andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> Occasionally you get the student with a live
>mind or the ones who mind you can help to spark. For
>the rest, you try to impart some basic skills that
>will help them in their endeavors.
>
And sometimes, it just takes a while for things to click. My son (22)
came by to work on a college paper last night. I was cleaning house and
bouncing back and forth, helping, between him (at the computer) and my
daughter (12) doing her algebra homework. It felt a little like those
situation comedies where one person makes two dates at the same time. It
also reminded me of how tiring competency is.
Anyway, my son, who was the most recalcitrant fuckit kind of student for a long, long time...is finally starting to care and to want to think deeply about things, and to want to know what's really going on. So last night, as he was writing, he was saying things like "I don't like the rhythm of this sentence. What do you think?" and "I've got too many to-be verbs, how do I make them active?" and "I don't know... this is kind of flat and lame, how do I make it more hard-hitting." and even "Should this be a colon or a semicolon here?"
I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
Joanna
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