PTSD

students are multiplying like rabbits or something

Going home on the bus at midnight and having a student pop up and say "Oh, hello Professor!" in a rather cheery voice is not what I wanted for Saturday night.

Do they have to be everywhere?

The rest of Saturday though: rather good. Went down to "spectate" (as one of my other students called it, in class) at the anti-war gig earlier. It's rather difficult to actually participate when I don't think "our troops" should be brought back home right now.

Talking of "our troops", it's surprising how difficult teaching World Politics without using a pronoun is. I have been doing my best to say "the United States" or "Southeast Asia" but, at times, I find myself slipping into "well, we would have done X". This often happens when I am talking about US foreign policy. I'm not quite sure why I don't use "it"--"we" just slips out, often when I'm making a controversial statement (so the kids can disagree--which they often do with great gusto*)

The kids all use "we" (except the few East Asian kids I have and they use--"the US" or "Japan". They've not said "we" when referring to their own countries) when talking about the United States. What this says about identity, I don't have space (nor time) to get into now but isn't it interesting that citizens of the most powerful state in the world use "we" when talking about their country's policies while others seem less inclined to do so?

Which sort of brings me back where I started--I know I have 37 students in my current class. So how is it that they seem to pop up everywhere around town? A bus at midnight, for ____ 's sake! And, maybe even more disturbing, why are they so cheery?


* I wrote gusto in a post!

Labels: bus rides at midnight, shiny happy students, teaching world politics, who is "us"?

posted by Priya @ 12:22 AM