Saturday, May 09, 2009
The End of All Childish Things
This morning we had our last class with the wee ones. In some ways it was quite typical. There was a lot of screaming, a lot of quoting of rap lyrics, a lot of making of unrealistic demands. But because it was the last class, we were also asked to participate in an assembly where we presented to the whole school all the wonderful things we learned this semester. This, of course, was an unmitigated disaster.
To begin with, I must point out that it's a bit unfair to ask children who took a course on law to be judged alongside those who took, say, African drums or karate. I'm afraid the law is simply not as visual. The sight of two eleven-year-olds screaming at each other about Due Process may be entertaining, but it is not in the same league as someone breaking bricks with their fists.
Also, our class had a total of four people in it by its undignified end. It's kind of hard to do your best work when you are outnumbered by the other classes four to one. There's a constant fear of ganking.
And let me also mention that I was not exactly prepared to have to be stage performer myself this morning. I had not showered and I was wearing a torn-up old sweatshirt. If you want people to be camera ready, you should not hold your assembly at 9 in the morning.
I think we were better than the computers class, though. I mean, I'm not saying they should all get beat up for being nerds or anything, but they were seriously lacking in production values.
This morning we had our last class with the wee ones. In some ways it was quite typical. There was a lot of screaming, a lot of quoting of rap lyrics, a lot of making of unrealistic demands. But because it was the last class, we were also asked to participate in an assembly where we presented to the whole school all the wonderful things we learned this semester. This, of course, was an unmitigated disaster.
To begin with, I must point out that it's a bit unfair to ask children who took a course on law to be judged alongside those who took, say, African drums or karate. I'm afraid the law is simply not as visual. The sight of two eleven-year-olds screaming at each other about Due Process may be entertaining, but it is not in the same league as someone breaking bricks with their fists.
Also, our class had a total of four people in it by its undignified end. It's kind of hard to do your best work when you are outnumbered by the other classes four to one. There's a constant fear of ganking.
And let me also mention that I was not exactly prepared to have to be stage performer myself this morning. I had not showered and I was wearing a torn-up old sweatshirt. If you want people to be camera ready, you should not hold your assembly at 9 in the morning.
I think we were better than the computers class, though. I mean, I'm not saying they should all get beat up for being nerds or anything, but they were seriously lacking in production values.
