whatever it is, i’m against it October 31, 2008
Posted by KC in life, politics.add a comment
I’m not a big fan of California’s proposition system. I know some folks like it as a way for average citizens to participate in the democratic process, but I’m not entirely convinced that’s always a good thing. Writing legislation is tricky business. Or rather, writing good legislation is tricky business. And determining whether a piece of legislation is good or not is equally tricky.
My beef with the proposition system is that it puts me in a position of having to sort the good, the bad, and the ugly. Isn’t that what we pay legislators for? I feel like this legislation by referendum is just a dressed-up way of subverting the democratic process. Think schools get way too much money? Put it on the ballot. Hate immigrants? Put it on the ballot. Think minorities are getting too “uppity”? Put it on the ballot.
proposition hate October 16, 2008
Posted by KC in life, politics.13 comments
I hear that there are quite a few of you out there thinking about voting for California’s Proposition 8, the so-called “California Marriage Protection Act,” which would effectively write a ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution.
I have to admit, though, that I’m having trouble understanding why you’d vote for something like that. I’ve been in a heterosexual marriage for over 14 years, and that’s long enough to have experienced marriage both before and after the advent of legal same-sex marriage. I can honestly say that same-sex marriage hasn’t had much of an effect on my own marriage. If anything, the fact that same-sex couples want to get married is a kind of validation. It can’t be all that bad if everyone wants to do it.
If same-sex marriage has negatively affected your marriage, then I suggest that perhaps your marriage isn’t as resilient as it could be. Seek marriage counseling.
“Ah,” you might say, “but homosexuality is wrong.” I don’t agree, but it’s certainly your prerogative to feel that way. You might have deeply felt beliefs about which sexual organs should go where, based on what some really old book or really old guy in a pointy hat says.* Fine. So don’t get married to someone who’s got the same parts as you. That seems like a pretty easy-to-follow rule. You don’t need a constitutional definition to keep you from accidentally marrying the wrong person, do you?
What it comes down to is this: You’ve only got one reason to vote for Proposition 8, and that’s because you like to tell other people what to do. There’s a strong puritanical tradition in this country of poking our noses in other people’s business, but it’s always run counter to the value we (claim to) place on freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The truth is that, if you’re a heterosexual, same-sex marriage doesn’t affect you.
Or rather, it only affects you to the extent that you let it. If the mere fact that loving, same-sex couples can express their commitment and devotion to each other through marriage fills you with fear and disgust, then I think that’s your problem, not theirs.
* I am not, of course, referring to Dumbledore.
illinois ethics and politics October 3, 2008
Posted by KC in academia, politics.add a comment
As you might have already heard, the University of Illinois recently told its faculty that they are not permitted to engage in political activity on campus, such as wearing candidate buttons, sporting bumper stickers, or attending rallies. As you can imagine, this hasn’t gone over well.
When I was an instructor at Illinois, I was forced every year to complete what was called an “ethics module,” or an on-line training course designed to make sure we state employees were being careful stewards of taxpayer money. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but the topics covered by the module tended to focus on the awarding of state contracts or the taking of bribes. A significant portion of the module also focused on forbidding us from using state property to engage in political activity.
I always understood this module as attempting to create the appearance of ethical behavior, rather than actually encouraging good conduct. Moreover, the scenarios presented in the module had little to do with the real ethical issues of university work, such as academic dishonesty, capricious grading, sexual harassment, or accommodating disabled students. Instead, the module focused on the sorts of violations with which Illinois politicians have had a long and illustrious history — corruption, graft, and using state resources for political gain.
when the log rolls over September 30, 2008
Posted by KC in life, politics.add a comment
I don’t claim to know much about economics, but I know enough to understand that doing nothing about the current economic crisis would be a huge mistake. I know that people are pissed at Wall Street. I’m pissed, too. But I’m appalled by those who seem to think the best course of action is just to let banks and investors twist in the wind. These statements made by Mitchell Bard on the Huffington Post are typical:
…a big part of me just wishes that Wall Street is left to solve (or not) its own mess. Yeah, I know that people would be hurt, and I would hardly be happy with that. But, again, maybe we would be better off in the long run, with a better understanding of the importance of governing the right way.
There has to be consequences for actions. Without them, a society can’t function. If Congress manages to overcome today’s setback and pass a Wall Street bailout this week, those who have profited from advocating a system that was always destined to implode will, in the end, pay no price for their actions.
