Rate This, Bitch.
I want to take this moment and applaud Jacqueline Arnoldy publically.
I've wanted to retake French class on this site for some time now. At the end of French class today, Mme Arnoldy made a great six-minute spiel. She clearly put a lot of time and effort into something that she spoke to 150 students. That's a lot for a teacher to do at 9:30p.m. on a weeknight. I can definitely respect that, because not everyone will spend time to articulate something to a student audience. I spend time to talk basically to... a student audience. And despite that Arnoldy's much more of the "active-positive" personality to my "passive-positive" personality, but I personally consider this a significant similar interest. Arnoldy's stuff is all passionate and emotional as opposed to ... er, cynical and angsty... but we both write.
The speech in question pertained to a website, "Rate My Teachers", domain of insecure freshmen and bored kids who hear about the site. Apparently, the site holds much praise and abuse along with many unexplained ratings, with almost unanimously bad grammar and spelling (Actual excerpt from an English teacher's page: "definatly the best english teacher"). The site offended Madame understandably, and she stated very well what I felt: That it is unfair to use such a public site and then to sum up a public servant - yes, teachers are public servants - in just 180 characters, probably misspelled. Hypocrisy on my part? Maybe. But still true. She made clear that she would continue to be a passionate and involved teacher and service to the community, despite how this made her feel.
Due in part to Arnoldy's well-articulated, civilized rant, I'm going to re-evaluate French class. The first thing to say is that this will have a decidedly more positive slant, but that this is not because of her speech in class today. I'll admit that her speech did have an effect - but that effect was only to start writing this. I've intended to revisit French class for some time now, and there is no time like now.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Fifth period French IV H is not a good class, certainly not in comparison to other classes.
Arnoldy's "class plan" works like this: Assign reading, assign homework, give answers to homework, give test. The tests are short and sweet to a fault: They don't force me to learn the material, and they don't stress intuition at all. I blame Arnoldy partly for this, because it is she who writes the tests, but moreover, I shake a bitter fist at those who staff the World Language department. This is Arnoldy's first year teaching French IV H, and while she is tenfold more enthusiastic than any of her students, she carries with her the same uncertainty as her students. It is not Arnoldy's fault that she doesn't have the time to teach, plan, and grade as in depth as she'd like to do. Again, she probably could do it in later years, but this is her first swing, and she's still trying, so I don't blame her. Plus, I'll take the good grades that I can manage.
What has always bothered me more than the curriculum of French is the atmosphere. Madame is only twelve years older than her class, and this is her second year with the class. As a result, the class takes advantage of her. Madame is really naive and idealistic about her students and passionate about her work or "cause". She would've fit well in the '60s. Moody? Yes. Because she gets so "into" everything that she does, she is vulnerable to mood swings. She is idealistic in that she believes it is possible for her class to be silent based on trust and goodwill. Instead, the class demonstrates a remarkable disrespect for Madame because it's so clear that she hates having to take a stand against her students. She's clearly a good person, which makes me all the angrier when the class disrespects her, while she personally dedicates all of her mental resources to serving students and the community. It was almost pathetic how happy she was when I told her I'd sign up for French V.
The disgusting stuff that happens in class is in part Madame Arnoldy's fault for not getting her class to take her seriously. She is very generous in helping students to do well on tests by giving out review sheets with every single quesiton of the test on them. Therefore, it's easy to do well on tests without paying attention in class or listening to Madame speaking. Her mannerisms are often comedic unintentionally; her voice is often unusually high and excitable. But that's irrelevant. Students should respect their teachers regardless of how seriously they take the teachers. Regardless of how much they bash their teachers out of class - on the internet, too - actual classtime is always teacher's domain. In French class, Arnoldy should be the supreme law of the land.
French utterly damages my image of decency and faith in my class... This is "Honors French"? Bullshit. I wouldn't consider myself an honors student in that class, much less the scum who come to class each day and gossip incessantly. Get out of my internet.
[Note: I apologize for all redundancies in the above.]
So, I still dislike French. Arnoldy's in part to blame, but the majority of the sin rests on the shoulders of my classmates. Stupid bitches.
SD
Mar. 10, '06
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