on being the man...

today, I realized that I am without a doubt, the man. I rip off my students extra time and I expect them to like it. For the students, the 10 minutes between the bell ending and the bell beginning class is the biggest scrap of free time they get with their friends, or the only chance they get to catch up on homework.

I almost always run my classes long. Even if the kids clearly don't give a shit, I run long, I don't even think twice.

What makes me sure that I'm not so cool and rebelious and anarchistic is that without thinking, I had really started to believe that the kids have no reason to be upset, and in general that the students ought to conform and be quiet and be good students and all that. I really have started to treat the kids like cattle.

I think this is the real face of growing older, enfranchised and conservative. You start to get over the troubles and trials from your earlier life, and start to think about the easiest way to do things, and before you know it, you're just conforming, and loving it. and starting to feel a certain distate with people who are wasting time and effort being silly and struggling with teenage problems.

(The word and concerns associated with conforming start to seem pretty stupid too.)