2002-11-20 - 9:11 p.m.
I don�t know where yesterday disappeared to but coaching my mock trial team and serving as temporary assistant choir conductor for the middle school play just might have eaten up all my writing time.
CULTURALLY DEPRIVED
She sat at the kitchen table, pen in hand, and puzzled expression on her face. �I can�t write this,� she said disgustedly, bemoaning her lack of knowledge. I suggested that she think about times she had read about it. She quickly informed me that she had read almost nothing on the subject. My younger daughter could not write an essay about going to the circus. She�s never been to a circus. She�s culturally deprived.
For years, going to the circus with my kids was impossible. Kat was deeply afraid of clowns. While clowns frighten many younger children, Kat�s fears continued well into her later childhood. To this day, Kat avoids clowns whenever possible. I�ve known circuses without animals and I�ve known circuses without trapeze artists but I know of no circus without clowns.
I dislike circuses too. Animal acts do nothing for me. Clowns often seem mean. There�s just too much, too much noise, too much unrelated action, and too many, too many bodies, too many treats. Walking around down at the staging area for the Great Circus Parade is one thing. The walk gives me control over what I see and where I see it and the area is mainly circus wagons and gorgeous horses. Going to a circus is another, as Day-Hay pointed out.
Eventually, I told her stories of circuses and she wrote her essay but I began to wonder. What would have happened if the writing prompt had been on a test? Would she have frozen? If she hadn�t frozen, would she have lost valuable time struggling with the ordinary experience she�s never had?
The person who wrote the exercise probably thought it was an easy topic that might excite a child yet I wonder how many other children out there know little about circuses. My daughter could write firsthand about buffalo living on a farm, about the ballet, and about diving meets. She could write firsthand about alcoholic aunts, the death of an entire family in a house fire, and about being in a car accident when your parents are across the country. She�s had a multitude of experiences.
Who�d have thought that my middle-class suburban daughter would turn out to be culturally deprived?
LAST YEAR: Good Enough
LAST FIVE ENTRIES:
A Very Strange Feeling (by Kat)
Gloried
Whole Word
Secrets
The Art of the Possible
Not a Tragedy
IF YOU WANT TO SEE HOW ONE IDEA SPARKS ANOTHER ON THE INTERNET, TRY BRAINWAVES
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
