grinding away at something that doesn’t progress or feel satisfying, is this what they perceive when we teachers tell them they should be life long learners? Maybe I’m writing this post too soon, because I haven’t quite figured out my thesis: perhaps just to focus and find a way for students next year to acknowledge their experiences and how they feel the system has been rigged against their growth, success, and defining what ‘winning’ is for them:
White supremacy is a system of structural racism which privileges white people over others, regardless of the presence or absence of racial hatred.
Image Source: Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence, 2005. Adapted: Ellen Tuzzolo, 2016; Mary Julia Cooksey Cordero, 2019 pic.twitter.com/FyFZUZrT1K
— The Conscious Kid (@consciouskidlib) July 31, 2019
And this cannot, must not, be ignored: call out any teacher who uses gamification for harm:
🗣🗣🗣 SLAVERY RE-ENACTMENTS ARE NEVER APPROPRIATE. It undermines the reality/severity/trauma of slavery and can cause trauma to Black students. So many schools, youth programs, and apparently libraries still do this anti-Black activity every year. STOP IT. https://t.co/UGSVTkg6gc
— The Conscious Kid (@consciouskidlib) July 30, 2019
The truth is I don’t want to put any more energy or study into progressing up the ranks in that stupid game. Maybe that’s how students feel, too, when they walk into a new school year. And when I think about how I structure and support my students, will give more notice to the impact of their days. Are they starting the day already defeated? Hopeless? Finding and defining what is important to me and my beliefs is as human as it gets–and definitely use Trevor Aleo’s ideas about content/curriculum – find our ikigai.
Seriously blown away at all the positive feedback, advice, and suggestions this tweet got. Thanks so much, #NCTEvillage!
How did I not know about this? (probably because of PG-13 language: I’ll get permission slips, promise!)
ThugNotes is narrated by Sparky Sweets, Ph.D., and yes there is some language, but the plot summaries and analysis are epic. For a secondary audience, this modern version of CliffsNotes is helpful and entertaining. Since I’m teaching a unit on Lord of the Flies next year I am thankful for his analysis and insight.
Next: thinking about essays and writing structures differently:
The linear narrative essay: This essay structure is self-explanatory. The story is told in a straightforward narrative, and is usually told in chronological order. Sometimes, there are flashbacks contained in the essay, but that doesn’t disrupt the forward motion of the narrative. One essay that may be of interest in the coming weeks as we approach the August 21 “Great American Eclipse” is Annie Dillard’s “Total Eclipse,” which is published in her collection, Teaching a Stone to Talk.
The triptych essay: Just as a triptych painting features three panels, so too does a triptych essay feature three separate sections that are not continuous with each other, but that may shed light on the other two parts. See “Triptych” by Samina Najmi, which was published in World Literature Today.
The collage essay: This type of essay features bits and pieces – vignettes – of prose that are collected together to form an essay. They often resemble poetry as the writing for a collage essay tends to be lyrical. One of my favorite collage essays is Sherman Alexie’s “Captivity,” which appeared in First Indian on the Moon.
The experimental essay: These essays seem to buck all known structures. One of the most unusual of these essays is “The Body” by Jenny Boully. The pages of the essay are blank – except for the footnotes, which are extensive. It turns out that the footnotes are the entire essay. “The Body” is characterized as a lyrical essay
The last two forms of essay that I wish to discuss are the “hermit crab” essay and the “braided” essay, and here I’d like to offer more exploration of two particular essays that are examples of them.
The hermit crab essay: In 1972, John McPhee wrote “The Search for Marvin Gardens,” and it was published in the New Yorker. He used the original game of “Monopoly” – the original American version that was based on the streets of Atlantic City, New Jersey – and he uses going around the board as the frame for the essay, making this a perfect example of a “hermit crab” essay.
In the essay, McPhee is playing a game of Monopoly but he is also recounting walking the streets of Atlantic City. The game is taking place at an international singles championship of Monopoly play, where it is possible for two skilled players to play an entire game in fewer than fifteen minutes.
McPhee intersperses the history of America in the details, but also how Atlantic City was the planned “invention” as a railroad terminus that would be a “bathing village.” In preliminary sketches, the village was labeled as an “Atlantic city,” and the name stuck. In the early 1930s, Charles B. Darrow took those early sketches of the city and based a game board on it.
