Thursday, February 7, 2013

First Impressions

Prompt: Write a one page letter of introduction, including anything you would like me to know about you.

Please tell me more.
Why are the people around me so open about their lives? Their grades, their activities, their thoughts are all pasted on a website for all the molesters and killers to see. 1984 warns of dependency on technology and how humanity is mutated rather than enlightened. I am different. I realize that the smiles and laughs around me are phony. I realize that the beauty most people see in each other is really a disgusting attempt for attention. I am better than them. I know the suffering that others read in books or watch on TV. I have experienced true love for my family and I have had it taken away from me. And I have survived. I will show them what true hatred is, true pain. I will push them away from me so that when they return, they will be stronger. I will save these people from their own destruction.

22 comments:

  1. Forget background checks. A short essay would reveal the people I don't want to have a gun.

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  2. If a job candidate wrote this in an application, I'd find this person's audacity and candor to be very refreshing. I'm afraid that few of the other committee members would see it that way, though: certainly none of the administrators would.

    Also, I think you mean "Brave New World," not "1984." I too have no idea why everyone wants to post the details of their latest bowel movement on Facebook and Twitter. Do they think they're all going to get their own reality TV shows? I do believe they might.

    Also, modern students would hate this. Henry Luce might have gotten away with the messianic tone when he founded Time magazine, but the world has changed. It's not easy to save a world that doesn't want to be saved: idealistic young environmentalists and lawyers wanting to "serve the public good" quickly become aware of this.

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    1. Do they think they're all going to get their own reality TV shows? I do believe they might.

      They already are their own reality show. Not only does the audience want to know everything about them, the audience needs to know everything. How else will they keep their ratings up?

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    2. You find batshit crazy to be refreshing? This dude sounds like he's already plotting the next Virginia Tech under some delusion that he has to kill everyone to save them.

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    3. "You find batshit crazy to be refreshing?"

      I do indeed. Of course, refreshing isn't the same as employable.

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  3. It's hard to tell if this is the deep violent crazy, or the teenage emo that comes from leading a slightly less sheltered life than the person sitting next to you.

    I like the bit about how the way they plan on educating their peers about how all life is pain. They will push others away and wait for them to come crawling back, because the worst punishment there is is to be denied their wise presence.

    If they plan on doing the pushing with rude arrogant comments--> emo
    If they plan on doing the pushing with a shotgun--> crazy

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  4. "I am better than them" is the red flag, for me.

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    1. Indeed, he needed the nominative pronoun "they" at the end.

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  5. When a teacher compels a student to respond to such a "prompt" on the first day, then the teacher has issues. The first issue is that the teacher doesn't know how to punctuate, but there are more substantial issues.

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    1. That is not necessary Bubba. I find this to be an interesting psychological study actually. And I find out a lot of interesting things about my students... you fart head.

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    2. You are compelling someone in captivity to write a one-page letter. Not about hamsterfurology, but about "anything you would like me to know about you."

      You have the luxury of responding to my comment by fearlessly calling me a fart head, but your student doesn't have that luxury. S/he cannot actually tell you "anything" s/he would like you to know. Surely your student must fear that you will (at a minimum) demean hir by calling hir a fart head. But unlike me, your student can and should expect much worse, because s/he is in captivity and knows that you have nearly complete power over hir. You can punish hir. You can humiliate hir in front of hir classmates. You can give hir a low grade. Based on what s/he has told you, s/he might even fully expect that you might rape hir.

      What do you really want the student to do? S/he surely must be trying to read your mind to gauge whatever it is you would like for hir to write so that s/he can avoid punishment. S/he is in an absurd situation. It is hell to be trapped in a room and given vague instructions by a powerful authority figure who is hirself arguably angry and afraid. The child doesn't know how to articulate what s/he is feeling. S/he simply doesn't understand.

      Is it a hamsterfurology class, or is it a politely-tell-me-your-innermost-feelings-or-I-will-punish-you class? Is it your job to be doing "interesting psychological studies" on your students? Have those studies been approved by an IRB?

      There seem to be some significant issues with regard to boundaries and what your role is.

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    3. I get your point, Bubba; presumably the student isn't really free to write "nothing." But writing teachers (and others who assign writing) often do need some sort of sample of the students' prose at the beginning of the semester (as a diagnostic, as a reference point for comparison with later out-of-class work in case of suspected cheating, etc.) I ask somewhat similar questions at the beginning of each semester, but I do so in short-answer format, and provide some suggestions that are at least somewhat relevant to the class: transfer student or began at our u, where they grew up, other writing classes they've taken and what they found useful or not, etc. I also make it clear that they're free to not answer any of the questions.

