My literature teacher is a strange man to me. I guess in life in general he is pretty ordinary. He talks about his job in the most blah of terms. He is anti-administration at the school, loves payday until he gets his check home to pay the bills and then he is depressed again. He dislikes “the man” and has a very lazy attitude.
Our first day of class he told us if we sent a text during class to put the phone in our lap and pretend to be praying. He said if we had our laptops to take notes but were really checking facebook or looking at porn to at least keep our face looking like we were paying attention to what HE was saying not what was happening on the screen, he did not want to see THAT face! He gives us a test everyday, first thing but it is a really simple quiz about what we were supposed to have read the night before.
This is my second literature class and they both have revolved around books where the main characters are hopeless. The books are based on existentialism and the whole basis for the classes has been that we are all doomed- why bother? I have a real problem with that but so far have been able to keep my opinions to myself in class. When we write papers I have not been as agreeable. My teacher during the first class was a strange little man who I think embraced the weird, existentialist existence. He seemed hopeless and against any form of conformity. My teacher now just seems beaten down by life. He has a good sense of humor, I can see him at the local bar, cracking jokes yet lamenting over his meager life and how “the man” has it all and he has nothing while drinking cheap beer.
Most of the books also have terrible profanity in them. I think when a professor reads a passage from the book that includes the “F” word, the kids get the idea that not only is it OK to use those words but it is OK to use them out in the open in class. And they do!
I have made some new friends in this class, two boys who sit beside and in front of me. One is there on the GI bill after 5 years of service to our country and the other is an English major who seems what Jon would call a frat boy, dressed nice, sunglasses backwards around his neck and just that way about him. I know a couple of people in the class from other classes but these two guys have just kind of gravitated towards me. When we started reading the books, Frat Boy said that he was not a fan of the language in the book. He said, “I am not a prude but I am a Christian and there is no need to use that language!” GI said, “I think they just do it for shock value because it doesn’t really add to the story.” I told them I agreed, it didn’t serve any purpose other than to jar you. Eventually you hear it enough and you become numb to it, you use it yourself because it is in your head and almost commonplace.
Last week Frat Boy and I, along with a few other students rode some bikes around campus to show them off for photographers and to let the students know about the new program on campus. I made the comments that the bricks on the rode jarred my new teeth out! Others also complained about the bricks for various reasons. For those of you who don’t know, Montevallo has a history of having the roads paved with bricks. Some of the roads have been redone over the years but a lot have not. They are missing bricks, eroded and busted. When we suggested that the bike program might be better accepted if you didn’t have to go over the uneven bricks, our Kinesiology professor said that those bricks were part of our history and would not be going anywhere!
Today, Frat Boy came in to class with a huge, bleeding gash in his elbow. He looked at me and said, “So much for history and those F@*#ing bricks!” And so the very thing we had discussed last week came true. A word that offended him a few days ago was the one that was in the forefront of his brain as he searched for a word to convey his pain and anger! And he was desensitized enough in a few days to say it!
So what are we teaching our college students? To be apathetic, anti-establishment, negative and accepting of vulgarity?? Our lit teacher told the story of a fellow professor that he sat with during graduation festivities in the spring. As the College of Business was called up to receive their diplomas, this other professor yelled out where everyone could hear. “There goes middle management of the future.” I think that some of these professors need to take a long sabbatical!! I am glad that while the theatre department has their share of cussing, weirdos and edgy people, they for the most part have a positive attitude about their lives and what they are teaching. And in one more semester I will be through with everyone except the theatre faculty.
I still worry for our young adults who can’t look at things from the perspective of age like I am and who buy into all of this! I try to tell them how great life can be and how you choose to experience your life has a lot more to do with you than “the man” or the “establishment.” No, we won’t all get our dream job out of college and we won’t all be successful and find the love of our life. But moaning and cussing doesn’t make things better. Being positive and finding joy in little things, in what we do get in life is what we should be teaching them, isn’t it?? To be proud of who you are and enjoy being alive? Maybe I am the one who is crazy?!
