pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on fri 8 aug 03
Primalmommy!
BIG...BIG Kiss on the Winds for your cheek!
And...(more amid the writ...)
----- Original Message -----
From: "primalmommy"
> I have been a teacher.. i did poetry in the grade schools,
was a
> substitute teacher (yaaaagh!) in inner city junior highs,
and taught
> high school french for a year between undergrad and grad
school... then
> taught college english at the U of Toledo for years until
I started
> having babies and quit.
I have been a 'teacher' some few occasions, much more
humbly maybe, in the formal
way of it I mean, rather than in an incidental way...
Taught the Bag Pipe, taught some Book Catalogueing, taught
Woodworking, taught Yoga a little, and Taught
'driveing'...taught Target Shooting...I enjoyed these
things...
> Alfie Kohn (wrote "Punished By Rewards") points out that
getting a child
> to comply with your wishes is not the same as teaching. I
could offer
> you $1000 to stand on your head... or I could threaten you
with a cattle
> prod to get you to stand on your head -- but all you have
learned is
> that I can make you do something you don't want to do.
Sounds like a Book I would enjoy to read...
Yes...too...Learning is not-the-same as being 'taught', or
the forms which 'learning' may assume are very delicate so
far as
they may withstand
a scenario of 'teaching'...or withstand the, or a
presumption of being ( or needing to be)
'taught', as premis.
I never 'taught' like that...it was never about 'me' or
me-as-boss-as-teacher...it was allways 'about' the subject,
and I never had any troubles getting or keeping the pupil's
attentions, nor had any troubles seeing them do well with
the things.
What we were or are all used to, was how the act (generally)
of
'teaching' seldom respects 'learning'
of the (actual? austensible?) subject, so much as it is
deluded with itself AS the (covert) 'subject'...
It is the 'Stone-Soup' of (false) 'authority' or
authority-politics.
Institutional 'learning' is a oxymoron.
> By the time my students hit freshman year at a small city
university,
> they were a lesson in what happens when you learn "or
else", or learn
> for the shiny gold star.
By the time they are freshmen...it is way too 'late' but foe
some abstractions as may remain in potential...they
will only 'learn' in certain ways and not in other ways,
certain things and not other things...and will do so ONLY
with the blessing of what they have been ( previously)
'taught'...the deed is long since done...had been 'done' for
a decade if not more...
With 'Trees' one may observe, that to cut off their 'tops'
is not to cease their growth in all ways...
They shall get
'wider' from there, but never 'taller'...
'Wider' is what everyone wants ( of others, of the 'young'
as they 'grow')...'taller' almost never.
> First of all, any parental teachings about alcohol, drugs,
drinking and
> driving, irresponsible sex, etc. -- if they were backed up
with "because
> if I catch you, you're in trouble" -- were suddenly null
and void.
> Nobody will ground you, or take the car keys, or even
know. I'd guess
> almost a third of the kids who don't make it through that
first year
> were promising students who got drunk, got pregnant, got
stoned and
> forgot to go to class, wrecked their cars/health/credit
rating, because
> they had never learned those OTHER perfectly good reasons
to be
> responsible. (Note, in case I sound pious: I minored in
several of those
> activities during my own 5 year BA.)
Parental 'teaching' indeed doth belabour the victim-child
unduely
with no other real 'lesson', usually, than that the
'parent' seeketh
TO 'teach' (dominate, or rather, allay their own anxieties
at the chilld's expense, in ways
as remain unassayed and dominant in them (the parents) as
'loyalty'...)...and to have it most taught of all, that they
are the (dominant, read 'anxious', repressed, traumetised
yet sublimated,
psychotic-normalized)
'parent'...the rest is about moot, or is 'stone soup'...
And never to respect their Children...the Child will be
sacrificed to their idolatries, (to 'what' in essence
occulate 'God'...)and THAT is
the essential lesson. The child (nee Child) as learns this,
as is 'taught' this,
is essentially seduced from, admonished from, coerced from,
tortured from,
or otherwise black-mailed from,
prohibited from, respecting themselves.
