Frankly, this sounds a lot like freshman physical science back in high school. That year, my school began offering one AP class to freshman, Human Geography. While it did not count towards graduation, I still took it anyway for the experience (good thing too, because it exempted half of my social science GE requirement here at BYU). Because of the added workload, I decided to play it safe and take regular physical science rather than join the other honors kids in honors biology. Originally, I was torn between leaving my friends and having an easier workload, or staying with them and possibly getting slammed. Fortunately, it turned out that I would have been slammed if I had gone the bio route, so it was a prudent decision.
As it was a regular class, the dregs of society came together into one huge melting pot of bad coffee. I was one of 7 white kids, in a class of thirty-five. We stayed together much like the description in “Feed My Lambs”. The other kids were insanely distracted/distracting during class and made it hard to concentrate. I wasn’t a nerdy-study–all-the-time type either. It was that bad. I have to admit though that the distractions were often hilarious and totally worth it.
Basically, I know exactly how Asplund-Campbell felt during her time teaching there. We had a student teacher assisting in our class as well. He always made a good effort, but never really seemed to make too much progress. That’s where my story and Asplund-Campbell’s differs. Mine has less of a happy ending. I wish I could say everyone passed and we all owe to that student-teacher, but that was not the case. In his defense, only six people failed and not by much.
As for Night, I read it for 10th grade English as well, just like the kids in the story. It has always been a powerful reminder to me about not only Nazism and the Holocaust, but for the consequences of action and inaction. One of my favorite quotes of all time from Sir Edmund Burke “All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” In the case of night, that is exactly what happened. The good men of Germany did little to nothing to stop the evil men of Germany. It was only when the Allies had Germany on the ropes that anyone moved to stop the atrocities. Thus, we should all look out for what we can do and not look out for what we can avoid.
I like the connection between the story and your high school class. Too bad those 6 failed, at least it isn't a miserable ending. :]
ReplyDeleteAh, the non-AP classes. I took speech my Senior year of High School and the class was almost nothing but gangstas who knew very little of speaking well. There was always distraction, someone rapping, interrupting, etc, and being the small white boy in the class, it was kinda scary. I was a senior though, so it didn't matter much. It turned out they were pretty nice to me, and I even got a nickname from them, but it seemed we never got much done in class. The teacher had been there for a long time, so she was tough and pretty zero-tolerance, but nice if you were a good student. Somehow we made it through, and had some fun doing it. Oh yeah, and one time one of the students spoke on why we should legalize Marijuana. His argument was basically that everyone does it. Ah, the interesting things you hear.
ReplyDelete"The other kids were insanely distracted/distracting during class and made it hard to concentrate... I have to admit though that the distractions were often hilarious and totally worth it." I feel like most of us can totally relate to this kind of high school learning atmosphere. thanks for helping me relate better to the story!
ReplyDeleteHas anybody seen or read "Freedom Writers"? Well, this story kind of reminded me of the story, save the fact the Freedom Writers passed and these guys failed... pity
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