September 22, 2009
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The Daily News
1 Just read the classic short story By the Waters of Babylon by Stephen Vincent Benet. Amazingly relevant.
2 Just came off a grand day of teaching. We have those moments, don’t you know.
3 I forced myself to lecture, but with tremendous power. It’s hard to explain, but sometimes a teacher has to bring it.
4 I brought it yesterday.
5 Taught TONS of things, all the while trying to keep the troops entertained.
6 Somehow, it all worked. I got home and hoisted a few ice teas, watched a little sports on the teevee, and then conked out.
7 The challenge of conking out when one teaches is that you still have to wake up and prepare something awesome for the next day. Resting on one’s laurels simply doesn’t work in this dandy game.
8 Well…I awoke at around 11 p.m. with utterly nothing to follow that lesson plan.
9 Honestly.
10 The last time I taught English 2 was in 1995. I had it down back then, because I knew the text.
11 Fast forward to 2009.
12 SOME stuff is the same, but the majority of the literature is totally different. I knew I wanted to get in to the next story, but the next story was this GHASTLY piece called Searching for Summer by Joan Aiken, who, were she not the daughter of the great Conrad Aiken, should have been taken out to a barnyard and tarred and feathered for attempted murder by boredom.
13 I tried like crazy to get something out of her idiotic story, and fell asleep, but not in a good way.
14 It was then it dawned on me that I should simply flush her imbecilic story down the loo, and move on.
15 Moving on: Keep in mind that I came off an AWESOME day, and needed a strong follow for this day’s events.
16 It was then that I found Benet’s classic By the Waters of Babylon, a story that the writers of the original Planet of the Apes unabashedly stole. Same story, sans apes.
17 It is forbidden.
18 The entire story sounds like a first-person account of a young lad on the road to discovery, and a journey into what the Apes people deemed The Forbidden Zone.
19 The entire thing sounds like a young man on a journey to ancient Mesopotatoes.
20 Turns out that his meanderings into the forbidden areas are actually…
21 Ah, read it. It’s awesome. No spoilers here, with the exception of the hint that it was stolen by the filmmakers who made the original Planet of the Apes.
22 Awesome story.
23 Hope it holds interest.
24 Anyway, yesterday was a GREAT teaching day for me, one of the best. Students learned a tremendous amount, and I threw fastballs and sliders to the bitter end.
25 What a grand profession!
26 I LOVE that I can build on what I’ve done, and provide great learning at the same time. So many jobs are dreaded by the workers that I now find myself completely blessed by the creativity and passion I could bring to work each day.
27 That’s not a brag in any way. It is a “shout out” to all the students who motivated me to keep striving and creating. If I simply walked in each year with the same old plans, ‘twould be a dull time for all.
28 That I could take something new each year and turn it into a creation is a blessing.
29 Within two years, Babylon may become one of the best lessons ever. Right now I’m just trying to think of ways that might work. I’m tying it into the CBS documentary called 9/11, since both are about the destruction of New York.
30 Well, that’s my report on how a teacher reads things, prepares things, and builds creative lessons on a daily basis.
31 Thanks for allowing me that.
32 I can’t wait to get to the classroom today to see if any of this works.
33 I guess that’s the joy of my profession.
34 You have a GREAT day. Y’all are my inspiration, day in and day out.
35 Fly low.
36 And teach peace.
37 Peace.
~H~
