The beginning of this entry comes partially out of confusion. What I mean to say I have often struggled with what I guess would be called a moral delimma when it comes to friends. Being a professor, many of my friends are professors--most of them are decidedly human like me, and thus are prone to the same weaknesses we see in our students--we see in them, (the students) the same hunger we one experienced, but with one difference--fear.
Let me see if I can explain. Many studies show that the generations coming after us, coming soon in 2016 and eventually 2017 will be a generation different from what we experienced--a generation different in many ways--this goes to say it seems extremely different from us. My mother and father were very active in my childhood, asmuch as I had teen ridden angst, and as much as I tried to push them away--as I struggled with a type of culture I don't see much the same today--let me be clearer. I was a lazy teen, and i was very lazy in school: this isn't to say i didn't have my own levels of creativity. Here is what I remember, and you can make your own thoughts of such.
I got bullied in school--incessantly I was picked on, which by the way, did not happen in the classroom--no that was one thing that was firm--students who disrupted class were removed--if they continued, they were removed and it stopped, due to numerous punishments--having taught in a highschool, i can tell you, i have seen many levels where that is different today.
One difference, is the use of cell phones. Student misbehavior in the classroom has reached an all time high. Phone use doesn't stop inside the classroom it continues--and after a while, i simply got tired of seeing it continue. I never thought i would be one to give up on it but for the four semesters I taught it was a losing batlle--the attention span of the senior students i taught coudn't be held and the behaviors I saw connected to the phone use were adamantly there to stay.
When I contrast this to when i was in high school i have no comparison--there is none, what-so-ever. Outside the classroom we weren't strictly monitored, but i have little memory of wandering the halls aimlessly--class was class, and it was in the in between times--lunch and the end of the day or some levels early morning when the bullying happened.
Bullying was extreme harrassment then, there was also physical violence--there were shoves--and pushes and the fight usually started with the first punch--so bullies were psychologically waiting for you to throw the first punch often times their out was when a harrassed kid started it, they could pull the innocent vibe. And you know what, that worked to their advantage--i was shoved a lot.
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I was taunted a lot and sadly, physical contact was made constantly on weaker students, and like most students, the bullied kept quiet. It was the 80's and what could a person say. They weren't watching students that closely. Also remember, what could you say?
"Mr. Mendenhall, this kid Brandon B keeps harassing me."
"Well is he physically touching you?"
"Well he bumps into me a lot and gives me an occasional shove."
"Show me."
After of course trying to show a larger man the effet of such a shove delivered of course by athletic redneck, whch was much faster, with much more force an with much more malice of intent--i failed to demonstrate the emotional effect such a attack had, and mr. Mendenhall's advice was the same.
"That didn't hurt."
Yeah, right, it didn't hurt him. It wasn't something he had to deal with on a daily basis.
"Just Stay away from Brandon." He would say.
Walk Away was the common catchphrase of the time.
But walking away was of course sometimes not an option. Other students would get in your way so when Brandon B would shove you, you'd collide into them--then usually there were one or two bullies there to then give you a shove back and tell you to "watch where you were going." Imagine if you will one of them spills something they are holding-- or drops something or if you manage to get shoved so hard you knock them down. Then you know, as usual the person who shoves you is not to blame, as usual, you are.
This of course doesn't remotely stop other kinds of bullying. Knocking your books out of your hands. Pantsing a person--which never ever happened to me--but imagine. Taking your hat from your head, if you have one, playing the god awful game of keep away with whatever these thugs could take from you, down to literally throwing something of yours in an area you cant get to--or breaking it.
Once on the bus, someone took my hat off my head, and then some kid took my hat and threw itI out the window. Its probaby safe to say that if this was a kid's phone--today, there would be repercussions?
Here's what all this comes down to--when i went to college--the level of bullying that i faced was not the same--it was basically understood that we were here to get an education and we did. I was never picked on again, don't get me wrong there were ominous shadows in the one fraternity I joined--but i made it clear that i would not be hazed or put down because we had a academic standard to uphold.
When I compare the bullying I went through, I am often reminded of where it originates--it happens online--the one place where you can usually be anonymous. I remember learning about bullying that was now being policed by schools--cyber bullying--bullying that had a lot to do with being outed by someone, or abused, or people sending pictures and all i could say was, "What the Fuck?"
