OCR Text |
Show Views&Opinion Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009 Page 13 Utah State Kappa DeltaUniversity Sorority Making GREAT Things Happen! Discover Greek Life Committed to inspiring each and every member to lead a valuesSorority - Sept. based life Recruitment & providing opportunities for 8-9 lifetime achievment. Both nights start in the Sunburst Lounge, TSC rowth through lifetime learning •Tues: Orientation & Entertaining House G Toursfor our own integrity and ethical action RTime: esponsibility Choose one: 6:00, 6:30, 7:00 p.m. “Focus onand Philantrophy” night E•Wed: ngagement in social civic interests Time: Chose one: 6:00, 6:45, 7:30 p.m. Altruistic service to others Fraternity Recruitment - Sept. 8 Meet on TSC and&go from there! 6:00 Patio we’ll go from there! 6:00 pm Truthand andthe loyalty to Patio each other our University Register on-line: www.usu.edu/asusu/htm/greeks/register For Membership Information: Call or visit Student Involvement, More info? call or326, visit 797-2912 Student Involvement: 326 TSC/435-797-2912 TSC • www.kappadelta.org Teachers: Read on -continued from page 12 of instruction each day, the “free periods” were a mind-numbing dash from students’ questions to parents’ e-mails to administrative duties. Throw in, too, the daily troubleshooting: investigating a case of plagiarism, fixing the Xerox machine (again), explaining to the girl texting during class why she is going to the discipline committee. All this, plus the biggest problem of all: how, while on the run, to instill passion for serious literature in a generation of students with a shrinking interest in reading, as iPods, Facebook and YouTube consume their mental universe. A month after I read Kaufman’s novel this summer, a stroke of lucky networking landed me in her New York City office. There I received the most inspiring wisdom on education that had come my way in many years. Now 98, Bel taught English in New York City public schools from the 1930s to the 1960s. But she spoke about teaching as if she had retired yesterday. I asked her about the conflicts that fueled her novel. Her answer – the absence of time to teach – was something I had uttered more than once. “Parents have no idea,” she bellowed. “Look, we are good teachers. We’re inspired and inspiring teachers. Schools don’t let us teach!” That is precisely the challenge of the protagonist, Sylvia Barrett, at Bel’s fictional Calvin Coolidge High. An idealist devoted to poetry and her students’ well-being, Miss Barrett learns that teaching teens – which she once thought of as a matter of knowledge and enlightenment – is, more accurately, an improvised sprint through administrative memos, student reports, faculty meetings and chaperoning duties. “All our hours and minutes are accounted for, planned for, raced against,” she laments. Sylvia’s struggle helped me realize how a decade of professional development workshops — afternoons spent in dutiful analysis of “formative assessment,” “differentiated instruction” and “curriculum mapping” — missed another of Bel’s central insights: that the human encounter between teacher and student is often a more powerful teaching tool than the academic content on a paper or test. True to her profession, Bel made her point through stories. She recalled a former student who saved a graded essay all her life because her teacher, Bel, had written something about her personality that she treasured. She talked about a young man about to quit school – failing all his subjects but science – to whom she gave her own hardcover copy of Paul de Kruif’s “Microbe Ask Miss Jones Dear Miss Jones, Before coming to USU I had a serious boyfriend for two years. Because he doesn’t go to school here I decided to break it off with him so that I wouldn’t have to deal with all the drama that comes with a long distance relationship. I assumed I would meet tons of cool guys who I’d want to date but I can’t seem to catch anyone’s attention. I’m starting to think I made a huge mistake by breaking up with my ex. What should I do? Sincerely, Bedazzle Lacker. Dear Bedazzle Lacker, First off, way to go! It’s great to hear about a girl taking initiative with her love life, too often young girls (especially in Utah) settle for what first comes along. I remember my first serious boyfriend. We began dating during my junior year of senior high school. He was the varsity football captain, star basketball player as well as shortstop for the varsity baseball team. He was tall, with smokey blue eyes and had abs you could bounce a nickle off. Just after my senior year of high school began he decided to break up with me. Two weeks later he began dating this floozy who had just moved to town and was the captain for the cheerleadering squad. I was heartbroken and thought that I had lost my soul mate. Half way through the year, she got pregnant. They married. He quit the baseball team so he could work for his father at the local car dealership. He lost his scholarship for the state college for quitting the team. I saw them both at my 15-year high school reunion. He was balding, overweight and unhappy, as was she (minus the balding). The point of the story is never to regret something that you can’t change. You made your decision to become independent. Now for heaven’s sake stick with it! If you think about it, you just got out of a two-year relationship, maybe it isn’t Bedazzle you’re missing, maybe it’s the fact you’re still walking around wearing the necklace your ex gave you with those foolish looking white speakers in your ears and your eyes averted from the boy that has been checking you out from 100 yards off. I imagine you’re now quite good at giving off the impression that you’re taken, so go outside your comfort zone, bob your hair, wear that flapper’s dress and walk with the confidence that invites conversation. Here is my final piece of advice: don’t be one of those typical USU girls that gets married halfway through their sophomore year. Go enjoy the opportunity you’re blessed to have by attending college. Take a welding class or go on a date with someone you normally wouldn’t. As Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s most influential founding fathers, once said, “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” Good luck and remember: “With as many times as Miss Jones has been around the block, her directions must be good.” E-mail your questions to be answered by Miss Jones to statesman.miss.jones@gmail. com Hunters,” hoping that this book might change his mind. In September, back orority Recruitment — Sept ® at school, the boy told Bel: “No, I 9 never read the book. But you gave me Theme: “Our Focus on yourPhilanthropy” own hardcover copy. That’s why I’m here.” Like an actress closing a Time: Choose one: 6:00 pm, 6:45 soliloquy, Bel murmured: “That’s what pm, 7:30 pm reaches them. Caring enough. Caring. Location: Meet in the Sunburst Never read the book, but came back.” Lounge, TSC These words confirmed my faltering Fraternity Recruitment sense about learning that sticks: that — Sept 9/10/11 moments when students remember Enjoy meeting the member of books furnish genuineCall human all Five Fraternities! Studentconnec-Sorority Recruitment — Sept 9 Student Center tions. Softening her voice for emphasis,Theme: “Our Focus on Philanthropy” Involvement for more specifics — 797-2912 2nd Floor Bel Register made sure I grasped the essence ofTime: Choose one: 6:00 pm, 6:45 pm, 7:30 pm on-line: www.usu.edu/ her asusu/htm/greeks/register many years of literary instruction: “to point the way to something that should forever lure them, when the TV set is broken and the movie is over and the school bell has rung for the last time.” You don’t have to look far for teachers who will agree with her. What can teachers do? I suggest carrying forward the spirit of “Staircase.” Like Sylvia, we have an eagerness to teach. Like Bel, we need to speak out – unabashedly www.bridalfaire.org and insistently – for the time to craft the quality instruction that our students will Saturday, September 19, 2009 actually remember. BRIDAL FAIRE Saturday Sept 19 At USU 10:00 To 5:00 This column originally appeared in the Sept. 15 issue of The Washington Post. The author, Nancy Schnog, teaches English at the McLean School in Potomac, Md. schnog@earthlink.net Fashion Show 12:00 & 2:30 Free Admission - Free Parking - Many Prizes A Bridal Faire Production For more information call: 753-6736 Co-sponsored by: |