Endeavor

Which topics are most teachable? Is that the approved way to decide? Always teach to the test but don’t get ahead.

What do the students know when I tell them A is not B? A is something but not anything. Not B. I am the funnel for the whole world. I don’t even tell them this. They are on too shaky ground to pick up and eat something that is, according to different kinds of probability, a blueberry muffin.

How can I explain that an apple is different when you place an orange beside it? “Is it an apple or not?” and “What are apples used to make?” “How can I use the apple to create something to eat?” Even college students, who know an apple might have been called a “potato of the trees” instead, still can't know what an apple is. The numbers of apples produced in a certain factory in a certain year is chewable, swallowable, nourishing.

I’m teaching them what being fake full feels like, that it can happen in a day or a sentence. That knowledge is something you can gather and store for later, like jams for winter.