A crazy theory of mine
The teacher-critic fills the necessary societal role vacated by the aristocrat.
Overheard in the Kid’s Section at the Bookstore
A woman was browsing books with a boy who appeared to be about four years old.
“Mama, why can’t we just buy this book?”
After a moment’s delay: “That’s not age appropriate. We’ll look some more and find something better.”
“But it’s not too scary. It doesn’t make me afraid.”
Another pause. “Well it would scare me to read it,” the mother says. “Why don’t you read it?”
The boy opens the book. “Once there was a T-Rex who wondered if anybody was going to read this book….”
transgender in conservative America
The story of the transition of a young man to a young woman in a conservative American town.
In Loveland, Colorado — population 61,000, 92 percent white and heavily evangelical Christian — Michelle didn’t know what to expect when she began to work with the school to facilitate her daughter’s transition from a boy to a girl. At first, it was difficult. The school “freaked out when I told them,” Michelle says. “When we started with M.J.’s transition, I was envisioning riots.” And so Michelle became an advocate for transgender people — those who identify as a gender different from the one assigned at birth. Michelle organized trainings for the faculty and staff and prepared “cheat sheets” in case any of their students asked prying questions.
But on the first day of school, nothing happened. No flood of calls, no angry protests, and no bullying. Michelle was “happy and shocked” that M.J.’s classmates seemed to get it. When one student made a mocking comment to another using M.J.’s former name, one eighth-grade boy dismissed him with a simple insight. “That person doesn’t even exist anymore,” he said. “You’re talking about somebody who’s imaginary.”
Labyrinth
I just realized I know now what I wish I’d done.
Overheard Today
Woman trying to get screaming child into a car:
“No! Daddy cain’t take you he done lost his driver’s license.”
“Take it easy, but take it.” | Studs Terkel, 1912-2008
I have a few random recollections of charming encounters with Studs Terkel, but then most everyone who lived in Chicago for any stretch has those. It was hard not to run into Studs Terkel.
Just over a month ago Stuart Lifson paid tribute to Studs on his Hello Beautiful! Today he posted a sad but inevitable update.
Go read.
And go vote Tuesday, if you’ve not done so already.
So long, Studs.
Sodom and Gomorrah
When do abstinence pledges work?
Bearman and Brückner have also identified a peculiar dilemma: in some schools, if too many teens pledge, the effort basically collapses. Pledgers apparently gather strength from the sense that they are an embattled minority; once their numbers exceed thirty per cent, and proclaimed chastity becomes the norm, that special identity is lost. With such a fragile formula, it’s hard to imagine how educators can ever get it right: once the self-proclaimed virgin clique hits the thirty-one-per-cent mark, suddenly it’s Sodom and Gomorrah.
Star Wars ABC
Let Your Backbone Slip
So Lucy and I’ve had this exchange about dancing, and I remembered that afternoon years ago when I was sitting down in the mailroom with Margene and Deb, I think it was, and all of a sudden –
I couldn’t recollect the difference between the Monkey and the Jerk. And I got really upset.
I know. I know. So obvious. Sounds silly now.
Well, Deb called Linda and luckily Linda was home (she was a drummer, so she worked nights). And Linda came over and refreshed my memory.
And I will never ever again forget. And if you like, I will teach you not only the Monkey and the Jerk but maybe even the Hully Gully.
The Term Paper Artist
A fascinating peep into the world of Term Paper industry, Nick Mamatas, describes the secret to churning out eight term papers about Hamlet (or whatever) by Friday (via):
The secret to the gig is to amuse yourself. I have to, really, as most paper topics are deadly boring. Once, I was asked to summarize in three pages the causes of the First World War (page one), the major battles and technological innovations of the war (page two), and to explain the aftermath of the war, including how it led to the Second World War (page three). Then there was this assignment for a composition class: six pages on why “apples [the fruit] are the best.” You have to make your own fun. In business papers, I’d often cite Marxist sources. When given an open topic assignment on ethics, I’d write on the ethics of buying term papers, and even include the broker’s Web site as a source. My own novels and short stories were the topic of many papers — several DUMB CLIENTS rate me as their favorite author and they’ve never even read me, or anyone else. Whenever papers needed to refer to a client’s own life experiences, I’d give the student various sexual hang-ups.
