Pencil Shavings

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Sex, flirting and teaching

I just watched "The History Boys". Remarkably, it was inspiring and shockingly erotic at the same time. Do the two go together? Is teaching the pushing of new boundaries, just as making out the exploring of territory? It was flirting by metaphors and the stunning use of language, poetry and dialogue played havoc on the mind, even as the action on the screen was decidedly NC(16).

I want to be like both Hector and Irwin. I want to recite poetry; I want to make them think. Yet I have Irwin's timidity and Hector's unfocused—that's a compound noun, like uncoffined, unkissed, unrejoicing, unconfessed, unembraced—wanderings. I want to know, beyond the learning objectives and the grammatical objects, exactly what I want to teach.

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