Listening In

A couple days ago, Darwin and I were discussing a particular movie that came out in the 1990s. It's a movie you don't hear anything about these days and has been largely forgotten. In other words, no one talks about it anymore.

Today, Darwin reported a link to the movie in his YouTube feed.

We only talked about the movie. We didn't write about it on social media or discuss it over email. It was a short conversation of maybe three exchanges.
 

Yes, they do listen, folks. They listen to everything all the time. 

Missing

STUFF I WON'T MISS ABOUT TEACHING
--Putting my classroom together at the beginning of the year
--Trying to keep students focused on a grammar lesson
--Those two students who are late every single day and get upset when I mark them tardy
--Calling students up to my desk to talk about how they cheated on something
--Trying to get responses out of first and second hour students who are still half asleep
--Struggling (and usually failing) to remember the name of the student who is talking to me
--Making sub plans while I'm sick as a dog or in the hospital
--Grading essays
--Getting up at 5:30 AM, especially in winter
--Loaning a new pencil to a student and finding it broken on the floor after class
--Having a regimented schedule, especially for lunch
--Negotiating a traffic jam filled with teenaged drivers
--Dealing with homophobia aimed directly at me

STUFF I WILL MISS ABOUT TEACHING
--Reading OF MICE AND MEN aloud
--Teaching "The Lottery" and "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"
--Discussing hard truths vs. easy lies with my seniors during A DOLL'S HOUSE
--Showing my freshmen the Monty Hall problem
--Getting to the final plot twist in OEDIPUS THE KING, where we learn that it wasn't Oedipus's father who gave him over to be killed as a baby
--Just about all of THE COLOR PURPLE
--Every single discussion in media literacy class
--Telling stories in mythology class
--Grading the annual mythology Peepshow diorama
--The student who suddenly gets it
--The student who shyly says on the last day, "You were my favorite teacher"
--Helping a student deal with a difficult personal problem 
--Finding out that me being openly gay made a positive difference for a student