August 19, 2010

Education administration is the enemy of education.

Off to Ohio tomorrow, and in good time, too, I think, for I’ve entered one of those phases where I seem to be getting on everybody’s nerves. CJ asked me to protest the reduction of theater classes at Asheville High, which I did, and received a note back from the Superintendent chiding me–correctly–for really not understanding the issue. The truly interesting thing is that CJ and the Superintendent gave EXACTLY the same account of the event, but with differences in interpretation that are nothing short of remarkable. I do love English, and all its potential for wild misunderstanding. In the note I sent to the Supt (actually, I THOUGHT I was sending it to the principal of Asheville High, but who knows what routes these things travel) I also asked that English teachers there stop teaching “between you and I” as “correct in a formal situation.” Of course it is never correct, and I wonder what, in English, constitutes a formal mode. ANYWAY, blistering note back from HS, who used to be a colleague at UNCA, excoriating me for slandering the entire English program at the high school (him particularly, I gather, though I didn’t know he was there) and for failing in my uppity way to note that language changes through time. Language does change through time, but in some cases that truth is hopefully invoked to cover up what is merely an error. The wisdom of the folk cannot always obviate individual ignorance.

This has been an awful day. About 1/3 of it is left, and I look for redemption.