Today I was trapped in a professional development seminar disguised as an informal discussion about millennial students. Many of the other faculty members in the room were around my same age--Gen-Xers. The presenter claimed to be Gen-X, too. But when he let fly his birth year, I experienced an "Oh no" moment. Never would I consider someone born just five years after my own mother a member of my generation. I think he may have been misinformed.
As were many of my colleagues. The woman sitting immediately behind and to the right of me became indignant when the presenter said, "This is a cut-and-paste generation. They don't see anything wrong with having information on the internet at their fingertips and copying it into an assignment and turning it in for a grade." The indignant woman scoffed and said, "I just don't understand what's wrong with plagiarizing in a class that's not part of their major."
"Oh no" moment numero dos.
I calmly turned around (read: my face immediately began to burn and I whipped my head around so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash) and said, "I just read an article about what we're really doing in the classroom. What we're really doing when we're teaching about plagiarism is teaching about integrity." (Okay, it's a blog post, not an article. Sue me.)
As I said this, my voice rose. I tried very hard to stay in my seat and not rip the face off of Little Miss Plagiarism.
Some of the other people in the room tried to come to my aid and began to make statements about plagiarism, probably because I was the only General Education person in the room--and the only English instructor--and my annoyance with Little Miss Plagiarism was pretty apparent.
To everyone but Little Miss Plagiarism who said, "But it's just words. Who cares about taking someone else's words?"
"It's intellectual property," I snapped. I could've gotten up on my I'm-A-Writer high horse and turned her comment into an attack on me personally, but by then I was so angry and fuming I couldn't even think about myself. "It's about teaching them not to steal. To be good people."
"Words don't harm people," Little Miss Plagiarism continued. "What does it hurt to take someone else's words?"
"Tell Snowdon that," I said. Granted, not my finest analogy. I probably should've said, "The pen is mightier than the sword," or pointed to The Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Female Citizen or The Declaration of Independence or The Fugitive Slave Law (or any law for that matter). But by then I was willing myself not to clobber this woman.
And I suddenly found myself having "Oh no" moment number 3: She probably plagiarized her way through undergrad (maybe even grad school, too), and was voicing a "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" opinion without mentioning her goosey behavior.
I couldn't even look at Little Miss Plagiarism anymore. I was sitting with my arms crossed staring at the large screen at the front of the room where the presenter's slideshow was stalled on the big red print "'Cut and paste' mentality."
The discussion swirled around me, forming a toxic bullshit cloud that I was sure was going to float out of the room, across campus, and into the President's office so he could then say, "Thank goodness they all agree that plagiarism is a practice our students should avoid," before going on with his more important tasks. Because what seemed to be going on was lip service. I hoped my colleagues actually believed what they were saying about the necessity to keep our students from plagiarizing and not simply disagreeing to save face, but I didn't think they were. Somehow, I was sure I was the only person in the room that actually cared about language. About integrity. About thinking.
Because that's what plagiarism does--it removes the necessity of thought. It keeps the plagiarizer from flexing his/her mental muscles and turns them into an intellectual weakling. Millennials are going to end up as the generation that explains why they think what they think by saying, "Wikepedia told me."
Especially with teachers and mentors like Little Miss Plagiarism, who seem to think that intellectual darkness is fine and dandy. If I'd had my wits about me, instead of my temper, I might've hyperbolized and mentioned something about The Dark Ages.
As it was, when I finally regained enough composure to enter the discussion again, I said, "Students plagiarize once and get away with it, so then they do it again and again."
A minute later, someone else said the exact same thing. Which lead me to "Oh no" moment number 4: No one was listening to me. Which lead me to "Oh no" number 5: I was right about lip service.
The presenter interjected with an analogy: "You wouldn't steal someone's car, would you? So why would you steal their words?"
I looked down at my lap. I couldn't believe I was in a room with people who had to reduce the explanation of plagiarism to grand theft auto.
So fell my idea of the intellectual utopia. Which, if I'm being honest with myself, is an idea that began to crumble long before Little Miss Plagiarism made her comment. And it has nothing to do with millennial students. And everything to do with the fact that I seem to continually work around people who don't seem to want to be teaching. They struggle and moan and complain. And never change. They think that teaching is supposed to be easy, something they can throw together while they watch 60 Minutes.
I don't get it.
Little Miss Plagiarism finally said, "So plagiarism is a gateway drug to other bad behavior."
Yes, Little Miss Plagiarism, that's exactly what it is. Now go buy LoJack. And find another profession.
