Dystopian Non-fiction

If you are familiar with adolescent literature at all, then you know that dystopian fiction is just as hot as vampires and all their other paranormal kin. The psychology behind both of these trends has been well-explored: most have a classic, if exaggerated, individual against society conflict that helps clarify what their adolescent readers are likely facing in their own development. There are some analysts, though, that consider these books as warnings.

Tonight on Sixty Minutes I saw a segment on a North Korean prison camp. I had heard of the book, Escape from Camp 14, before. Written by Washington Post reporter Blaine Hardin, it tells the tale of Shin In Geun, a man who was born in the eponymous prison camp and who, against all odds, escaped at the age of 23. Still, I had never stopped to consider what such a life would really be like. 

Growing up in that camp, Shin had no concept of any other world. Everything that any prisoner had came from the guards; there was never any opportunity for one person to give something to another. Love was unheard of, and to this day, Shin admits it is not an emotion he understands. He was conceived as the result of a reward his parents earned. By working hard, they were allowed to be "married" Ina union arranged by the camp administration. Their relationship did not include cohabitation or even raising their children together, however.

In the camp hunger was so pervasive that the prisoners routinely ate insects and rats. Public executions were common, and Shin considered them a welcome break in his routine. Children born in the camp had no idea that the earth was round, much less what else the world had to offer beyond the electrified fence.

And the tale goes on, as riveting and horrifying as any dystopian novel I have ever read. Except it's not fiction. So what do we do with that?

Validation

"How do you like to eat your kimchi?" The woman at the farmer's market asked as she dished up my purchase.

"Lately, I've been making a kimchi fried rice with a fried egg on top," I told her.

"That's my favorite way to have it, too," she smiled and handed me my bag.

Phew!

Good Times

It's profile unit time in my English class. (For a description of this fun assignment, I invite you to click here.) Because of the way the activity is structured, in a couple of classes one student has to interview me. After our first conversation, the student journalist must choose an angle to focus on. This year, one student has chosen to write about the fact that before I became a teacher, I was a chef.

Today, he slipped me a sheet of paper with a few additional question about my former life as a caterer. When were you a caterer? Did you run your own business? What was the best and the worst day you ever had as a caterer?

Later, alone at my desk, I picked up a pen to answer his inquiry. The third question took some thinking. I could recall plenty of nice parties I had worked, but when I was catering on my own, nothing too bad went down. I considered a few of the late nights I put in, and then one memory flooded back. 

Two frozen turkeys needed to thaw quickly, and I didn't have the sink space so I dropped them into the bath tub and ran some cold water. Downstairs, I continued my prep. A little while later, my mom and sister returned from the theater with a friend. As we stood and chatted, the patter of what sounded like rain drops sounded from the dining room. Within moments, water poured from the woodwork and a huge bladder formed on the ceiling. We watched helplessly as it swelled to the size of a cow's udder before bursting like a giant water balloon, drenching half the room.

Long story short? The turkeys had plugged the drain and the tub was overflowing. There was an inch of water on the bathroom floor by the time I shut the tap off, and the only place it had to go was downstairs.

 I'd say that was a pretty bad day.

Purse Strings of Tomorrow

As I mentioned the other day, my students have been composing essays on the topic, Your school has some extra money. They could spend it on sports equipment, computers, the cafeteria, or something else. What do you think the money should be used for?


Now that all their writing pieces are in, here's a round-up of what they thought we should get:

Cafeteria improvements 14
Computers 9
Sports Equipment 5

Those were suggested in the prompt, the other popular ideas were:

Enhanced security 7
Outdoor classroom 4
Video games 3
Pool 3
Anti-bullying device 3
Student shushers 3
Rooftop garden/cafe3
Smart boards 2
Robots 2
Student lounge 2
Magic Hogwarts-style school 2

But an interesting thing about this year, was that we had the most unrepeated ideas, ever.

