mmm, diatribe
I’m sitting at a conference, that shall remain nameless, and the keynote speaker is talking to us about teachers as leaders but has downshifted into what has become a shouted diatribe. I turned off a while ago — which isn’t her fault, really. I’m terrible about listening to someone when I am part of a group larger than maybe 30, even when I agree with what the person is saying. Now though, she is going to “lead you to your treasure chest” with a closed eye visualization, which means putting down the laptop and closing my eyes and dammit, that’s probably not going to happen. I’m really no good at these things — the worst student in the classroom in most cases. Anyone starts whispering about “finding the hidden treasures inside of you” and my eyes roll of their own accord, I swear to God.
Is it the hokey factor? I don’t know. Sometimes I have a problem with the suspension of disbelief thing. I guess I don’t think it’s so easy to begin believing in what you have in yourself as imagining a treasure chest, lined with purple velvet, containing a metaphor. It’s trickier and longer than that, a deep and recursive process of fighting your own doubts and demons. No soft talking motivational speaker can get past the grinning little goblin who moved in to my skull sometime in my early teens. Nuh unh, forget it. Teacher power and all that, but not for me.
Speaking of teens, this blog is going to have a lot more action as it will also be my class blog for adolescent literature for the next six weeks or so. The students will be creating their own blogs and using them to respond to and think about the novels we’ll be reading and films we’ll be seeing, including Bowling for Columbine tonight. I’m going to start with my story and thinking through some of the issues of adolescence and American conceptions of violence and growing up that the movie fronts — and I will post links to student blogs on my wiki as they get them up and running, so stay posted. Should be good and interesting. yay!