I was not surprised this morning when my freshman students asked, "Who's Tonto?" They had read the Sherman Alexie essay "I Hated Tonto (Still Do)," which I have taught before so I knew that I would have to spend the first few minutes of the discussion describing the Lone Ranger and Tonto and explaining that before the era of washboard abs it was not unusual for a television hero to look like Clayton Moore. It made me feel old to know that my students do not possess any mental image of Tonto, but then I took a look at their writing assignments and realized that they do possess mental images of many pop-culture figures who are largely mythical to me.
Jessica Alba, for instance. I've heard the name and I'm sure I've seen the face, but when I try to retrieve a mental image, I come up blank. Likewise Doreamon, who is apparently some sort of cartoon character. Ask me about Foghorn Leghorn or Hong Kong Phooey! I can tell you all about Grizzly Adams, Colonel Klink, or Max Smart, but who is this Meredith Gray and why should I care? A student who wrote about the omnipresence of Oprah asked whether I enjoy her show; I confessed that I have seen Oprah's talk show only once, when I was in the hospital giving birth to a kid who is now 17 years old, so I'm probably not the best person to ask.
It's tempting to think of students as pits of ignorance ready to be filled with the founts of knowledge possessed by professors, but apparently ignorance is a two-way street (and a mixed metaphor too, but let's move on). Today my students learned a little something about the Lone Ranger and Tonto, but I also learned something: that I'm not the only one in the room who knows a thing or two and that someday they will be the experts and I'll be obsolete.
No comments:
Post a Comment