Author: Angelo Bonadonna

The Syllabi Are Written, So Now It’s Time to Catch Up on Vacation…



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[Editor’s Note: I started this entry in mid-August,
just before school started. But at some point before I could finish it, responsibility
kicked in, and I actually went back and finished my syllabi… As the subject line states here, the syllabi are done, hooray!, so I begin to tidy up some left-over “vacation tasks”… :) ]

Here on the verge of a new semester, with "syllabi to go before I sleep,"
I find myself looking back, reflecting on my summer past, my vacation, my recovery
from the long haul of the tenure-trauma that wore me down so.

I’m thinking about Falling Water, a side trip on our "Baseball Vacation."
Falling Water fit–the principle of the fittedness of context, environment,
and structure being so key to Frank Lloyd Wright–Falling Water fit between
Cleveland, the game at Jacobs Field (with the highly entertaining between inning
commentary by a very drunk, or increasingly drunk, Paul Assenmacher), and the
game at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. And now, as I’m writing and posting syllabi,
my computer falls to sleep, and starts cycling through all the pictures scattered
across its hard drive. There arises Falling
Water

There are so many things to love about Falling Water. For one…just how many
years has it been since I last used the word, "cantilevered"? Our delightful
guide explained the cantilevered design with such thoroughnesss and "balance."
Our Guide: She was a young, Gen-X-er-aged woman, but really she belonged to
another generation. Her admiration for Wright, for the society that is preserving
the home, for museums and art and possibilities, all bespoke a centering in
some kind of timeless humanitarian possibility. In a word, she struck me as
a true-believer in the gentle, melioristic influences (and compulsions) of art
and ideas; she had no pretension, no judgment of the rest of the world. She
was self-aware and mildly wry, in that wincing way that is very sweet, for there
is only complexity in it, and no meanness. She kinda nodded to our baseball
vacation, with a genuine smile, but a half-apologetic disconnectedness or muted
puzzlement. But I digress…

Falling Water is a beautiful idea–the integration of architecture, nature,
functionality, human needs–but it’s also a lie and a contradiction.

For how can I reconcile the humanitarian principle that scales everything
to human needs and proportions (which is five foot seven, fine enough for me
and Wright, but a little tight for my tallish sons and daughter) with the elitist
indulgence of its many extremes? Egads, the thing was built in the worst
days of the Depression (for about $8,000–which leads me to think: I could have
two Falling Waters for about the expense of our recent bathroom remodeling,
but I digress…). And what do you need to situate this house? Land, lots of
it….and trees…and perhaps some public access roads (on the civic dime, of
course). Oh yes, a quarry, so you can "dig your own" shale (or whatever
the stone is). Oh, and one other thing: a waterfall to integrate around and
within….

I mean: Isn’t there some rhetoric shouting out of all of Wright’s architecture?
Doesn’t Wright make a counter-statement to the architectures of the past? Yes,
he was an innovator, but more than that, he was a humanitarian innovator,
in a sense suggesting a kind of universalizing Way to Salvation: Build on these
principles, if you would have principled buildings… And on what principles
are the buildings built? Context, function, human proportion, integration, conservation…
But, spoilsport that I almost am (for I did not voice any objection
as I and my family marveled at the patent splendor), I must reflect at this
time: There is nothing universalizable about Falling Water (except for its shout
of privilege, privacy, and the life of an idea…)

I know I’m being unfair, but I’m talking about a feeling that Falling
Water evokes in me. I could never live there…and how could anyone?

As an idea, Falling Water is not only elegant, but timeless. The water flows
forever–is flowing now, presumably, as you read this. And I can hear it now,
and feel soothed by it, awash in the glow of many pleasant memories… The world
is better for it, and the life of its idea, across generations, and in all kinds
of circumstances, even a baseball vacation. But it’s a tour de force…beautiful…gaudy,
in its cleverness and elegance.