Seriously, and i'm sure i'll get hit for this--the bullying here is about a person who willingly is tricked into revealing themselves or doing stunts. Come to think of it all i see now are a string of movies that have in part of their stories, the outing on the web, or facebook, or some social media sight--and with the recent Leslie Jones issue and Milo Yiannapolise, all i can see now is people who can't take two steps back and turn of the twinner--twitter has a function called block too--it's very easy to use. There are no mobs of students who surround you and won't let you leave. You can literally press a button and teleport away. And this cyber bullying--well it spits in the face of every kid who was ever not allowed to leave. Every kid who wass bullied through the 1800's to the year 2006. (I imagine bullying was always brutal--epecially when i read my Marcus Aurelius.)
I suppose it is a relief that i dont hear much of kids fighting in schools. In Texas, both kids go to jail--brilliant. In fact i was told that even if a 90 pound weekling gets beaten mercilously by a bigger, stronger kid--redneck thug, the weekling is equally culpable. I was even told that if he gets into a fight he better go ahead and try to fight--do as much damage as possible because he's still going to jail (the 90 pound weekling.)
To my shame I live in Texas and this is the most unfair thing i have ever heard of. It is a good thing I was born when i was born.
This brings me back to the subject of the phones. If my reasoning is right, bullying is now a war of words--to be sure it was a war of words before as well, but again with one exception--you can now get away, you can turn the phone off, you can turn it all off. We have substituted the phone for life. We have trained our children or let them have complete access, not only to communications, but music, film, television, cameras on a constant basis...and in school--and they don't switch off unless made to switch off
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
I'm 42 and I'm tired of selfish people
Along time ago, I argued with my mother over the nature of friendship, and what I thought it meant.
My mother's position was the same as my father's position--that placing too much weight on friendship, was in fact, a fools errand.
Time after Time, my mother and father were right.
So many friends let me down, and I would tell both of them were they were right, but in my heart I believed when I got older I would discover a different level of friend.
In college, pre-grad school I discovered a small few friends, who without too much worry over money, jobs or relationships, were the type of people I wanted to remember and drink toasts too. My professors as well, became the fiery mentors I would always keep close.
In graduate school, my friends were fellow graduate students--and as long as I didn't affect their s5tanding with professors, I was a tolerable individual.
It seems a lot different from the Sit-com-inflated, brothers and sisters, would-be lovers for life that the world shows us seven days a week, but we've always known that was the case. It's very different from the idea that friends become lovers and lovers who breakup become friends again lie told to us by the media and television.
Indeed it was, and in some ways is now the same.
My parents are extremely careful, and were very loving, but here's what i'm going to say.
The world is a deeply psychological place--literature has forever known that, from the works of Raymond Carver, which describe the hideous and psychological anguish that lovers practice on one another. In the past year, I can say warmly, that I have seen committment and friendship, like what I've always believed in from several people. I have, but all i encounter in younger generations, is deep seated, psychological skull-duggary, between selfish men and weakling women.
Sex
In my classrooms, there are few students who dare to speak their minds about such issues. For two semesters we explored ideas about marriage, whether it was outdated, and due to modern sensabilites (Yeah Right,) We might talk about such things as Poly Amorous relationships, the stepping stone to Polygamy, really, and whether the students might have ideas for this. The majority of students, seemed to believe that relationships, were "complicated" at best, but that there seemed to be in their opinion a consensus, from all of them that perhaps "closed relationships" were a little outdated.
In the highschool, AP English classes, we discussed a classic concept such as Tom Jones, telling Sophie, that he "never strayed from her in his heart." In Tom Jones, the titular hero must literally climb mountains and face the unknown to win the heart of the "faithful" Sophie from her father. At the end of the novel, Tom is found to be the true first born heir to the Jones Dynasty, so at the end of the novel, he can be with Sophie.
This of course, happens only after he is found to be the legitimate heir. It is then that Sophie's father consents and Tom is able to be with Sophie. In the inbetween time, Tom pursues several relationships, and a bit of sex, though this has a bit of a toll on Sophie. Still, Tom's statements are clearly the same. He loves her, but the father says no. And when the father says yes, Tom is with who he loves. It seems pretty clear he doesn't go anywhere else.
over the past year, a very similar situation played out in front of my eyes, between a man and woman. In an attempt to keep a man interested, a woman allowed him to sleep with any girl he wanted, as long as he one, "wore a condom." and two, "told her about it."
