They are very tense, aren't they? Students, I mean. I guess I'd be tense too
if I'd been systematically taught the sort of crap they have been taught for
most of their lives. Anger management, indeed! If a few more students told
the guidance counselor, "Manage this, you prick!" the world would be a
better place. Provided, of course, the students then went off & wrote gloomy
poems about their alienation. As opposed, I mean, to becoming mass murderers
or suicides or both. Isn't recognizing you're alienated the first step
toward . . . well, recognizing you're alienated? (I'm far too alienated to
use a word like "liberation" in this context. Really, though, isn't the
primary function of American education (can't speak to the international
scene here) to make people fear the expression of genuine emotion?
Oh, yeah, almost forgot: Nice poem, Fred. Maps my territory pretty clearly.
jd
--
Joseph Duemer
Professor of Humanities
Clarkson University
[sharpsand.net]
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