So I'm a teacher if you didn't know. And one COOL thing about being a teacher in the post-modern military-industrial-complex society is MASS EMAIL! Here I can email all my students at once when they piss me the hell off (which takes less and less as the years go by). Here's my latest mass email:
"Dear Students:
Reminder - class begins at 8:00, not 8:05 or later - you should be ready and quiet in your seats. Also a number of you have been delinquent in coming to class. This class moves swiftly and this behavior can result in your not getting the information. Do not reply to this email to me, just correct the behavior."
...others have begun with things like the following:
"I was disappointed reading the papers handed to me this past Monday. Many revealed a complete lack of proofreading, little effort in thought or analysis beyond merely regurgitating what I said in class. "
It saddens me to have to write these emails to be honest with y'all. But the alternative is that things can get even MORE out of hand. I just don't remember things being like this when I was in school (I know that sounds trite, but it's true).
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Remember when we were supposed to write a one page review of a specific concert and I wrote a 4 page essay on why I hated new music so much instead?
Man. Good times.
Odd, though, how taking the safe path usually rewards students. High School now, with the grad standards and underpaid, under-appreciated teachers, stifles originality to a startling degree. I used to think it was utter balderdash, but now that I'm seeing what's slowly happened, class after class, I can attest to it, as i'm sure you can too. Being the theory tutor officially for 2 years and unofficially for 4, you kinda pick up on these things.
Among other things, growing class sizes and population is starting to take its toll on people my age and younger. While our parents were raised to believe that they were individually irreplaceable, they were eventually shown they were mistaken.. and now they've passed a certain hopelessness and sense of inadequacy to their children. College aged kids are now coming to the realization of how insignificant they truly are. And as such, the ever-swinging pendulum of altruism and hedonism has quite possibly (and i certainly hope so) reached its more malignant peak.
And so, many of us live out our days reactively, doing what we need to in order to get by, with an unspoken understanding that greatness is something we need not concern ourselves with.
But, such is life. Give it another 5 years or so and humanity's compensatory response will take the next generation to where you need them to be. Not to lose hope in your students or anything, but any solution to this issue seems to rely on their own self actualization.
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