January 2004
More on education.
Matt and I think we should start a charter school. It's a pipe dream, of course, but it leads to some interesting discussions about the problems of the current education system and some possible solutions. We're both academics from opposite sides of the spectrum (I'm the lit gal and he's the math geek). Thus, we often go about problems differently, and between the two of us, we have a firm grasp on what everyone likes to call "the basics." That being said, Matt fowarded me this article, with a note: "something for you to blog about." He was right.
Now, there's one thing that Matt and I both agree on. In our charter school, we will burn all Scan-trons. We hate them with a passion. That said, I'm sure you can imagine my response to what these Oregon folks are doing. Now, I can understand the reasons behind this kind of testing, but I think it has a tendency to inhibit critical thinking. The world is not made up of only multiple choice questions. I'm not saying that there are never multiple choice questions. In fact, I'm not even saying that we should dump the tests that are taken during key grades to see if students can pass on to the next grade. I do, however, think that if all of the focus is on these kinds of tests, then it encourages both teachers and students to be lazy. How hard does it become to grade 50 Scan-tron tests? I think about as fast as you can push those little cards through the machine, or however you do that. I really don't know. I've never given a Scan-tron test. As for students becoming lazy, do you know how easy it is to figure out how to beat multiple choice questions. There's a reason why a lot of my old teachers referred to them as multiple guess. The reason is that you don't actually have to know the answer in order to get the question right. All you need to do is eliminate the ones you know are wrong. Wait, we should know that! Isn't that what "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" is all about?
But, you might be saying, they're getting results! And isn't that what's important? No. Not entirely. They're getting results on their tests. Please see previous paragraph for why I have disdain for multiple guess tests. I'm not going to go off on "stifling creativity," or that kind of stuff. (Please see post on 20 July regarding "expressivism.") I just don't think that it really tests knowledge as well as a short answer or essay question does. If I ask the question: "Who is the protagonist of Great Expectations?", which do you think is more telling? The student who can tell me "Pip" (or Philip Pirrup) off the bat, or the student who can pick "Pip" out of four choices? That's the point that I'm getting at.
It's a sad day when you walk into a freshmen composition class on the first day, ask how many of them have written essays in high school, and have only about half of them raise their hands. The more we focus on the ability to answer multiple guess questions, the fewer hands will be raised when I ask that question to my new classes. It's not about creativity. It's about being able to formulate ideas and think coherently without needing to think, "is it A, B, C, or D?"
21 July 2004
How I wish the election would go:
Go Badnarik!
I know some of my readers probably keep up with the AJC and the Post, but since you might not, I thought I'd share a particularly good comic from today's Post.
I want to be a czar, or czarina, I guess it should be.
20 July 2004
In response to one of my readers:
Sure, you're the ones "clinging to those musty old tomes", but you're also the ones who support things like Ebonics as a language, and who demand political correctness in the classroom. Yes, I realize the "Ebonics movement" is not some huge sweeping pan-liberal revolution, but it's there. More importantly, liberals have a stranglehold on the educational establishment, and the quality of education, speficially in english and literature, continues to drop.
A little consistency of message is all I want - is Mark Twain great, or is his work racist? Is "ain't" a word, or ain't it? Can a student say "where you is" and be correct, or not? Is there a "right way" in grammar, or are all ways acceptable?
Also, assuming that Twain's work is racist (not an assumption I make for anything other than this point), does that make it not great? Do we demand ideological purity more strongly than we demand quality?
... surely you can see how long this counter-rant COULD be. I'll cut it off here and let you use your imagination :)
Nagi
First, I'll point out that I deplore the state of education, as I've mentioned a few times! Second, let's not lump all liberals into those who consider themselves "expressivists." (It's a teaching methodology of which I am less than fond.)
Now, to the meat of my response. On Ebonics. I'll grant you that it's a dialect, but, even at my most liberal moment, I'd never call it a language. As a dialect, it has its place. This isn't political correctness, but is more a matter of fact. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I draw a fine line between tact and PC-ness. I wouldn't tell a student that it's okay to write an academic essay in "ebonics." I would, however, encourage a student writing a piece of fiction to write in the dialect if it's appropriate, i.e. the story is set on Bankhead or in Southside DC. To that, Mark Twain often used dialects to create more realistic characters. And good for him. I'm a big fan of Twain. He's one of the few 19th cen. writers I can stand reading.
As for consistency, that's a harder issue. There are tons of perspectives out there about how to best teach students. Some are half-baked ideas, some are fads, some are well-thought-out theoretically, but just don't work out in the practical classroom. If you have problems with the establishment, it's easy to find a scapegoat. Half of my readers (Bob and Mike) are teachers. The other half like to point out the problems with the system (you and Matt). (Yes, there are four confirmed readers. If there are any more, I'm not aware of them.) I think the problem that you point out is becoming a problem because people like Bob and Mike aren't stirring up the pot, and allow some people (let no names be mentioned here) to keep pushing that expressivist crap. Okay, so that's an example of only a few people, but you get the drift. There are actually more of us academics who are liberal by definition (but not off our rockers) than you think. Once again, unfortunately, we also tend not to be those who are "teaching the teachers" so to speak. So, we're at a quandary of what to do.
