Colors
The Destroyer
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2007
- Messages
- 1,276
- MBTI Type
- ISTP
- Enneagram
- 5w4
- Instinctual Variant
- so/sx
Two days in and I think I'm about two more English class hours away from going into my quarterly in-class breakdown/diatribe. Last quarter it was a sobbing/bawling demand to understand the instructions for an assignment (frustration because apparently my Philosophy instructor was one of those do-it-wrong-first-and-then-I'll-show-you-how-to-do-it-right types).
This is summer quarter. I Need to pass this base-level GE English course. Our first reading assignment was "Of Cholos and Surfers", an autobiographical essay about a Mexican American teenager's semi-assimilation through adoption of surfer culture over cholo (hoodlum/gang) culture in 1960s Los Angeles. As a class, we were to participate in refining down cholo culture and surfer culture into easily defining elements and determining the value of such cultures to the individual.
As this teacher is of the ask-leading-questions-until-some-student-gives-the-answer-that-matches-my-interpretation (or until the students catch on and stop answering at all) type, this boiled down to the teacher creating portraits of generalized stereotypes of a gang life and a surfer life, out of the miraclous world of perpetuated images of ethnic groups and cultural groups by fiction. The cholo profile was gleaned from his knowledge of "some Martin Scorcese movie about gangs" (Gangs of New York) and ended with an evaluation of how gangs were BAD. This left less time for his insightful knowledge on surfers, supplemented by our knowledge from sitcoms and comedy movies about dopeheads.
Besides the fact that such an essay and the compilation of essays it comes from wants to share cultural understanding and the common experience of the melting pot... which is seriously undermined by acitivties which promote uninformed cultural sterotypes- he's a professor! A long-time faculty professor! Isn't there an ethos? It goes against everything I know about education to specifically misinform.
I brought up that clearly his knowledge and ours was not suited for this exercise. He admitted to not knowing anything about cholo culture in the 60s, but wanted to continue the exercise anyway. It frustrates me. It goes against what I thought were binding principles for higher education. A wise man admits he knows nothing, yes? Not all speculation is bad, but in a position of authority in a classroom... promoting the drawing of moral judgements based on fictional evidence.
None of my classmates care. I've been stewing all day. They find my interruptions bothersome and prolonging of the exercise/class. It doesn't mean anything to them. It doesn't mean anything to my professor. Practice. One more way to be willfully ignorant in the world.
I saw Wanted last night with Abra. As she stated for her that "Big booms = fun". It was a fun movie. I couldn't really fully enjoy it except in the release-discomfort-over-the-plot-horribleness-through-laughter-after-the-particularly-clunky-lines. There were plenty of chuckles around the movie theater, but there was one guy who was right there with me and Abra with the guffaws. Thank you random guy.
Yes. Beacuse it's not okay to act like a god... except if you really believe a higher god (FATE) is guiding you (internal consistency please). And then the preaching: I, lowly audience member, should strive to "do something" like James McAvoy's character. And how do I bring about growing a set of balls? I can find out that pain and injury don't mean anything because there's always a magic healing wax bath around the corner. Having been so enlightened to ignore my body, I will then easily ignore other people's bodies and ignore the collateral damage I will then wreak everywhere in the subtle assassin chaos that I tend to create.
I wish I could express myself well. I want words to come out of my mouth that can explain that my professor can understand.
I'm so righteous I sicken myself. I'll never even believe I'm wrong. Just that I don't deserve to be the defender of a viewpoint because I can't do it justice. Now is that perverse or what?
This is summer quarter. I Need to pass this base-level GE English course. Our first reading assignment was "Of Cholos and Surfers", an autobiographical essay about a Mexican American teenager's semi-assimilation through adoption of surfer culture over cholo (hoodlum/gang) culture in 1960s Los Angeles. As a class, we were to participate in refining down cholo culture and surfer culture into easily defining elements and determining the value of such cultures to the individual.
As this teacher is of the ask-leading-questions-until-some-student-gives-the-answer-that-matches-my-interpretation (or until the students catch on and stop answering at all) type, this boiled down to the teacher creating portraits of generalized stereotypes of a gang life and a surfer life, out of the miraclous world of perpetuated images of ethnic groups and cultural groups by fiction. The cholo profile was gleaned from his knowledge of "some Martin Scorcese movie about gangs" (Gangs of New York) and ended with an evaluation of how gangs were BAD. This left less time for his insightful knowledge on surfers, supplemented by our knowledge from sitcoms and comedy movies about dopeheads.
Besides the fact that such an essay and the compilation of essays it comes from wants to share cultural understanding and the common experience of the melting pot... which is seriously undermined by acitivties which promote uninformed cultural sterotypes- he's a professor! A long-time faculty professor! Isn't there an ethos? It goes against everything I know about education to specifically misinform.
I brought up that clearly his knowledge and ours was not suited for this exercise. He admitted to not knowing anything about cholo culture in the 60s, but wanted to continue the exercise anyway. It frustrates me. It goes against what I thought were binding principles for higher education. A wise man admits he knows nothing, yes? Not all speculation is bad, but in a position of authority in a classroom... promoting the drawing of moral judgements based on fictional evidence.
None of my classmates care. I've been stewing all day. They find my interruptions bothersome and prolonging of the exercise/class. It doesn't mean anything to them. It doesn't mean anything to my professor. Practice. One more way to be willfully ignorant in the world.
I saw Wanted last night with Abra. As she stated for her that "Big booms = fun". It was a fun movie. I couldn't really fully enjoy it except in the release-discomfort-over-the-plot-horribleness-through-laughter-after-the-particularly-clunky-lines. There were plenty of chuckles around the movie theater, but there was one guy who was right there with me and Abra with the guffaws. Thank you random guy.
Yes. Beacuse it's not okay to act like a god... except if you really believe a higher god (FATE) is guiding you (internal consistency please). And then the preaching: I, lowly audience member, should strive to "do something" like James McAvoy's character. And how do I bring about growing a set of balls? I can find out that pain and injury don't mean anything because there's always a magic healing wax bath around the corner. Having been so enlightened to ignore my body, I will then easily ignore other people's bodies and ignore the collateral damage I will then wreak everywhere in the subtle assassin chaos that I tend to create.
I wish I could express myself well. I want words to come out of my mouth that can explain that my professor can understand.
I'm so righteous I sicken myself. I'll never even believe I'm wrong. Just that I don't deserve to be the defender of a viewpoint because I can't do it justice. Now is that perverse or what?
