Zimnizzle has been emailing me random quotes (possible blurbs?) from current students that sometimes make me poop a little when I read them. They also remind me of those moments during graduate school when the morning light of South Florida—pale, mocking, smiley—fell in bars over my desk, the tumultuous stacks of student papers. And then I would get that golden sentence, the one of utter, joyful incomprehensibility. Not a sentence of brilliance, but the sentence that provoked—How in the hell did this human being decide these words should be aligned together in a linear fashion? Or as one of Cory’s students suggested: “All the miseries of war are like moist toilets on the eyes” (I’m paraphrasing here, but not with the moist toilets on the eyes—a phrase I question should belong in any language).
I preface this because I truly miss those sentences, sentences I swore I would compile one day and publish as an English teacher potty book. Furthermore, since I rarely have anything of real biographical interest to blog about, I figured now would be a good time for me to dig through the sepulture of student writings I have saved on the HD for shits and giggles. I’m not quite sure if I forced my students properly to waive their intellectual property rights on their “writings,” but I’m quite sure (from their work) that they aren’t out on the internet or the real world reading for fun. My students would never read this even if I assigned it in class and tattooed the address on their privates. So like any aging Jackdaw, it’s time to spread out my worthless treasures in the nest and look at them.
To kick this off, I’ll start with some lines from an essay responding to some Foucault’ Fo’ Sho. Note: No edits have been made. No animals have been violated in the reproduction.
“After reding Michel Foucault’s essay, “Panopticism”, I understood that I may not or may be being really watched but it is the allusion of being watched, or I could very well have someone watching me. Panopticism is all around me.”
Eat your heart out Joe “the plumber” McCarthy. “Reding” I won’t touch. I was always stuck on the “allusion of being watched.” It has something poetically possible with its brain knotting logic. Being watched by something that isn’t really there? Or knowing you are not under watch, but an implication of being watched that nudges the possibility of being watched? Maybe that is the suffocating glory of panopticism, or more precisely, how panopticism is all around me.
“In school I would always notice that all the desks in the classroom are mostly the same, and all look alike. Panoptism is every where in school.”
Um…yeah. Had no idea the desk manufactures were in on it too.
“The teacher can see the whole classroom but the students cannot.”
That works on so many levels. Deep.
“Christian churches have a wordy panoptic affect on the Christians.”
Wordy came to mind many times when reading this essay. The string of Christian, wordy and affect is different.
Last one, I promise:
“Connected with the prisoners the Christians do not know if God is really watching but it is the suggestion of being watched, hence the panopticism and those who like religion”
No, this isn’t out of context. This was a self-standing conclusion. Those who have taught freshman English know that getting a robust conclusion is damn near impossible. The close as you come is a copy and pasted introduction. Other than that, I can’t unpack this last quote. I was sort of there with 'Christians connected to prisoners', but the last hurricane of logic left me feeling like the student who can’t see the classroom.
