Chapin City Blues

After reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, the teaching bug has reared its ugly little head again. The teaching bug that I once forced out of my head midway through my undergraduate years after taking a sociology of education course and hating every second of it. Especially after learning the inner workings of the Texas Education Agency (TEA). I wonder, though: Had I read the book during my undergraduate years, would I have stayed on the education tract with my degree in English? Would I have been several years into a teaching career?  

Probably not. I still hate other parents. 

As if working in conjunction with my Mexican American pedagogies class, my Mexican American literature class is mirroring the oppressive lessons referenced in Freire’s work. Alongside Pedagogy of the Oppressed, I finished reading George Washington Gomez by Américo Paredes.  

In the literature course, we are learning (or outlining) what could be considered the Mexican American bildungsroman. While I’ve used the term in recent years, I never understood the root concept of bildungsroman. I understood its most simplistic meaning: coming of age. What does that even mean?  

I read (well, tried to) George Washington Gomez in my undergraduate years for a South Texas writer class taught by Dr. Robert Johnson, the same professor who opened the floodgates for the beat generation (for me, anyway). I didn’t finish the book, and I may have bullshitted my way through the essay (if there was one, that is). Having completed the novel, however, I can’t understand why I had such an aversion to it in my 20s.  

At some point, I will have to write a review for one or both these books. In the meanwhile, I figured I would make a simple little update about my life and class.