So, as McPhee lands on each property or group of properties, he tells the story of each part of town. When McPhee’s piece lands him in jail, he uses it as an opportunity to visit the city jail, which in 1972 seemed to be chock-full of drug offenders. He also documents the “facade” aspect shared by resort towns. Once you travel off the beach-side main drag, you are in “the bulk of the city, and it looks like Metz in 1919, Cologne in 1944. Nothing has actually exploded. It is not bomb damage. It is deep and complex decay. Roofs are off. Bricks are scattered in the street.”
He walks these streets and sees long lines of people standing in line at the unemployment office. Newspapers in 2017 tell us that we have an “opioid crisis,” but a multiplicity of signs urging addicts to get help are present in Atlantic City in 1973 (perhaps another reminder that something doesn’t become a crisis until middle class white kids in the suburbs are dying).
McPhee walks through these neighborhoods looking for the one Monopoly property he can’t find: Marvin Gardens. No one with whom he speaks, those living in their bombed-out neighborhoods, has heard of it. It turns out that Marvin Gardens, “the ultimate out wash of Monopoly, is a citadel and sanctuary of the middle class.” It is a suburb within a suburb, what we might now refer to as a “gated community,” separated from the rest of Atlantic City and patrolled with a heavy police presence to keep the rest of the city out.
If you’ve been paying attention while reading, you realize that McPhee has used his hermit crab essay to write a critique of capitalism.
The braided essay: “The Fourth State of Matter,” by Jo Ann Beard is, I must confess, my favorite essay. It, too, was originally published in the New Yorker in 1996. Beard offers a braided essay – in which she is telling a number of stories that are all related to the time she spent on the editorial staff of a physics journal at the University of Iowa. Over the course of the essay, which begins with Beard’s poignant description of the daily routine she experiences as she cares for her aged, incontinent dog, the reader is braced in anticipation that the dog will die.
One can, indeed, Google context about a topic. How deep down the rabbit hole should we go?
I get the statement: it’s intended to be for Depth of Knowledge Level One Yes/No kinds of questions, Costas’ level one knowledge, bottom rung of Bloom’s. However — these days the strata of misinformation abounds, and even yes/no questions can result in horrific results. And these days, it is life and death.
I needed my help from my friend Sharon to help ME get some context for this post, and she came to the rescue:
I tried a little experiment, suggested by my husband. I Googled “What are vaccines?” and “Are vaccines good for you?” both level one questions that should result in facts or a yes/no.
Here is what I got with this first search statement:
(Note: most results are sound.)
Here is with search terms my husband tried:
This is when we start going to CrazyTown.
Questions, even with yes or no answers, can be inherently biased. People seek the answers their cognitive dissonance and biases want. “Google” Benghazi, Alex Jones, Pizzagate, etc. Heck, look up “president handshakes.” No, never mind. Don’t.
Google does its best to filter and promote factual information with its complicated algorithms and data. But Fake News is a violent, dangerous issue. I wish we could go back a decade at least when we could, with reasonable critical thinking skills, discern fact from opinion/fiction.
Here is something Sharon and I can fix, so look for a Part II. In the meantime
Use DOK questions first to create an understanding and close reading of Google results. That way, when students are told to “Google it,” they must come away with a minimum of three credible sources.
Close Reading:
Look at top searches
Look at the date published
Look at the publisher and media format: is it a credible news source? Blog? Credible Youtube channel or ‘just some dude?’
Look at links and pingbacks
Know how search engines work
Tap into the best Social Studies teachers you know — make sure any lesson on search engines include conversations about primary, secondary, and tertiary documentation and artifacts.
Call upon the best ELA teachers you know to discuss point of view, perspective, fact, opinion, and truth
Call upon the best Science teachers you know to help promote scientific research and how bias creeps in.
Call upon your best Math teachers to discuss proving factual knowledge and a variety of algorithmic paths.
Oh, and never forget Electives, PE & Health to talk about false and factual information that spreads on the internet. The arts and the curated effect of beautiful and lasting resources on the Internet for one and all.
So yes, don’t spend a lot of time teaching if it can be Googled. But teaching how Google works is teaching time well spent.
