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.

16 responses to “A Scheduled Rant”

  1. Dreidel Avatar
    Dreidel

    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?

    Like

  2. el Avatar
    el

    Do you never ask a student to wipe off a board?

    My mother always does, but she works in high school.

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    1. David Gendron Avatar

      This is college, not kindergarten.

      Like

    2. Clarissa Avatar

      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.

      Like

  3. cliff arroyo Avatar

    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…

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    1. Dreidel Avatar
      Dreidel

      So you’re suggesting that this child’s play was propagated by a teacher???

      Disappointing, but hardly surprising in today’s education system.

      Like

      1. cliff arroyo Avatar

        “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.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar

          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…

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      2. Clarissa Avatar

        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.

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    2. Clarissa Avatar

      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!

      Like

  4. cliff arroyo Avatar

    “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?

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Z Avatar

      Yes, I am also curious to know what happened.

      Like

      1. Clarissa Avatar

        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.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar

          It’s on Amazon and free for prime members.

          Like

          1. Z Avatar

            The article?

            Like

        2. Z Avatar

          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).

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