Either we apply Krashen’s work or we don’t. Either we think that the unconscious natural process of just being exposed to the language is enough or we don’t.
The desire for order in the form of lesson plans, all those meetings, all those implied threats that we won’t be approved of if we don’t do what they say, all the physical clutter, all the stacks of paper that sit around our rooms insulting us, all those bullshit emails, all of it is in such stark contrast to what Krashen is really saying, that we don’t need any of it.
In an odd image, when I think of how this control from administrators to do all of this stuff really doesn’t help us become better teachers, I am reminded of how the BP chemicals and oil from the exploded rig have made of the pure water of the Gulf of Mexico a true dead zone.
A recent article in Al Jazeera says that Gulf spill sickness is wrecking lives. Nearly a year after the oil disaster began, Gulf Coast residents are sick and dying from BP’s toxic chemicals.
“I have critically high levels of chemicals in my body,” 33-year-old Steven Aguinaga of Hazlehurst, Mississippi told Al Jazeera. “Yesterday I went to see another doctor to get my blood test results and the nurse said she didn’t know how I even got there.”
Aguinaga and his close friend Merrick Vallian went swimming at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.
“I swam underwater, then found I had orange slick stuff all over me,” Aguinaga said. “At that time I had no knowledge of what dispersants were, but within a few hours, we were drained of energy and not feeling good. I’ve been extremely sick ever since.”
That’s us, only mentally. It is what is happening to us in our classrooms. The pure water of learning, left unfettered, has the potential to take our instruction to new heights of joy, but school policies, forms, the raining down of all that sad stuff covers us in chemicals that do harm to us and our students.
Like the residents of the Gulf Coast, our immune systems are stunned. That is why we are so tired right now, and why we will need the entire summer just to build our immune systems back up to where we can do it again next year.
I don’t know why, but it makes me think of this poem by Prévert (my translation):
LE TEMPS PERDU/LOST TIME – Jacques Prévert
Devant la porte de l’usine/In front of the door to the factory
Le travailleur soudain s’arrête/The worker stops suddenly
Le beau temps l’a tiré pas la veste/The nice weather has grabbed him by the jacket
Et comme il se retourne/And as he turns around
Et regarde le soleil/And looks at the big round reddish sun
Tout rouge tout rond/
Souriant dans son ciel de plomb/Smiling in his leaden sky
il cligne de l’oeil/He blinks and says in a familiar way
familièrement
dis donc camarade Soleil/Say, brother Sun
tu ne trouves pas/Don’t you think it’s kind of shitty
que c’est plutôt con
de donner une journée pareille/To give a day like this to a boss?
à un patron?