Yesterday I woke up before 5 and since I couldn't get back to sleep, I got up and did my sometime "walk around the block." It takes 23.5 minutes, so I'd say it's about 1.5 miles. I don't power-walk, but neither do I stroll. I am looking for moderate exertion, and the feeling of being totally alive.
What an experience! We were expecting rain yesterday, but the sun was rising just over the horizon, and the looming clouds tinted the sky all shades of pink, purple and orange. The birds were singing and for a stretch I felt that I was the only person in the world. Usually I associate that thought with various apocalyptic and thus scary notions, but yesterday it really felt cool and wonderful. June is a great time to get up early.
(Of course, when I got home, the clouds rolled in, it got cold and damp in the house, and I crawled into bed for another 2.5 hours of sleep. So much for carpe'ing the diem.)
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
RIP lawnmower
The reel mower STILL hasn't been delivered (what up with that??) but today we brought home my sister-in-law's mower, cleaned it up, gassed it up, and cut the rest of the grass.
When I finished, I taped a sign on the ol' mower -- "motor runs; blade cuts; wheel-well worn through" -- and left it at the curb, as it is trash day tomorrow. B. put it on craigslist as a freebie drive-by. In exactly 63 minutes, it was gone. I am sad; I was really fond of it.
Maybe the guy is just going to sell it for the scrap metal, but I like thinking that he can fix it up, or use it for parts. I like the idea that things I can't use anymore (because I am too unhandy to fix them) can be useful to someone else, and I love that the internet and websites like craigslist help put stuff and potential users together. (Also, the people who cruise the streets on trash night - hey, I've been there too.)
I was anxious to get the grass cut because it's supposed to rain the rest of the week, and the grass would otherwise be a foot tall by Saturday!
When I finished, I taped a sign on the ol' mower -- "motor runs; blade cuts; wheel-well worn through" -- and left it at the curb, as it is trash day tomorrow. B. put it on craigslist as a freebie drive-by. In exactly 63 minutes, it was gone. I am sad; I was really fond of it.
Maybe the guy is just going to sell it for the scrap metal, but I like thinking that he can fix it up, or use it for parts. I like the idea that things I can't use anymore (because I am too unhandy to fix them) can be useful to someone else, and I love that the internet and websites like craigslist help put stuff and potential users together. (Also, the people who cruise the streets on trash night - hey, I've been there too.)
I was anxious to get the grass cut because it's supposed to rain the rest of the week, and the grass would otherwise be a foot tall by Saturday!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
pedal to the metal
David Byrne had a book review of Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists are Changing American Cities by Jeff Mapes in last week's New York Times. (Yes, THAT David Byrne.) According to the bio blurb at the end of the review, Byrne has a book called Bicycle Diaries coming out in the fall.
I did some local cycling in grad school, although I felt ridiculous at my age pedaling around the city. The generously wide streets, explicit bike lanes and general lack of road rage in the Midwest made it comfortable. I hesitate to do the same here: roads are maxed out with cars and the drivers deliberately don't want to share the road. Creating bike lanes on city streets seems like an unnecessary pitting of drivers against cyclists (there is only so much real estate) but more than that it's the culture of driving. We've made driving too easy - like sitting on your couch watching TV. When it's harder (curvy roads; narrow lanes) drivers can't deal with it, and that's when accidents happen.
(Don't even get me started on cell phones and texting. What I see in my commute! - incredible.)
I did some local cycling in grad school, although I felt ridiculous at my age pedaling around the city. The generously wide streets, explicit bike lanes and general lack of road rage in the Midwest made it comfortable. I hesitate to do the same here: roads are maxed out with cars and the drivers deliberately don't want to share the road. Creating bike lanes on city streets seems like an unnecessary pitting of drivers against cyclists (there is only so much real estate) but more than that it's the culture of driving. We've made driving too easy - like sitting on your couch watching TV. When it's harder (curvy roads; narrow lanes) drivers can't deal with it, and that's when accidents happen.
