Spring Break

I got back from Frankfurt last weekend. Spent a week breathing some frsh air for a change, unwinding with my brother, playing with Calvin, his 10 month old, eating long breakfasts on his back porch. It was the first time I'd been back in Spring since graduating from FIS in 97. A very different vibe than Christmas or Summer, triggering different memories, different selves. We went for a trip to beautiful Ruedesheim on the Rhein, wandered up to the majestic Niederwald Monument depicting a mythical female figure representing Germany - I feel a poem coming on, maybe I'll post it later.
http://www.ruedesheim.de/en/sehenswert_niederwalddenkmal.html
I noticed something upon my return. Something about my students. During the year, a common complaint around the staff room is the kids' boredom level. Everything is boring, everything sucks. No matter what you plan with how many bells and whistles, no matter what movie you choose, or how much they actually respond to it (my 9th graders enjoyed Dead Poets Sociewty wayy more than I would have thought) it's almost a reflex to complain about how bored they are. Now, a part of me, and I'm sure other teachers, feel slightly defeated by this, as if the confluence of forces provided in insurmountable obstacle, brain-dead, ego driven music, advertising that fosters egocentrism, a cultural fascination with youth, little support for learning, curiosity, expanding the mind. Little reverence for something outside of ourselves. Research supports the current graduates are the most narcissistic ever. One can feel overwhelmed. Kids are always complaning about how bored they are in class. The funny thing is, at least 50 per cent of the journals I collected the first day back from break confessed the kids were bored with Spring Break and wanted to come back to school because they missed their friends. This led me to consider the extent to which it's my job, especially as the English teacher, where kids can encounter story, other cultures, other ways of being, to facilitate that place of wonder of mystery, of something outside ourselves - to foster the imagination and creativity as a means of counteracting the toxic elements of our culture that stifle and choke creativity. Having a double major in English and Psychology, I experienced this split first hand. The Psychology major, while providing some benefits, largely participated in and propogated a modernist epistemology based on the scientific method, a means of systematizing, rationalistic and propositional understanding. The English major, on the other hand, provided a commentary on the ills of culture and a means of counteracting them, an antidote. I an starting to believe that the greatest task we can have is teachers is to help instill, to the extent we can, a sense of beauty, mystery, and wonder about the world, to help activate the imagination, to facilitate spaces of creativity and discovery. Now, this is much easier said than done with a group of 100 9th graders addicted to ipods, PSPs, who live in the smog-filled, concrete jungle that is is LA. One ingredient helpful in this process is nature. As children we have a kind of mystical bond with nature, it inhabits us, it creates a sense of mystery. Another part of me wonders if most High School kids are in a certain stage of disillusion, of de-enchantment, and that this re-enchantment can only take place in college, which many of my students won't attend.
Still turning this over in my mind, I came across a great article on it
http://www.crosscurrents.org/Raboteau.htm
more later, my 9th graders are restless...