I’m almost done with Carry on, Jeeves. I know everyone says this, but it really is a flawless piece of writing. Like some intricate needlework made from a single strand of thread, or a chandelier of spun sugar. A perfect antidote to the pursuit of usefulness.
____
Wodehouse wrote during and after World War I, and then II, and I was wondering why you wouldn’t know it.
In fact, he was criticized —and investigated (and exonerated)—for broadcasting chipper radio messages from imprisonment in Nazi Germany.
He said he was simply reflecting the "flippant, cheerful attitude of all British prisoners. It was a point of honour with us not to whine."
Foolish? Noble? Traitorous? I see that strength/weakness in members of previous generations, like Auntie Vi.
————
Yesterday—Saturday—was an unseasonably lovely day too. You feel you shouldn’t enjoy these harbingers of a coming apocalypse, but they are so nice in the moment. Like having a beer when you know it’s not a friend of the kidneys.
At the art museum café, I commented to the server that I’d seen a man wearing all springtime pastels – – “He looked like an Easter Peeps”.
He laughed, and he gave me my beer for the happy hour half-off, not applicable on weekends.
It was great to talk to Denise about work—for three hours we sat in the atrium by a three-story window overlooking the park across the street. We’d worked together at the publishers 20-some years ago—she was my favorite person there, and the only one I’m still friends with. She’s been a high-school counselor for 7 years now.
“Why are high schools just as bad as when I was a student almost 50 years ago?” I said. “I’d hoped we’d be modeling education on whale pods or elephant families by now.
She agreed, we’re still teaching in ways that have been proven not to be best practice – lectures, assignments, tests, grades… That learning style suits some personalities, and they are rewarded—my sister did well with it— but for others, like the student I was, it’s like being subjected to industrial farming. It reminds me of force-feeding geese to harvest their livers for foie gras.
Students get five minutes between classes, for instance. Five! barely enough time to walk down the hall, much less go to the bathroom— and forget conversation (conversation?)—and in Denise’s school they get four. And the doors are locked—you can’t even step outside to enjoy the nice weather of the End Times.
Working in these schools is like practicing harm reduction, Denise said—you try to create a little psychological space for the students to thrive, or at least to catch their breath.
I already see that some teachers create havens—the art teacher, for instance.
So … have I already stumbled onto the secret topic I’ll be complaining about here for the next six years? because it doesn’t look like it’s about to change. Denise was telling me about charter schools that do it differently though. I guess that’s why so many parents have been pulling their kids from regular schools? I would!
Any of you who know anything about education, this is old news. Knowing few children, I’ve paid little attention. Though I am hardly surprised – it’s what I would have guessed, working backwards from the civilization around me—about what you’d expect from force-fed geese.
And I’m not complaining about my actual job – – my role is to be a buffer for individual students. My mandate is to create relationships with students. Yes! And since I’ll mostly be working with autistic students with high support needs, I’m to the side of the assembly line, where there’s time and space for that. The psychological equivalent of Bubble Soccer…
