Re: Ages
WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Sun, 25 Oct 1998 09:01:43 -0700 (MST)
I'm 46 but there are lots of times I feel like Holden. Maybe my wife is
right about me not growing up, maybe I teach and read the catecher too
much, but the truth is that I sense Holden in me when my intentions are
right but my information or exectution fails...I sense Holden in me when I
try and do something holy or just decent and when I do it, instead of
feeling accomplished I feel part of something phony and unable to catch
kids...ya see, what Holden learns/teaches at the end with Phoebe on the
carousel has always been the kind of knowledge that one may know but not
always live...so I get bitter or sad sometimes and yet the teacher in me
will never let me stop wanting to be a catcher in the rye...
Let me explain where I'm coming from...I have a student in my poetry
workshop who shouldn't be there...he's a first year college student
who couldn't get into any of the compostion sections...as Director of the
Writing Program at my school, I decided to give him some of the stuff he
needed to survive a world of "academic discourse" while using his interest
in poetry to thread the needle of his learning skills...sounds good in
theory but in practice I've been dealing with immaturity and things like
not handing in work on time, yawning and sleeping in class, and comments
that give a resounding thud to class discussions...after a particularly
bad class for the student (I had to ask him to stand up as a way to stay
awake since our class meets at 930 AM and he's not able to wake up for it
easily) I tried to control the hard ass in me...after all, the institution
failed to give him the right class but I wanted to be the right
teacher...so I saw him on campus and asked him what it would take to "wake
him up" in class...we didn't get too far but I jokingly suggested
coffee...he took me seriously though, so I found out how he likes it and
decided I would give him a cup of coffee to help show how I wanted him to
wake up...he didn't show up at the next class until a half hour after it
started...the coffee I had brought for him was given to another student
who probably read the disaapointment on my face and figured that this
teacher's act of kindness soured shouldn't sour the whole class...when the
sleepy student finally showed up he had this phony sense of surprise that
I would bring him coffee or want thim to be awake in class...who's gonna
catch him, why is he dragging me over his cliff, and why do I still care?
Holden knows, will