Love us or hate us, our job is to try to teach stuff to kids, and by-and-large - despite all bloody interference by ministers and tabloids - we tend take an immense pride in our jobs. Sometimes, we even take it seriously.
Last month, however, I was forced - forced, I tell you - to stop teaching a lesson on genre tropes ten whole minutes early in response to overhearing an 11 year old boy telling his group that a genre feature of sci-fi was 'Jar-Jar Binks'.
Once I'd finished spluttering, gesticulating and suppressing profanities, I spent the remaining time putting them straight through a long, multifaceted rant. Here's what was still there of my copious notes at the end of the lesson:
- Drax.
Haha! Good on ya, man. :)
ReplyDeleteTee-hee!
DeleteNicely summed up! Kids these days, they don't know they're born :-)
ReplyDeleteOr - more worryingly - they were born into the era of Episodes 1-3: to teenagers, they ARE the Star Wars films!
DeleteThose kids might turn out alright.
ReplyDelete:)
There's a tiny ray of sunshine on the future right now.
Thanks, SinSynn...
Delete...We do what we can.
Aww, ewoks aren't that bad. But for the most part you're right. Glad to hear you set those right.
ReplyDeleteYes and no.
DeleteThey do feel a wee bit forced in the main films, but what got me was the wretched ewok spin-off films, at least one of which I had to sit through when dumped at Saturday Morning Picture Club as a kid.
Reminds me slightly of the first episode of season two of Spaced... One of my favourites.
ReplyDeleteInteresting story, that.
DeleteFrom what I can remember, Lucas saw and loved (quite rightly) Series 1, and gave the Spaced team carte blanche to make any Star Wars references they fancied.
Then came Binks.
Then the floodgates opened
Apres moi le deluge
Gold!! Glad you put them straight.
ReplyDeleteYeah: teaching doesn't stop at Shakespeare.
DeleteYeah, having a 10-year-old myself, it was very much an important deal for me to make sure he knew what was what with Star Wars. He agrees that Jar-Jar is an abomination and feels that Ewoks are a little silly (Though I never saw a problem with the furry tikes myself.), but his favourite aspect is and will always be the battledroids of the droid army, which as long as they don't talk and just fight, weren't all that terrible. Still no IG-88 or 4LOM, but his clone troopers seem to lose a lot of battles, just saying.
ReplyDeleteMy five year old saw a pair of pyjamas in the supermarket today - they were for six year old boys and had a glow-in-the-dark X-Wing on them.
DeleteShe got extremely excited at the prospect of a glow-in-the-dark spaceship and - pleasingly - recognised it as one of '[my] toys'.
Yes!
Sadly, the design was rather tacky, otherwise...
Boo the Ewoks. Cheer the Ringwraiths.
ReplyDeleteHa! Cheers.
DeleteNow that would be an interesting battle...
DeleteBravo sir!
ReplyDeleteI see nothing wrong with teaching popular culture texts, but then I have a games and media background.
I do however love to remind English teachers that many of thier "classics" were once considered populist trash too :)
Mate: you're preaching to the choir!
DeleteDon't forget that I'm a big film buff and I used to teach A-level media and (briefly) film too.
Quite apart from anything else, I'm a linguist - language is my thing - my highest lit qualification is GCSE, so I'm no purist!
lol, had a good laugh at this with me wife!
ReplyDeleteBut thank you for fighting the good fight, kids these days, they need good guidance
misterjustin from secret weapon, actually teaches a competitive painting class, where he goes into why the new movies are awful, just from a composition point of view :)
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff!
ReplyDelete