Very apt lyrics, Paul.
I personally do not feel competent to discuss the mid-east situation in
this medium, except to say that the US is deeply complicit in what is
happening there and the situation is horrendous.
What impresses me is what US citizens care to remember as genocide. Not
our treatment of those who lived on this continent 300+ years ago, for
sure. But not Rwanda where the magnitude of the slaughter exceeds all reasonable
estimation. Not East Timor.
I am teaching a senior seminar that is supposed to help students pull together
their education and think about the future. We read newspapers which is a
new experience for almost all of them and they are COMMUNNICATION students.
They could not remember what the war with Iraq was about, or who the players
were. One, a Bosnian Muslim refuge can remember that conflict, but it was dim
in the minds of most of the others.
About hats, Judy. It turns out that New Orleans is the home of a premier hat
maker and I am supposed to keep my head out of the sun so they don't cut off
any more parts of me that were too exposed to the sun while pretending to
be educated in highschool. It was nice seeing you at AERA but the whole
set of procedings was frustrating to me because I could not be 2/3 places
at once. I would have loved to be present to discuss and play with the vygotsky
blocks, for example, and totally missed the afterschool session where Bill
Penuel and others gave papers that I heard good things about.
Despite its age, they all were deeply engaged by the Graduate and by the poetry
and music they are asked to bring to class and explain why they find it
important. It turns out that an unwritten rule they have learned is that one
is not supposed to show emotion in class, except perhaps boredom or indifference, a lesson that was brought home one student played some music that made her
cry and then made others cry when she explained her emotionality. I had to
explain that she need not apologize for being emotional. It was a new idea.
off to work we go. And to order MAgnolias to watch.
mike
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