Back to School with, um, Back to School
Monday, September 15, 2014 at 12:31PM Andrew here with the late and last back to school entry, which makes sense because the 1986 mega-hit Back to School is all about heading back to school late.
Those first few back at school are always a hassle for students, sure. But, they’re probably not that simple for the educators, either. Think about it. It’s your first day teaching a new class of students. How do you make a great first impression so that they’re interested in your class, not just for the first day, but for the rest of the semester?
With that in mind, watching both the students and lecturers at college navigate those first classes in Back to School become even more interesting. Sixty year old Thornton Melon heads back to university as a show of solidarity to prevent his disillusioned son from dropping out. He’s a virtual fish out of water adapting to lowly freshman life after being a business mogul for so many years. He has a number of unusual first week experiences with lecturers with varying degrees of success. But one emerges as particularly impressive; Thornton’s first literature class.
What's a good way to ensure a first day in literature class isn't boring or stolid? Enter Sally Kellerman as Diane Turner in her red sweater, dishevelled hair and floral skirts. How to make the a great first impression to the students on this first day? No preamble, for her, she instead immediately launches into the reading of a passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses...
