What colleges have you attended?
Indiana University, Georgia Tech, and Georgia State University. Also, technically, University of Maryland and City Colleges of Chicago (through the military.)
PROMPT: Colleges
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Tag Archives: education
BOOKS: The Canceling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff & Rikki Schlott
The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All―But There Is a Solution by Greg LukianoffMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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This book presents an in-depth exploration of cancel culture in its many varied manifestations, from both the left and the right of the American political spectrum. The biggest part of the discussion is with respect to the educational system, and particularly higher education. Sadly, this is because the institutions that used to be among the most formidable bulwarks of free speech, expression, and academic freedom have increasingly become untenable to multiple points of view. (The authors point out that there have been more dismissals of faculty members for cancel culture speech and expression issues than there were during the McCarthy era for political stance.)
However, the book doesn’t restrict itself to education, but also investigates cancelations in journalism, publishing, the scientific community, standup comedy, and the medical and psychiatric communities. The authors also present cases of the effect that wokeness and other expression limiting activities are having in these areas. One of the most disturbing revelations to me was the role of wokeness in psychotherapy and the negative effect it may have on people getting the help they need.
The book presents a series of cases in detail to advance the discussion. It also has a couple chapters that examine the tactics that are used to apparently “win” debates by silencing / demoralizing the opposition while avoiding any actual contest of ideas. The authors go through tactics favored by the Right as well as those by the Left. (Though it’s clear that, in a race to the bottom, both sides adopt the approaches of the other side that seem to be effective. e.g. the Left is getting into book banning (historically a Conservative tactic) and the Right is getting into cancelling and shout-downs (usually Progressive tactics.)) I think it was smart to have two authors, one from the left and one from the right, in order to help ensure balance in the project. That said, as the Left has been in the cancel culture vanguard, they come up more often.
Some have called this a sequel to “The Coddling of the American Mind,” with which it shares a co-author, Greg Lukianoff. I don’t know that I’d think of it that way. While it does address some of the same issues as background, psychology and child development are not at the fore in this book (Jonathan Haidt – the other co-author of “Coddling” is a psychologist,) but rather are the legal, cultural, and political issues.
This is probably the most important book I’ve read this year (and, being late November, it’s likely to retain that status) and I’d highly recommend it for all readers.
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PROMPT: Favorite Subject
What was your favorite subject in school?
Depends on the year. In twelfth grade, I remember enjoying Physics the most. In Eleventh, Psychology was the best class I attended. There was a year when I got the most out of an English class that focused on Creative Writing. I guess my most longstanding preference was for classes like Geography and Social Studies, wherein we learned about the world outside our world.
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PROMPT: Teachers
What makes a teacher great?
If a student (or students) voluntarily and enthusiastically come to learn from an individual, that individual is a great teacher.
The emphasis is on “to learn” because some people confuse great charisma with great pedagogy, but such people go to the charismatic person to take comfort from being in that person’s presence, not to learn — despite whatever truisms or clever-sounding parallel grammatical structures the charismatic individual might spout.
So, if one would go to an individual seeking knowledge, knowing the experience will be challenging and not merely comforting, one has found a great teacher.
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The Most Important Lesson in All of Human Living [DAILY PROMPT]
Describe something you learned in high school.
A Psych teacher told us a story of what he called “a gestalt of expectations.” A man from a city in the East is driving out West, and he passes a gas station – despite being low on fuel. (He’s used to gas stations being everywhere.) Anyhow, he runs out of fuel. He can’t see anything around except desolate desert bisected by a line of asphalt. He decides to walk back to the gas station he passed ten miles back. There is no one traveling on this remote stretch of desert road. As he’s walking in the intense heat, it comes to his mind that the employee at the service station is really going to gouge him on the price of gas and a jerry can. As he walks and walks, skin prickling with the heat, he keeps thinking about how he’s going to get screwed by the gas station attendant and also how he’ll be chided and ridiculed for running out of gas in the middle of the desert. He imagines it in great detail. Finally, bedraggled and with heaving breaths, he arrives at the station. The gas station attendant rushes out to help this poor man, and the man punches the attendant square in the nose (for all the offenses taking place solely in the man’s mind.)
In a broader formulation, I think this is the most important lesson any human can learn. Our personal perception of what we experience is not equal to what it is that we experience (the exterior world.) This is why some people dealt a crappy hand can turn it into a wonderful life, and also why some people who seem to have it all commit suicide in the prime of life.