I believe the latter part of the agreement, was supposed to be in advance, although, in advance of the sex, the idea of him sleeping with someone else, severely hurt the woman. Emotionally, she hated it. And the male, went trolling constantly for sex. The first provision was broken as a promise time after time.
The man refused to wear condoms to be exact. The second provision was also always broken, to be sure, he wanted to have sex with as many women as possible, but he could see the pain in her eyes everytime he wanted to, and he just went ahead and did stuff behind her back anyway.
To make things worse, he was brazen about it-- and ultimately, though he cared or seemed to care for the woman that let him have an open relationship, he treated the women he slept with better than he treated her.
All of this rocked me to my core. The relationship was not rock solid, nor was there much respect--there was a lot of blind eye turning to be had.
Part of me, ached inside over this, because for the longest time, this had an effect on me. I was their roomate. I was the one who also kept his mouth shut, through it, though i was contacted often from advice from the female. And when i thought about the repercussions of their relationship, all i saw was pain.
Not to be a prude, but it seemed like all i encountered for a while were women that were swingers. That's the only word i have for them. They were either Polyamorous, or Pan Sexual, or in open relationships, and all i could see from a distance is that they were in utter and complete tormented pain. Their relationships were painful and fleeting. They deluded themselves into thinking there was nothing wrong, but the root cause i kept seeing was their choices lead to all the same directions. Unhappiness--and a lament for their actions or the actions of their partners.
All of their relationships were claimed by their own choices of infidelity, or inviting other people into their bedrooms. One such aquaintance bitched and complained that his girlfriend had left him for one of this friends-- he later then told me, that he had invited his close male friend into their bedroom, to watch, as he tried bondage on his girlfriend. He was so hurt, that now his girlfriend was with the same man, that I wanted to lean forward and slap him across the face and say, "Why did you invite another man into your bedroom to witness the most intimate thing between you and your lover?"
He was so stupid he could see no point to my argument.
To make things worse, he then decided after he had tied his girlfriend up, to leave and go get cigarettes--he left her to get cigarettes, with the other man, tied up, and again, he didin't understand any part of why i wanted to slap him. He agonized over what might have happened between then while she was tied up. While, i repeat, he left them together, after a semi-intimate act, particularly used in an intimate act. (Sex.)
Over and over, and again, all i see from so called, "Generation Y'ers" is the idea that there are no boundaries, nor should they bother with conventional methods of standards.
I teach college, where i find that many students don't care for traditional notions of study. A. Reading. Many students on the first day of their diagnostic are known to scribble out: I hate reading. Recently a girl said to me at the end of the semester, i hate writing.
AS you might imagine, their work is lackluster and lazy. Their work never improves because they can't practice basic mimesis. If you don't know mimesis is imitation which comes from being exposed to a similar concept and practicing it. So in school, most learning is mimesis--most mimesis is done sublimanally and without effort--through one way--reading.
Students then learn simply by a natural method--reading and writing. Not so for the newest students. Learning is meant to be simple for them. They will listen in class, but not take notes. They won't read because reading is hard, and outdated, they feel. They won't take notes, because notes are outdated. They prefer to "take notes" on their labtops, where they are meremly an inch from Social media, and from that point, what's the harm in postiing on Facebook or chatting. The professor is talking, but what he's rtalking about concerns me not unless he says, this is a major part of my grade.
All of this leads to, I can do it my way. Forget the distinctive ideas that before them, students studied, and had to do latin roots of words--which we barely ask them to learn. Students went to the library to study. Most students have been quoted as saying if everything is online now, why do we have to check out books. Well, to answer the question--EVERYTHING IS NOT YET ONLINE!
So, remember what i started with--It started very early. Those that hated reading, found a way around it. Now, in college, they want to continue as they did. No reading. No books. Writing should be like a text message. If you get it right once it should be good enough. Personally, i have a lot of friends who ride me for messing up a word. I hated them at first for that, but now i bless them. I bless them for making me understand that its not okay to slop something off or say close enough.
No Relationship should be close enough! No agreement between family, or a man and a woman or between a teacher and his student should have any kind of loophole. Some students are stupid enough to believe if i have a grade on an A right now, that it'll stay an A, even if i drop off the planet earth. And YES, they believe this. They believe it because they work so hard to get their grade to an a, and then they stop, and then they get mad because their grade didn't remain an A.