Oh, and I found this, and of course, can find its origins:
My list is incomplete. There is a legion of ways kids use other objects to distract or fidget with. And no wonder. Quite frankly, a day in the life of a 6-period middle school kid and teacher is physically demanding. Imagine running for a flight eight times a day: in the morning, between every class, 30 minutes for lunch, at the end of the day, trying to take care of biological needs and process learning. It’s go-go-go all day. I completely understand why the average student senses they “need” this, how those spinners seem to help with attention, but from my anecdotal observations, they hurt more than help, if only because they distract us, the teacher, from being effective.
SCOTT MCCOSKERY: I had a long career in the IT world.
MALONE: This is Scott McCoskery, and as an IT guy in Seattle, he says he spent a lot of time on conference calls and in board meetings that he didn’t really need to attend.
MCCOSKERY: During those times, I often found myself clicking a pen, opening and closing a knife or…
MALONE: A knife in a board meeting, Scott?
MCCOSKERY: A small pocket knife. It was nothing too threatening.
MALONE: All right, all right.
Well, I guess we should be glad kids don’t flick switchblades in class.
One of my favorite education bloggers, Larry Ferlazzo comes out on the side of the spinners, telling teachers to ‘chill out.’ He also confesses to only seeing two out of his 130 high school students. Let that sink in. Two. One-hundred thirty. High. School. Not twenty to thirty a day out of 130 MIDDLE SCHOOL kids. All day, every day, most teachers in my building watch students who click on games sooner than the actual assignment. Kids who reach for a spinner versus a pen or pencil. I agree, we teachers do need to choose our battles. I know kids aren’t getting enough fresh air, time to eat, time to talk and play, and often I feel more like a jailer than an educator. And the inmates will do anything to keep from going insane, and I don’t blame them.
But I’m not battling spinners only: the onslaught of cell phone use, and if it’s not that, it’s talking. And then I’m told I need to have them engage in ‘accountable talk.’ What if you were told that in chunks of 55 minutes you had to only have ‘accountable’ conversations? I can only imagine how awful book club would be if we couldn’t chat, catch up, talk about kids, food, work, and then spend some time talking about the current book. The thing is–truly–students rebel all the time against this daily structure. If they didn’t they would go nuts. They don’t want extrinsic token-economy fluff, they want time.
As I plan out the next few weeks, I’m going to build that time in. And parents–if you’re reading this — consider instead of a spinner a little sketchbook or some books they can use when testing is over, or they have some time:
McCoskery was on the phone. No one could see him spinning. Students need to be in school, learning. They are not on conference calls about the latest beta data.
The year, around May 2010 or so, I finished my first round of National Boards, I promised my younger son I would start playing World of Warcraft. My husband worked for a previous incarnation, Sierra Games, and his brother, my brother-in-law, works for Blizzard (on the Diablo series), so the truth is it ran in the family. My older son plays, too, but at a much more competitive and competent level than I ever will. And though I’ve held the Minecraft Club/Anime Club for years, I don’t play Minecraft, but certainly, see its value.
Over the years, I can’t help but draw parallels between this MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game, ya noob), education, and being a teacher. My main character for years was a shaman: she carried two big axes or maces with her, and with the help of her trusty spirit wolves slew giants, monsters, naga, and all manner of evildoers and bad dudes. I’ve switched to a druid, all sparkly and full of moonbeams and sun fire. Playing wasn’t always relaxing for me: there were times when it became too serious, took up too much of my head space, and the joy was gone. Yup, kind of like teaching.
Quest Lines:think about quest lines like a curriculum map that you don’t participate in, create, help forge, etc. It’s given to you as your sacred duty to save someone, something, and at the end, you get a boon, be it experience or gold. Sometimes you get gear, but the gear is always third-rate. Anytime you can participate in a quest line that needs 3-5 other players consider that your PLC time, created in the moment to conquer a bigger monster. It goes faster when you work together, and tackle those big monsters en masse.
Leveling Up: School and its trajectories are one big leveling up. As a teacher, if I don’t think I am growing, or a situation is adding toxicity to the support of students and staff, it’s like poison from a plague machine from the Forsaken. (
Area of Effect:AOE, or area of effect, is the spell power to either heal or do damage, (or both if your character is heavy into the crit thing). My mage blasts fire or ice. My druid sends waves of green healing or rains starfire from the skies. The shaman wakes the earth and the priest pulls dark shadows from the air.