(Don't even get me started on cell phones and texting. What I see in my commute! - incredible.)
Friday, June 5, 2009
things fall apart
I've been babying my 18-year-old gas-powered lawnmower along ever since the end of last season while I wait for the new reel mower to arrive. It's hard to start, stalls frequently, and the blade has never been sharpened. (B and I disagree on whether the oil and sparkplug have EVER been changed: I say no.)
Yesterday, the left rear wheel fell off, as it has been threatening to do for some time. The metal body of the mower is completely worn through around the hole where the wheel attaches, and since the wheel is only bolted on (no axle), the wheel assembly can just slide right out. B tried to undo the assembly so that we could use a giant washer to plug the hole, but the wheel assembly was fused together with 18 years of rust, dirt and grease, so no dice there. He improvised a solution with a bunch of wire, but that didn't last 10 feet.
What to do? Buy another gas mower new? Seems crazy, when we just shelled out $$ for the reel mower. Find one used? Seems crazy to pay $100 for someone else's trash. Finally, an inspiration! B's sister wanted to give us her mower (2 years old) because she has a service. I had declined at first, but now I believe I will take her up on it. Win-win: she wanted it out of the house; I need a part-time gas mower!
I have another series of rants forthcoming about small plastic do-hickeys that snap off and render whole appliances useless,* but I really can't complain about metal corrosion on a tool that's been used hard for 18 years. (Well, I COULD complain...but I won't.)
*Braun coffeemaker; air pump for balance ball.
Yesterday, the left rear wheel fell off, as it has been threatening to do for some time. The metal body of the mower is completely worn through around the hole where the wheel attaches, and since the wheel is only bolted on (no axle), the wheel assembly can just slide right out. B tried to undo the assembly so that we could use a giant washer to plug the hole, but the wheel assembly was fused together with 18 years of rust, dirt and grease, so no dice there. He improvised a solution with a bunch of wire, but that didn't last 10 feet.
What to do? Buy another gas mower new? Seems crazy, when we just shelled out $$ for the reel mower. Find one used? Seems crazy to pay $100 for someone else's trash. Finally, an inspiration! B's sister wanted to give us her mower (2 years old) because she has a service. I had declined at first, but now I believe I will take her up on it. Win-win: she wanted it out of the house; I need a part-time gas mower!
I have another series of rants forthcoming about small plastic do-hickeys that snap off and render whole appliances useless,* but I really can't complain about metal corrosion on a tool that's been used hard for 18 years. (Well, I COULD complain...but I won't.)
*Braun coffeemaker; air pump for balance ball.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
summer term versus regular term
Summer courses meet for 5 weeks rather than the usual 15 during the Fall and Spring terms.
If we use the American higher ed rule-of-thumb guideline for in-class to out-of-class work (2 hours of homework for every hour spent in class), then for my usual courses, a student should spend 4 hours a week in my classroom and an additional 8 hours reading and doing assignments. When I asked about the institutional culture on this point at New Faculty Orientation a couple of years ago, after one of the administrators had been going on and on about the need for rigorous standards, he basically admitted (in not so many words) that the expectation at my institution was considerably less. HOW much less, he would not say.
(Thank you very much for THAT guide to cultural norms, dude. I believe they call it "don't ask don't tell" in other contexts.)
So now comes the summer course. Forget for a moment that it's online and thus that students already expect it to be easier and/or less work. If it meets for 1/3 the time as a regular-term course and students get the same amount of credit as for a regular-term course, then they should be putting in 12 x 3 = 36 hours a week on my course.
Yeah, like THAT could possibly happen. Yet another one of the institutional lies of higher ed.
I want to be a LEETLE more rigorous than the norm, but I don't want to go crazy.
If we use the American higher ed rule-of-thumb guideline for in-class to out-of-class work (2 hours of homework for every hour spent in class), then for my usual courses, a student should spend 4 hours a week in my classroom and an additional 8 hours reading and doing assignments. When I asked about the institutional culture on this point at New Faculty Orientation a couple of years ago, after one of the administrators had been going on and on about the need for rigorous standards, he basically admitted (in not so many words) that the expectation at my institution was considerably less. HOW much less, he would not say.
