An Anecdotal (Re-)Introduction
The date’s hazy, but I’ve distinct impressions of concrete- and brick- lined hallways crowded with lockers and adorned with a myriad of murals. Handprints, sketches, chiaroscuros and landscapes compete for the limited space just above eye-level, crowning the alternating blood-red and maroon lockers that line the halls like so many solemn, saluting soldiers. I recall kicking snow from my boots as I entered—perhaps it is late October, then, or November of 2006—and a chill running up my spine. My name is x, I am a teacher, and I am attending a professional development session aimed at introducing my colleagues and I to a new curriculum.
I help myself to a steaming cup of coffee, hoping its heat shall alleviate my shivering, and take a low-profile seat in the midst of the mid-sized room, hoping to mask myself in its soon-to-be sea of faces. I blink, and the clock nailed to the nearest wall informs me that forty-five minutes have passed. My bladder is screaming, my coffee’s cold, and I’m still rattling—like clothes hung out to dry during tornado season, like a cat crouched in the grass, sensing nearby danger. Introductions have gone poorly, and as I excuse myself to the washroom, I do my damnedest to reflect on exactly why.
Several bold assumptions are being made.
How are teachers and schools intended to implement this curriculum? Furthermore, through the creation of a Knowledge and Employability curriculum, is not the admission implicit that the predominantly theoretical knowledge-base offered to students cross-country insufficient in enhancing potential employability? If that’s not the case, what function is being served, and for whom? Finally, does education even equate to employability? If education is the key to success, what particular lock does it open?
I’m not sure I’m the only one taking the piss here.
November 2nd, 2008 at 5:15 pm
So, I assume that’s the introduction to your paper, mildly amended?
Slick. Also, good use of the word ‘piss’ in a formal paper.
I’ll admit, though, I’m a bit fuzzy on the nature of your _a priori_ objection here. What, exactly, was the thesis of your paper?
November 5th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
That’s the intro (or, really, more of a prologue), verbatim. The point of the paper is… well, it isn’t. The structure of the class and the expectations of the elite are that papers are more exploratory than absolute–yes, it’s as strange as it sounds, and yes, I’m having an extraordinarily difficult time adjusting my writing to it. In that regard, the paper explores the various assumptions built into the Knowledge and Employability curriculum and the roles that educational stakeholders (teachers, students, parents) are expected to play as a consequence and the impact this has for them as well as for the milieu within which this is all occurring.
We’ll talk about it when you get back, yes?