The child will fear, will 'respect' in a (vulgar,
consensual) way, the idolatry
to which they were sacrificed, and defer to it's power.
It will seek protection from that violence by appeals to it.
It sacrifices itself...
And there is no one there to notice...
A Child as does
repect themselves would have no use for being
'taught'...they would (rather) be occupied with Learning.
To interfere with this (with 'Learning' as is inseperable
FROM the Child ) as destructively as
possible, is what most parents mean when they speak of
'teaching' their Children...and what they mean when they
speak of 'loving' them.
It is a lie...
And....what all this is 'about', is the politics of (false,
external, psychotic-normalized )
'authority' merely, in which the rest is pretext, self
deluded pretext maybe, but pretext none the less.
It is covert hostility disguised in familiar cultural
normative dramas...it is 'familiar'...it is demanded...
The victims perpetuate the aetiology...are the
aetiology...innured to their having been duped, violated,
innured unto
what they do...become a process as is innured to
itself...the product is the process and the process is the
product...
I often think of the film..."The Manchurian Candidate"...and
the 'Garden Party' scene...
That is very important...(and unseen AS so, as, it IS 'so',
so much...)
If you see through these shams, they will say there is
'something-wrong-with-you'...
> Next: freshmen were desperate to find out who I was, as
the teacher, so
> they could market themselves to me accordingly. Those who
were "A"
> students were in a panic, suspecting that their
reputations earned them
> their grades in high school, another "oh, it's her, i
don't have to
> grade this one, 'A'". They beat a path to my desk to tell
me about their
> GPAs. If we were writing an essay they wanted to know --
was I a
> feminist, or not? Conservative, or liberal? because they
wanted their
> essay to agree with my politics or philosophies, fearing a
bad grade if
> they expressed their own opinions instead of mine. They
had learned long
> ago that the grades go --not to the smartest, or the
hardest workers -
> but those who learned how to play school.
How aweful...how 'well' they had been trained...(become
false - internalized enough fear as not to BE anymore...)
And quite so...unto their own undoing for ever after...as
'adults' not long after...'in' the 'world' as just more of
it...
Even too, as to suppose an existance of 'answers', even as
school hath so long defined and provided them...not to
think, not to learn, but to expect, or expect there
'is'...an, or 'the'
answer...allways a 'plan' made by others...one is (allways)
'given' what
there is to work with, things are defined by others as to
what they may be...allways needing
to be taught...told...tolled...shown, defined..defined by
others...all of it...
All the Jazz of Life...made into 'elevator muzac'...as
maintain the quasi-hynotic 'spells' of self-contempt,
abnigation, betrayal made into comfortzone,
maintained by fear as will never go away...no matter the
disguise or adaptation..no matter the sublimation or
subterfuge to which it is subjected...in which it
manifests...it is the hypnosis of 'death'.
> And it doesn't sink in, until the money is gone and the
GPA shot, that
> college is voluntary..
(But was it 'really'? as 'volentary' as their capacities to
contenance with a calm heart, a rejection of or from their
'parents'
if they did not 'go'?)
> that nobody cares if you cut class.
I used to
> tell them that, first day...nobody's gonna call your mom,
there's no
> detention, you just get to pay a bunch of money and not
learn anything,
> and I have one less paper to grade.
Blank space...
> If it wasn't on the test, they didn't care. If it was on
the test, they
> wrote it down, memorized it word for word, passed the test
without ever
> knowing what the answers meant, and promptly forgot it
all.
Yes...yes and yes again...and more 'yes'...in short,
"Yes"...and thus make they the 'world' in which 'reality' is
known...as just-more-of-it...it defines the
cosmologies...the mythologies as are cast out of the
infernos of one's 'world'...projected..transferences of
'authority' in new disguises of violences as are called
'business'...'sex'...'home'...'job'...'politics'...hospital.
