We can't communicate and we're too lazy to care

Writing should be an important topic in schools, but the more I teach, the more I realize it’s not stressed nearly enough. This month, I am teaching a “Fundamentals of English” college course. This course teaches the basics of English to students. I cover parts of speech as well as basic writing skills, and I try to do it in 12 hours a week for four weeks.

Really, it’s not nearly enough time. The students need more time to practice, more time to assimilate the information, and more work to do. In some cases, I deal with students who don’t have a clue what a complete sentence is, let alone how to identify a run-on sentence. There are also students who just don’t grasp why the parts of speech are important, even after I give my puzzle analogy. I tend to work my tail off these four weeks and go home exhausted every night, but I also find it more fulfilling than the higher level classes.

In the higher level writing courses, they have been jaded to the writing process and just don’t want to do it. They have also reached a certain “in school laziness” where they are more willing to slough off the work to the last minute. In the Fundamentals class, they are at least still somewhat excited to the new process of school.

But, in all cases, the writing abilities of some of my students saddens me. How is it that our country is producing graduates who don’t know how to communicate properly? And why have we let it go on thus far? Currently, we are a nation at the top of the heap, but we can’t bring ourselves to educate our children to continue that trend. Instead, we produce citizens who don’t know what their rights are, don’t know how to communicate those rights, and, even worse, are too apathetic to care.

It seems the baby boomer generation, the one that produced the changes in the 60’s and 70’s, did not imbue their children with the same restless spirit. Well, most of them at least (I know my mom did). But they also did not give their children the work ethic that our grandparents had. Our country has lost its inventive spark because it’s too much effort to create, whether it be creation of the lightbulb or creation of a book.

Post-Holiday Blues

I have homemade chili bubbling away in the crockpot and Little Guy is (hopefully) napping. It's still a bit nippy in the house because I have to keep the heat set at 65 to avoid a massive heat bill. But I also recognize that I am dealing with post-holiday crankiness.

Post-holiday crankiness happens to a lot of people. The coming down from the build up and excitement of the holidays leads to depression and unhappiness. I get cranky after the holidays. Luckily, I recognize it and try to offset the crankiness. But, the whole post-holiday crankiness bothers me. Because it bothers me, it tends to make me crankier. This makes for an unhappy dpwnward spiral. One thing I know I need to do, that will break the spiral, is get back into a routine.

My current routine has flown to the winds. It used to be: Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays were teaching days; Wednesdays were my "at-home days", used to get chores and the niggly bits out of the way; Fridays were my days with my mom. Weekends were reserved for Big Guy and our activities. Then, two things happened. Mom's car broke down and eliminated the Friday routine for the time being, and the holidays hit. This event nixed all other routines.

As Big Guy will attest to, I do not do well with change. It is an unfortunate and unpleasant side effect of the ADD, but there it is. A change in routine throws me off and affects me mentally and emotionally. Even worse, the ADD also makes it that much more difficult to get back on track. And if I'm not careful, my distraction can really upset the balance in the household. Big Guy and I are not fanatic cleaners, and Little Guy, for as much as I adore him, is a hurricane and a tornado combined.

What this means is that if I get distracted, nothing happens until I throw a fit because now the house is a complete mess. Big Guy and Little Guy watch me in complete and total amazement while I start slamming things around trying to get things cleaned up. I know the easiest thing to do would be to pick up gradually, but it never seems to happen.

It's times like this that I wish I hadn't married a guy whose cleanliness threshold was so much lower than mine. On the other hand, if Big Guy is the way he is and nothing happened around the house with Crazy Ex unless he did it, what must her house be like now?