Showing posts with label going to hell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label going to hell. Show all posts
5.06.2014
1.11.2013
The Name Game
...my mother said when i was born she looked into my eyes and knew i was an old soul...i'm pretty sure what she saw was the future i'd have living with the name she'd given me only a few hours before...a name i shared with both grandmothers...a name reminiscent of an old, chain-smoking woman with a collection of porcelain cats...a name i share with this woman:
...growing up, adults told me how uncannily mature i acted for my age...now that i'm in my thirties people tend to look at me and see a young woman, but as soon as i open my mouth the old chain-smoker comes toppling out...i've spent the majority of my life shortening my name just so i could escape the strange club that includes this mysterious lady holding a rose...
...so it should come as no big shock that for the last few weeks what's vexed me more than anything about my pregnancy is what to name the twins...note: already, i'm referring to them as "the twins" and must, at some point, stop this...
...adam has been very helpful in coming up with his favorite choices:
...my choices have been more down to earth:
...at least my shortlist includes the possibility for at least one daughter to come out of the fraternal mix, while adam has (unconsciously?) come up with nothing but masculine superlatives...i actually had him sold on "will and kate" for about an hour before the following conversation took place:
adam: wait a minute. aren't there some people in england named will and kate?
me: i'm sure there are loads of people with those names all over the world.
adam: you know what i mean. famous people, like the queen.
me: (stifling giggles) the queen's name is elizabeth.
adam: those two you're so obsessed with.
me: i'm not obsessed. (realizing too late i'd been tricked)
adam: they're out.
...strangely, we're able to eliminate more names than we actually like...timothy is out as it is a name adam considers perpetually adolescent...i've axed natalie because of a little girl in ellie's dance class who is always late, scratches the other little girls, and generally makes me want to drop kick her across the ballet floor...i've actually fantasized about putting a note in the suggestions box in the lobby that would read "kick natalie out of ballet one"...also on the cutting room floor is andrew, which will always carry a double-negative connotation: that of an obsessive-compulsive who writes his name on all of his toys, and of a thirty-something man watching disney porn on his computer with one hand in a bag of doritos and the other down his pants...
...we've kicked james to the curb (sorry dupratt), along with margot/margeaux, gretchen, heathcliff, isaac, teagan, and phoebe...also on the list as no-nos, any name that could turn the name game into something profane or sexual (for example, chuck)...
...we turned to one of our favorite authors for inspiration, but it doesn't take long to realize faulkner is not a great place to look for girl names: dewey dell, lena grove, dilsey, tennie, sophonsiba, philidelphy...great on paper, as metaphors...not so much in practice...and while i love The Great Gatsby, i don't think i can condemn a daughter of mine to the name daisy (simpering weakling!) nor jordan (boat-shaped, indeed)...tom and nick are names already taken in my family, and jay is just too on-the-nose...meanwhile, fitzgerald is among the strong possibilities, if for no other reason than it was also the name of my beloved cabbage patch doll...
...i've declared war on what i call the "cocktail waitress/pole dancer names"...those in the same ballpark as diamond, crystal, brittany, and scarlett (sorry, johansson, but your name makes me think of an old west saloon, and not in a good way) and anything that simply ends abruptly with an "i"...
...i've further dug in my heels against names that are just made-up jibberish: jamarcus, quiznell, shaqwontons (seriously, this last one is the name of one of my sister-in-law's former students)...adam has put his foot down to anything food-sounding...so things like velveeta, tequila, coco, or chip are out of the question...i'm really torn up about this, as i was so looking forward to yelling into the backyard, "macaroni! cheese! get your asses in this house right now!"
...my kid sister's name is april...and my mother has related to me the folly she feels is the giving of that moniker...it makes her forever young, forever inculpable, forever associated with spring and happiness...she admits she should've just gone with her middle name, elizabeth (where we got our daughter's name) and maybe she would've been a bit more responsible, a bit more mature...thus, i've vowed never to name my children after a season or something from the natural world...no river, phoenix, galaxy, january, june, hawk or bear...
...elizabeth has voted for her favorite names...and while we don't yet know what we're having exactly, she's decided on alexander and penelope...she likes alex because "it's for a boy or a girl" and penelope because there's the advantage of calling her little sibling "penny"...i'm on board with alexander--who wouldn't want to name a kid after a raving lunatic who conquered most of the eastern hemisphere and died of an STD?--but i'm not sure about the whole "penny" thing...though it's worked for penny marshall for years...