..on and on...
> Me, I just
> composted BALES of notes, exams, papers I had saved from 8
years (on and
> off) of college.. i really thought I would NEED this stuff
one day.
Maybe good for some Papier Mache?
> Now I never take notes, at workshops. Or photos, or
videos. I never
> really got that part about "when I get home, i'll watch
the workshop I
> just viewed through a hole in my video camera". I figure
the important
> stuff will settle into some dent in my brain and come in
useful when
> it's needed.. i scribble down a few formulas, tips and
some mechanics,
> but it can be a distraction.
Yaaaaa...me to...if that...
> I have seen students so afraid of red ink they won't write
anything they
> care about,
For that matter...
Show me an 'adult' who will?
IF we look 'closely' and not merely at the 'actor'...? Or at
the Straw Man?
Or...
YES, and too that may be seen to continue for the rest of
their lives...the 'Straw Man' lives, the Soul hath
subsided...and with rare exception, it shall not
'come-back'...nor is there anyone there to notice, one way
or another...
> and do their third best on purpose rather than
try their
> hardest and risk rejection.
Thus maketh 'world' and 'marketplace' all made of Straw Men
f*cking other straw Men...or straw Women...or
themselves...or all three...and, calling it whatever...it
was all allready
long since moot...it was all allready long since made
false...it was all allready long since 'over'.
The 'Game'
was lost long long before...what is left are the
consolations for resentment to address in whatever guise it
may do so...
'I heart New York' indeed...
The 'rejection' allready happenned unto their (tacit)
satisfaction
in the matter, long long before, pre-verbally of 'before',
and
continually since...nothing
will ever be 'real' after that...BUT the alienation and it's
distortions and void...and the things it gets filled with.
Sometimes we are told, the odd 'Near Death Experience' may
in fact seduce one unto some rememberance of 'other' faith,
other con-fidences...other centeredness...in which to
apprehend Life...
And 'con-fidence', from the Latin, meant
or means 'With Faith'...what they 'live' otherwise, is
consolations for lost faith...what they live is 'faith'
qualified by fear...'faith' in fear...what they live is fear
and the fortresses they build to keep it, or defend against
it, as it, as it meeting it...metropolises, "I heart New
York' is SO appropos...
'Battleships'...not
'Dolphins'...
> In an attempt to unschool
their brains,
> first quarter, I used to give them cartoons from Matt
Groenig's "school
> is hell", doonesbury's comic laments of the loss of
critical thinking
> (baaaaa!), the essay, "a proposal to abolish grading",
another that
> argued high schools are just storage for kids too old to
be home and too
> young for the work force, and should be voluntary... i
collected horror
> stories from students who had been humiliated by teachers
in twisted
> ways, who were belittled, made fun of, hit by rulers and
thrown erasers,
> told they were losers, girls who were leered at and even
sexually
> abused... students whose confiscated personal notes were
read aloud to
> the class ...
I see school (and our present society for that matter, ) as
a protracted dehumanization ritual,
sanctioned by it's victims as 'desireable' to do unto
others...conceeded by parents to dehumanize their children,
to be just-like-them...if not, usually rather, even less
than 'them' so as not to piss 'em off too bad in their own
shame repressed...
I have seen that...many many times...
IN any other context it would be seen as a crime and an
abuse and a corruption of Children to make them stupid,
afraid, and self abnigated..their skill to endure this with
an appearance of servility with an anxious dash of (Straw
Man) 'spirit' for the
rewards, maketh the victimizers (Straw Men) proud.
> does anybody remember how excruciating it
was, in high
> school, to work out your identity, your new sexuality,
popularity,
> cliques, all that?
I did allright with it...it was suffering so much, so many
damaged,
emotionally absent, distracted, self-ashamed, phony, nervous
company as had me wonder if I should not be praying for that
big 'Comet' or Astroid to settle matters unto a happier,
cleaner 'slate'...
