straw man

I watched the first part of Pres. Bush's state of the union speech last night. It was mostly an argument against a "straw man" version of the opponents of the war. He was saying we can't retreat back within our borders, when critics of the war are now saying that of course we can't retreat but we can do a better job of handling the conflict that we shouldn't be in in the first place. That's a fairly nuanced argument, but the state of the union didn't address nuance. It was broad brushstrokes internationally to be sure.

Then I did my own straw man in class today; or, to be more accurate, the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. If I only had a brain, I would be able to come up with something more useful for the kids to do in forensics than copy down dictionary definitions of terms they already know, like attitude, victory, champion, etc. It was supposed to be punishment, but it didn't feel like punishment to anyone but me by the end of it. I actually said to the class, "Part of the punishment is you have to listen to me talk." That's pretty much how I feel about school these days. Some kids may actually have learned something, I don't know.