...my grandmother, laverne joyce, hated the way i said my name..."It sounds like you're a man, huffing it out. Why can't you make it sound cheerful?" she often told me...i spent hours in front of the mirror saying my name with different lilts and inflections...when we finally got an answering machine, i only listed grandma's name on the tape, never satisfied with what i sounded like saying my own name...and i still hate it...maybe when i'm seventy and sipping bourbon under the florida sun while i bake by tootsies in the sand, i'll eventually feel i've grown into my name...for now, all i can do is try to avoid giving our next two kids the same complex...
...growing up, adults told me how uncannily mature i acted for my age...now that i'm in my thirties people tend to look at me and see a young woman, but as soon as i open my mouth the old chain-smoker comes toppling out...i've spent the majority of my life shortening my name just so i could escape the strange club that includes this mysterious lady holding a rose...
...so it should come as no big shock that for the last few weeks what's vexed me more than anything about my pregnancy is what to name the twins...note: already, i'm referring to them as "the twins" and must, at some point, stop this...
...adam has been very helpful in coming up with his favorite choices:
- jean claude and van damme
- grover and cleveland (courtesy of jeremy young)
- chuck and norris
- jefferson and washington
- aeneas and odysseus
- ben and jerry
- oliver and cromwell
...my choices have been more down to earth:
- orlando and rosalind
- desi and lucy
- will and kate
...at least my shortlist includes the possibility for at least one daughter to come out of the fraternal mix, while adam has (unconsciously?) come up with nothing but masculine superlatives...i actually had him sold on "will and kate" for about an hour before the following conversation took place:
adam: wait a minute. aren't there some people in england named will and kate?
me: i'm sure there are loads of people with those names all over the world.
adam: you know what i mean. famous people, like the queen.
me: (stifling giggles) the queen's name is elizabeth.
adam: those two you're so obsessed with.
me: i'm not obsessed. (realizing too late i'd been tricked)
adam: they're out.
...strangely, we're able to eliminate more names than we actually like...timothy is out as it is a name adam considers perpetually adolescent...i've axed natalie because of a little girl in ellie's dance class who is always late, scratches the other little girls, and generally makes me want to drop kick her across the ballet floor...i've actually fantasized about putting a note in the suggestions box in the lobby that would read "kick natalie out of ballet one"...also on the cutting room floor is andrew, which will always carry a double-negative connotation: that of an obsessive-compulsive who writes his name on all of his toys, and of a thirty-something man watching disney porn on his computer with one hand in a bag of doritos and the other down his pants...
...we've kicked james to the curb (sorry dupratt), along with margot/margeaux, gretchen, heathcliff, isaac, teagan, and phoebe...also on the list as no-nos, any name that could turn the name game into something profane or sexual (for example, chuck)...
...we turned to one of our favorite authors for inspiration, but it doesn't take long to realize faulkner is not a great place to look for girl names: dewey dell, lena grove, dilsey, tennie, sophonsiba, philidelphy...great on paper, as metaphors...not so much in practice...and while i love The Great Gatsby, i don't think i can condemn a daughter of mine to the name daisy (simpering weakling!) nor jordan (boat-shaped, indeed)...tom and nick are names already taken in my family, and jay is just too on-the-nose...meanwhile, fitzgerald is among the strong possibilities, if for no other reason than it was also the name of my beloved cabbage patch doll...
...i've declared war on what i call the "cocktail waitress/pole dancer names"...those in the same ballpark as diamond, crystal, brittany, and scarlett (sorry, johansson, but your name makes me think of an old west saloon, and not in a good way) and anything that simply ends abruptly with an "i"...
...i've further dug in my heels against names that are just made-up jibberish: jamarcus, quiznell, shaqwontons (seriously, this last one is the name of one of my sister-in-law's former students)...adam has put his foot down to anything food-sounding...so things like velveeta, tequila, coco, or chip are out of the question...i'm really torn up about this, as i was so looking forward to yelling into the backyard, "macaroni! cheese! get your asses in this house right now!"
...my kid sister's name is april...and my mother has related to me the folly she feels is the giving of that moniker...it makes her forever young, forever inculpable, forever associated with spring and happiness...she admits she should've just gone with her middle name, elizabeth (where we got our daughter's name) and maybe she would've been a bit more responsible, a bit more mature...thus, i've vowed never to name my children after a season or something from the natural world...no river, phoenix, galaxy, january, june, hawk or bear...
