I drove myself too hard today, which is a rare occurrence because I usually know my limits. So now I’m very depleted. It doesn’t help that people conspire to annoy me.
After the ecocritical outrage committed against my scholarly persona, I walk into my classroom and discover that the huge tripartite blackboard is covered top to bottom with crap in the vein of “men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them” and “white men / white women / brown bodies” (because “brown” always precedes “bodies” and never, say, “women” in this cloying lingo). So not only does the blackboard – and poor students’ minds – have to be polluted with this empty blabber but I get to spend the first 10 minutes of my class wiping off the white women and the pseudo-feminist ditties. Somehow it’s the most socially conscious that are the least capable of remembering the existence of other people around them.
And it’s sweltering hot again. Drat.
Clarissa's Blog 
I’m curious as to who wrote that. Was it some student being childish between/before classes — or did some teacher actually discuss that drivel in a lecture?
LikeLike
Do you never ask a student to wipe off a board?
My mother always does, but she works in high school.
LikeLike
This is college, not kindergarten.
LikeLike
I give them an activity while I clean the board. But professional courtesy requires one to remove the traces of one’s presence before next class. Clean the board, put the chairs back as they were before you started, log off the computer, throw away the spare handouts, etc. Normally, people know that this is how it works.
LikeLike
I hate it when teachers leave up all their crap on the blackboard and always clearn mine before leaving the room.
But this sounds more like some consciouness raising exercise by self-appointed Miss Grundies. I wouldn’t be surprised if they gave themselves a mission to write that crap on every blackboard they could find…
LikeLike
So you’re suggesting that this child’s play was propagated by a teacher???
Disappointing, but hardly surprising in today’s education system.
LikeLike
“suggesting that this child’s play was propagated by a teacher?”
More like self-appointed “activists” going around and writing the stuff on any empty blackboards they can find.
LikeLike
No, it was a professor, sadly. We’ve had very few new hires this year (as opposed to back in the 2008 or 2009) and almost all of them had research interests like “coming out experiences of disabled gay refugee children.” And I didn’t invent this. It’s a real thing.
So yeah…
LikeLike
I’ve been here for over 8 years, and I haven’t met a single student who is into this sort of thing. Our students are not rich. They are normal.
LikeLike
All this can be found on Facebook in great abundance. It’s not like this is rare and valuable material.
It reminded me of people who were posting fake stupid tweets by Trump yesterday. Like there’s any shortage of the real thing!
LikeLike
“After the ecocritical outrage committed against my scholarly persona”
Was the outrage that it merely exists? Or did you have to deal with it in a scholarly capacity?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I am also curious to know what happened.
LikeLike
I’m looking for articles that cite me. I always thought that any citation is better than none but I no longer believe that. I’d rather not be known at all in such circles.
LikeLike
It’s on Amazon and free for prime members.
LikeLike
The article?
LikeLike
I once read someone’s angry article, inspired by an event like this. I really enjoyed it, partly because it was a good article that gave me some information I needed, but mostly because the voice was so genuine (since the writer was so mad).
LikeLike