All of this "liberal indoctrination" that I hear about (even from you -- shame on you, Nagi!) gets tossed about the conservative rings so often, it's beginning to make me want beat people about the head and neck. I don't doubt that some professors push their political views. But my experience hasn't really shown that. Maybe I was already indoctrinated. Oh, wait. I've been a liberal all of my life. Hard to make a case for that. Now, to address the "quality" issue. Some of it boils down the expressivist fad. I can't help that. There are enough of us in the field who think it's silly, and I think that's enough. However, I'm going to push some of it back on the students. Not to be cliche, but it seems to be true that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. I can get as excited as I want about the great nuances of Gulliver's Travels, but if my students aren't interested in the story, it does no good. Now, there are ways to get them interested, but you won't always reach everyone. And it gets more and more difficult as you move up the academic chain. If a kid has gone 18 years without being interested in books, it's hard to undo that. Not impossible, just difficult. So, what happens is that the best profs tend to teach mostly grad students, leaving the wussy expressivists teaching the undergrads, perpetuating their wussy expressivism. (No offense to Peter Elbow, but his theory has just gotten out of control.)
As you can see, I'm pretty passionate about this, but I think you're being too general by lumping all liberals into a group of people espousing a particular pedagogy.
Oh, and I'm still working on getting a working comment feature on the page, so I can stop doing "cop-out" posts, as Bob says.
15 July 2004
It always surprises me when I actually agree with a Town Hall article, but sure enough, there was one today. I don't particularly agree with her that the decline in reading literature is a result of a society consumed by "'relevance,' political correctness and multiculturalism." Although we are a society who does tend to embrace these issues (especially those of us who lean to the left), that fact isn't as profound as the fact that literature must compete with so much other media today. Fields, even with her necessary jab at the left (it is Town Hall after all), hit on this when she writes, "High tech . . . has rewired appetites to disdain or ignore the imaginative." In her mind, technology should have promoted reading and literature, as it has done in the past, by providing greater and greater access to books. But, while the access to books is there, the access to movies, music, video games, funny websites, etc., etc., etc. And therein, I think, lies a lot of the problem. When we have an education system that barely functions, fewer and fewer people are being shown the power of a good novel. We live in a society where 99.9% of kids are ADD (yes, I'm exaggerating here, but I'm sure you get the point). Why would they take the time to read a novel when they could watch the movie? And why would they watch Hamlet when they could spend those hours playing Grand Theft Auto? Priorities, people!
I think it's sad that people don't read more literature. As someone going into the profession of teaching literature, I've found it difficult at best to get students interested in those old texts. It won't keep me from trying, but it often saddens me. Oh, and stop blaming the liberals. We're the ones clinging to those old musty tomes.
12 July 2004
Okay. Sorry I haven't kept up writing. I bought a new car. A 2004 Honda Civic. I have pictures, but I haven't gotten around to uploading them, so if you want to see what my car looks like, google it. I'm sure pictures are around. At any rate, I also haven't archived June, so all those posts are still sitting on this page. I guess I've been kind of lazy.
So, what, exactly, drives me to write today? I'll give you a hint: I've beaten the dead horse carcass into the ground. But I can't help it. This and this , along with countless other articles that keep surfacing, drive me to write yet again on this issue. It's kind of a non-issue. I liked Matt's comment in response to another article today about the issue:
The US is just now getting around to debating the issue, and aside from these studies, not many people have had anything intelligent to say on the matter; most of them froth and drool and point their fingers at their litter of children or isolated incidents of lonely guys and their livestock.
The studies, of course, are the ones done about marriage in Scandinavian countries. You can google it if you like. The point is that there have been very few compelling arguments against allowing gays to marry, at least in my book. That marriage is all about babies is weak at best. As I've said before, if you argue that all marriage is specifically about child-rearing, then you must immediately deem all marriages devoid of childrent as null. Again, if it's all about mommy and daddy and little baby, then anyone who is infertile should not be allowed to marry. In fact, shouldn't we force a woman who isn't married, but has a baby, to marry the baby's father? I mean, wouldn't that be best for Little Johnny or Little Suzie?
I guess in the end, what I don't understand is the argument that marriage has remained unchanged in the thousands of years it has been around. That just isn't true. I think I linked some evidence of this in another post, and I don't feel like digging around to find the links. I want to know just how many US men today paid their dowries like good husbands. Oh, marriage isn't like that anymore? What? Women have equal rights and are no longer chattle, essentially sold to their husbands by their families? Oh dear. Something changed. Must have been one of those activist judges.
1 July 2004
We can now play taps for Camilla. This morning, she died. I think she used to love me, and thus hung on there for a while. But I went car shopping yesterday. This morning, I barely got her out of the driveway. So, I'm really, really officially looking for a new car.
On buying cars: I HATESES IT. I hate it with all of my being. I hate salesmen, and I hate obnoxious ones even more. Unfortunately, most of them are obnoxious. What am I looking for? That's the problem. I don't know. A sedan of some sort. They really all look the same to me. Cars no longer have any personality, I'm convinced. Especially sedans. Over the past five years, I've become accustomed to my Buick. It's an old lady car, sure. But since I drive like an old lady, it kind of fits. This is why I want another sedan. I don't need sporty and cute. I need reliable and comfortable. I don't need seat warmers or anything spiffy like that. I live in frelling Atlanta. Who needs seat warmers in Atlanta? And why is that even a selling point in Atlanta IN JULY? Oh well. I'll find something. I'll buy it. And maybe one day, I'll even learn to like it.