I could be angered or dismayed that the single most important lesson I learned in secondary school was via off-curriculum ramblings during an elective class, but I choose not to. Instead, I’ve been trying all my life to make that bit of knowledge into wisdom.
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BOOK REVIEW: Genius: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew Robinson
Genius: A Very Short Introduction by Andrew RobinsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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This book examines the myths and realities of that state of capability we call genius. It’s not about “geniuses” as individuals who test well on IQ exams, or who are eligible for Mensa membership, but rather about those luminaries who’ve made breakthroughs that changed the course of their discipline. It considers artistic and literary type geniuses (Shakespeare and Picasso) as well as scientific geniuses (e.g. Einstein and Darwin,) as well as discussing the differences (perceived and real) between these groups and the intriguing rarity of crosscutting figures (e.g. Da Vinci.)
The bulk of the book evaluates characteristics that are (rightly or wrongly) commonly associated with genius, including: heredity, education, intelligence, creativity, madness, personality traits, and discipline. Don’t expect clear and straightforward connections. That’s not the author’s fault. There just aren’t any traits unambiguously linked to genius in an uncomplicated way. One might expect education would be an unequivocal boon to genius, but it can be a hindrance to genius in its training of conformity. There may be a disproportionate number of geniuses with mental health issues, but there are even more without them. Hard work maybe a necessary condition, but it’s clearly not a sufficient one.
The book addresses a few other related subjects, beyond the traits associated with geniuses. For example, the degree to which genius can be defined and what it means if we can (or can’t) do so. Few individuals would be unanimously judged geniuses, and to the degree some are, mightn’t that say more about the public’s role in bestowing genius rather than the individual’s earning the designation. There is also discussion about eureka moments versus slow-builds.
This book is thought-provoking and raises intriguing and counter-intuitive debates. If you’re interested in the perception, the reality, and the interplay between the two with regard to genius, check it out.
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Rote Learning [Common Meter]
Words memorized rote are a meal wholly undigested, That's why memorization is utterly detested. Rote learning is, somehow, bloating and yet never filling. One takes it all in by way of monotonous drilling, but while you're still filling your cup you're already spilling. You pass your test and purge it all. It's so unfulfilling. If I may, please let me suggest that here's what you should do: get the gist, play with it, and find out what it means to you.
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BOOK REVIEW: Children’s Literature: A Very Short Introduction by Kimberley Reynolds
Children’s Literature: A Very Short Introduction by Kimberley ReynoldsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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To make an ineloquent (and possibly disturbing) comparison, what’s been said to be true of pornography is also true of children’s literature – i.e. we take for granted that we’ll know it when we see it, but trying to define its boundaries runs into difficulties at every turn. One imagines an illustrated book, simple of language and subject matter, featuring a child as protagonist, and avoiding the most traumatic or shocking subjects and themes, but none of those conditions has proven necessary and / or sufficient. Reynolds presents a landscape of children’s literature (and the debates swirling about it) through history, one that keeps in mind that the subject is slippery.
The book consists of six chapters and some ancillary matter. The first chapter sketches an overview of the history of children’s literature [restricted to English language books.] Here we see the changing face of kid’s lit over time, and learn how children’s literature only gradually became a distinct field, moving from the earliest English translation of “Aesop’s Fables” in the 15th century to the multimedia literary experiences of today.
Chapter 2 is the longest chapter and it investigates the many ways children’s books have been studied, and to what ends. As with adult literature, there are many different perspectives by which literary works can be analyzed, and many that apply to adult books are also seen here with their own child-oriented considerations: e.g. psychoanalytical, gender-centric, linguistic, stylistic, and historical. There are also some uniquely child-applicable considerations that are presented as well, such as how well adults can write in ways which optimally resonate with kids.
Chapter 3 investigates how the field has moved beyond the book to convey stories – old and new – in ways that might be more effective in reaching a diverse body of children. Emphasis is given to how the story experience can be more interactive and flexible to the needs of a broad audience.
The fourth chapter is about genre. In one sense, children’s books are considered a genre, but then there are many cross-genre books such as science fiction or fantasy books directed at a youthful readership. Special focus is given to the family story. The advantage of the family story genre is that it’s one area in which the child can be expected to have some level of experience. [Even orphans will have some sense of interpersonal dynamics by which they can relate.]
