As I mentioned previously, some teaching days are interesting, generating provocative discussion and lots of student interest. Well, today I saw the other side of the coin: abject apathy and boredom. Despite what I thought were two really good articles and the current prominence of the health care debate, my students just couldn’t be paid to show any interest in a comparison of national health care systems. Admittedly, making sense of the differences between fee-for-service, socialized, and socialist systems isn’t exactly like a good game of Madden 2004 (or whatever the kids are playing these days), it’s still important. I even made the “these are the fundamental consequences of social organization” argument, but to no avail.

Discussing health care provision, I’m careful not to make a distinctly political argument, except to say that politics is increasingly pervading health care debates in many nations—Cananada’s and Great Britain’s socialized and national health care systems are coming under strong fire from conservatives, who wield the same arguments that have been levied against attempts at health care reform in the U.S. Still, there is usually some inter-student debate about the pros and cons of the government’s role in care.

Today: The gentle chirp of crickets. An A-10 en-route to the air force base. General dis-ease at my prompting for reading-related concepts. Fifteen weeks makes a long semester.