Make Rhetoric, Not War



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Vituperation is one of the "six Biblical Pivotals"
that Kenneth Burke identifies in the preface to his novel, Towards a Better
Life. Ah, language! Why holler or shoot bombs when you can with words translate
turbulence into delight, or again from Burke, sneers into smiles?

Elegant Insults
as sent by Jim Brown to Car Talk

"There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation
won’t cure." – Jack E. Leonard
"I wish I’d known you when you were alive." – Leonard Louis Levinson
"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
– Abraham Lincoln
"His speeches left the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving
over the landscape in search of an idea." – William McAdoo (about Warren
Harding)
"You’ve got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I bet he was glad to
get rid of it." – Groucho Marx
"I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll make an exception."
– Groucho Marx
"From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed
with laughter. Some day I intend reading it." – Groucho Marx
"I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it." – Groucho
Marx


"Don’t be humble…you’re not that great." – Golda Meir
"He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death."
– H. H. Munro
"It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy,
proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt." – Thomas Paine (about
John Adams)
"A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead." – Alexander Pope
"A cherub’s face, a reptile all the rest." – Alexanger Pope
"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt." – Robert Redford
"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human
knowledge." – Thomas Brackett Reed
"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent
hard work, he overcame them." – James Reston (about Richard Nixon)
"He never said a foolish thing nor never did a wise one." – Earl of
Rochester
"He has no more backbone than a chocolate eclair." – Theodore Roosevelt
"A little emasculated mass of inanity." – Theodore Roosevelt (about
Henry James)
"You’re a good example of why some animals eat their young." – Jim
Samuels
"The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation, but
not the power of speech." – George Bernard Shaw
"A woman whose face looked as if it had been made of sugar and someone
had licked it." – George Bernard Shaw
"Gee, what a terrific party. Later on we’ll get some fluid and embalm each
other." – Neil Simon
"I regard you with an indifference bordering on aversion." – Robert
Louis Stevenson
"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."
– Charles, Count Talleyrand
"He was as great as a man can be without morality." – Alexis de Tocqueville
"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." – Forrest Tucker
"His ignorance covers the world like a blanket, and there’s scarcely a
hole in it anywhere." – Mark Twain
"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"
– Mark Twain
"A solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was
waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity." – Mark Twain
"Had double chins all the way down to his stomach." – Mark Twain
"I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved
of it." – Mark Twain
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." – Mae
West
"She is a peacock in everything but beauty." – Oscar Wilde
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."
– Oscar Wilde
"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." – Oscar
Wilde
"He has Van Gogh’s ear for music." – Billy Wilder
"Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the
rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow." – Franklin K. Dane
"Why was I born with such contemporaries?" – Oscar Wilde
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts for support rather
than illumination." – Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
"A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed keeping
rabbits." – Edith Sitwell


Email Colloquy on the Teacher You Want To Be



Below is an email exchange
between an alum and me on the topic of “becoming the teacher you want/have to
be…”

The alum writes:

i’m dying here!!! i’m dying here!!!

my 10th period is the class from hell!!!
so far there isn’t much learning going on. mostly it’s
trying to keep some control. they’re
savages!!! LOLOLOLOLOL

ok…here’s what’s really bothering me, and i know you
two will understand. i have to teach them how to write
a paragraph. they (the higher up people;) seem to
believe that if you can teach them how to write a
paragraph (in isolation) they will know how to write a
paper. they (the students) keep asking me, “how many
sentences does it have to be?” and i am under orders
to tell them it’s 8-10 sentences.

i’m not only getting it from school, it’s happening at
home too. my daughter, gwen, asked me,”how many
paragraphs in a narrative?” what? i said, a narrative
is a story…you need enough to tell the story. her
friend adrianna said, “no, it’s 3 paragraphs. i
remember because i got an A on my narrative and it was
3 paragraphs long.”

