It’s time to resort to interviewing myself again.
Q: Have you seen any movies lately?
A: I saw Matchpoint last week. It’s received a lot of praise, but I don’t think the movie was that great. It was a classic Greek tragedy, but not meaty enough to really intellectually engage viewers. I didn’t find any of the characters to be very sympathetic or even well-developed, either.
Q: What are you reading?
A: I just read Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons, which is a semi-autobiographical collection of comic strips. The book has great dialogue and touches on some very poignant childhood subjects, like falling in love with music during adolescence and losing friends. I don’t know why I’d never heard of Barry until last week when she was mentioned in Time. Read One Hundred Demons! The next book I have to read is Alice Munro’s short-story collection Runaway.
Q: Why aren’t you going out and doing more now that you live in NYC, the city you’ve always wanted to live in?
A: You have a point. Cold weather sedates me, but the weather has been flukishly mild the last few days. I need to go out and do more. There are museums I’ve yet to get lost in, restaurants I haven’t been to, etc. I’m going to two readings/book signings in the next two weeks, but yeah, I should get out more.
Q: What song lyric currently sums up your existence?
A: “Afraid of change, afraid of staying the same… Bear with me. Bear with me. Be with me tonight.” This is from “What A Good Boy” by Barenaked Ladies.
Q: Why don’t you write about teaching anymore?
A: There’s never truly a dull moment at I.S. 666, but all the ELA classes have been solely focused on preparation for the New York ELA state test. Test preparation, any good teacher will tell you, is dull and hardly encourages what’s really important - critical thinking, creativity, and curiosity. Alas, testing is the biggest way students supposedly prove they are ready for promotion and have mastered certain skills. The thing is…most students are already at a grade level they shouldn’t have been promoted to. Honestly. There shouldn’t be seventh graders reading at a third-grade level. The situation is dire, because we can’t put all the fifteen-year-olds in fourth grade where they belong. Habitual failure is understandably discouraging, so I.S. 666’s lowest performing students who need the most help are the most academically disinclined. Now they don’t want to get help. I could go on and on.
I’ve been falling into the same trap. I certainly have school stuff to blog and will get to it…once I muster up enough motivation. (A pox on all these disenfranchised, apathetic people I’m surrounded by. Don’t negatively influence me, students and administrators)!
Howdy from way back in Texas. I’m the brother of your friend’s friend; such are the wonders of blogsurfing. Can’t agree more with the standardized testing bit; teaching to the test doesn’t teach anything unless your boss accosts you at work and demands you complete all your work via scantron. Keep up the excellent writing.