Better playground with tree houses
Baseball team
Skateboard ramp
Beanbag chairs and clipboards to replace the desks
Better science lab
Fishing pond
Nutella vending machines
Library improvements
More trade books in classroom libraries
Dance lab
More individualized instruction
Theater renovation
Painting the outside of our building
Making our school a certified green building
Underground aquarium
Candy room
Softer toilet paper
More tissues in the classrooms

I think most of those ideas are pretty good. I guess this generation can take over in 30 years or so.

Tempus Fugit

A few days ago one of my students knocked over a bottle of water onto my desk calendar. We mopped it right up, but I knew the blotter would never be the same. The once perfectly flat rectangle of cheerful blue, yellow, and white was crinkling before our eyes, and keeping it would mean spending the next seven months compulsively sweeping my forearm across the page to flatten it back out. still, I couldn't be upset with the student; she had been leaning over earnestly to ask me a creative question about her writing, and how could I ever discourage that?

Strangely enough, this was actually the second time this year that such a calamity befell my day-by-day planner. Every other year, my desk calendar has lasted the entire 12 months it was meant to, but a couple of months ago another student spilled my coffee, again, in heedless pursuit of some truth about the lesson that day.  That time, as this, I ordered a replacement online, and the newest version was delivered today.

After I unceremoniously ripped through the first four months of 2013 and discarded them in the recycling, I set my new blotter on the desk and proceeded to copy my upcoming appointments and events from the old water- logged one. It didn't take me long to realize that this year, while not ending next week like they are in, say, Atlanta, is still rapidly drawing to a close. Oh, there is a lot, okay, too much, still to do, but this was the first time I could see the high noon summer-solstice sun shining from the end of the tunnel, and I was surprised to find that I wasn't gleeful in the least. All I could think about was how much I would miss these sloppy, passionate kids.

Writing Sample

My students completed their end-of-the-year writing sample today. The prompt was a familiar one for me: Your school has some extra money. They could spend it on sports equipment, computers, the cafeteria, or something else. What do you think the money should be used for?

My philosophy has always been that if I teach my students to be good writers, they will be able to write good essays, but over the years, I've read a lot of essays about sports equipment, computers, and cafeteria food. I've also read many about game rooms, student lounges, and pools. The majority of them have been well-written, if a little dry. I guess there's something about the format that students find uninspiring.

Even so, I have also read lots of terrific pieces too. Probably the best one ever was a very convincing argument in favor of zombie-proofing our building; it had me in stitches, no pun intended. I've also read essays on why we need more Kleenex, a proposal to repaint our building brick-by-brick, and even a tongue-in-cheek proposition to replace all the teachers with robots.

Today, however, there were two writing pieces that can be nothing else than heartbreaking signs of the times. One student wrote about how we should invest all our money in enhancing the security of our building. His opening line? "We've all heard about the tragedy at Newtown," and his closing was, "In a peaceful world we wouldn't need these things, but now we do."

The other student wrote a fanciful essay all about constructing a huge shelter under the gym where all of us could go in case of any natural disaster or human threats. We would have bunk beds, walkie talkies, classrooms, and food to last us at least two years.

Maybe a student game room wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Work in Progress

Sometimes the administration requires kids to attend Tolerance Club. It's not so much a punishment as an opportunity to raise their awareness... that's how we spin it, anyway.

Today one such boy attended our meeting. As our activity, we were showing the students the "Implicit Association Test." Housed at Harvard,  

"The Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures attitudes and beliefs that people may be unwilling or unable to report. The IAT may be especially interesting if it shows that you have an implicit attitude that you did not know about. For example, you may believe that women and men should be equally associated with science, but your automatic associations could show that you (like many others) associate men with science more than you associate women with science"

We like to say it reveals a bias for rather than a bias against, but it usually shows some sort of bias. Some of the tests available now are age, race, disability, sexuality, and weight. So the kid who was required to attend the meeting is clicking through and he gets to the end where his results are revealed. "I don't know what this means," he calls out, waving one of the adults over.

She looked at the screen. "Hmmm... that means that you have a bias toward people who are thin over people who are heavy."

"Well, duh!" he answered.