all my freshmen were required to write an expository
“paragraph” on the issues that cause teens stress.
well, most wrote a “paper” on teens and stress. I
don’t think they understand it’s just a part of a
bigger picture. they set these kids up…they confuse
the hell out of them. right now i have to “learn” how
to write a paragraph “the right way” so i can teach
it.

i feel like i’m lying to these kids…i’m turning into
the kind of teacher i don’t want to be…i’m not a
“change agent,” angelo. i want to keep my job…but i
know that if they would let me teach writing, real
writing, the kids would be better writers. but i also
know that i have to teach them to write for the
test. (the school will have it’s own writing test, and
they will continue to test writing on ACT tests.)
i’m becoming what i detest…i’m ready to just start
passing out dittos in my 10th period…they aren’t
learning anything anyway!!!

guys, send me some words of advice/encouragement…
i wish they’d let me be me. at least i’m better at
that than being what i’m fearful of becoming.

your friend,
****

who didn’t tell her story in 8-10 sentence
paragraphs…or did she?…LOL

[My Response:]

Writing on the run…as always
(Angelo still has…shhh!…one more syllabus to write for tomorrow)….



My only suggestion vis à
vis the tension here between the teacher you want to be and the teacher
they are forcing you to be is…hmmm….can you do both? Can you teach
the kids the real way and the phony way? Can you teach the artificial
forms that the Powers are enforcing, and then just explain to the kids
that those forms are just VERSIONS of narrative or paragraphs…? There
are others as well? Can you illustrate some of the other versions? You
could tell a few spontaneous stories and then break their “form” apart
for the class. You can talk about the process you went through to
create the story. What led you to your choices–rather than getting to
the number 8 (sentences) or 3 (paragraphs) or whatever. You could also
bring into class a stack of writing–narratives of all kinds and
lengths–and you could do a quick scan of some of the features. Make
sure a few of them are short enough so that you could share them in
their entirety with the class. As a group you could infer a list of
criteria for narratives. You could round off the whole exercise with
Garrison Keillor’s anatomy of a narrative. Good stories, Keillor says,
all have FIVE ELEMENTS: mystery, wealth, family relations, sex, and
religion. And he gloats that he has one in 12 words: “‘God,’ said the
banker’s daughter, ‘I’m pregnant; I wonder who it was?'”



Of course you can’t do all this in
one class period, so why don’t you tell the class that from here on out
THAT is your “agenda” as a group (to use Meg’s wonderful word)–to
figure out some of the many versions of narrative, of paragraphs, of
forms. You could do worse as an English teacher.



The bottom line is that
ANYONE who can do “real” narrative can do the phony, school-type in
their sleep. Thus, if you do a good job with the real, you’re home free
with keeping your job. So yes, teach them the phony school type, but do
it with a wink. It’s actually not a bad exercise. But as a bigger
agenda, set a yearlong, class-community-wide agenda for figuring out
what makes a good narrative, what makes a good paragraph… It’s a
grand mission! And the cheap forms of a bureaucratic pedagogy can’t
touch it or harm it…. If anything, a good teacher can use this very
problem to help kids get “meta” about writing and language–getting
students to think about choices and purposes and effects, in ways good
writers always have, if even only intuitively…



I know you’re worried about time.
But the good thing is this: You have ALL YEAR to do the real thing, and
as for the phony stuff–that can be done really quickly. A lot of the
stuff you do in life with a wink can be done really quickly, I find,
but that’s another story. But seriously, if you and your kids are
living the life, as Burke so strikingly puts it, of “linguistic
quizzicality”–full of wonder, amazement, surprise–and sometimes
skepticism, distrust, and disgust–at the powers of language–well, the
kids will learn narratives and paragraphs….(in 8, 9, and sometimes
even 10 sentences…)



You know my next question:
May I use your wonderful story in my blog and share it with my classes?
:)