In a classroom, the students sitting further in the back do not receive the full effect of teaching as much as those in the front. My way around this is to do as much walking around, and joining small groups as possible. The old “proximity” rule is valuable, but it’s not enough. If you’re casting out healing or crit powers, make sure it doesn’t overheal or crit, wasting precious mana and casting time.
Mana:Red is for health, and blue is for mana. Mana is life goo. Mana from heaven, supernatural aid, aiding in casting spells and healing. Different classes of characters need different attributes –paladins need stamina, spellcasters need intelligence; hunters and shamans need agility. These characteristics work to create a well-tuned character, making them powerful and competent.
Guilds, cliques, and NPCs (non-player characters: I’ve been in my share of dysfunctional guilds. I’ve jokingly referred to guilds as my bridge club: it’s been one of my social outlets for some time, and a fun, light hobby. There have been times it’s been a serious hobby for me, and I’ve made many life-long friends all around the world that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Guilds can be comprised of thousands of people, or like my little guild, two to three. If a guild is a raiding guild, there are different levels of those, as well. I’ve been in raiding guilds and casual guilds, and have experienced a few personalities of guild leaders.
Cliques are a natural result of alliances that form when large groups work together and can be beneficial in achieving small sets of goals. However, recognizing when cliquish behavior becomes an obstacle to the global goals is important, because undermining larger efforts may result.
NPCsare critical for success; think of the custodians, secretaries, nurses, counselors, etc. all who make such a huge difference in the lives of students and staff. Click on that NPC if they have a talk bubble: you will find out amazing information.
What do the good guild leaders do?The make sure everyone knows their role and how to work together best. They see areas of growth, and never publically criticize a team member. They don’t allow for gossip or hearsay. And they don’t play favorites. Now, if they have to sit someone out because they aren’t geared up yet, etc. they work with the teammate to assist in questing, raiding, etc. to bolster, but that commitment works both ways. The player needs to step up, too, and do what it takes to make the team. Good leaders’ tones are professional and warm. They are solution-focused and want to keep their guilds together. It takes too much time and energy to have turnover on a raid team. And they keep their senses of humor. It is just a game, after all.
Alliance versus Horde: forever and ever, Amen. In Azeroth, the Alliance and the Horde battle over, well, everything, until of course the demons from the Legion show up and ruin it all. This is why we can’t have nice things, you know. Call this identity politics — associating oneself with one side versus the other is a shortcut for understanding, or pop-psychological understanding, of someone’s preferences and personality. Don’t be fooled. Just because someone enjoys pretending to be a green Orc versus a wistful Night Elf doesn’t say too much, trust me on this. There are two sides, and both have their own narrative, allegiances, leaders of all stripes, and factions. Tribalism serves the tribe, but not the village: the more integrated and cross-content conversations happen the better we serve our students. Or destroy the Legion. Whichever comes first.
PVP: Akin to Alliance versus Horde, Player versus Player is another competitive sport that one needs to knowingly engage in, and have a clear understanding of the outcome. I have no interest in playing on a PVP server: nothing like a Forsaken rogue stabbing me in the back when I’m looking for an NPC to turn in a quest. Those graveyard-to-corpse runs are a timesink.
Dungeons and Raids: Sign up. Pick a role. Do your job. Play fair. Communicate. Don’t troll. Rinse. Repeat.
Nothing like the pop-up of a big achievement banner after a long grind.
Grinding: So much in Azeroth is called “grinding” — doing the same repetitive tasks in order to gain status, reputation, or a boon. These grinding quests are the seemingly infinite gateways to “the good stuff.” It’s helpful for me to remind myself that the occasional grind of teaching does get our students to that good stuff; accomplishments and banners of awesome.
The Final Boss: in every dungeon, raid, or world quest there is a final boss. This character has been wreaking havoc for some time, destroying lives and having many vows of vengeance thrown in his or her name. (But it’s usually a “he.”) This is the moment you’ve worked toward, you’ve prepared and planned. You will have to work very closely with your teammates in order to bring down this boss: he has a bag of tricks (aka mechanics) and phases, and sometimes just when you think you’ve got him beat, the last healer steps in fire and he enrages and the whole team wipes. But: you pick yourself up, plan your cooldown spells a little tighter, pay gold for repairs, drink your potions, get your food buff, and start again.