      Still, I think this student might well have come up with something alarming even if given suggestions for more innocuous topics.

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    4. There's too much ambiguity here for me.

      For one thing, I doubt the various commenters on this post would even agree that they know whether we're discussing college students or secondary students (on this post). Those can be two very different animals. I bet Cassandra's and my comments would be at least slightly different for college versus K-12. Intermingling these two animals produces some crazzzy, ambiguous offspring.

      Also, it didn't occur to me initially to think of "Teacher Misery" as an individual persona. I guess I thought "Teacher Misery" was a franchise or a website or an institution or a conglomerate or something a little more abstract and impersonal like when "College Misery" reposts a bit of flava picked up from somewhere else. I might have phrased my comment differently if the OP had a name like "Fred" or "Barney". My intention was not to attack you, Teacher Misery--as I doubt my comment would have been perceived as an attack if the OP had been from "College Misery."

      So I apologize if you felt attacked, but I also hope that future posts clarify... things?

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    5. Yes, Bubba, I am just one person. But go ahead and attack me all you like... I am a high school teacher so I'm used to it. I am not a conglomerate and trust me, I don't make any money being Teacher Misery. If it makes things easier for you, feel free to call me Fred.

      I had tried to start my own k-12 version of this site (with the moderators' blessings) back in the summer. They don't mind me popping in here every once and again to share my experiences, since I teach seniors, who you will have soon enough.

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    6. Thanks, Fred. You sound like A-O-K. No, I don't really want to attack you.

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  6. Hmm, I'm reading this quite different. Faced with such an "assignment", I'd have wanted to stand out from the crowd with a purposely off-kilter piece of writing. Why would I enroll in a class to only write boring ass crap? Surely some of you have had students who enjoyed writing and would write something you didn't expect. It doesn't mean I'm actually crazy, it just means I feel that Gonzo Journalism has its place in the world.

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  7. Don't care more about their destruction than they do.

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  8. "'1984' warns of dependency on technology and how humanity is mutated rather than enlightened."

    No, Orwell's novel is about the inhumanity of bureaucracy, the ultimate end result of the Panopticon society, and how fascism could survive in a post-nuclear command economy. North Korea tries to be Oceania, but there is no perfect authoritarian/"totalitarian" state save for those monsters we are building online: Google, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, "social media" in general. The difference is, it's an inverted totalitarianism where we are our own spy.

    Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno is on the money; our little clown has confused/amalgamated Huxley with Orwell.

    ***


    Number Six: Has it ever occurred to you that you are just as much a prisoner as I am?
    Number Two: Oh my dear chap, of course--I know too much. We're both lifers. Number Two: I am definitely an optimist. That's why it doesn't matter "who" Number One is. It doesn't matter which "side" runs the Village.
    Number Six: It's run by one side or the other.
    Number Two: Oh certainly, but both sides are becoming identical. What in fact has been created is an international community--perfect blueprint for world order. When the sides facing each other suddenly realize that they're looking into a mirror, they will see that "this" is the pattern for the future.
    Number Six: The whole Earth as the Village?
    Number Two: That is my hope. What's yours?
    Number Six: I'd like to be the first man on the moon.

    - "The Prisoner", 1967.

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  9. I'm so glad I don't have to read student essays. This one would have gone straight to Student Health Services.

    On the other hand, once (a long time ago) a student turned in a test with almost nothing written on it, just a sketch of a guy holding an axe dripping blood. I didn't report her, but today I probably would have.

    I like the line near the beginning of Blade Runner: one of the replicants is being interrogated: "my mother? I'll tell you about my mother".

    And we know what happens next. So much for "sharing".

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  10. Perhaps it appears that this student was just messing with me and mocking the assignment. However, this was last semester, and throughout the semester he only spoke once. It was to ask me which I thought was worse- raping one's own children or someone else's.

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    1. Seriously, that's someone who needs to be reported to someone; I couldn't tell you who.

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    2. I, too, would use our process for reporting a "student of concern" to pass the text (and the in-class comment) on to student/psychological services. They're in a position to collate information from different sources/semesters -- a sum which may, eventually, add up to more than its parts.

      The student may, indeed, simply be trying to shock, presumably because he wants attention. But I'd still be worried, since attention seems to be one of things some dangerous people (John Hinckley comes to mind; yeah, I'm old) want. This also sounds like someone who might just benefit from counseling. Of course he can say "no," but it wouldn't hurt for someone to offer (or, if he's saying similarly alarming things to dorm mates, other teachers, etc., require it as a condition of remaining in school).

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