Thursday, August 14, 2008

Sharp Needles or Sharp Tongue: Take Your Pick

Day 4 of mandatory, unpaid teacher training and I am no longer trying to hide my knitting.

For the SUPER FUN role-playing activity, I got matched up with some trolly-looking TA who puts George Bush* signs up in his cube and takes cell-phone calls during his student conferences. I've loathed him since I met him, and I just about loathe role playing even more. We bared our teeth at each other, pretending we were smiling and played along.

Right after, I started knitting without fear.

I also managed to bite my tongue when another TA commented that he was against mandating that students visit the Writing Center because that's not really fair to the A student who comes in already able to write.

I managed not to say, "You pompous fuck! I wrote A papers the night before they were due, so did everyone in this room, but it wasn't until I was really forced to revise that I came to understand writing. Of course I was pissed off at revising. Furious, in fact. But once I got past that, my writing went to a whole new level. Did I mention you're a pompous fuck?"

Instead, I quietly said "P1, K1, P1, KKK" over and over and over again. Much better.

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*For the record, I don't think it's appropriate for someone teaching argumentative writing to put up overtly political material in a space where he or she meets with students, be that material Republican or Democratic.

3 comments:

wheelinsticks said...

Training is never fun and totally sucks if you don't get paid. Knit on!!!!

Anonymous said...

Training/before school gathering, paid or not, never floated my boat either. I always wanted to spend the time in the classroom or on getting assignments ready, etc. I'll never forget the team-building activity where we were given potatoes and straws and told to shove one through the other. Actually, the years of jokes that came out of that one were worth it, come to think on it...

Anonymous said...

Forgot to add that I totally agree that one should never post political stuff unless you're in a government class or something and posting historical things. "Pompous fuck" is right on.