Taylor Mali on what teachers make

The perfect riposte to the old “those who can, do…” canard.

CC BY-SA 4.0 Taylor Mali on what teachers make by Dr Rob Spence is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

10 Responses to “Taylor Mali on what teachers make”

  1. That was wonderful! bibliobibuli – I want to pass it on too! I’ve always hated that saying, “…those who can’t, teach…” because if you can’t do it, you can’t teach it!

    Thanks for that Rob. You’ve made my morning!

  2. On a tangent, and certainly not to detract from this wonderful, wonderful piece of work and performance, another of Mali’s poems entitled “Totally, like, whatever you know?” is also very good, and so, so TRUE!!
    This guy is a genius!!

  3. Thanks, anonymous. Here’s that poem, and I agree with you about it:
    In case you hadn’t noticed,
    it has somehow become uncool
    to sound like you know what you’re talking about?
    Or believe strongly in what you’re saying?
    Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)’s
    have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
    Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? You know?

    Declarative sentences – so-called
    because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
    as opposed to other things which were, like, not –
    have been infected by a totally hip
    and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
    Like, don’t think I’m uncool just because I’ve noticed this;
    this is just like the word on the street, you know?
    It’s like what I’ve heard?
    I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
    I’m just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

    What has happened to our conviction?
    Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
    Have they been, like, chopped down
    with the rest of the rain forest?
    Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
    Has society become so, like, totally . . .
    I mean absolutely . . . You know?
    That we’ve just gotten to the point where it’s just, like . . .
    whatever!

    And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
    is just a clever sort of . . . thing
    to disguise the fact that we’ve become
    the most aggressively inarticulate generation
    to come along since . . .
    you know, a long, long time ago!

    I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
    I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
    To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
    the determination with which you believe it.
    Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
    it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
    You have to speak with it, too.

  4. You can see a performance of “Totally like whatever, you know?” at:
    http://www.joethorn.net/2007/02/27/taylor-mali/
    It’s just like, hilarious? I can’t stop watching it…you know? This guy has TOTALLY been added to my favourites!!
    Thanks for the original clip – bought tears to my eyes; when I said ‘inspirational and deeply moving’ I meant it.

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