Thursday at W

So at The Job on Monday, school was closed and we had a mandatory teacher's meeting. There were lame activities that were supposed to inspire team-building, but it was done in the desultory, half-assed manner that everything at The Job is, so it was a joke. Then we worked on classroom arrangement.

The upshot is that I transferred my usual Monday morning tutoring at W to today. I got there extra early (7:30 am) and interviewed Ms. D, asking her a series of questions I wrote myself, mostly about day to day practicalities of the job. I also got to witness an asembly and a recess period, so I have now done my observations. Now all that remains is to write up something cogent on what I saw and what Ms. D said.

During class, some older kids were outside doing gymnastics and exercising with two large parachutes. Ms. D and I tried to keep the lesson going, but when loud foot-tappin' music started coming through the windows, we gave up and let them watch for a few minutes. All of a sudden, one boy said, "The parachute I like is beautiful, with all kinds of colors." There was a sort of general, subdued giggle at that. He went on: "It's not the blue and white one, but the one with lots of nice colors." The laugh this time was louder, and another boy asked (without malice), "Are you a girl, R?" He said "Yes," happily and without irony. Laughs.

I'm not saying that R is going to grow up to be a homosexual. But I have definitely noticed, over the years, many boys who display effeminate characteristics from the moment they could talk. (I couldn't help thinking about the ludicrous national "debate" about whether sexual orientation is a matter of choice. All I know is, I for one never made a choice to be heterosexual --- did the leaders of the fundamentalist hypocritical "Christian" right consciously choose? "Say, look at the buns on that guy! And say, look at that girl's legs! They're both nice --- but which one am I most attracted to...?" If they didn't, why do they think other people did?)