Apparently, between terms papers and the schlock he wrote for business journals during the dotcom boom, he was able to buy a house.
Update: Kottke’s polling, Have you bought a term paper?
A sobriquet ripe for revival
First year I got to know Cooper Renner, Old Man Reese was our history teacher. And Old Man Reese had him a way with the sobriquets (though come to think, I was always and ever simply, “Ryan!”)
But Cooper, he was Foxy. Foxy Renner.
Yep. Reynard. The Fox.
I bought a dude a sandwich
Turns out we went to school together. I recognized him before I knew it. It was something very dream-like. He ran in different circles. Named a list of them. He was homeless now. His sister, yes. His father, no. His wife outside with cat because the car had been impounded. He had a crotch rocket. He palled around with _______. Jesus would provide, obviously. Neither of our lists matched. He had a beard. I kind of liked him. I bet I never talked with him once in my whole life. He was the definition of where we lived. The same age. On the street. Asking for some food.
It’s true. Sarah Palin is in a corn maze.
Sarah Palin is in a corn maze. This does not mean that Sarah Palin is actually in a corn maze, but that there is a corn maze made to look like Sarah Palin. You have to be looking down on the maze and not in it in order to see the likeness.
Courtesy of Jamie Rhein at Gadling.
Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?
Punctuation Man, that’s who.
(I climbed to Dharamsala, too.)
Mrs Schofield’s GCSE
A poem by Carol Ann Duffy in response to Pat Schofield’s complaint and petition to ban one of Duffy’s poems, Education for Leisure, because it “glorified knife crime”:
You must prepare your bosom for his knife,
said Portia to Antonio in which
of Shakespeare’s Comedies? Who killed his wife,
insane with jealousy? And which Scots witch
knew Something wicked this way comes? Who said
Is this a dagger which I see? Which Tragedy?
Whose blade was drawn which led to Tybalt’s death?
To whom did dying Caesar say Et tu? And why?
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark - do you
know what this means? Explain how poetry
pursues the human like the smitten moon
above the weeping, laughing earth; how we
make prayers of it. Nothing will come of nothing:
speak again. Said by which King? You may begin.
Ms Schofield response makes me think all she reads is Wordsworth:
Contacted by the Guardian last night, Schofield said she felt “a bit gobsmacked” to have a verse named after her. She described the poem as “a bit weird. But having read her other poems I found they were all a little bit weird. But that’s me”.
unfortunately named universities
Wartburg College
Hickey College
Gustavus Adolphus
Walla Walla
Transylvania University
Misericordia
Dyke College
Ball State
Rust College
OK State
Air University
California University of Pennsylvania
(from Radar)
Drawings of scientists
Next: Language
To combat a dearth of engineering students at the university level, the staff of Southern Methodist University’s Infinity Project sought to capture young minds early to engage them in a love of science and math.
I noticed this in today’s Dallas Morning News. And the title of the article? “To Infinity and Beyond.” I think SMU is ready for the Bush library.
high school musical
Blake Peebles, a 16 year old Guitar Hero virtuoso, is dropping out of school to pursue gaming full time.
In fact, young Mr. Peebles is dropping out of high school… in order to focus on Guitar Hero full time. Peebles hopes to join the small but growing crew of players looking to make gaming a job. Citing his victories in Guitar Hero tournaments, which include “gift certificates, gaming equipment, and chicken sandwiches,” Peebles thinks he has the chops to play competitively and earn actual money in the process. As the story notes, top gamers on the competitive circuit can earn up to $80,000 a year (though $25,000 is more common). Peebles, of course, can count his 52 Chick-fil-A combo meals toward that total.