Sounds a lot like spring break.
If you ever venture into Azeroth, remember to keep your bags free of gray items, save all the Dwarf books, and take a pet with you. And when you venture back to your classrooms, remember you are powerful: you have magic and joy no one else does. Be strong out there, for there are monsters.
Now the thought of Chuck Palahniuk writing the back story for a cartoon intrigues me, and I began to think of multiple mash-ups of writers and stories. This morning I envisioned a complete Nathanial Hawthorne Scarlet Letter version of Rugrats, whereas every time Angelica attempts to bully the babies she must wear her insignia “A” embroidered on her chest, serving multiple purposes. The adults are the villagers, of course, standing firm in judgment. Well, it played out better before I had coffee. Now I’m not so sure.
But what about Stephen King and a treatment of Roadrunner? I think Kurt Vonnegut could do justice to Bugs Bunny. Or as John quoted, ‘create sad backstories to all the Animaniacs.’ Brilliant. This, of course, is the essence of fan fiction, with a hefty side of writer’s craft, style, and voice for good measure.
Allow me to meander a bit:
Ayn Rand takes over an episode of Invader Zim.
Neil Gaiman rewrites a ‘Hey, Arnold’ episode.
J.K. Rowling takes on Powerpuff Girls.
G.R.R. Martin rewrites Dexter’s Laboratory.
Dr. Seuss: Ren and Stimpy, of course.
Suzanne Collins and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.
Okay, I could go on all day. I am seeing a really fun lesson idea here: D&D dice with each number associated with an author and then a second roll for the cartoon episode.
What other ideas come to mind?
Postcript:
Now–parents–think for a second. When I was growing up Bugs Bunny and his ilk alluded to operas, literature, film, etc. I know there are ‘jokes for grownups’ in current children’s media, today, too, but I am a bit out of touch with the ten and under crowd these days. My sons are 18 and 21, and they share gritty, funny binge-worthy media. We are long past the Rugrats days. If you’re a parent of kids under 10-11 and let them watch tv, what do they watch?
Much ado is being made about age these days. Maybe it’s my own resentment of being a digital pioneer, and constantly being reminded I’m in charge of training children for jobs that don’t exist yet (for Pete’s sake, it’s not like I’m asking them to be farriers or corset-stay carvers!) At the NCCE, included in one lecture’s description was “NOT YOUR PARENTS’ TEXTBOOK!” which, yes, using the “o” word — offended me a tad. And not only am I playing a shoddy offense but defense as well. In this political climate my sons’ generation is constantly maligned: labeled entitled, privileged, whiny, and naive. My friend John Spencer gets it. VSauce has a great video about “Juvonoia,” the idea that younger generations are lame.
So I suppose if those younger than I are a bit miffed and allow for casual ageism to creep into the conversations, I must try not to cast my own disapproving glare.
But ageism is actually quite horrifying. We’re all living longer, and creating a world where each generation gets a little smarter (thank you unleaded gasoline!) and a bit more savvy with all these critical thinking skills we’ve been touting. We’re creating awesome smart monsters humans. And while young folks may think of us as “elders” in their capitulating apologies, it has very real consequences.
Yes, young woman, you are contributing quite a bit. But over-40s are not quite “elders” yet.
So why does this get to me? Perhaps because it has an ‘ism’ at the end. “Ism’s” connote binary decision making: yes or no, black or white, up or down. Ageism is permission to assume someone cannot learn something about anything, but usually, especially technology, because they are old. Is it as bad as racism? I can’t make that claim. Its consequences may mean someone doesn’t get hired, so while we elders are trying to pay for our millennials’ college, we also can’t save for retirement. This article feels like a biography. Ageism decreases opportunity and allows for mocking on good days, and discrimination on bad. There’s that binary thinking again.
That moment when you realize someday you too, will be old as….never mind.
So, tiny examples: if I see something cool, guess what I do? I try to figure out how it was done. One of my little goals right now is to create gif doodles. Believe it or not, I can’t find any good tutorials, and this is making me feel a bit doddy. But they’re so cool! Not as cool as the Silicon Valley holographic mustache, but still…
Is there something you’d like to learn how to do? Can anyone help me with this? I’ve fallen in a gif and can’t get up!
