Sunday, December 19, 2004
Michener: $4/pound
In the back of my classroom, there is a little bookshelf which I placed in the corner to cover the hole in the wall. Actually, only the bottom half of the whole is covered. The top half remained exposed for a little while at the beginning of last year until I covered it with red paper and a map of the world. The bookshelf's actual shelves are missing their brackets, so it's not so much a series of shelves as an empty metal box. But this has not stopped me from filling it with books. In fact, when the school library cleaned out its duplicate volumes and older texts, I scoured through and picked up a few choice tomes in case my students felt like reading. Perhaps the thickest of these was a copy of James Michener's novel Caribbean.
I have never read this book, or any of Michener's ligher classics not so much out of a lack of interest, but mostly due to a lack of time. His geographically themed volumes are several hundred pages longer than a typical novel and with graduate school and everything else on my plate recently, I've never really made time for Michener. And of course, due to a lack of interest and a lack of reading ability, neither have my students. But I keep the book there just the same. In its review of the book, Publisher's Weekly commented that "While the pace is sometimes achingly slow, the dialogue stilted and the characterization skimpy, Michener laces the whole with fiery Caribbean drama."
Which I suppose is about appropriate for how it was used in my room last Thursday, when one of my students decided to use it as a projectile weapon. Now you don't have to be a physics teacher to know that a large hardcover book (assume at least 600 pages...it's 830+ in the paperback edition) would hurt if you threw it at someone. But now make it a point blank shot, aimed at the groin of the opponent...and well, let's just say you get a whole new appreciation for heavy literature.
I had no idea what to do, to be honest. Both students claimed the other one provoked him and that was why they were playing around in my room last period instead of, you know, sitting down and doing their work. I suspended both kids. We'll see how well they argue their sides of the argument in front of me and their parents. They'll likely have a string of excuses as long as a Michener monologue...but that does not mean anything to me. And I hope it means equally little to their families.
In the back of my classroom, there is a little bookshelf which I placed in the corner to cover the hole in the wall. Actually, only the bottom half of the whole is covered. The top half remained exposed for a little while at the beginning of last year until I covered it with red paper and a map of the world. The bookshelf's actual shelves are missing their brackets, so it's not so much a series of shelves as an empty metal box. But this has not stopped me from filling it with books. In fact, when the school library cleaned out its duplicate volumes and older texts, I scoured through and picked up a few choice tomes in case my students felt like reading. Perhaps the thickest of these was a copy of James Michener's novel Caribbean.
I have never read this book, or any of Michener's ligher classics not so much out of a lack of interest, but mostly due to a lack of time. His geographically themed volumes are several hundred pages longer than a typical novel and with graduate school and everything else on my plate recently, I've never really made time for Michener. And of course, due to a lack of interest and a lack of reading ability, neither have my students. But I keep the book there just the same. In its review of the book, Publisher's Weekly commented that "While the pace is sometimes achingly slow, the dialogue stilted and the characterization skimpy, Michener laces the whole with fiery Caribbean drama."
Which I suppose is about appropriate for how it was used in my room last Thursday, when one of my students decided to use it as a projectile weapon. Now you don't have to be a physics teacher to know that a large hardcover book (assume at least 600 pages...it's 830+ in the paperback edition) would hurt if you threw it at someone. But now make it a point blank shot, aimed at the groin of the opponent...and well, let's just say you get a whole new appreciation for heavy literature.
I had no idea what to do, to be honest. Both students claimed the other one provoked him and that was why they were playing around in my room last period instead of, you know, sitting down and doing their work. I suspended both kids. We'll see how well they argue their sides of the argument in front of me and their parents. They'll likely have a string of excuses as long as a Michener monologue...but that does not mean anything to me. And I hope it means equally little to their families.