When standards fell for many things, they fell for relationships, and i'm scared of where this is all going too.
My mother's position was the same as my father's position--that placing too much weight on friendship, was in fact, a fools errand.
Time after Time, my mother and father were right.
So many friends let me down, and I would tell both of them were they were right, but in my heart I believed when I got older I would discover a different level of friend.
In college, pre-grad school I discovered a small few friends, who without too much worry over money, jobs or relationships, were the type of people I wanted to remember and drink toasts too. My professors as well, became the fiery mentors I would always keep close.
In graduate school, my friends were fellow graduate students--and as long as I didn't affect their s5tanding with professors, I was a tolerable individual.
It seems a lot different from the Sit-com-inflated, brothers and sisters, would-be lovers for life that the world shows us seven days a week, but we've always known that was the case. It's very different from the idea that friends become lovers and lovers who breakup become friends again lie told to us by the media and television.
Indeed it was, and in some ways is now the same.
My parents are extremely careful, and were very loving, but here's what i'm going to say.
The world is a deeply psychological place--literature has forever known that, from the works of Raymond Carver, which describe the hideous and psychological anguish that lovers practice on one another. In the past year, I can say warmly, that I have seen committment and friendship, like what I've always believed in from several people. I have, but all i encounter in younger generations, is deep seated, psychological skull-duggary, between selfish men and weakling women.
Sex
In my classrooms, there are few students who dare to speak their minds about such issues. For two semesters we explored ideas about marriage, whether it was outdated, and due to modern sensabilites (Yeah Right,) We might talk about such things as Poly Amorous relationships, the stepping stone to Polygamy, really, and whether the students might have ideas for this. The majority of students, seemed to believe that relationships, were "complicated" at best, but that there seemed to be in their opinion a consensus, from all of them that perhaps "closed relationships" were a little outdated.
In the highschool, AP English classes, we discussed a classic concept such as Tom Jones, telling Sophie, that he "never strayed from her in his heart." In Tom Jones, the titular hero must literally climb mountains and face the unknown to win the heart of the "faithful" Sophie from her father. At the end of the novel, Tom is found to be the true first born heir to the Jones Dynasty, so at the end of the novel, he can be with Sophie.
This of course, happens only after he is found to be the legitimate heir. It is then that Sophie's father consents and Tom is able to be with Sophie. In the inbetween time, Tom pursues several relationships, and a bit of sex, though this has a bit of a toll on Sophie. Still, Tom's statements are clearly the same. He loves her, but the father says no. And when the father says yes, Tom is with who he loves. It seems pretty clear he doesn't go anywhere else.
over the past year, a very similar situation played out in front of my eyes, between a man and woman. In an attempt to keep a man interested, a woman allowed him to sleep with any girl he wanted, as long as he one, "wore a condom." and two, "told her about it."
I believe the latter part of the agreement, was supposed to be in advance, although, in advance of the sex, the idea of him sleeping with someone else, severely hurt the woman. Emotionally, she hated it. And the male, went trolling constantly for sex. The first provision was broken as a promise time after time.
The man refused to wear condoms to be exact. The second provision was also always broken, to be sure, he wanted to have sex with as many women as possible, but he could see the pain in her eyes everytime he wanted to, and he just went ahead and did stuff behind her back anyway.
To make things worse, he was brazen about it-- and ultimately, though he cared or seemed to care for the woman that let him have an open relationship, he treated the women he slept with better than he treated her.
All of this rocked me to my core. The relationship was not rock solid, nor was there much respect--there was a lot of blind eye turning to be had.
Part of me, ached inside over this, because for the longest time, this had an effect on me. I was their roomate. I was the one who also kept his mouth shut, through it, though i was contacted often from advice from the female. And when i thought about the repercussions of their relationship, all i saw was pain.
Not to be a prude, but it seemed like all i encountered for a while were women that were swingers. That's the only word i have for them. They were either Polyamorous, or Pan Sexual, or in open relationships, and all i could see from a distance is that they were in utter and complete tormented pain. Their relationships were painful and fleeting. They deluded themselves into thinking there was nothing wrong, but the root cause i kept seeing was their choices lead to all the same directions. Unhappiness--and a lament for their actions or the actions of their partners.
