Deuces Wild

Anonymous

In classrooms campus wide, especially in the waning days of the academic year, there is a problem of apathy. Students become apathetic, waiting for the blissful days of summer vacation to begin, but the students are not the only jaded and disinterested people in the school. Indeed, several teachers fit into the same category. Rather than actively trying to stimulate the minds of their pupils, many alleged "educators" give busy-work and show mindless videos in class. In the face of such lax learning, inspired primarily by lax teaching, who can blame students for seeking solace from their boredom by napping, playing video games, and a new phenomenon at TN: playing cards?

Card-playing, which has rapidly blossomed into a legacy at Terra Nova, has led to a knee-jerk reaction amongadministrators, who have banned the activity in class. Initially, the concern was based on a preconceived notion that students were gambling while playing. While the assumption may have been erroneous, the concern over gambling is a legitimate one. Simply put: students should not be gambling; it is illegal. However, the prohibition of card-playing altogether is hardly the best solution. Perhaps a more stringent ban on gambling - one actually enforced - would be a better answer to the problem. In response to this, an administrator asserted that it would be "too difficult to determine when gambling was taking place." Naturally, the worst is assumed: we are all covertly gambling. For this reason, use of cards in class is strictly forbidden at Terra Nova. Silly me, I had thought that we were innocent until proven guilty.

If it can be safely assumed that card-playing is going on sans-betting, would it then be okay to do it? I don't see why not. Card playing is no worse than playing video games in class, or napping in class, or for that matter, reading a book that is outside the curriculum in class! There is no way to moralize it. One could even argue that there is a vast array of certifiable benefits in playing cards. Vital life skills such as strategy, camaraderie, and the art of bluffing are all integral parts in many of the games on campus. I stress: what is so wrong with a wholesome card session if there is no teaching going on in the classroom?

An interesting thing happened to me the other day in my Spanish class. Like always, there was no learning going on in the room, primarily because there was no teaching -- unless one considers the instructor's incoherent babbling, to which three pupils were pretending to listen. A group of students, no more than half of whom were enrolled in the class, was signing yearbooks in one corner of the room. In another corner, several kids were focused on the television, which displayed the always-didactic Jenny Jones. In yet another corner, a student slept peacefully as his neighbor ate chips and drank soda, also a violation of arbitrary school policy. Not to be outdone, a guy was listening to a walkman, and a girl was conducting a conversation on her cellular phone in the last corner. In the midst of such scholarly productivity sat me and four classmates, each of whom had finished his class work and was beginning a game of Deuces. While I was dealing, a campus supervisor entered the room, and immediately confiscated my deck. "These are goin' in the trash!" he exclaimed, exiting the room victoriously.

That was when I woke up to the stark reality: these people can't see the forest for the trees. So alarmed are these administrators and teachers at the spectacle of a kid playing cards that they fail to see the girl on the cell phone, or the guy with the walkman, or Jenny's face commanding the attention of so many - or, for that matter, the Spanish teacher who speaks in a disjointed form of Spanglish. The events that transpired only strengthened my desire to play Deuces and my resolve to make this an issue: why, amongst yearbook-signing, chip-eating, television-watching, and bad teaching, am I the criminal? If you are going to take my cards, at least take them from me in my Trig. or AP History class, where the teachers are making an earnest effort to stimulate my mind. I'll give credit where it's due: many of the teachers take their job seriously, and in the classes where such educators preside, I do not play cards -- I'm too busy learning. However, the fact remains that too many instructors are either lazy or inept, and it is capricious to ban cards when the problem runs much, much deeper.

To be fair, the administration has the obligation to prevent gambling. Betting is not to be tolerated - with this I steadfastly agree. However, banning cards to stop betting is like banning driving because a few people speed. "If it continues to be an issue," Vice Principal Segalas told me, "cards will be banned next year [also]." Unfortunately, that is just dodging the real problem. The issue is not cards: the issue is that we students play cards because we're not being challenged. Besides, if they desire enough, students can gamble on anything -- be it sports, rock-paper-scissors, or the simple flip of a coin.

We need not outlaw Walkmans and cards and cell phones, but rather to change the system, and get each and every one of our publicly-employed educators to educate, lest we feel compelled to slack off by device of the aforementioned contrivances. If teachers lead, students will follow. If teachers teach, students will learn. Memos went out to teachers this week from "Management" prohibiting "passes and parties." Forget that. If I am doing busywork or watching Jenny Jones in class, why not have a party? Why not play a game of cards? It can't be any worse than reading the school newspaper during class…