I haven't given a straight answer since 1987. It's not that I'm indecisive, it's that I like to examine all possible angles before giving a definitive response. This is probably an exercise that should be done in my head, but my stream of consciousness has been found leaking out of my mouth on more than one occasion.
I natter. The nattering may have purpose and a logical flow, but a natterer is a natterer is a natterer, and no love is lost on natterers. More importantly, it's a terrible habit to exhibit in front of students, some of whom maybe have struggled mightily just to compose a question for me to natter off a response to.
Today, during a discussion on body language and culture, one of my students asked me how much personal space I like to have. What followed was a minute and a half long tirade where I considered different situations, who I might be with, what sort of mood I may be in, and God knows what else. After a minute and a half of this I realized that the time for me to stop talking had come and gone about a minute ago. At the very least, I should have paused at various points in the tirade to ask comprehension questions and ask for the student's opinion. I know better. The ball was dropped.
My tendency to natter is just one of several habits that I need to monitor in my efforts to not be a terrible teacher. It's a struggle not to regularly interrupt students to make comments about their shiny new watch or inquire what kind of cell phone plan they're using. If the clock ticks too loudly, I turn the air conditioner up to drown it out. I've been working on putting kibosh on my incessant fidgeting. I could list countless other manifestations of My Crazy that I leave at the classroom door everyday so that I can lead an effective lesson, but I won't. Another thought on the matter might exhaust me and I have at least one more episode of Entourage that I want to get through before the night is done. I know that it's a terrible show, but it sure is pretty.
9 comments:
Why am I not shocked to learn that you blather on incessantly in your life offline. Hmmm.
What's with the Barbie Backlash?
The backlash is our own fault. It used to be the case that people with something interesting to say wrote it down, and we could all learn from it. Today people have 'blogs' that they believe they have to update as their 'fans' need them. Unfortuently with Barbie all we get is pointless drival, thus I read the comments first.
It sounds like somebody is confused as to who this is written for.
Amanda,to answer your question, the backlash likely exists for a number of reasons.
First, a number of people end up here from a link on Pusanweb, The Korean Blog List, or elsewhere. Some of these people feel that blogs should be informative and exist as something more than a narcissistic outlet. Of course, they're wrong, but I respect their right to be wrong. They tend to be pissed off that they followed a link and wasted their time on something that wasn't for them. I may disagree with their opinion of the purpose of a blog, but their issue with this and sites like it is understandable.
Now, some people don't have lofty (absurd) expectations for blogs and understand that by clicking something in the "blog" section there is at least a 50% chance that they're going to waste their time. Some of these people waste their time on my site and simply don't agree with something that I wrote. Again, perfectly valid.
There are also some people are bored and just want to bitch . I use my blog or friends to do this, they apparently use the comments section of my blog. I don't even try to be likable, so I'm an easy target. This is where the "fatty hag" and "OMGZ! Go back to UR cuntri!" comments come in. I'm not even going to pretend that those aren't my favourite.
I'm sure there are other reasons for it. This is the most time that I've ever spent on this topic, so I'm going to cut it off here and move my thoughts to something else. Probably horrible TV.
Regardless, knowing that people I will never know think that insulting me is a valid expenditure of their time, is nothing short of awesome.
Barbie... You have a feisty little troll.
i completly relate to what ur saying here about class..if u find any solutyions to talkng shit to kids let me nox
|| Anonymous said...
The backlash is our own fault. It used to be the case that people with something interesting to say wrote it down, and we could all learn from it. Today people have 'blogs' that they believe they have to update as their 'fans' need them. Unfortuently with Barbie all we get is pointless drival, thus I read the comments first.||
You find this blog full of blather yet you keep coming back to it? Errr. (As Ewan McGregor once said "Who is the fool? The fool? Or the fool who follows the fool?")
Q: Why am I not shocked to learn that you blather on incessantly in your life offline. Hmmm.
A: Because you're brain dead .. maybe... Hmmm?
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