All of their relationships were claimed by their own choices of infidelity, or inviting other people into their bedrooms. One such aquaintance bitched and complained that his girlfriend had left him for one of this friends-- he later then told me, that he had invited his close male friend into their bedroom, to watch, as he tried bondage on his girlfriend. He was so hurt, that now his girlfriend was with the same man, that I wanted to lean forward and slap him across the face and say, "Why did you invite another man into your bedroom to witness the most intimate thing between you and your lover?"
He was so stupid he could see no point to my argument.
To make things worse, he then decided after he had tied his girlfriend up, to leave and go get cigarettes--he left her to get cigarettes, with the other man, tied up, and again, he didin't understand any part of why i wanted to slap him. He agonized over what might have happened between then while she was tied up. While, i repeat, he left them together, after a semi-intimate act, particularly used in an intimate act. (Sex.)
Over and over, and again, all i see from so called, "Generation Y'ers" is the idea that there are no boundaries, nor should they bother with conventional methods of standards.
I teach college, where i find that many students don't care for traditional notions of study. A. Reading. Many students on the first day of their diagnostic are known to scribble out: I hate reading. Recently a girl said to me at the end of the semester, i hate writing.
AS you might imagine, their work is lackluster and lazy. Their work never improves because they can't practice basic mimesis. If you don't know mimesis is imitation which comes from being exposed to a similar concept and practicing it. So in school, most learning is mimesis--most mimesis is done sublimanally and without effort--through one way--reading.
Students then learn simply by a natural method--reading and writing. Not so for the newest students. Learning is meant to be simple for them. They will listen in class, but not take notes. They won't read because reading is hard, and outdated, they feel. They won't take notes, because notes are outdated. They prefer to "take notes" on their labtops, where they are meremly an inch from Social media, and from that point, what's the harm in postiing on Facebook or chatting. The professor is talking, but what he's rtalking about concerns me not unless he says, this is a major part of my grade.
All of this leads to, I can do it my way. Forget the distinctive ideas that before them, students studied, and had to do latin roots of words--which we barely ask them to learn. Students went to the library to study. Most students have been quoted as saying if everything is online now, why do we have to check out books. Well, to answer the question--EVERYTHING IS NOT YET ONLINE!
So, remember what i started with--It started very early. Those that hated reading, found a way around it. Now, in college, they want to continue as they did. No reading. No books. Writing should be like a text message. If you get it right once it should be good enough. Personally, i have a lot of friends who ride me for messing up a word. I hated them at first for that, but now i bless them. I bless them for making me understand that its not okay to slop something off or say close enough.
No Relationship should be close enough! No agreement between family, or a man and a woman or between a teacher and his student should have any kind of loophole. Some students are stupid enough to believe if i have a grade on an A right now, that it'll stay an A, even if i drop off the planet earth. And YES, they believe this. They believe it because they work so hard to get their grade to an a, and then they stop, and then they get mad because their grade didn't remain an A.
When standards fell for many things, they fell for relationships, and i'm scared of where this is all going too.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Questioning and Questionability. Just the Facets?
Out of my many blogs, this blog will be the most questionable. It will question assertions I don't think many people question--all of which I am privy to as a teacher, a maturing man and a nerd with this finger on the pulse of.
It will be difficult to say how often I will question, but as of lately, I am more and more concerned with continuing behaviors I see in the generation next to me, and coming down the line. These posts are extremely difficult to talk about, some might say e3ven harder to pose (question wise) and post (otherwise).
But i will be dealing with the many "feels" and "frenzies" of people around me and as to whether, my generation of the generation to come can deal in a grtownup society. It's hard enough being a grownup myself, but if I try, well, I should probably come to the same conclusion:
Young People today are set on a path of utter destruction. Their wants and needs are irrational and I blame the parents in certain ways--too much irregular punishment and not enough values teaching.
More to come.
It will be difficult to say how often I will question, but as of lately, I am more and more concerned with continuing behaviors I see in the generation next to me, and coming down the line. These posts are extremely difficult to talk about, some might say e3ven harder to pose (question wise) and post (otherwise).
But i will be dealing with the many "feels" and "frenzies" of people around me and as to whether, my generation of the generation to come can deal in a grtownup society. It's hard enough being a grownup myself, but if I try, well, I should probably come to the same conclusion:
Young People today are set on a path of utter destruction. Their wants and needs are irrational and I blame the parents in certain ways--too much irregular punishment and not enough values teaching.
More to come.
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