Things that make me go hmmm



1. Why do African-Americans love gangster movies? Italian-Americans historically aren't too "down with the brown". Neither are Hispanics. Also, I thought that the stereotype of criminal behavior was one to not be admired or emulated.



2. When did love and sex become mutually exclusive terms? I know sex has become a joke (thanks Sex and the City) but have we as a society become so primal that we have drained all the emotion from the act. Is it just the passing of DNA or is it something more?



3. What ever happend to DJ Jazzy Jeff?



4. Why do people think Quentin Tarintino is such a fucking genius? I give him credit for Resivoir Dogs but the rest of his movies have been stolen. Jackie Brown-blaxploitation. Kill Bill and Grindhouse- the grindhouse genre of the late 1960s and 1970s. Pulp Fiction- its disorganized story telling. And what gives that fucker the right to make "nigger" a cool catch phrase? Negro please!



5. Why are drive-in movie theaters going extinct?



6. What is the big deal about "McDreamy"? He is STILL the guy from Can't Buy Me Love and Loverboy?



7. Why does BET squander its opportunity to enlighten with bullshit programming that is predicated on blissful ignorance and the perpetual degredation of an entire ethnicity of people?



8. When did reading become unfashionable?



9. When did people start believing that lesbianism is attractive? Not every lesbian looks like Joey Lauren Adam from Chasing Amy. More often than not they look like me, which is REALLY fucked up. Plus, lesbians aren't interested in men. It's NOT attractive and DEFINITELY NOT SEXY!!!!



10. When did parents start to take sport out of sports? Kids can't lose anymore. What's the point of playing if there are no consequences?! The great thing about athletics is that it teaches adveristy and how to overcome it. This new generation of children is growing up in a consequece free pseudo utopia under the veil of "good sportsmanship". They are being set up for a big fucking fall. The world doesn't give a fuck and they need to learn that from day one.

11. Is Oprah REALLY that good of an influence? Kind of a egomaniacal megalomaniac, don't you think?


12. Why do people say "looks don't matter"? BULLSHIT! Physical beauty absolutely counts. Numerous studieshave found that universally attractive people succeeed on a higher financial and personal level. Ever read the "50 most beautiful people in the world" suuplement of People magazine. None of those people are "slumming".

13. Who made Tom Green popular? That dude is fucking gross. And to top it off he got to engage in sexual relations with Drew Barrymore. What the fuck is up with that?

14. Was Bill Clinton REALLY that good of a president? What policy changes did the "first black president" initiate? He was a man whore that got a blowjob from an obese woman. La di freaking da! If Newt Gingrich wouldn't have been so damn impatient he would have been thrown out for that white water bullshit.

15. If George Bush wasn't president would he be such a bad guy? He has two smoking hot daughters (who like to drink), he is a former alcoholic and coke head, his dad was ex-director of the CIA, and he likes to party. Sounds like a recipe for greatness.


16. What ever happend to the ice cream man? I never see those white vans go by the neighborhoods anymore. The guy would sell fireworks during July. He is MIA.

17. What ever happened to recess? That is a vital part of the academic curriculum. In high school especially when it is needed the most. Nothing against PE, but PE is a fucking joke.

18. When did video games get so damn complicated? You need a B.A. to successfully navigate through Madden 2008. I didn't need a "strategy guide" for Double Dragon, Metroid, or Mega Man. Battletoads was trial by error. Even Earthworm Jim (which is one of the most difficult games EVER) didn't have strategy guide.


19. What was so good about the show "Friends"? Isn't it ironical that in the middle of New York there weren't a lot of black people.

20. What ever happened to the show "Herman's Head"?

21. Why did Eddie Murphy leave stand up comedy? "Raw" and "Delerious" are the equivilent to Beethoven's 5th symphony.

22. Why do people think that ass clown Dane Cook is so funny? That Lenny Bruce wannabe is a fake!

23. Why are there no good black superheroes? Spawn, he came from hell. Black Panther.............whoa! Green Lantern is cool but his weaknesses are kind of weird. The color yellow, what up with that? Luke Cage.............eh! All I had growing up was "Action Jackson" and when I saw Rocky IV that fucked my entire universe up. He-Man beat up Action Jackson! Let's see "Meteor Man" and "Blankman"..........thank you Hollywood for fucking up my innocence.

24. What is so bad about the steroid epidemic? In 1998, when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire captured the nation's interest with the quest to break Roger Marris's single season mark baseball became popular again. If it wasn't for that season baseball would have been financially destitute.

