Today’s World Lit assignment was Tadeusz Borowski’s “Ladies and Gentlemen, to the Gas Chamber.” In the many years that I have taught this story, I think this is the first time it has fallen on the syllabus the last class period before Thanksgiving. I think I may intentionally schedule it as a Thanksgiving week reading in the future.
Class began with a lot of complaining about my even holding a class meeting. Seems many of my colleagues are on vacation even though school is not officially closed until Wednesday. For some students in the course, mine was the only class they had to meet this week, the only thing preventing them from a full nine day holiday rather than a five day holiday. What can I say? I’m a stickler for rules.
As I put the first lecture slides on the screen, the ones with pictures of Auschwitz, there were still rumblings about being in class. I pointed out the irony of complaining about attending class at the same time as we were reading a work of literature about the Nazi concentration camps, gas chambers and crematoria and all. My students usually feel free to offer a whittyish comeback to such points, but none were offered today. Instead, even those students who didn’t read the short story before coming to class sat in a certain posture of respect for the subjects of Borowski’s narrative.
Today I am thankful for the many reminders of what I (and my students) have to be thankful for. Whether it be Borowski’s autobiographical story of one of the darkest moments in human history, or videos, still painful to watch, of students at UC Davis in the pose of silent protest being pepper sprayed, nothing I am enduring deserves even a mention of complaint.
Class began with a lot of complaining about my even holding a class meeting. Seems many of my colleagues are on vacation even though school is not officially closed until Wednesday. For some students in the course, mine was the only class they had to meet this week, the only thing preventing them from a full nine day holiday rather than a five day holiday. What can I say? I’m a stickler for rules.
As I put the first lecture slides on the screen, the ones with pictures of Auschwitz, there were still rumblings about being in class. I pointed out the irony of complaining about attending class at the same time as we were reading a work of literature about the Nazi concentration camps, gas chambers and crematoria and all. My students usually feel free to offer a whittyish comeback to such points, but none were offered today. Instead, even those students who didn’t read the short story before coming to class sat in a certain posture of respect for the subjects of Borowski’s narrative.
Today I am thankful for the many reminders of what I (and my students) have to be thankful for. Whether it be Borowski’s autobiographical story of one of the darkest moments in human history, or videos, still painful to watch, of students at UC Davis in the pose of silent protest being pepper sprayed, nothing I am enduring deserves even a mention of complaint.
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