Rainy Sunday and thinking about going back to work tomorrow...English teacher woes...

Rainy Sunday. 

Maybe it'll clear a bit later-- sure hope so, because this is dreary. We had a glorious week weather-wise until the weekend, of course. 

Celtics lost (I don't follow basketball, but still), Bruins lost (sigh), Red Sox are on life support. The weather matches the collective mood, I guess. Still, the daffodils are drinking it all in, the grass is glowingly emerald, and the birds are flitting around in the lilac hedge, playing hide and seek with the new leaves. 

There, I switched the tone of the post. lol 

Because it's Sunday, and vacation week is over, I am thinking about what's up next for my classes. Tomorrow, the AP Lit kids will be watching a version of Hamlet. They will be a/ disengaged and on their laptops, no matter if I tell 'em to shut them, b/ sort of watching, but talking about sports, prom, or lunch. A select few will watch. They will all have a written response to do, and some will do well, and others will be clueless. Nothing much is going to change these kids, not at this late a date. The AP Lit exam is Wednesday, and I have dim hope that maybe three or four will pass it. The ones who sort of, kind of cared to try to engage in the process that the College Board assesses will do what they can. The others will sit, point and click, and will not care what they score. 

Okay, maybe the tone stayed.

Creative Writing will be moving forward with The Odyssey, and I have been curating a collection of poems that reflect on/ react to/ are born from Greek myth and the text. Maybe they'll get why I think it's so important to read and discuss the epic; it's an anchor text to most of Western lit. We'll see. 

Mostly, the girls are discussing how much they hate a/ their mothers, b/ their hair, c/ prom dresses, d/ their exes. The two young men are patiently quiet. 

I knew that the vacation week was not going to shift my attitude, but it's been a nice little break from the slogging through. I love my students, but this time of year it's challenging. Even more so when it's 38 and raining. I wish they could be excited about literature. Some are at least interested, and to those kids, I tip my nonexistent but metaphorical hat. The ones who aren't, won't be. I can't fix the years that came before, when they lost their excitement and joy in reading. I don't have a magic wand. I wish I did. And I know I'm not alone in this feeling, but no one has a good answer to it. We'll celebrate the small successes, and get them to graduate and do whatever math-or- motor-related stuff they will be doing. I can blame the whole education complex, I guess: two generations focused on technology-ruled education and STEM will bleed the joy out of any fiction. 

I'll keep trying.

Have a good day, friends. Hold your loved ones close. 

C

btw: if you are a teacher, especially English teachers, you should really watch The Chair on Netflix starring Sandra Oh. I felt both seen and a little despondent. It's a good one.