Wednesday, April 28, 2010

As a hen gathers her brood

Grading high school English papers gives me a new appreciation for the passage in Isaiah where the prophet exclaims, “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you...” Come on kid, I find myself groaning, just put down anything! I’d give you a decent grade for a wrong answer; I can’t give you anything for a blank!

It makes me understand how my thrown-together papers in high school did so well. I never dreamed that half of the kids might not write papers at all. I feel like Desdemona talking with her servant Emilia after the former has been falsely accused of infidelity in Shakespeare's Othello:
DESDEMONA I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!
Dost thou in conscience think,--tell me, Emilia,--
That there be women do abuse their husbands
In such gross kind?
EMILIA There be some such, no question.
DESDEMONA Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
EMILIA Why, would not you?
DESDEMONA No, by this heavenly light!
EMILIA Nor I neither by this heavenly light;
I might do't as well i' the dark.
DESDEMONA Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
EMILIA The world's a huge thing: it is a great price.
For a small vice.
Dost thou in conscience think that there be kids do abuse their teachers in such gross kind? Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?

Indeed, many a highschooler would do (or not do) such a deed, and not for all the world but for nothing. O student, student, the highschoolers that kill the teachers and stone the graders who are sent to them! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!

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