My ruminations from the world of Dip Ed

…because I don’t get any more spam. Consequently, I had to remember to search for the blog, then sign in to it. Anyway, I was really, really, really, jack of the spam, so that’s a good thing.

Today, after some virtuous procrastination*, I’m back on the ESL essay - I want to make some headway there. The only pain is that I’ve hit the dippy-dopey part of Brown’s textbook, in which he describes different aspects of the ESL classroom, lesson etc in very general terms. I’m very familiar with the ESL classroom and don’t need to be told to make it interesting, or that our job as teachers is to help students challenge any oppressive structures they may encounter in society or elsewhere in their lives.  I’m all for people not being oppressed, but the vague, predigested nature of Brown’s comments on this get on my wick. Am I supposed to help students overthrow the ANZUS treaty? Perhaps I should be helping the Chinese ones overcome censorship and state brutality, in which case I could really really use some help from Brown on how to do this. Perhaps I could just make a little announcement in each class about the forms of oppression faced in each country…..do China on Monday, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Vietnam on Wednesday and so on until I’d covered all of them. The only problem with that is that I’d probably be unemployed by Thursday at the latest, which I’d find oppressive.

I had enough of this lazy, thoughtless crap earlier on in the Dip Ed. I’m a lefty myself and am alive to the various forms of oppression operating (sexism, racism, the United States, government as practiced by China, Rupert Murdoch….to name but a few), but the lazy way it’s dished out annoys me.  Grrr - Brown can and has done better.  Anyway, now back to study,

yours wearing the lucky headband of studiousness,

Floyd