My sense of hopelessness derived from how
there were endless 'Straw Men' and 'Straw Women' as were so
identified out of fear NOT to be such, with their false
adapted
selves, that there was almost no possibility of an ingenuous
companionship...THAT...was ( and remains) lonesome...
That is what I will die of.
The slow horror has never abated...even if most of the rage
has.
> All it takes is one horrifying,
embarassing moment to
> change a kid's life, and teachers should be above that.
That usually begins with the emotionally absent, awkward,
stupified de-creature-ized zygote contributeing innurred
hospital acquiescent got-f*cked 'mom'..and her dolt
domesticated butt scratching postureing 'provideing'
primate 'mate'...it begins with 'them'...their
dance-of-'death'...
Anyone capable of 'Making Love' would know
'better'...and...do better.
I would say...it begins 'there', in it's way...
All the 'teachers' may do by the time children are 'in'
hi-school, is to evoke or play on, exploit or twang ynto
obedience and conformity within prescribed limits of
'creativity', the already internalized
horrors of
dangleing Mammal tendrils of unfinished, frustrated bonding
as never
was right to begin with or all along, the insecurities from
that, from
abandonment and lack of ingenuous 'bonding' with their
idiot, spiritually vaccous 'parents', or to
exploit the ongoing con-sequences of it with handy
void-fillers 'distractions and sops, or exploit them in
their
adaptation WITH that unendurable 'balance', unto the
conformity and subjegation to those
outside authorities as 'school' seeks to (transiently) be,
and to seduce
them into, unto, to capitalize on, use
for 'herd'
controll, internalize deeper in them, and normalize as
desireable...that is the (actual) premis.
"Fish-in-a-Barrel'...don't swim any too far, do they?
The void so made, so kept, so demanded, is hungry...and
cruel...and insatiable...
> A local homeschooler is also a school nurse. I heard
somebody ask her
> the tired old question, "what about socialization?" She
said quietly,
> "socialization is why kids get eating disorders.
Socialization is why
> kids come to school with assault rifles. Socialization is
why kids
> commit suicide."
Yes...as it is, it is 'so'...
I think of 'Zed' too sometimes, in the film 'ZARDOZ'...
I liked Arthur Fraine...
And, respected 'Zed'...
I think of the 'Frogs' in the film "The Emerald Forrest"...I
think of Senior "Beeeeeeel"...
I think of that all the time anymore...
> There are teachers who are shining lights, who inspire and
guide kids,
> who listen and see past their facades and fashionably
bored attitudes.
I never met any when I was 'in' school...
No one listened to me...or if they did, they were merely
patronizeing and insulting about it...condescending...I knew
the 'look'...
I have no memory of anything else, but for a few odd moments
or gestures.
Mostly I said nothing.
I played alone...or with friends as I got to see die from it
all messing with them so much.
> Good teachers change lives, save lives. And I have full
sympathy for the
> teachers who have to terrorize kids into respect and
compliance.
There are problems...I do not see them well enough
sometimes,
but...there are problems with the whole thing...the whole
thing IS the problem...good or bad teachers merely belie the
covert premis, as begins with the 'parents' own damage and
curruption un-assayed un-adressed, unremediated, and how
that disjunction begins to destroy the innately reached for
Bonds and Mammal Grace in whose absence, the damage begins,
the
conflict begins, the cannibal-ape comes in as regressive
fall-back...the scenarios as erodes the faith-in-conscience
and
innate benovelent internal 'Authority' and Mammal Grace of
Children to make
them rebellious, servile, subjegated and 'socialized' AS
that...as domite, as false selves as defer to (internalized)
outside
'authority', faith-in-fear supressed as such, and that can
get hard to 'track'...it can be
anything..it is 'hypnotic'...it 'makes' the 'reality' they
experience...it is corruption..it is 'death'...it is
'hell'...
> I have
> taught in classrooms where behind every desk is a panic
button that
> summons the police, and an emergency phone.
