Today I was in an English class over at Mt. Pleasant High School. Most of the classes were English 3, so 11th graders. This teacher had huge classes of about 35 students. That is pretty rare from what I’ve experienced. Also, from all the whining that goes on by parents and teachers about “smaller class size” being needed to better educate kids, I thought this was a strange occurance. So I asked the class whether they thought having so many kids in the class was detrimental to their learning or classroom experience. First of all, they admitted to not knowing what detrimental meant, but then those of them who verbalized responses to me said that they liked it. They thought it was more fun and they valued the variety of opinions that is possible with that many students.

I’m sure a lot of it has to do with how much respect an individual teacher commands in her classroom, which this teacher certainly did based on the good behavoir by her classes. They weren’t even honors classes, which tend to be better behaved and more focused in the first place.

It leads me to believe that all the calls for “smaller class size” are full of shit. Especially when in two years these kids will be in college courses with 400 other students at a time at some universities.

The other morning before school I had my music on and Tool’s cover of “No Quarter” came on. I hadn’t listened to much Tool in a long time. So right then I decided I’d listen to all their albums. I almost had forgotten how much I like them. The only CD I had in the car was Lateralus, but that was just fine for rocking out while I drive. Opiate and Undertow were for when I got home, but it was difficult when I was so sleepy and watched too many hours of TV last night. Today I will get through all the rest, Ænima and Salival… The Salival set it worth tons of money now because it was a limited edition. It was definitely worth it for the music, but now I guess it’s worth it for a collector’s piece too.

I got a new CD today in the mail. Loose Fur by Loose Fur, a Glenn Kotche, Jim O’Rourke, Jeff Tweedy collaboration. A month or so ago I downloaded a couple of shows that they played back in December of 2002 and was quite impressed. The album is a bit more subdued than the performances were. I am enjoying it as I listen to it right now for the first time. One thing I must say is that I like the Wilco version of “Not for the Season” from the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot demos better than what is “Laminated Cat” when performed by Loose Fur. The instrumentation is much more exciting when Wilco plays it. The Loose Fur take on it wouldn’t have as much of a tendency to get stuck in my head all day. The instrumental “Liquidation Totale” is a very pretty one they did not play at the shows and has Jim playing a banjo. Another notable tidbit is that “Chinese Apple” contains a snippet of lyrics that also shows up in “Heavy Metal Drummer” by Wilco.

The album is short; just under 40 minutes, but it leaves a pleasant memory in my ears once it is finished.

tags: Loose Fur