KIDS THESE DAYS

I typically find it unbearably boring when people talk about texting and how it's going to ruin civilization because now we say "ur" instead of "your" or "you're." Borinnnnnngggggg.

I remember once making a fool of myself in class laughing so hard when no one else was laughing: The class was called the History of the English Language, and the professor said to us one day, dead-pan, that soon our language would consist of only emoticons.  It's, like, kinda funny, but for some reason that joke really worked for me right then.

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Check these two text exchanges between me and J:

And later that week:

I seriously love language. (And J.)

And I am stoked about this emoji thing.  "Or whatever"?  What!? So cool.  Look how it's "officially" translated.  Language, as Dr. Dyson says, is a public bus; it doesn't work if you try to have your own.  So how did "or whatever" get around?  Who knows that it's "or whatever," and who doesn't?  What other things does this emoji mean? And do other emojis mean?  How do those meanings vary across race, class, age, gender, sexuality?

Want to do research project.

but back to the no-cell phone rule

I posted about this when I was student-teaching, too, but I'm wondering how long it's going to be until cell phones are allowed in schools. Like, seriously.

Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher published an article in the July 2008 edition of English Journal called "Do the Right Thing with Technology." I like them. They gave an overview of their school's technolgy policy, one that focuses on "courtesy" and not "prohibition." They write:

"We asked our students, 60 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and every one of them had at least one of these devices ["cell phones, iPods, cameras and the like"] on their person every day. Our colleagues were frustrated with the amount of time they spent asking students to put cell phones and MP3 players away. The administrators were frustrated at the increased time they had to spend disciplining repeat offenders. And some parents weren't happy when their children had these expensive devices taken away from them in school. We realized that prohibition alone wasn't working and that we weren't teaching students appropriate uses of technology. We also realized that were missing out on an excellent opportunity to integrate technology into our school curriculum." (38)

My Mom always says, "Choose your battles." And honestly, part of the reason I'm anti-cell-phone-prohibition is that I just really don't feel like fighting that battle with my students. Another major part of why I'm A-C-P-P is that I think that there might be some tappable educational value in allowing students to have their cells in school. Some anecdotal evidence: One of my favorite students (yeah, I for sure have favorites) from when I student-taught here is in Sydney's class. We were subbed out of our morning classes today for instructional sharing time with other members of the English department, and while we were gone, said favorite student texted to Sydney's email:

Omg.we don't know what to do the sub aint making what we doing
understanding........

I mean, this is a kid who I practically had to beg to keep his head off the desk for the first few weeks of my student-teaching placement. And this is not the first, but the second time he's texted her about class. Trust me, there's no way in hell this student is going to ever say, "You know, Ms. Azzi, I had a question about that essay were supposed to be drafting. Any chance you can stay after school so we can talk about it?" But if he sees her as easily accessible via his phone, he can still ask those questions.


All I'm saying is, why not capitalize on that shit!? They're going to being their cells anyway. So I hear by call for the 21st admendment of the UHS student handbook.