You know that story about how some monasteries require applicants to stand outside and wait for three days before they can enter? After a semester of teaching a bunch of kids who are just there to fill in a blank on their degree rubric, I understand that now. So many people aren’t in college to learn, they’re there to buy a piece of paper. And when you expect them to do more than sit there in class and stare at the wall, they balk. Sometimes there’s one or two good students, but they’re the exception. It would be nice if we could limit our students to those who wanted to learn.

Dinner on no diet day. Gotta love it.

Oh well. I’ll never be an ancient sage of anything, either, and I’m not taking another teaching job, unless it’s teaching photography as art. I’ll never forget the blank faces I got after showing my students “La Jetee.” It wasn’t that they didn’t understand the film, they had just ignored it. Anyway, the sun is shining, the outside is gorgeous, and I’m off.

Posted by Matt on 2009-05-06T00:00:00Z GMT