Two Feet In | Writing and the Institution

It was at the kitchen table where I learned to be consumed by books; but it wasn’t me doing the consuming. My father would bring a paperback – usually Louis L’Amour, I think – to the table every night unless we had company. I sat across from Mother; Scott sat across from Dad. The three of us would carry on our conversation, as conversations go, while Dad would load the fork from plate to mouth, turn the page, read some more, another fork-full; repeat. He would rarely intercede in our conversations (unless my brother or I would say something egregious, as I remember it), and would rarely speak for himself except to ask to pass the gravy or salt or ask my Mother to get him something more to drink. And we weren’t allowed to bring books to the table, of course. I tried a few times – I would bring my own book, try to catch up on something I was interested in – more interested than family – but as soon as the book came out, Dad would always say (he said this in other environments as well), “...

Walking more, even in the heat of the day. More butterflies this season than last, or more than I remember from the oppression of last summer's drought. The ground is dry again, the grass is brown again, but I'm hopeful that this is temporary and the rain will return soon. I've seen several rabbits (but not as many as last year), the flying insects are all about, and I've started a deer two or three times in the middle of the day near a water source. Today he was at the water and ran up the bank as soon as I turned the corner. I could hear him crash through the underbrush in the woods for several minutes, then I heard him snort, perhaps in anger, while I passed. When I was in ... first grade perhaps ... at Marie's Day School on Winchester Rd in Memphis, we would go into the back fields for recess. There were plenty of trees and bushes, and enough areas to become invisible to the teachers for a while (we played Star Trek a lot back then. I think I was Scotty e...

Bill Gates: Making Teacher Evaluations Public 'Not Conducive To Openness' : The Two-Way : NPR : And more to the point, making the data public won't actually educate the public. Most readers will not understand context -- the evaluations never show demographics including economics/class and race of the students, the level of support of the students' parents, the working environment, the legislative pressures of a system that legislators do not understand, the quality of texts and other materials, and even the level of experience of the teacher. Still, in a neoliberial economic world, legislators will insist on something called "accountability" to show that they themselves are accountable to an ideology that has engulfed their entire world view, one that cannot reflect or project what real learning is, and how successful schools in other countries actually operate. What we don't see, of course, is some kind of legislature evaluations, such as time-on-t...

OK, Let's Teach Graduate Students Differently. But How? - Do Your Job Better - The Chronicle of Higher Education Summary: Stop preaching that grad students will find professorial jobs -- most won't Stop structuring grad school to make more professors Start teaching that a grad degree can open doors to many other professions Start restructuring the departments curriculum and  pedagogy, using new media and new sources Start building a culture where getting a non-professorial job isn't a mark of shame Redefine the discipline; let grad students work with students in other fields (just like they'll really do in the real world) Open the degrees to include courses other than just in-department (just like the real world) In the words of Auslander, "If we continue to behave like ostriches, we're dead." Forget the idea that "it will be better tomorrow," she says. If there is to be change for the better, professors must be "willing to b...

How Technology Can Improve Learner-Centered Teaching - Faculty Focus The reasons, says our author, that tech facilitates learning in that ideal learner-centered classroom include: Shift the balance of power toward the learner Use content to organize activities Think of teaching as facilitating learning Responsibility for learning rests with the learner Evaluation provides a way to foster learning I'm ok with this, in general. The problem is that an amazing number of students are still techno-illiterate. I have students who don't know how to attach files to e-mail; those who don't know the difference between Firefox and IE; those who don't know how to do any advance searches with Google; those who don't know how to create a full PPT file, much less embed video in one; students who don't even know how to create a header in a Word doc. This is true both at the university and the two-year college, but especially in the latter, and especially in the rural...

Student feedback today from ENGL 1302, and my responses. No names included, and only minor editing of input. I am enjoying the class so fat, the only thing I am frustrated with is the lack of explaination on some things. This may be due to my inability to read instructions, but that's about it. That concerns me. Let's work on setting aside more time for task explanation. Of course, I also expect students to speak up when they don't see something clearly. I can't read minds yet, but working on it. If the written task instructions don't make sense, then please let me know. I want them to be as clear as possible. Finally, if you have questions, tweet them to @lscengl -- I'll get to those tweets several times a day. Im not confused about the class at all. I like how the class is taught and im not really frustrated with anything. Of course, I don't want students to be frustrated enough where they start to shut down, but on the other hand, I t...

A boy is buried in Brownsville. Jaime Gonzalez was shot this week by police in his school in Brownsville. Jaime was carrying a pellet gun and pointed it at police. Police warned him -- called out at least ten times -- to drop his pellet gun. Jaime didn't. Police shot and killed him. Jaime is dead, a boy of 15. He will never become a man. He will never find the woman of his life. He will never have that first paycheck and think about how much he can do with those few dollars. He will never own his first car and care for it more than anything. He will never finish high school or march in his school's band again. He will never go to college or serve in the army. He will never have frustrating and bewildering and confused and angry boys of his own. He is dead and buried. The comments from the Houston Chronicle , which I read, are nearly universally critical of Jaime. Of course, none of these critics know Jaime, nor were there in the hallway of his school when he lifted a pelle...

A picture from the Boston Globe  -- dozens of men, arms in arm, in a cold January European river, awaiting the priest to toss in the golden cross; they will dive and scramble to find the cross and the man who finds it will be blessed with health this year.   I'm in my living room, reading a review of Didion's new book -- about as vicarious as one can be -- and note her descriptions of cucumber and watercress sandwiches at her daughter's wedding. I'm not sure what a cucumber sandwich really is. I know it would be easy enough to look it up, but since that's not really part of my life experience, isn't it something to just go on in a mysterious awe of people and events that consume cucumber and watercress sandwiches? I could never, for example, serve  cucumber and watercress sandwiches to my family, so why pretend it would be something I could pull off? Her descriptions are alien to me. And I think about alien-ness and -ation.  It's the sixth of...