I am not sure if that is 'good' or 'bad'...it depends on
one's construence of the (larger) context...
I am never annoyed to hear of school 'violence', it
(already) IS 'Violence'...they are allready killing
eachother, only more slowly...they get indignant or
traumatised if someone is forthright about it.
> But there are also teachers who are burned out, hate the
job but find the
> teachers certificate and retirement plan their best meal
ticket... so
> they take all that anger and jaded surrender to work and
take it out on
> the kids.
Evan as the 'parents' may be observed to do...
...'teamwork'...
> Some are just petty tyrants, people who have
spent a picked-on
> lifetime waiting for their turn to be the bully and push
around those
> good looking young football players, the kids of wealthy
parents driving
> nicer cars, the kids with the future ahead of them, the
cheerleaders who
> never would have dated them in high school.
Sins of the 'fathers'...and the 'mothers'...ARE the
'fathers' and the 'mothers'...and that (more than anything
else) IS their legacy...
To be violated is to be made 'loyal'...and guilt will see to
it in the convolute mystery of HOW this all 'works'...
No where in Nature, no where in the Farae Worlds, no where
in the 'WORLD' is such protracted horror and indifference
and betrayal to be
found.
No where but in the neuroticly and psychoticly (denial
ridden,hypnotised) domesticated cannibal-ape primate
societies in their
self made zoos we call our 'world'...will one find such
evil, such
heartless confusions, betrayals and violence unto the
Young...unto eachother...it is untenable...it is horror...it
is ubiquitym it is 'normal' and people want 'school' to
train them for assumeing a place in it, and so it
continues...
> My feeling is that the system needs reworking.
To be deferential to LIFE or to Humanity or to the prospect
of having Human Beings rather than cannibal-apes, 'people' ,
or 'Straw
Men'...it ALL
needs to end.
The chain must be broken BY individuals as should elect to
reclaim their Conscience...and then act accordingly as much
as they may or dare to do...who may respect themselves then
and respect Life.
Every parent as betrayed themselves already, or was coerced
to do so under whatever pretext, may not but betray their
Baby's ingenuous needs to some degree...the greater the self
betrayal, the greater they will betray their Children...the
greater they betray Life...
The way 'out'...It may not be 'taught'...
It may only be 'Learned'...
And it begins with truth, and begins with respecting
ourselves...the rest may follow, or, at least one knows the
difference...of North from South..of Life from 'death'...one
goes on from there as
one may...muddles as one may, or sees straight and may know
things worth knowing even if one may not 'do' very much as
can make a difference for damaged others.
> In the tens
of thousands
> of years of human civilization, only since the advent of
factory model
> schools has "socialization" meant spending most of your
waking hours in
> rows of desks, in a room full of kids with your same birth
year and zip
> code. Socialization used to mean you listened to your
elders, watched
> adults doing the work of adult life, helped and learned...
followed
> around the bigger kids, learning, and then helped and
taught the littler
> kids. The real world has old people and babies, mailmen
and street
> people, families and workers doing real jobs for real
reasons. School is
> not the real world, not in our system, not today .. and
now kids are in
> that weird same-age-group-society from infancy onward.
We have several generations now...who for all intents and
purposes, have spent their 'lives' in institutions...and
will spend the rest-of-their-lives in them as well,
knowingly or not.
Or as
chattel of the federal government, as even if
only that they have internalized the 'model' AS 'reality' in
themselves,
and to construe institutions as the necessary requirement
for 'authority'...if not as well (approval as safety from
the) 'violence', as the model of
'authority', or safety from the most effective violence as
loyalty TO that violence...if
opinions or information do not come from an 'institution'
they will not 'trust' it...it is not 'real'...one sees this
all the time, every day..on and on...
> I
am rooting for
> charter schools, homeschools, teaching co-ops, waldorf and
montessori
> and any little school trying it a different way... (even
though most of
> the best ideas are reserved for those who can afford
them.)
Me too...
