Musing on “Schooliness”
I love RSS feeds, even though I rant about not having time to read them. Today I ran across Clay Burell’s discussion of schooliness. I smile as I muse.
Is it like girliness? — a term meant to demean , but occasionally value at the same time?
I can sense schooliness, even in myself. Like girliness, I try to avoid it yet do not want to push it away entirely. It has its place. On certain days for certain occasions, in certain moods, girliness is OK. Never my goal, just OK.
Now, schooliness…?
Schooliness actually cares whether the line is quiet in the hallway. Schooliness is made of the film and chicken wire they put inside the safety glass insert in my classroom door to prevent shattering (of ideas, customs, or quiet). It blocks the view of what is REALLY going on inside (inside heads, especially those who can entertain themselves while “education” goes on around them). Schooliness is the translator we apply to technology tools so they are “safe” and comply with AUPs. Schooliness is the substitute we LOVED to see as students because she was so much fun to fool. Schooliness is why they invented NCR paper, then changed it to Acrobat files you have to TYPE into. Schooliness is what prevented me from turning in what I really thought in most essays…until I trusted the anti-schooliness of the teacher. Schooliness is what my liberal arts degree ridiculed. Schooliness is what Congress would use to define Highly Qualified Teachers. Schooliness is the make-up that thinking human beings “touch up” as they leave the faculty room. Schooliness is what makes us wear a watch. Schooliness is what my brightest gifted students so aptly parodied as I chuckled and pretended not to hear. Schooliness is “May I have your attention please,” which should warn, “Turn the speaker off NOW!”
I will enjoy thinking about schooliness for days …especially as I look out a non-school window, across my unfiltered computer, watching a lake with no buses or concrete in sight.
There is a definite exhilaration to leaving schooliness behind.
Great ones! Share the love by dropping them into a comment along with all the others for the Devil’s Dictionary of Schooliness? You’ll still get link-love in the comment thread from my Comment-Luv plugin
You’ve got some keepers. Loved the post.
Comment by Clay Burell — March 6, 2008 @ 12:51 am