Hunger Games and Catching Fire

I see no real answers. The characters are faced with the same questions that constantly plague the minds and thoughts of teens today. Similar feelings and emotions. That is where the connections lies. And yet it is a false connection, a shallow one because no real hope is offered. There is never any true rest. Just when you think a bad situation has been redeemed, that a young girl’s heart has been taught the themes of love and community all is dashed and life proves once again that grown ups are just manipulative and self-serving no matter which side their on.

I think my greatest sadness is that students no longer have models of how to act rightly as adults through their modern literature. That is one of the greatest endowments fairy tales have bestowed upon generations of children. They showed in beauty, truth, and chivalry the way to conduct yourself with maturity. Not in disregard of the playfulness of childhood, but embracing it as the foundation for the later years. The problem with every modern youth fiction book having a youth as its hero or heroine is that it doesn’t prepare kids for what comes after youth. Let me re-phrase that because I feel as though I’ve seen/heard the term “help prepare kids” in terms of preparing them for the grim and gory facts of the world, specifically as an argument for including certain facts, scenes, or scenarios into stories that probably could be left out. Back to youths as heroes, the primary problem I see is that it gives kids nothing to aspire to beyond childhood. As teachers, we often talk about setting the bar high so our kids will reach and be stretched. This is not an argument for all modern youth fiction to have adult heroes, instead, it’s a call to set the bar a little higher.

When we don’t know how to be adults, forty year-old office execs act like frat boys on the weekends, and Snooky leads our children through Never Never Land.

I Am a Descendant...

I remember a playful delight over the idea of school. I remember youthful excitement and enthusiasm over learning. I remember thoughts, mullings really, wondering if there was more for me than the blind compliance hiding a quiet rebellion and masked by a façade of happiness worn by the elder peers I looked up to. I remember a dramatic move away from all I’d ever known around the age of twelve. I remember the unknown turmoil in being faced with the possibility of being fatherless. I remember hope. Hope in a renewed youthful excitement and enthusiasm over learning. I remember the day when I realized that it wasn’t so much the lessons I took such great delight in as the teachers who delivered them.

There is no comparing my story to that of Jan Amos Comenius. There is a certain thread in the thoughts and remembrances listed above that runs throughout his story as well. If I were desperate, I could pull out old nicknames and remind you that I once was called Amos in my younger days. If I were to point that out, I would of course fail to mention that it had nothing to do with the fact that I was “loving” as it did in Comenius’ case, but rather by the fact that I knew that Amos was a book in the Old Testament when no other of my peers did, and I never failed to remind them of my superior knowledge. Or, on another point of feigned comparison, I could recollect the fact that my paternal grandfather’s side of the family has deep Moravian roots stemming back to the founding of Old Salem in North Carolina. But if I were to point that out, I would of course fail to mention the fact that while my grandfather does have Moravian roots, the only real connection he has that I have found thus far with Old Salem—apart from living there—I fictitiously made up after reading the back of a Moravian Sugar Cake loaf giving a brief history of the Moravians settlement in Salem.

Let’s face it. My feeble attempt to connect my lineage to that of Jan Amos Comenius has thus far rivaled every Confederate-loving Southern American’s claim to be a direct descendant of William Wallace. And yet I continue my search along the genealogical and footnote trail knowing that one day I will be bettered by the search even to simply call Comenius a spiritual and educational ancestor.

S4theD: Day 35

Oh the irony. This was one of my favorite songs in high school. When I was tired of homework, mad at a teacher (yes, that happened on occasion), or desperately longing for spring or summer break I'd find myself singing along with and impersonating the wee British lads in their protest against education.

And now I'm a teacher. I wonder what song my kids sing when they're tired of homework, mad at me, or desperately longing for break?


Another Brick In the Wall, Part 2
by Pink Floyd

We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave those kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave those kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

"Wrong, Do it again!"
"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you
have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"
"You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddy!"