Old Rudolph Steiner, the Austrian Factory, the 'Waldorf'
Schools as came from those long ago conversations...steps in
the 'right' direction..but. maybe not
fundimental enough, especially if they are asked to serve
the interests of what maybe we should eschew as
'result'...or demanded results...but I favor them...I admire
their intent and courage.
That, or wishing for that big 'Comet' or Astroid I been
waitin' for
since I were about 11or so...(before that I was waiting for
the return of the Ice Age to clean matters up...) ...sigh...
It is all so entrenched and enmeshed...few can see any of
the 'pieces', let alone see beyond them...or through them,
or see...to...something 'else'...as a species our heartless
obscene overpopulation makes it all so much more cruel,
confused and
horrible...so much cannibal-ape pressures as ARE defered to,
so much species regression, so much endless mess, so much
way WAY too many 'people' ruining Life and ruining their
environment...horror...ugly cities, ugly living, and so few
may ever be ashamed of
what IS shameful with all of it...they celebrate it as our
'dominance'...our 'success'...our 'uniqueness'...PROOF of
our high place in the scheme of things.
(Allways, somebodyelse's) Blood runs from the chin...
> I loved mel's story about the teacher chasing off the
soldiers.
Yes...and that was in the 'Third World'...their 'teachers'
and schools are NOT anything 'like' what we have
here...Uganda beat the US in about all the grammer school
subjects, and still does I think..old British Text Books
with dog-eared leathery pages...their grade school kids
are academicly ahead of our hi-school kids. One room school
Houses,
breezes blowing through the windows, a Blackboard with
'Chalk' and no 'budget'...about like what we had before god
damned herbert hoover...and a nation of shit heads looking
'up' to the state...and the rest of these fatuous bastards
as
came after.
> You
> should see how big a hen can fluff up, and how scary she
can look and
> sound, if some critter threatens her chicks. If you don't
think I am
> scary, try messing with my kids some time...
Yes...and I do too sometimes!
I believe you...it is so with me as well in some ways, even
though I do
not have Children.
All those ancient, timeless Mammal 'energies' are close at
hand in me for whatever
application they may be satisfied to claim.
It could be a baby Bird or a Dog or Cat or human
Child...I tend to know what-to-do...
And why not?
Manners are a cornerstone of Civilization...
Even as tenderness and respect unto one's (or other)
young...
I think of "Bo" in the old film..."To Kill a Mocking
Bird".
...he knew what-to-do too...
> The best that humankind can be is in every baby that's
born... all the
> screwed up adults you have ever met are proof that we have
not yet
> evolved as a culture to a point where that potential can
be realized,
> that we are not yet able to raise, nurture, parent those
children to the
> best they can be... even those of uswho are doing OK as
adults are
> walking wounded, with our own scars and baggage...
They will do unto others as was done unto them...
I have seen so much of this...it goes on forever in it's
permutations...
> Yours, long winded as always.. Kelly in Ohio. Still
convinced that the
> hand that rocks the cradle rules the world... sadly these
days that hand
> often belongs to whoever will accept minimum wage to do
it...
The abdication of Conscience, the abdication of one's
Creaturehood...the abdication of one's Self Soverainty, the
invasive meddleings and indifferences of damaged inimical
strangers unsympathetic TO
these
deferences...may be observed to have allowed great harm,
great alienation, and
much confusions attendant to that harm, and, as it justifies
itself, it does so as just more of it...and with just more
of it.
Yours, allways as well,
And with admiration,
And some fun,
And some sorrow, and some hope, and maybe resolve...maybe
confidence,
but not for the 'world'....only for the little bits of
seeing
straight (World) , and hence the possibility one may act
accordingly.
Or to Love Life...
And eschew 'death'...no matter it's seeming disguise...or
what role it pretends to assume as someone else's (adapted)
Straw
Man...
It is all far far far more 'gone' than you think.
We are but habituated TO it...and we are so, 'as' it.
Yours,
Phil
Las Vegas
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