Don’t read this article. It’s just ramblings from a tired old teacher whose imagination is running away with him:
Last week I felt the kinship of my colleagues as they all struggle, like me, trying hard on this ship of happy tomfoolery, laughing, falling, slipping, sliding, clutching, fearing, trusting, releasing, bringing in something new to schools, all of us just slaves pulling on long heavy ropes tied to a great, sparkling, majestic flying ship, the S.S. Comprehensible Input, with its cannon blazing, trying to keep the ship from floating away from us forever in spite of the intense winds blowing directly into our faces.
It is a big and powerful flying ship, the S.S. Comprehensible Input. It has over 900 published Krashen scrolls on it. It is looking to be released to real travel, real adventures. We look up at it, pulling hard on the ropes, trying to keep it from flying away, trying to keep it here, trying to give everybody time to get on board before we lose it. We need more ropes and more people hanging on them, pulling that big ship down to earth until the ship is actually ready to fly.
Stephen Krashen and Blaine and Susan and Jason and Diana yell down to us to keep pulling, but we can barely hear them in the storm. I look to my right and there are jen and Robert Harrell pulling down on their ropes next to me. I look in front of me and there are chill and Jim Tripp and Laurie. And, to my left, the Latin team with Bob Patrick and John Piazza yelling out shit in Latin, cursing in Latin with the sweat of centuries on their brow – an odd alliance indeed, given that all those Roman warriors were supposed to be dead, and yet here they are, with new armor on and even sharper swords twenty centuries later!
People are running around cursing in all kinds of different languages. The eyes of conquistadors of another kind squint in concentration – they look like teachers but that is false – they are conquistadors. Judy Dubois yells out curses in French about how being the only person trying to pull the ship down in an entirely petrified country is getting really old. Grant Boulanger yells from the North and we can barely hear him.
Somehow, the ship stays on the ground, more people grab ropes, the ship stays down on the ground for another day, time enough to see if any new people want to scramble on board and get up to find out what is going on from Blaine or Susie and help in some way. Krashen warms his hands around a cup of java, reflecting on how strange it has been that the storm never abated once in over thirty years, and is getting much worse!
Melissa Pierce lays unconscious on the ground, exhausted from being shot with the poisoned arrows of her colleagues at Arapahoe High School over the past five years. Maybe she will get back up in a few years and continue with her work of reaching the kids of the future. For now, she needs to heal.
I think I’ve had too much coffee this morning.
Related: