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| 30 May 2006 |
| Been a Long Time |
I'd not be surprised if all of my readers have since abandoned the likes of this here blog, but for what its worth, I'm back.
Fourth Quarter was pretty brutal due to some tactical errors in assigning my students short stories to write, when apparently no teacher has ever asked them to write one before--something I found out as they were turning them in. Perhaps I'm a bit out there in my thinking, but how anyone can expect a student to write a decent essay without having also developed their style and voice in a fictional forum is beyond me. Of course, that's likely why we have so much bloody dry and boring lit crit out there from the hallowed halls of academia. Some people need to get their musty, moldy brains out of their "intellectual" pursuits for a while and figure out what makes the language truly sing. Language and ideas ought to be as alive as we are; but alas it seems many scholars have no spark to drive them, and their writings are in fact dead, dusty, and drudging exercises in pedantic drivel.
How 'bout that? Barely back and already you get a rant. Well, there's more to come, to be sure. I've been in a crazy, stressed out, wild ride with Mr. Toad for several months now, but I'm on solid ground again and finding my bearings. I've learned rather a lot in this year, and expect there's much more yet to come, but one thing I've become certain of: there's a lot of half-arsed thinking being done out there in the name of education, and it doesn't all come from the secondary education sector (public or private). Higher education isn't immune, by any means. And regardless of what mistakes I've made, and what mistakes I will inevitably make in the future, I will not make the mistake of engaging in any of that half-arsed thinking in my classroom, or in my life. I've too much respect for what is at the heart of literature, and the proper use of language--what is ultimately lost in the above-mentioned thinking. That it should lead us to truth. Truth about ourselves, truth about what is beyond us. Not the wishy-washy, namby-pamby, make-everyone-happy relativist wanna-be truth, but absolute Truth, in all its hard-edged, immovable perfection.
Truth. Ask for it by name.
*This isn't exactly what I'd planned for my return to blogging, but oh, well. Can't always control what the Muse demands, for she is both fickle and unrelenting. More shall come over the next days, weeks, months, and all shall not be as ranty, I'm sure. I do have a Lear vs. Serenity discourse to compose because I promised Julie D. of Happy Catholic--always assuming I can still articulate my ideas. For now, forgive a Wolf these little sidetracks, for his thinking has been hindered of late, and is only now coming back online. |
Jelly Pinched Wolf 10:56 PM
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