Today in my class, one of my students - a "sporty" kid of good humor, 18 years, and good ol' Iowa boy countenance, who playfully complains whenever I assign anything to read, and who paradoxically also shows great promise as a critical thinker - showed up in class with his face all broken and mashed, scabbed over and bruised. After class, checking up on him, I asked him if he was injured playing sports. He said, "No, actually I passed out from drinking, and when I tried to get up, I smashed my face pretty good." Awkward silence. "That's college for you," another kid said, smirking and shrugging his shoulders as if he just dropped a bon mot worthy of Dorothy Parker's keen approval.
This world is eating itself. And I know - kids'll be kids. Kids'll drink and be stupid, be smart, figure it out, etc. But this world is, in fact, eating itself. I think like a parent now. Maybe a postmodern parent who loves Public Enemy and is therefore a limited sliver of society's idea of "cool," but a parent nonetheless. So I wanted to take this kid under my wing, slap him on the neck, and pull his ear as to what time it really is. "It's time to wake up, son." But that probably wouldn't have been kosher. And so I toil in my own vineyard...
1 comment:
you look like a professor man!
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