Tickle Phart

Buzzzzzzzzzzt

Do I have any readers left? Twelve months down? I doubt it. But, hey, I still phart now and again...and damned if the brain doesn't buzz or poot out. Very seldom--except for the poot out--but any minimal brain phart is okay. At least then I'm assured I have a half-assed brain.

I'm an excited old phart... stand back, watch out for the splatter!

I convinced the boss lady to add a new class at our branch of the college...journalism. My passion is writing, my former life (prior to my tenure in psych counseling when I returned to Kirksville from Cedar Rapids) was as a staff writer for a major paper in Iowa. I had fun. It wasn't easy. Going in to teach a psych class, well, after all these years, that got very easy; I got very lazy and complacent. The challenge was gone.

The challenge is back!

The students--the ones writing three and four stories a day and wanting immediate response, the one's turning in shoddy work at deadline, the ones not meeting deadline at all--are a challenge.

Fer crine out loud, it's a phart a day with a few of them! I think I'm going to have to tickle the work out of them and forget publication deadlines. Never forget publication and ethical standards. Take our time and get the story right. It's that or beat them, and it's illegal to beat them! I have no desire to phart in jail!

The challenge in my classroom goes beyond my classroom. It goes to public school education. Students don't know the basics of grammar and language mechanics. Deadline? They have no idea what it means to have an assignment in on time. Nevermind we have to meet a publication deadline. No assignmnet = F. No deadline = No Paper.

Challenge Phart.

I used the wrong headline on this entry.

Focus the story, take the story to your focus!