i walked out of calculus class today

setting: i'm in the middle of explaining how to find the equation of a tangent line to a function at a point, and T asks "what is the tangent line for?" because he's the gloriously everpresent pragmatic, and - as i'm about to explain why anyone would care about lines that hit a curve at exactly one point - i realize that R, B, and J are bickering/joking once again in the middle of instruction. at this point, my mood hollows out, and i rapidly bleed through the following conclusions:

(1) i'm going to start yelling at these kids if i don't act fast (and i refuse to yell at children);

(2) it's embarrassing - for me and for them - that i have to even consider giving seniors in high school a detention for disturbing class;

(3) i've lost nearly all faith in compulsory education that extends past what we now consider the 9th grade; a very distant extention of which is the feeling that if a student does not want to be in a calculus class - and R, B, and J have certainly expressed this sentiment to me both explicitly and implicitly - no one should make them be there; in fact, the extensive "classroom management" that must be developed in a classroom in which a degraded sense of "all students can learn" has forced the attendance of a bunch of kids who don't want to be there (and yes, it is possible for a student to not want to be in a calculus course) actively drains a teacher's productive efforts from those students who do want to be there (and yes, it is possible for a student to want to be in a calculus course). the most nullifying rock-and-hard-place of the educational environment is the fact that if i spend time correcting the behavior of disruptive students, i'll risk dening the education of the productive ones; and, if spend time focusing on the learning of productively minded students, gross disruptions will have to be risked and/or tolerated. it is decidedly not the case that the tautology of "everyone can learn calculus" is coextensive with the problematic "everyone will learn calculus," and hardly related to "everyone can learn calculus from mr. molina while they're a senior at jim hill"; furthermore, it is not wholly upon the teacher (nor is it wholly upon the student) that the latter two statements crumble;

(4) an ethical sea-change: a skinnerian punishment/reward model is a moral embarrassment, and it's often the case in the environment i'm teaching in that the only deterrent for a person not to act is the fear/experience of punishment. this is monumentally contrary to a civil, democratic decision-making model, wherein the benefits/deterrents of an action are heavily influenced by their social/interpersonal context; that is, i see growing in my students the decision-making pallate upon which the act of something like stealing is only undesireable in that one may (if caught) get punished for doing it, not in that there is (even if not caught) something unjust or morally corrupt about violating another (hence the nauseating mantra of "look out for your own," or "cover your ass," or "i'm going to get my own"). in this, cornel west's concern about a "nihilistic threat" is powerfully appropriate. furthermore, the perpetuation of a punishment-for-this and a reward-for-that model - sans social, ethical reflection - is entirely complicit with the dehumanizing authority that is infecting a strange diabetes of the soul; we are becoming overwhelmed with consequence, not embodied with choice - and at some point our faculty of ethical distinction gives way to a nihilism of unhinged self-satisfaction and self-concern.

so i walked out.

i paced around campus for a while to blow off steam, refilled my coffee mug, and returned to the class to finish my pre-tailspin statement. they now know how to find the tangent line to a function at a point. to what end, i do not know.