That Paradox Explained

I've realised that I never fully explained the paradox I referred to here.

It's the paradox of being liberated and depressed by the same idea.

And so, when LM told me that he had Grand Ideas concerning the motivation of students like The Addams Family, and hoped to learn if they could be dealt with by such learner-empowering tools as Virtual Learning Environments, only to get here and find that he would struggle to provide a book, never mind a VLE. Well, I thought, yes indeedy. I too liked the look of this project, the originality and innovation it involved.

And like LM I got here to find... same old baloney as every other job: get bums on seats and keep them there as long as they're paying, never mind that they cannot be taught, and that they put serious obstacles in the way of their classmates learning too. Never mind. Cram the bastards for an exam, help them get a bit of paper, and move them onto the next level and the next bit of paper.

It IS depressing. Also, liberating. I'm used to this hypocrisy and can survive it.

Young Gomez was whining the other day, not without some justification, that I was trying to show him the trick involved in passing a certain part of the C&G exam. "But I am here to learn English, so I can teach in English."

Which would sound good if you didn't know him, and know that what he's really saying is, "this exam cramming is quite hard work, and I will be found out at the end of it if I don't do some serious studying. I want to go back to nice fluffy tefly things, all those games, where I can bullshit my way through."