The two debate coaches
Remember “the debate.” Here are the debaters (click the photos for their respective profiles):
Another Reason to Reconsider Living in Dallas
This has been much discussed in the Dallas Morning News recently:
Dallas public school students who flunk tests, blow off homework and miss assignment deadlines can make up the work without penalty, under new rules that have angered many teachers.
The new rules will be distributed when teachers return to their campuses next week. But many who have already seen the regulations say they are too lenient on slackers, and will come at the expense of kids who work hard.
For example, the new rules require teachers to accept late work and prevent them from penalizing students for missed deadlines. Homework grades that would drag down a student’s overall average will be thrown out.
I have taught at a university level for a number of years, and I have always tried to design courses and class policies that give students many ways to recover from poor efforts. The extra chances, though, still require that the work–and learning–actually gets done. But surely every teacher knows that you can’t tell students ahead of time that they will have many chances to do the work, since they will then simply not do it and blame their failings on a lack of structure and guidance. If students begin at the first grade level with such approaches in place, there will often be a good result. But suddenly dropping it all into a a middle and high school situation is just silly, in my view. And many people might be surprised to hear that a 50 is the lowest grade a student may receive in the DISD. So let’s all start the 100 meter sprint on the 50 meter line and then rewrite the world records. I often see the results of a failed education system when students appear in classes with a new-found desire to learn–and a shocked realization that it will be a struggle to complete the work. A complaint I have heard from some students, for instance, is that memorization is being required–when what they are actually speaking of is simple reading comprehension. If one reads a short story and then can’t remember who the characters are and what events caused them to act in significant ways, there is little chance that analysis and discussion will be useful. What is missing in the early education of many students is the understanding that there is no painless learning–unless one defines learning as a process of simply confirming what one already knows.
all hail the mighty state
Teachers in a north Texas school district will be allowed to bring guns to class.
“We have a lock-down situation, we have cameras, but the question we had to answer is, ‘What if somebody gets in? What are we going to do?” he said. “It’s just common sense.”
two debate coaches having, um, a debate
Probably only worth watching for the first few minutes.
Erotic Magic Workshop
There’ll be workshops, after a fashion, at clusterflockstock, and this is by way of “drumming up” interest in a “workshop” I plan to offer.
“Content” is still “in development”, but I have privately shared with a couple of my fellow ‘flockers a description of my newly invented “Gettin’ It On Ritual” (the core of my Erotic Magic Workshop), and responses have been positive. To share the details in a public forum would only cheapen and coarsen something already crude and vulgar, so I invite those of you planning to attend clusterflockstock to “pencil in” my Erotic Magic Workshop.
Exact time and location will be announced at the event itself when I holler, “Hey, y’all, I’m fixin’ to show my Gettin’ It On Ritual! . . . (Yeah, that’s okay. If you’re still workin’ on your barbecue, just bring it with you.)”
InsideOut Literary Arts Project
Friend of clusterflock, Peter Markus, writes:
For the past 14 years, since its inception, I’ve worked as a writer for the InsideOut Literary Arts Project, a non-profit arts organization that sends poets and writers into the Detroit Public Schools to conduct year-long writing workshops with K-12 students.
Like many non-profit arts organizations, we rely on the generosity of others to keep ourselves alive and running.
We are currently working to raise funds to match a challenge grant of $25,000 and are looking for support from individuals who might want to become a “friend” of InsideOut. We’re looking to drum up grassroots support, so any amount of support ($5, $10, $50, $500) is greatly appreciated.
For more info about InsideOut, go to our website:
Here you can donate by using paypal, or you can send a check, payable to InsideOut, directly to our address:
InsideOut Literary Arts Project
2111 Woodward Ave., Suite 1010
Detroit, MI 48201Thanks ahead of time for listening and for caring and for your support.