|
|
|
July 19, 2007
The Teach For America adventure continues...
I was minding my own business recently when I received a bizarre letter officially revoking my status as a TFA alumnus. Apparently, the organization decided that former corps members who had completed one year of teaching instead of two should become personae non gratae and lose access to the luscious TFA alumni network. This was because devoting any resources to us "quitters" has somehow recently become unfair to corps members who did, in their words, "fulfill their commitments." The letter is a fabulously nonsensical bit of non-profit tripe, even going so far as to express a fervent wish that we still remain a part of the Teach for America "community." My friends who, like me, ran away from the program after one year also received the letter. My response mostly speaks for itself. As a bit of context, I should note that Teach For America corps members are employed only by the school districts in which they teach, which reduces TFA's actual role to that of (inadequate) training and (unwise) placement. Also, I will add that as the do-gooding daughter of billionaire Home Depot founder and Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank sits around deciding whether I can have access to free TFA email, an astounding 58 percent of high-school students in St. John Parish--where I taught and where TFA continues to send upper-class white kids to practice its particular brand of educational colonialism--do not have "basic" mastery of English skills. (To aid people in finding this post, I will point out that this month's search terms include "teach for america nightmare," "teach for america terrible" and "truth about teach for america.") July 11, 2007
I have not mentioned the retirement of Bob Barker from The Price Is Right on this blog, an event that signals the end of a childhood era for many of us, I would imagine. I was also sad that the remarkable 2001 dance song "Come On Down" hasn't enjoyed a comeback with all the Price Is Right-related press.
July 06, 2007
I've been tucked away working very diligently on the new release by my band, Ganymede. Our fourth album is due this fall and we're very excited about it. The sound is complex and there should be some surprises on there for everyone. However, the final mixing and vocal work is always the worst. My ears are nearly shot after listening to every passage about a thousand times.
In related news, today I found a funny YouTube video poking fun at the dearly departed American synthpop scene. Dave and I appear in it uncredited as the first "every synthpop band ever" generic shot. Of course, the American synthpop scene was really bizarre to us, even though we were considered to be a part of it. There was a really strange interface with the goth scene; synthpop was considered "light" goth thanks to the towering influence of Depeche Mode. We never really felt at home as part of this scene, which we only caught the tail end of anyway. To us, the "scene" functioned in America mostly as bands trying to rip off DM of various eras and/or other Vince Clarke projects. In other words, it was a genre created from precious little seed material, which kept getting recycled. When "electroclash" hit in 2001, it was similarly created from a very similar set of limited early 80s electronic seed material. The death of both subcultures, I believe, is a blessing in disguise as it allows true fans to seek out more quality music, as opposed to endless rip-offs of "Enjoy the Silence." |