Teaching, Movies, and Memes

This week something strange happened. I've seen the other side of the coin, and I can't say that I like it all too much. I was going about my day and running some errands something awful happened. I saw students out in the real world.

I apologize for the resolution-- clearly
this picture was taken with a potato

Now we've all been students and so it's fair to assume that we were all shocked when we realized that teachers existed outside of school. I, however, never expected to feel the same about students. Now don't get me wrong, I love my students and I'm excited that they exist-- but seeing them in the real world made me panic. After a brief bout of hyperventilation, I came to my senses and realized that I wouldn't have to answer questions, give out pens, or grade homework. In fact, I'm almost certain that my students are actually people.

On the left: my girlfriend's reason for watching the movie
on the right: a much better reason to watch the movie

Last night I was forced to watch Crazy, Stupid, Love-- while I will very reluctantly admit that I enjoyed the movie I am still fundamentally opposed to it on the grounds that Ryan Gosling is too damned pretty. There is of course, an argument to be made that Emma Stone is too hot-- that would be silly though because she is perfect. All in all, the movie was pretty good though pretty much every character is reprehensible in some way. Michael Scott (or whatever Steve Carell's character is) is a sad sack who blames his shortcomings on the world. His best friend is useless and ends his friendship with Michael Scott at the behest of his wife.The son is persistent to the point of sexual harassment. Julianne Moor cheats on her husband, asks for a divorce and then gets mad at her husband because he slept with someone. Emma Stone-- well, we all know she's perfect even if she does have a horrible best friend in the movie. Ryan Gosling oddly enough, is one of the few characters with whom I sympathize-- he may sleep around, but he never forces any of the girls to do anything, they choose to sleep with him. 

Oh Condescending Wonka, you so condescending

I was browsing the interwebs (Reddit) and I came across the above meme (or macro if you insist). The title of the thread was: "I apologize on behalf of the majority of my generation." This seemed fairly silly as I don't remember hearing about "IDunnoAnyGoodNames" being elected as spokesperson of his or her generation. There are a couple of ways in which I think this type of mentality is stupid.

The most obvious being that one person speaks for his/her generation. The second part is the notion that you have something to apologize for. Even if there are people that think their parents are trying to ruin their lives by grounding them, we needn't apologize for their idiocy. This reminds me of a news segment during the OJ Simpson trial-- granted I have no memory of the event, but we discussed the clip in a CRIM 101 class. 

A reporter goes up to a young African American student and asks him what OJ's acquittal meant for African Americans everywhere. The kid refused to comment-- but we later discovered that he wished he'd said "Well, I heard a white man was acquitted of murder-- what does that mean to you?"

The point being that just because you have something in common with a person doesn't mean that that person represents you. 

Your daily dose of awww