Here's an interesting thing in the news lately: the Education Department, backed by the Bush administration, is introducing a new policy that would allow school districts to create more single-sex classrooms in public schools, a policy backed by justifications that sound very much like the "separate but equal" mantra of pre-Civil Rights era segregation. Proponents of the policy claim that educational research backs up their case, but critics say that it will usher in a new era of discrimination. What do you think? Do the merits of a single-sex classroom outweigh the benefits of keeping kids together, or is this just another attempt at fixing a problem in the classroom that goes far deeper than its particular arrangement? Click here to read some articles on the policy:
New York Times
Single Sex Schools Website
MSNBC
Since I'm feeling under the weather, I'm not going to be able to make the POETRY NIGHT (see Jesi's post below!!). In the spirit of sharing poems, however, here are a couple by a remarkable poet I just stumbled onto. Edgell Rickword (1898-1982), like Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas, and Isaac Rosenberg, fought in the trenches in WWI. Unlike them, though, he survived. I've only read a few of his poems so far, but I'm going to hunt down the rest. I love both of these, though they're about very different experiences -- death and love, darkness and light. (I hope you'll share more poems that you've written or read.)
"Trench Poets"
I knew a man, he was my chum,
but he grew blacker every day,
and would not brush the flies away,
nor blanch however fierce the hum
of passing shells; I used to read,
to rouse him, random things from Donne -
like "Get with child a mandrake-root."
But you can tell he was far gone,
for he lay gaping, mackerell-eyed,
and stiff, and senseless as a post
even when that old poet cried
"I long to talk with some old lover's ghost."
I tried the Elegies on day,
But he, because he heard me say:
"What needst thou have no more covering than a man?"
grinned nastily, and so I knew
the worms had got his brains at last.
There was one thing that I might do
to starve the worms; I racked my head
for healthy things and quoted Maud.
His grin got worse and I could see
he sneered at passion's purity.
He stank so badly, though we were great chums
I had to leave him; then rats ate his thumbs.
"Intimacy"
Since I have seen you do those intimate things
That other men but dream of; lull asleep
The sinister dark forest of your hair
And tie the bows that stir on your calm breast
Faintly as leaves that shudder in their sleep;
Since I have seen your stocking swallow up,
A swift black wind, the flame of your pale foot,
And deemed your slender limbs so meshed in silk
Sweet mermaid sisters drowned in their dark hair
I have not troubled very much with food
And wine has seemed like water from a well;
Pavements are built of fire, grass of thin flames;
All other girls grow dull as painted flowers,
Or flutter harmlessly like coloured flies
Whose wings are tangled in the net of leaves
Spread by frail trees that grow behind the eyes.
POETRY NIGHT
tonight in the coffee house @6:30
bring some friends and some poetry
(free pizza)
Dear Friends in the English Club,
I know there was nothing remotely wrong about our recent discussion of the Amish (on another thread), but I still feel creeped out after listening to the horrific news today about Amish schoolgirls gunned down in their one-room schoolhouse. I have no wisdom to impart, nothing to say really, but I thought some acknowledgement ought to be made. Maybe some of you are feeling as disturbed as I am.
I don't know what this thread is about or how to open it, but I'd welcome any comments you'd care to make. I suppose we could think more generally about why such things happen. Ralph Hunt just came back from Montreal, where they had their second college shooting. Why colleges? Why schools? Is it just convenient, or does something about these places turn these sad men's cranks (and it's always men, isn't it)? I'm totally outside of anything I know anything about. I'd be interested to hear whatever you have to say.
HH