The penultimate chapter is about children’s literature as a means to prepare children for a future, from personal level considerations of mortality to societal level issues like ecological tragedy. Children’s fiction that looks to the future has become an increasing trend in the modern era.
The final chapter is where Reynolds gets to the most controversial aspect of children’s literature, which is whether (and, if so, how) subject matter should (or shouldn’t) be limited. One worrying concern is that children’s stories can become thinly-veiled means of indoctrination into political or religious (or anti-religious) dogma. It’s not just a matter of adults having greater discernment, but also that they have greater freedom to choose what books are available to them. The other major issue is to what degree children should be protected from traumatic, complex, or controversial subject matter, e.g. sex, suicide, etc.
The ancillary matter mostly consists of graphics (often historic art / artifacts of relevance) as well as a references / further reading section that is arranged by chapter.
If you’re looking for a concise overview of children’s literature and the debates and challenges that exist around it, this book provides a quick outline of the subject which references many exemplary works that can be looked into for more in-depth investigation.
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BOOK REVIEW: Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman
Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a humorous novel about a rookie teacher’s first year in a New York City public school with all the frustrations and victories that experience entails. It’s an epistolary novel – meaning it’s conveyed through a series of documents. Some of the humor is of a “kids say the darndest things” nature – though these are high school students, so the humor isn’t so much born of naiveté as it is a combination of teenage snarkiness and a maddening ignorance of concepts that students should have grasped by that age (i.e. laugh so you don’t cry style humor.) The humor from kids is largely conveyed by students’ comments in the teacher’s comment box as well as via homework assignments.
There’s a second kind of humor in the form of bureaucratic absurdism. Bureaucratic wrangling and lack of resources cause most of the protagonist’s frustrations. This humor is largely conveyed through memos – some school-wide and some specifically to the protagonist, Sylvia Barrett. Barrett also commiserates with her co-workers, and we see some of her frustration playing out through the post-it note equivalent of water-cooler conversations.
The epistolary form offers a challenging format for both character development and story presentation. However, the novel is strong on character development. It achieves this in large part by mixing long-form letters to a close friend with the short memos and comment box entries. The reader gets to see events unfold and responses by way of different documents. The longer letters give us some depth of feeling. There is even a point where Barrett is being swamped by correspondence and we hear nothing back from her, and in this we can feel the degree to which she is overwhelmed.
The book isn’t story-centric. However, there is a narrative arc that revolves around the question of whether Barrett will stay on at the public high school or move on to teach at a liberal arts college. She is torn because she feels she can do good at the public high school and that would be satisfying, but at the same time she is bureaucratically frustrated and demoralized by perceived failures. There are dramatic events here and there to elevate the tension from the run-of-the-mill school events, but not so much that the book ever moves away from feeling like the real experience of a rookie teacher.
The book uses drawings here and there, usually presented as student doodles, to add to the humor.
I enjoyed this book, finding it to be both humorous and illuminating. I would highly recommend it for those interested in the challenges of secondary education or who can appreciate the [bittersweet] humor of it.
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BOOK REVIEW: TED Talks Storytelling by Akash Karia
TED Talks Storytelling: 23 Storytelling Techniques from the Best TED Talks by Akash Karia
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a brief guide to storytelling and story building, particularly as it pertains to public speaking. Its emphasis on TED Talks is just to capitalize on the popularity of that forum as well as to draw widely known examples. There are no novel insights offered in this book. It’s the same information one could find from many other sources. However, it’s concise, well-organized, and uses examples pulled from popular TED Talks, and so readers may get some synergies from familiarity with a given speaker’s delivery.
The book is organized into nine chapters. The first introduces the topic by explaining why stories are so much more effective than other approaches to public speaking. The second chapter is about hooks and conflict. The third chapter is about the twist or element that makes the story interesting—as opposed to a straightforward accounting of events. Chapters four through six are all related in that they deal with providing the sensory and other details necessary to make the story come alive for the audience member. Chapter seven is about the effectiveness of stories with a positive message. Chapter eight steps back and examines the overall flow of the story with key way-points of consideration. Chapter 9 is a summation of key points. It’s mostly a list of the 23 bullet points that were made throughout the book, each of which is also located at the end of its respective chapter.
I’d recommend this book for anyone preparing for a public speaking engagement. However, I should point out that the price seems to be higher at the moment than when I bought it. I wouldn’t recommend spending a lot on the book because the information is so widely available.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 