Ancient Mariner Sinks

Today a class I made a Geritol joke and then said something like,"You're too young to know what I'm talking about."

On his blog, one of my students wrote: "Jeritol What is this word? Robertson used it in class and I can't figure out the spelling nor what it means. I'm puzzled."

So it wasn't a throwaway, contextually clear enough not to divert. This is not good. Too many of these "stuff you don't know that I do because I'm old" comments might really be alienating rather than .... Rather than what? There's actually no value at all of any kind in reminding kids of what we both know, that I've been there, done that, forgotten I did it and then did it again except damn I dropped it.

It's a *wake up call* -- either that or ringing in my ears.