Today I was teaching young writers about "voice" and I began to wonder what it means to have a "voice", particularly for myself and explaining this idea to twelve year olds presented something of an exercise in ... nihilism or skeptisim or plain ol' resistence to knowledge and learning?
This whole school year I've been trying to teach my students about intrinsic motivation and the values associated with such behavior and blah, blah, blah, then...bam!
A discussion erupts in the minds and hearts of my young luminaries stating, in unison, "Why should we care about writing what we think, aren't we making up a "voice"anyway?" Then I ask, "What do you mean, can you clarify what you're stating?"
My brightest says to me, "If we really have a voice, then why are we always being told how to behave and what to do, no one ever values what we believe."
This is where I started to become sadden and the room went silent and I asked, "What do you all value? What do you believe to be true to your nature, your heart?"
Nothing...stares...then my video game fanatic answers with a grin, "I value my video games, sometimes life... is invented like a video game." I say, "Really, so if life is invented, does it have meaning?" My smart ass answers, "No, writing has no meaning."
"So we shouldn't write?"
"Yes, because I talk better than I write."
I paused and thought to myself, "
what the hell is going on?" I realized they are changing and are at the questioning stage of life, but it was the way the questions happened in class that made me think about when the formation of nihilistic thoughts gather in the mind. Are they changing for the better? Did I ever act this way?
I started to feel like, Bérenger from Rhinoceros, where everything is changing while I'm staying the same and life is out of whack.
Then I thought...
Blank slates, my brown butt, my students walk around in a world dominated by a reality that is partly made-up for them through a 24 inch glass eye that spits irrational venom and here the questions for me becomes, "Can they make sense of a world that thrives on the absurd?" "Was the world as crazy when I was going up?"
Have I turned into one of those people that say, "I remember back when I was (fill in this part)."
I look at my friends children and they all seem fine. Are we fine? My students really caused a tailspin for me, so much so, that I now question what I want from them as students. If one expects greatness, then one should expect crap. But does the quality of the crap make it great then? I need to talk to Dr. K. and have her flex her philosophical sensabilities. That's all I have for now my brain hurts.
the word accord to,
-M