Yes, we’d love to hold those fat cats responsible for the reckless way they’ve gambled with our economy, but this idea that “people would be hurt” is a gross understatement. It’s not just bankers and investors who’ll be hurt — it’s everyone. Like it our not, there’s not a clear way to punish Wall Street without punishing ourselves (or our pensions, or 401ks, or whatever).
If, through negligence, your neighbor allowed his house to catch fire, would you stand idly by while it burned to the ground? After all, it’s his own damn fault, right? But what if his house was so close to yours that you were certain that the fire would spread to your own house? Wouldn’t you help him put out the flames then? Wall Street is perhaps closer than you think.
Or, as this dumb campfire story from my youth says, “when the log rolls over, we’ll all be dead.”
Today, Barack Obama made the rather gutsy move of encouraging everyone to support the economic rescue plan that’s having trouble making it through Congress. Maybe we should listen to him. I don’t know if the “bailout” is the best of all possible solutions, but the consequences of doing nothing are simply too terrible to contemplate.
grout expectations September 25, 2008
Posted by KC in life, writing.add a comment
Ever since I moved back to California, I’ve noticed this weird form of public restroom graffiti which involves inscribing puns based on the word “grout” into the grout around tiles. It looks like this:
In case it’s hard to read, from the top clockwise they say “who let the dogs grout,” “the grout gatsby,” and “grout at the devil.” (Unfortunately, I didn’t get the full one on the left, since I wasn’t all that comfortable standing in a public bathroom trying to compose the perfect shot.) The puns depend largely on either substituting “grout” for “great,” as in “grout expectations” or “grout balls of fire,” or substituting “grout” for a rhyme word, such as “for crying grout loud” or “what you talkin’ grout, willis?”
What’s fascinating about this — and I imagine this is the whole point — is the literal inscription of a pun onto the material from which the pun derives. But I also sort of appreciate the pure goofiness of it, the implied rejection of more acerbic or vulgar forms of restroom graffiti.
I’ve seen this only in campus men’s restrooms here in California, so I wonder if this is a regional thing. Or only a men’s room thing. Or only a college campus thing. Or some combination of those. Does this happen elsewhere?
you, sir, are no professor x September 24, 2008
Posted by KC in education, teaching.3 comments
It’s been out for a while now, but I was just recently pointed to a piece in the Atlantic, titled “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower,” in which an adjunct college instructor complains at length, under the pseudonym of “Professor X,” about how “unfit for college” his students are. No, really:
For I, who teach these low-level, must-pass, no-multiple-choice-test classes, am the one who ultimately delivers the news to those unfit for college: that they lack the most-basic skills and have no sense of the volume of work required; that they are in some cases barely literate; that they are so bereft of schemata, so dispossessed of contexts in which to place newly acquired knowledge, that every bit of information simply raises more questions. They are not ready for high school, some of them, much less for college.
I think this perspective is so vile and loathsome, so indicative of a total misunderstanding of the educational enterprise, that it hardly needs comment. However, I got to thinking about this author’s choice of pseudonym.
Professor Charles Xavier.
Art by Aaron Lopresti
You see, this Professor X is all about the “non-traditional” students – in this case, mutants. Perhaps the Atlantic’s “Professor X” also thinks of himself as working with mutants. Here’s how he describes one of his favorite ways of talking about students:
I don’t have cause to use much educational jargon, but deficits has often come in handy. It conveys the seriousness of the situation, the student’s jaw-dropping lack of ability, without being judgmental.
First he’s dismissive about “educational jargon,” and then turns around and uses a term — “deficit” — that no self-respecting educator has used in decades. In what universe is labeling a student as deficient not judgmental? I’d expect the real Professor X (yes, I realize he’s a fictional character, but bear with me) to speak in terms of what his students have, rather than what they lack. I peg the Atlantic’s “Professor X” as more of a Magneto type.
If you don’t believe in the inherent educability of everyone, then perhaps teaching isn’t the best profession for you. I think “Professor X” probably deserves the students he complains about, but his students certainly don’t deserve him.
universal design for learning as lever August 21, 2008
Posted by KC in teaching.add a comment
Last week I went to (most of) my school’s new faculty orientation. Much of it focused on stuff like benefits and tenure, but I was intrigued by the morning devoted to what the organizers called “Universal Design for Learning” (or UDL). In architecture and engineering, the term “universal design” refers to a set of principles for accessibility that result in things like wheelchair ramps and large, flat light switches. UDL, by metaphorical extension, is ostensibly concerned with providing accessible learning environments, so that students with disabilities have equal opportunities to learn.
