Tarsis: This is news?

So I have a three day weekend! Monday is Labor day, a national holiday. On top of that, my english teacher will be out of town on friday, so I'll only have one class! :D This gives me more time to work on my paper.

So my english teacher is irritating. We read short stories about girls being dragged out of their homes and murdered, about conditions in rural Peru, about what happens to you when you're the maid's daughter, etc. Then she goes off on long diatribes about how the world is a horrible place. "It's horrible," she says, "and we don't realize it because we live in such a nice country." I admit that it's important that people know how horrible a place the world can be. I admit that ultimately her point is to make us feel more grateful about our education and hopeful about our prospects in life and that this is a good point to be making.

However, I have two issues with this. First, she's distracting the class from the actual study of English. She spends so long making her point about how the world is a Bad Place that we don't talk about the art of writing. Metaphor, simile, allegory, tone: we don't talk about any of these things. On top of that, I think she's intimidating my classmates, making it even less likely for them to start talking in class. She doesn't keep her eyes open for students raising their hands to talk about the piece, so if you wanted to comment on one point the teacher made, you have to wait until she's made four or five more. By the time you want to comment on how the author purposefully left out women in his story (and why), she's talking about how horrible it is that Muslim women end up covered head to toe. The story took place in Argentina.

Second, I already know all of this. I've seen houses made out of plywood, tarp, and garbage bags. I already knew that some people will maim children to make them more effective beggars. I know that when China had a huge drought in the last century, people were down to eating dirt. Literally, they were eating dirt. I've had to deal with my guilt about being arbitrarily given a chance to make something of myself. It's in the past.

The worst part is that there isn't much I can do that won't get me kicked out of class. At least, I haven't thought of anything short of calling her out on it, and I can't think of a nice way to word, "You need to stop talking about the issues and start talking about English."

But hey, I don't have to see her again until Wednesday, and then it'll be two days of presentations by my classmates! So no lecture from her for over a week! :D