The Road Not Taken

We just finished up the poetry unit in summer school and I'm in the middle of grading exams. The first couple classes were ... well, dismal. The last class will not require curving and has provided some smiles and laughs. Especially question 21. Especially S's interpretation of the poem.

On The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost
21. What do you think the poem means? What is the poet telling the reader about?

Refresh your memory if you haven't read it in awhile. It's good for you. Skip down to the end if you're lazy.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

And the student's response:

He is a traveler, I think. Maybe it's about love, so he needs to choose which would be the better one. He decided to break up with two girls at the same moment.

I'll admit there was a WTF moment upon reading the answer, but then I looked at a couple lines of the poem, figured, yeah, why not, and gave him full marks.

• Yellow, in Chinese, can mean pornographic, as in "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood."
• The line "...I stood/and looked down  one as far as I could/To where it bent in the undergrowth/ Then took the other, as just as fair" certainly could be interpreted as being "Yellow" as they say around here. 
• But the next phrase about the fair one "...having perhaps the better claim/ Because it was grassy and wanted wear" hits it out of the park. 

The student didn't use specific examples from the poem to defend his answer, but another one that could offer him some help would have been "And both that morning equally lay."

I shall indeed be "telling this with a sigh/somewhere ages and ages hence" whenever I teach this poem as a morality tale about running around with loose women. God bless that kid. Drove me crazy all year long and then provided me with the biggest gut laugh I've had in quite some time this morning.

Taiwan School Tuff on Kidz!

Let's hear it for the Humanistic Education Foundation of Taiwan! Bless their little hearts, they didn't get the memo that sez "Taiwan is just like that" when it came out. There's an article in Taipei Times today under the headline: Junior high school kids overworked, foundation warns.

Check out this gem from HEF president Shih Ying (史英):

Prolonged study hours have zero benefits on a student’s ability to learn.

It seems that over 80% of Taiwan's junior high school kids spend more than 45 hours a week in school. If my math is correct, that's 5 hours longer than a 40 hour workweek. HEF recommends the 888 daily plan (in addition to being my nickname, 888 is a number that stands for good luck...although my coworker has never heard this..there I go again makin' shit up.) The three 8's are 8 hours in class, 8 hours asleep, and 8 hours of leisure time, presumably spent in front of a television set, but it's a nice sentiment.

The educators also say that "excess study hours have adverse effects on a student’s cognitive and interpersonal development" and that the teen years mark "a crucial time to develop independent and critical thinking."

Yeah, well. Good luck with that. I think that right after hell freezes over and the education department decides to cut the school day in half, the enrollment in cram schools is going to go through the roof.

Ready, Set, Stress

If it's Taiwan, it must be Test Season. They usually show up soon after the mosquitoes. At our After School gig, the first graders had tests on last Wednesday and Thursday. Half of our kids got 100's on both of their tests and were treated to McDonald's Happy Meals. Not bad. Not a good habit for our overachievers, unless we want a nation of Fatties. But that's neither here nor there, nor here, nor now. That's for their spotty future self to sort out. Happy Meal equals Happy Student Equals Happy Till.

Is everybody Happy? Sssssssurrrrrr......NOPE. There was a kid on Wednesday who left with his mom and dad nipping at his heels upbraiding him on the sidewalk for his dismal performance on the math test. Seven year old kid. Didn't work hard enough. His future is headed straight for the toilet. Can you believe that he would show his face in public after scoring a 96? You've noticed I haven't mentioned the boy's name for fear of causing further loss of face to his family.

96! Not GOOD ENOUGH, MATE!

Shit man, my brother Pete and I would have never graduated. We'd've wound up working in a gas station.

In other child abuse news. We've got a policy...because this is how Taiwan is and it's foolish for anyone to complain because what is ever going to change but check this out anyway. We've got this policy for our first grade students that they have to read a book every day before they go home. GREAT, huh? I thought so, too, that's why I okayed it. I didn't have a choice, but it makes me feel good. Just like in a marriage. So, they have to read a book out loud before they go home. There's a kid, will call him "Potato Head Bobby," who is always the last to go home. Always stuck here reading. HATES reading now. I think it might be because he has to read a 90 page book every day before goes home. No pictures.

That's Taiwan!