Day Two

Before I start... 


A little disclaimer:


I am a horrible speller, and my punctuation can be spotty. In fact, I'm so bad that I frequently misspell words on the blackboard (sorry, dry erase board just doesn't have the same ring to it). 


Now, most of the time my kids don't notice. They, like me, are the children of spellcheck. But sometimes, I get called on it.


The occasion that sticks out the most to me was when I was, thankfully, teaching my students about dramatic irony. According to Dictionary. com, dramatic irony is "An outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected."


A teacher is supposed to know how to spell, right? I misspelled a word. A kid called me on it. My reply, "I'm glad you caught that, Johnny. Class, a teacher who can't spell, that's an example of dramatic irony!"


Now that I've gotten that out of the way...


Day Two


For the last two months, I've been teaching Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo Nest, the story of a clash of wills between Randle P. McMurphy and his nemesis, Nurse Ratched. Over the course of the novel, these two characters duke it out to win the hearts and minds of the "acutes", the patients in the hospital, who can leave at any time, but won't because they are too scared to face the outside world, believing that they are "broken." 


Got that? No? Go watch the movie then.


On Thursday, I brought in Bob Dylan's "To Ramona" to help demonstrate the mindset of a depressed person. In the song, Ramona's lover desperately tries to convince her that she has placed too much emphasis on people, places, and things, a recipe for disaster. 

Like the acutes in Cuckoo's Nest, Ramona worries too much about what other people think; and as a result, she's a slave to her negative feelings when she doesn't match up.  She lives in "A world that doesn't exist", AKA depression.

Anyway...It's a great song and it's chock full of great lines that I won't bore you with right now. But like all Bob Dylan songs (at least for me), there's always something new to learn. In the last verse, Bob drops this bombshell:


"Everything passes
Everything changes
Just do what you think you should do
And someday, maybe
Who knows, babyI'll come and be cryin' to you."   


The line that really popped out to me was "Just do what you think you should do." The whole song, the guy is desperately trying to change this girl's mind, but in the end, he has the wisdom and strength to say, "Just do what you think you should do." In other words, he recognizes that you can't change anyone. If someone wants to bottom out, let them. Maybe then, they'll make a change...or not.


Why is this important? Because as an educator, I'm constantly battling this with my students. I want the best for them, but I can't prop them up. It take two to tango, babe, and I can't drag one hundred and seventy people around the dance floor. It's too tiring, and they are not learning on their own.      


Did my student's understand Mr. Dylan's sentiment? Yes. Are they going to do anything about it? 


"...Maybe
Who knows, baby
I'll come and be cryin' to you."


In other words, give someone the chance to make a mistake, so when the time comes, they'll have real hands on experience to help someone else out...Or not. 


"Just do what you think you should do."


That's the best lesson of them all.


And that, in a nutshell, is why I still enjoy teaching.


Signing off.


Birds-Eye


Works Cited (I am an English teacher!)


Dylan, Bob. "To Ramona."Another Side of Bob Dylan. CD. Columbia Records. 2010.

"Irony." 5/3/2011. Dictionary.com. 2011.