A brief lesson on a pharoah on the Met Museum Art of the Day provoked the comment "Why do people study this old stuff? " Because that is my husband's work, studying the Dead Sea Scrolls, I invited him to create a simpler power point presentation and come to our class. Today was the day. There were eight students present and one volunteer. The volunteer showed me yesterday how to connect the powerpoint to the TV so that was one challenge and accomplishment.
Maybe two of the students asked questions and they were good questions. Most of the others listened politely. One had her head down and barely made eye contact with Jim or the slides. I know he made every attempt to explain clearly and yet I was so struck with how far removed most of my students are from academic discourse. Jim referred to a "quill" and "ritual baths" and "nineteen hundred years ago." I quickly translated that as 2000 and asked if they knew what a quill was. He referred to "Jordanian occupation" and the "Gaza Strip" and the "West Bank" and they barely know where Israel is.
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