Comments on: all class

By: pnuts mama

pnuts mama — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 20:59:48 +0000

wow…just, wow.

this post, in so many ways, is so incredible. i love your insight and your pov and your ability to find depths that most of us wouldn’t ever begin to search for. funny how i searched for praxis amongst the theory i was immersed in during my MA, literally begging for anyone to help me apply this to my real life situations- never a decent balance, imo. of course we continue to ‘educate’ in the name of keeping the machine running, rather than question the purpose of the machine. whew.

from another misfit educator, thank you.

By: daisies

daisies — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:39:03 +0000

i remember going back and doing my education after degree and finding the program so incredibly different than the arts program, so very very different but i was lucky because i was 28 already and didn’t have any problems asking those questions that needed to be asked though i still felt awkward dressing up in my ‘teacher’s costume’ going to class and i’m pretty sure i still work my big black doc martin boots underneath my dress pants …

By: Damselfly

Damselfly — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:06:05 +0000

I don’t really know what to say except I enjoyed reading every delicious word.

By: cinnamon gurl

cinnamon gurl — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 17:16:17 +0000

I always felt offended in university when people’s response to my major (English) was, “Oh, so you want to be a teacher?” Because it seemed so horribly middle-class and banal… now, I’m totally middle-class, AND I see teachers my age who aren’t totally boring, only they get more vacation than me.

This post was such a treat, for remembering my (Oh God I can’t figure out how to spell naivete… is that right?) and the clothes and everything…

By: JuliaKB

JuliaKB — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 03:31:40 +0000

Lacking many niceties of the civilized society even now, and reacting to nothing so predictably as to overstuffed self-important asses, I expect I would’ve failed out of that program altogether.

And despite all the (mostly deserved) unkind things I say about academia, there really isn’t a place I would rather be. Although I do hope it gets better. And soon.

By: mimi

mimi — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 23:35:58 +0000

Oh God. Ed majors. When I did my BA at York, you could spot them a mile away: they always brought many colours of pens to class, and liked to know the right answers, and were hopelessly chipper and really enjoyed making fantastically wrongheaded and simplistic handouts for all their patronizing presentations.

What terrifies me is that of all the people I went to high school with, the ones who became teachers were the ones who tormented me for being smart and literate, the ones who nevertheless begged to copy my homework, while shunning me socially. You know why they became teachers? Because they loved high school so much.

Gah.

By: christine

christine — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 19:23:32 +0000

this was a great post and a little walk down memory lane. not because i was in education (far from it as a freak flag waving liberal archeology major) but because of those crazy days of the mid 1990s in college in Berkeley.

my husband is a history prof and he gets LOTS of education students in his survey classes. they come from a very very different frame of mind than the history students. most are lower to middle class, but they expect a much neater, multiple choice sort of academia. not bad, just very different.

By: Beruriah

Beruriah — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:13:25 +0000

“i confused academia with intelligentsia, and thought my job, in university, was to be literate, verbose, and proudly poor, authentically prole.”

Me, too, Bon.

At the end of my first undergrad year, a professor told me, “You’ve made so much progress – when you arrived you sounded like you came from a ghetto!” I’ve interpreted that statement in so many different ways over the years. I was always a fine writer, and certainly spoke well grammatically, but I think she’d never heard my particular industrial town accent before. But, yeah, I learned more about class distinction from just living amongst the uber-privileged at my Seven Sisters college than I’d ever imagined.

I learned to fit a certain mold. I found the right accent and the right things to say, but I still seethe below it.

By: Beck

Beck — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:35:04 +0000

My mom is a teacher, but she became a teacher back when it was a one year, right out of high school program and sort of more accessible, you know?
My middle brother is ALSO a teacher and he is now the most middle class person I have ever met in my whole life. I love him, but geeeeeez.

By: nomotherearth

nomotherearth — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 02:48:58 +0000

I’ve been contemplating going back to school to become a teacher. I love teaching, and working with children, but I can’t escape the feeling that the school system as it exists now is not a perfect fit for me. You’ve given me something to ponder, for sure.