All the news that's fit to gossip about: Duke Scandal, Free Teacher Housing, and of course, Tomkat's baby
Fellow-ette is back in Cambridge Mass, scene of her former days as a rabid intellect (or just rabid). And so, as her fellow perfects the last phrases and grafs of his Reggaeton review for the Boston Phoneix, she finds herself back to browsing Google News aimlessly, trying to draw connections between today's headlines and her job.
The first one is obvious: they're so desperate for teachers in NYC that they're offering math, sci and special ed teachers meager housing subsidies to convince them to come. What have I to say about that bold move by Bloomberg and Klein? Merely the same old thang: more money is good, anything that helps move teaching from vocation to profession is good, but what would be even better would be making the experience of teaching more professional. Small classes. Competent, caring APs and principals. Small classes. Schools that actually are communities instead of hierarchies. Small classes. Less disciplinary responsibilities and more focus on content.
Oh, and class size.
The second headline I'd like to comment on is the ever-brewin' Duke scandal, which just sounds sketchy all around to this former reporter. These lacrosse players appear to be a bunch of overprigileged, over-testosteroned, bigoted jerks, but the evidence against them is also unclear at the moment, making the entire situation upsetting--gender-wise, race-wise, age-wise and class-wise.
The saddest part to me is that yes, many young people are coarse, many young people fuck up, many young men abuse their strength, and it's never right. But most of them don't get a chance to get backed up by wealthy lawyers and defended by host of indignant sharers of the elite-sphere who see this arrest as an intrusion into the established order. Situations like this one make the racism and closed doors, which my students rant about only semi-knowingly, all too apparent. And also just brings to light the brutality of our current society and the horrible behavior of young men, whose problems (across lines of class and race) are a crisis in the making. More on that some other time.
The final headline of the day is less serious: TomKat's kitten! Hurray for weirdness in the celebrosphere. I hope Suri hasn't been planted on the planet by the anti-scientologist aliens her rents are always talking about. Glorp. Gleep.
That's it for today.
And as a coda: decision-making is tough. Should fellow-ette blow 40 of the DOE's precious bucks on these?
Weigh in, dear reader.
The first one is obvious: they're so desperate for teachers in NYC that they're offering math, sci and special ed teachers meager housing subsidies to convince them to come. What have I to say about that bold move by Bloomberg and Klein? Merely the same old thang: more money is good, anything that helps move teaching from vocation to profession is good, but what would be even better would be making the experience of teaching more professional. Small classes. Competent, caring APs and principals. Small classes. Schools that actually are communities instead of hierarchies. Small classes. Less disciplinary responsibilities and more focus on content.
Oh, and class size.
The second headline I'd like to comment on is the ever-brewin' Duke scandal, which just sounds sketchy all around to this former reporter. These lacrosse players appear to be a bunch of overprigileged, over-testosteroned, bigoted jerks, but the evidence against them is also unclear at the moment, making the entire situation upsetting--gender-wise, race-wise, age-wise and class-wise.
The saddest part to me is that yes, many young people are coarse, many young people fuck up, many young men abuse their strength, and it's never right. But most of them don't get a chance to get backed up by wealthy lawyers and defended by host of indignant sharers of the elite-sphere who see this arrest as an intrusion into the established order. Situations like this one make the racism and closed doors, which my students rant about only semi-knowingly, all too apparent. And also just brings to light the brutality of our current society and the horrible behavior of young men, whose problems (across lines of class and race) are a crisis in the making. More on that some other time.
The final headline of the day is less serious: TomKat's kitten! Hurray for weirdness in the celebrosphere. I hope Suri hasn't been planted on the planet by the anti-scientologist aliens her rents are always talking about. Glorp. Gleep.
That's it for today.
And as a coda: decision-making is tough. Should fellow-ette blow 40 of the DOE's precious bucks on these?
Weigh in, dear reader.
Labels: culchural commentation
posted by SarahMarian at 11:52 AM
2 Comments:
Thanks P.R.-- I bought them. Now my feet are almost as hot as immigrant b*tches on a good day.
you both beat me to it - I was gonna say yes too...
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