Wednesday, February 17, 2010

SLOW MOTION CAR CRASH

History class with the studentteacher was like a slow motion car crash, or a really long fall down a cliff.

It's a pain to sit through.

You know when somebody's drunk and he's about to jump off the cruise ship deck and you're just standing aside, knowing what's going to happen next, and letting disaster happen?

Well history class is like that, but a lot less fun!

Heck, now THAT was some EPIC foreshadowing. Like when you tell yourself "I still have tomorrow to do that"...

For one thing, when you're teaching the reform to a generation of kids who know what pre-reform was like, you keep your shit in line. Because we WILL screw your day big-time. You piss us off, we piss you off.
But, due to her inexperience, she just rolled her shit past that line like if there was nothing to it. It was a oh god oh god, she's screwed moment. You just knew she was going to crash and burn and that it wouldn't be pretty.

For another, when teaching a subject that can be as boring as watching fish drown, SPEAK up, and use INFLECTIONS! (Or bash historical characters) Her lessons shatter the saying that knowing more languages is always better. What's the point of knowing so many languages when you sound like Microsoft Sam? Isn't it best to learn one, and master it? Speak it fluently and captivatingly?

her whole lesson was like jumping off a very tall cliff, not to mention it actually made you want to jump off a cliff.


It started bad, it got worse, and she impacted the bottom spectacularly...

...when she announced towards the end that she would be needing almost our entire lunchtime for a catch-up lesson because we had one period less than the other classes.

It reminds me of Toupin. She committed professorial suicide when she kept punishing the whole class for the "misdeeds" of one or two people.

Back to the history studentteacher: essentially, she had the knife at her throat and was committed to committing suicide right there and then.
The class reaction was actually a let-down. I expected WAR. Instead, I just got murmurs and one person protesting. But still, I felt the resentment right under the surface, ready to blow up in her face. Kind of like almost dropping a spoon in a cup of superheated distilled water.

Luckily, our actual history teacher stepped up and saved her from a riot. Not graciously, but it was fucking hilarious.

-You want to take up their lunch period?
-Yes.
-And it's a mandatory thing?
-Yes.
-No.
-...?
-No. You can't take up their lunch time. Just No.
(Discussion between the two continues at front of class, with studentteacher reddening alarmingly. I expected her to burst into flame.
Not often you see a teacher OWNING another one in front of everybody. Priceless. It was a perfect end to a crappy lesson.

She's a studentteacher in her last term. She still has quite a bit to learn, and boy will she learn them at CSL.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Canadians think Positively

Canada, Canadians, are the constant target of friendly and not-so-friendly jokes made by people everywhere....especially down south.


And seemingly unrelated:
We feel, the people in QC at least, pissed off at the feeling that the government screws us on taxes every year.

But, we do manage to laugh it off:


Search the facebook group:

Were you dissing Canada? I couldn't hear you over my health-care benefits.