Keep us posted! And good
luck with the savages of 10th period…(now THAT sounds like a
story…). :) Your friend and sympathizer from the calm of the Ivory
Tower, Angelo


[The Alum’s Response:]

i understand…i do. what you say is wonderful and true. (that rhymes;) but it’s not that simple…or maybe it is and i’m just losing focus about what’s really important. i find myself doing things that i’ve been against from the start of my educational career, without realizing i’m doing it. for example: i’m doing book shares with the students instead of having
them do book reports. now i know…i know…my goal
is to get them to enjoy reading. today in class, i
told a student that tomorrow he better bring in a novel,
instead of bringing the TRL magazine he was
reading that day, thinking about the “book share” assignment. he just looked at me and said, “why can’t we read what we want?” my heart just stopped. i grabbed
his face and said, “you’re absolutely right. i don’t
know what i was thinking. you read whatever you like.”
this horrible transition seems to be taking over
without my being fully aware of it. ANGELO, OF COURSE
THEY CAN READ WHATEVER THEY WANT!!!!

i keep losing focus…

there’s just so much that needs to be
done!! save me from myself!!!

****

[My Response:]

I can see the care in your eyes as you
told your student, yes, he could read what he wants…  But dear friend, I fear
you’re reacting with a tinge of that guilt that all teachers, parents, and responsible
adults feel now and then–particularly when we’re looking out for the child’s
welfare.  I think you have to hold the line on the TRL magazine! 
It’s just me, and you know that this one voice of mine will ultimately be contradicted
by another voice lurking beneath (in TW this week we’re reading that schizo
Covino…), but…BALANCE is the key (said he, in a shout so loud so as to lose
his footing and fall back…).  Reading is so much like a eating–so lifegiving
and pleasurable it is–and there is such a need for a balanced diet for both….



If your daughter kept eating Cheetos day
and night (like someone else’s daughter I know…), and you approached her and
asked her to eat her vegetables….  Would you respond similarly to her
indignant response of “why can’t you just let me eat what I want?”  :)  
All said with a smile…but, the point is, sometimes the teachers DOES
have to be directive…and structure things…  The structures just have
to be the right ones (and I know YOU know what the right ones are…your administration,
I’d say, DOES NOT (or maybe is not yet confident in you (and not just you personally; 
I’m sensing that common condition out there of  “teacher-proofing” instruction…more
later…)).

Internet Humor [Puns]

Silly puns…[again from my brother, Michael]:

Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.
A backward poet writes inverse.
A man’s home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
Dijon vu – the same mustard as before.
Practice safe eating – always use condiments.

Shotgun wedding: A case of wife or death.
A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.
A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.
Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.
When two egotists meet, its an I for an I.
A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it is two tired.
What’s the definition of a will? (It’s a dead giveaway.)
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.
She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but broke it off.
A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
If you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.
With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.
When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.
The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
You feel stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.
Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.
He often broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.
Every calendar’s days are numbered.
A lot of money is tainted – It taint yours and it taint mine.
A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
He had a photographic memory that was never developed.
A plateau is a high form of flattery.
A midget fortune-teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at large.
Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
Once you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall.
Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.
Acupuncture is a jab well done.

eBN: One Stop Shop for Educational Bloggin

While working on the English Education portal (I’m trying to find a way to
use Drupal’s hierarchy, node, taxonomy, multiple term select features), I came
across a Web site that might provide me and my students and colleagues a rich
resource, if we wish to pursue reasarch in the educational uses of blogging.
It’s called the "Educational Bloggers’
Network." Here is how the site describes its mission:

eBN is a collaborative of teachers and
organizations using weblogs in education. Its purpose is to help its
members, kindergarten through university, to access and use weblog technology
for the teaching of writing and reading across the disciplines. The network
provides a forum for educational professionals who use weblogs, an array of
opportunities for teachers to continue their professional growth, and a framework
for cooperation to deal with issues that affect the integration of weblog
and other digital technologies into teaching and learning.