...elizabeth has voted for her favorite names...and while we don't yet know what we're having exactly, she's decided on alexander and penelope...she likes alex because "it's for a boy or a girl" and penelope because there's the advantage of calling her little sibling "penny"...i'm on board with alexander--who wouldn't want to name a kid after a raving lunatic who conquered most of the eastern hemisphere and died of an STD?--but i'm not sure about the whole "penny" thing...though it's worked for penny marshall for years...
...my grandmother, laverne joyce, hated the way i said my name..."It sounds like you're a man, huffing it out. Why can't you make it sound cheerful?" she often told me...i spent hours in front of the mirror saying my name with different lilts and inflections...when we finally got an answering machine, i only listed grandma's name on the tape, never satisfied with what i sounded like saying my own name...and i still hate it...maybe when i'm seventy and sipping bourbon under the florida sun while i bake by tootsies in the sand, i'll eventually feel i've grown into my name...for now, all i can do is try to avoid giving our next two kids the same complex...
12.03.2012
Strange Girls
...okay, i'm sure i'm late to this moral crisis, but i've spent the last few days on the couch watching TLC shows on netflix and i think it's made me dumber than when i started...apparently, the learning channel has become the opposite of actual learning...instead, it's the modern-day equivilant of the turn-of-the-century freak show...it's a televised stroll down the midway of the travelling circus...bearded fat ladies, conjoined twins, elephant men, tattooed women...all those taboos the farmhands came out of the woodwork to observe, we can watch from the safety of our own homes...no one there to see us go in and out of the seedy tents...
...anyone who knows me is aware of my obsession with little people...i'm not sure when it started, but each time a see a vertically challenged individual i want to pick him/her up and put them in my purse...i've never been one to play with dolls, but the allure of small people for me is like that of catnip to cats...not that i would ever rub myself against one, or lick one, or roll around on one...okay, that catnip metaphor was bad...
...i'm not willing to spend my time in hell in the hottest corner by remaining neutral on this topic...i'd rather party with the rest of the interesting sinners...so today i admit to watching children parade on stage in full glitz...my obsession with "strange girls" who sleep around, weigh 750 pounds, or love other girls...to thinking, when i see a man born with no legs but full genitalia, not "how can he live like that, pushing himself around on a skateboard?" but "how does he have sex?"
***
...adam read this post a few hours after it went live and his response was, "that's it?"
"of course," i said "were you expecting some great moral debate simply because i quoted dante?"
he shrugged and went back to his playstation
***
...so here's the great moral debate...dante and i have been friends for nearly a quarter of a century and while i understand that his words, specifically those in the inferno, were used as an attempt to call attention to the hypocrisy and closeted hedonism of the catholic church authority, i see many people in 21st century america using them to justify their own bigotry, ignorance, and hatred (see above paragraphs)...but it especially burns me when i learn of scholars doing this...or, at least people who've used daddy's dime to buy that english minor or phd in literature...they think because they've taken a dante class they're equipped to "teach" dante to their students by pulling out quotes like those above and attempting to apply them to the religion du juor...they define morality by the vague views thrust upon them in sunday school and perpetuated by a close-knit group of friends who've never challenged them to see otherwise...dante was many things, but a soothsayer time-traveler he was not...i'm sure he didn't mean to have his words support southern baptist evangelicals, some of whom spew hatred toward gays, condemn planned parenthood, and actually think jesus wants their daughters to win high-glitz beauty pageant titles...
...and here's another great moral debate...i'm finally, truly, fed up with living in a plutonomy...screw religion being the opiate of the masses...today every item made in china creates a richie rich high for the middle-class...if we can walk into a store and think to ourselves, "i can buy nearly everything in here and still afford dinner," of course we'll let the rich brainwash us into believing what matters and what doesn't...we'll continue to let them wield the power we give them, never thinking for a second that if we'd actually use the power a democracy assures us we have, we might actually begin to live in a society that values people rather than money, hard work over lineage, and--most importantly to me--truth, no matter how hard it is for us to take...
...and of course i think of this now, at the holidays, when so many people around me would have me simply answer the question, "what do you want for christmas?" rather than, "what does this holiday really mean to you?"...no discussion of perpetual hope, the realities of the pagan rituals, who saint nicholas might have been...no parsing of carols or answers to why we put up a tree and continue to wear tacky footwear...just: "tell me what you want so i don't have to think about you again until next year"
 |
| really? even turn-of-the-century carnies didn't know how to use punctuation correctly? |
...so perhaps this post is a call to myself, a challenge to shrug off the niceties and come out swinging...why?...because i was born...
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