PS I know how to use Snapchat. I just choose not to. My students laugh at me because my husband is my only friend. /sigh You’ll understand when you’re older.
Innocently a young colleague, not much older than my eldest son, asked me if I had seen ‘Force Awakens,’ and if I liked it.
Poor guy.
Never believe that asking a simple question to an English-teacher-quasi-nerd-fan-girl-turned-Jedi-master-saw-original-Star-Wars-changed-life is going to produce a simple answer.
I hesitated, and he said, “Oh no.” He knew.
So…hesitated, and responded: “I learned that ‘Star Wars’ is our cultural entry, our collective consciousness doorway, to providing accessible analysis of narrative.” Or something to that effect.
Basically: it’s our doorway to being able to discuss literature/narrative, in an informed, impassioned and to us, when we’re discussing plot, character, story arc, decisions, we own it, we create and recreate, and we feel smart. And when we feel smart, we feel confident. And when we feel confident, success is inherent. And nothing succeeds like success.
Think about it: when my husband and I left the Cinerama(our boys having seen the film: older one not in love with Star Wars, in fact hates it, younger one loved it and shared the Belated Media clips below–more on that later) we both knowingly rolled our eyes at each other, and waited until we were out of earshot of other fans to dissect Kylo Ren’s character, plot points, comparisons, and develop our own fan theories. My husband leans toward Star Trek, I sit on the Star Wars side, but somehow we manage to still love each other. This huge epiphany slammed my noggin like a tri-chappe lightsaber: Star Wars doesn’t have to be good, high art, elitist cinema or literature: its value is in our ability to want to own it, and its simple story is its beauty of accessibility.
This is why–oh so very, very why–it’s important to understand how to open that door for our students.
And do not — DO NOT — get your “teacher” all over it.
DO.
NOT.
If you use Minecraft, don’t add a learning target.
If you use Dr. Who, Harry Potter, or Star Wars, don’t put a standard anywhere near it.
If you talk about Journey of the Hero, unreliable narrators, game lore, Dungeons and Dragons, or the poetry of the songs from your youth, be the Obi-Wan to their padawan, and allow them to be the Jedi Master when teaching you about what’s important to them. If you’ve ever spoken to a Whovian, you will be thoroughly schooled in all things Dr. Who.
Allow yourself to be the dork once in awhile. Show them the passion and excitement you have when you talk about a movie you love, or characters you feel like you know personally. I have no shame in telling students I cried when I found out Alan Rickman passed away. If you can watch the scene between Dumbledore and Snape when Snape reveals his motivation (no spoilers…just in case)…then you may need to check for your humanity. Back to Star Wars: a young female colleague told me she thought Rey was better than Leia. Oh, smart lady, please don’t make me bring up context and constraints of time periods.
We fans of fiction, games, lore, and the accessible story unite in pure love of the conversation.
All I can say about that.
Anyway, my colleague showed this to me — so fun to watch fan theories:
JarJar? Master Wizard?
And my younger son shared this series with me and my husband, and we loved them: (there may be some language: apologies).
I have wakeful insomnia when my husband goes to bed anytime between 12:50-1:15 am. Aside from being grounds for divorce (JUSTKIDDINGIAMSODAMNTIRED), thought I would open up my brain to see what also is stirred up that prevents me from getting back to sleep. Be warned. It’s not safe.
What do I think about between 1 and 3 am?
The student whose mother left.
The student whose mother died.
The student who has a concussion and can’t attend to discussions.
Wondering if I was too ambitious in my unit.
The students who send me emails they turned something in.
The students with Fs.
The students with As.
How I need to exercise more.
How my son is doing.
If my husband’s new job will work out.
If I will ever write a little fiction.
If our puppy will ever be rid of her demodex.
If our older dog will ever stop barking at the puppy.
If my older son is going to be okay with a Math Minor/Russian/German majors.
If the kitchen will be cleaned (it wasn’t, and won’t be).
If the ceiling is going to cave in.
If I’ll be able to get the bathrooms redone. (And what is that black spot under the flooring?)
If I’ll be able to finish the book club book before next week.