I say “ostensibly,” because it’s pretty clear that part of the UDL agenda is not just about addressing the needs of students with disabilities, but also about changing core pedagogies of teachers. According to the website linked above, there are three key principles of UDL:
- Faculty can offer various ways to REPRESENT essential course concepts
- Faculty can offer various ways to encourage student ENGAGEMENT
- Faculty can offer students various formats for EXPRESSION of what they have learned
With a little tweaking, these principles could pass as a distillation of Chickering and Gamson’s “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.” And the examples of good UDL solutions (which can be viewed in an online tutorial) looked a lot like the kinds of active, experiential pedagogy that college teaching centers tend to espouse.
So, UDL isn’t just about addressing disability; it’s also about reforming teachers. I’m okay with this, but I also think it’s an uphill climb. In the Q&A session at the end of our workshop, there was a concern that experiential activities are all well and good, but that instructors in some disciplines can’t spend valuable class time on stuff like that when there is so much material to be covered. This propensity to think of teaching in terms of content coverage is more prevalent, perhaps, than you’d think. I saw it all the time when I worked for a teaching center, especially (but not exclusively) when talking to instructors in the hard sciences. As one of the workshop presenters pointed out, this model of learning posits students as empty vessels into which a teacher pours knowledge.
I believe (along with many others) that deep learning is the result of active engagement and participation, not passive reception. If UDL principles can encourage teachers to rethink their teaching in these terms, then all of their students stand to benefit–not just the ones living with disabilities.
what’s in a name? August 1, 2008
Posted by KC in life.4 comments
Dissertation writers, at the end of the long and arduous process, typically have to go through a final round of ritual hoop-jumping called “depositing.” Most of this involves adhering to complex formatting requirements with a care and precision that I normally associate with handling radioactive or bio-hazardous materials. The title page, in particular, has to be just so.
Because I wanted to avoid hang-ups later in the process, I sent just my title page to my school’s thesis office (yes, a whole office deals with this) in order to make sure everything complied. I was told, among other things, that I had used the wrong name. I had put “Kory Lawson Ching” on my title page, but apparently school records refer to me without my middle name, and was thus told I would have to use only “Kory Ching.”
I have to admit, this rankled me some. I mean, I know what my own name is, and while there may be many things in my dissertation that others could disagree with, I was fairly certain that the author’s name wouldn’t be one of them. I could have fought this by changing my official name with the university, but I didn’t want to get embroiled in a bureaucratic mess that would delay depositing (believe me, this is what would happen). I just wanted to be done.
So, I changed my name on the title page, but it was a little painful to do so. It’s not that I’m worried about database searches finding me, or that the shortened name is inconsistent with the name I’ve already published under. It’s that I consider my middle name an integral part of both my personal and professional identity. “Lawson” is the surname of my maternal grandparents. They had no sons, so I was given their name to carry it forward. I am proud to have done so. Because I was raised by a single mom, my grandparents were like a second set of parents for me. I identify with “Lawson” just as much as I do “Ching.” Perhaps more so.
But, of course, there are all sorts of weird politics mixed up in all this, like the privileging of male surnames in our culture, and I haven’t even touched how this aligns with my multiethnic status. In the end, it’s just a name. I guess I know who I am, despite what it says on my title page.
repurposing the dissertation June 29, 2008
Posted by KC in life, writing.add a comment
I sometimes have my writing students take an essay they’ve written and find some creative way to rethink it for a different audience or different context — to “re-purpose” it. I thought about that assignment on a recent camping trip as I found a useful way to repurpose my dissertation…as kindling.
Okay, so these are just printed drafts (what my son calls “sloppy copies”), but there’s something therapeutic about burning words that you’ve spent so much time working on. You know that scene at the end of Return of the Jedi, when Luke torches Darth Vader’s remains on a funeral pyre? It was almost exactly like that.
Also, if you do it right, you can get the pages to burn so that they shrink, but you can still see all the words. It’s sort of like a textual shrinky dink.
just add sprinkles June 29, 2008
Posted by KC in life.add a comment
I’m not much of a cake decorator. I made this chocolate cake for my son’s birthday, but after applying the frosting, I felt like it wasn’t especially festive. It looked more like a large, brown hockey puck. So, I found myself some candy sprinkles (a pantry staple around here), and started throwing fistfuls at the cake. As you can see, enough of them stuck to make a decent presentation, though a good 75% of the sprinkles ended up on the counter and the floor.
There’s a metaphor for academic work in there somewhere.