25. I'm 27 years old and gas is damn near $4. What is it going to be like when I'm 50?

A selfless profession


A friend of mine recently asked me, “Why do you teach?” I got me thinking a lot about the nature of the job and why I really got into it at all. For me, it is all about relationships and experiences. I enjoy working with young people. I suppose I feel like I can maybe live vicariously through them and maybe that their pleasure can keep me motivated. Or maybe I have just seen Lean on Me too many times. For those individuals who read this and are not educators I can tell you that there are few Joe Clarks out there and the students aren’t exactly the eager young minds on the screen.
This is my third year as an educator and I still don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing. I have a better understanding of what is going on with my job but I definitely don’t have it “covered”. My college experience did not exactly prepare me for what I have encountered in my tenure. I know the basics about grammatical study, language, writing, literature analysis, and all that good academic jargon. And while I know my content, my classroom skills were not nearly as polished. That is the thing I was not taught. How do you get a kid to want to learn? It is something I struggle with everyday. I thought the content would be enough. English is the best subject on the planet. The study of language is both vast and intricate. The best thing about English is that it is all about articulation and conviction. If someone believes something strong enough and can justify their argument, they usually are correct.
One mistake that I have realized that I made was to assume that students would be mirror images of myself. I will admit that I was definitely an academic in high school. School was priority #1 and sports were a close #2. Social interactions with the opposite sex hadn’t yet crept into my mental universe. I was also pushed by my parents. I was pushed very hard by my parents. I am not saying it was a bad thing because it was not. Part of a parents' responsibility is to push their child to their ultimate potential. I guess I always wanted to be able to understand the world around me and find out as much as I could. The world fascinates me and I thought that when I became a teacher my students would be equally enamored by the limitless possibilities that academia could provide.
I was wrong. I was DEAD wrong. I am not that old, but I don’t remember education being like this. One thing that I see on a daily basis is the amount of disdain for authority. I was told not to take it personally by a school administrator, that it is part of the job. Being cursed out was never part of my idea of “normalcy”. This contempt is not just directed at teachers but at parents. I have heard parents referred to by their first name, called every form of obscenity possible and had their position renounced as a joke. People see this ideological shift of rebellion and teenage angst and believe that it is part of the tradition of the maturation process. I know about rebellion, but what I have seen is malicious gross disrespect.
Some people blame the students. They should know the difference between right and wrong and be aware of proper class decorum but if the respect isn’t happening at home what can possibly happen at school? I am supposed to represent the parental influence at school. I hope that when I am blessed with children that they will not act like a bunch of retarded gangbangers. There are some smartass kids in school, but that is a result of the punk ass parents at home. My parents were badasses! They did NOT fuck around. What they say went and I knew that. Corporal punishment was common in my home. I think that the fear that was in place has been eradicated in the liberal age of political correctness. My parents work for the department of children and family services and they kicked my ass on a regular basis. Did I deserve it? Probably, at least most of the time. The biggest mistake EVER in public education was the dismissal of corporal punishment. It changed EVERYTHING. I believe that with the removal of a threat of REAL discipline (students see suspensions as a “paid vacation”) permanently tainted the teacher/student dynamic.
Students do have a different set of problems than I remember. The biggest thing I remember worrying about were succeeding in sports and picking out the college I wanted to go to. Some students have absentee parents, abusive girlfriends/boyfriends, pregnancy issues, or in some cases are just homeless. How is it possible to educate someone who doesn’t even have a home to go to? I doubt transcendentalism is high on their priority list. I will admit that I don’t deal well with the human element at times. I just am not used to highly emotional people and I feel overwhelmed by all the personal drama at times.
Sometimes I feel that there are so many problems that I can barely hear myself think. I want to try to focus on the positives. Contrary to what the federally mandated No Child Left Behind act (which is mathematically impossible, read The Bell Curve) there are some successes in school. That is the conundrum about young people. They have the capacity for brilliance, if they want to achieve it. Students are both brilliant and lazy, confident and terrified, tough and fragile. It is a tough task to try to negotiate the map of the human mind.
This leads back to the original question. Why do I do what I do? Because I believe I can possibly change one person’s life and maybe show them a way to change the world around them in a positive way. There might be a barrage of condescension in the path of success, but I believe that the journey is worth it. I have seen the look in the face of a student who finally understood my cryptic insights and to see them look like they just conquered the world is a feeling which gives me the strength to deal with the other hell spawn. I cannot save every student and not every student is worth saving, but the few that are help fulfill the educational utopia that I hope to one day create.