(Thank you very much for THAT guide to cultural norms, dude. I believe they call it "don't ask don't tell" in other contexts.)
So now comes the summer course. Forget for a moment that it's online and thus that students already expect it to be easier and/or less work. If it meets for 1/3 the time as a regular-term course and students get the same amount of credit as for a regular-term course, then they should be putting in 12 x 3 = 36 hours a week on my course.
Yeah, like THAT could possibly happen. Yet another one of the institutional lies of higher ed.
I want to be a LEETLE more rigorous than the norm, but I don't want to go crazy.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
General education in the liberal arts college
Liberal arts colleges have for decades prescribed a distribution of courses taken across a range of liberal arts disciplines, in order to help create the "well-educated person" with exposure to concepts and ideas that the citizenry "should" know.
When I was an undergraduate, this requirement was extremely minimal: 2 courses each in humanities; social sciences; and natural sciences. I don't recall that specific courses were listed; I think you could just take anything. Since you majored in SOMETHING, two of your major courses counted in one of the three areas, so really, the distribution requirements only amounted to four courses outside what you might ordinarily be interested in.
Harvard revised its distribution requirements in 2007. (I'm a bit late to the party, here, but this is important for me in the light of ongoing discussions at my own college about our revisions to general education.) Whereas the prior incarnation, called the Core Curriculum, was intended to introduce discipline-specific ways of thinking, the new general-education curriculum "introduces undergraduates to ways of thinking about the world that will shape their lives beyond college" (Harvard Magazine Jan-Feb 2009; p. 51).
I find this shift in intentions extremely interesting. The former is abstract, an intellectual exercise of sorts; the latter is applications-oriented, practical, real-world, implicitly interdisciplinary.
At my college, we have a vast GenEd system: 12 specific educational goals to be met through a menu of specific courses that meet those goals. Between the weird scheduling blocks, the four-credit system (don't even get me started!), more-specific requirements for GenEd for some majors, and other scheduling issues like field study for teaching preparation, students often have a difficult time completing these requirements, and they tend to make decisions based on what fits in their schedules rather than what courses might best for their educational programs. More fundamentally, students do not understand the purpose of GenEd, and understanding is further hindered by the way that advisers tend to talk about the program: "git yer GenEds out of the way early."
In essence, GenEd is reduced to a bunch of boxes that must be checked off on a form required for graduation. There is little explicit discussion of the REASONS for GenEd. However, if you DO look into the rationales, you find it's along the old models. For example, many of my courses meet the social sciences goal: "an understanding of the principles of behavioral and social sciences and/or institutions, together with a critical appreciation of how scientific knowledge has been constructed, including methods of validating the results of scientific inquiry in studying human behavior." Notice how this is all about epistemologies and methods that are expected to be discipline-specific, as opposed to an issue-specific or problem-specific approach.
In my view, this is one reason why GenEd doesn't resonate with students. It is framed on ways of thinking rather than on problems/issues students might face.
When I was an undergraduate, this requirement was extremely minimal: 2 courses each in humanities; social sciences; and natural sciences. I don't recall that specific courses were listed; I think you could just take anything. Since you majored in SOMETHING, two of your major courses counted in one of the three areas, so really, the distribution requirements only amounted to four courses outside what you might ordinarily be interested in.
Harvard revised its distribution requirements in 2007. (I'm a bit late to the party, here, but this is important for me in the light of ongoing discussions at my own college about our revisions to general education.) Whereas the prior incarnation, called the Core Curriculum, was intended to introduce discipline-specific ways of thinking, the new general-education curriculum "introduces undergraduates to ways of thinking about the world that will shape their lives beyond college" (Harvard Magazine Jan-Feb 2009; p. 51).
I find this shift in intentions extremely interesting. The former is abstract, an intellectual exercise of sorts; the latter is applications-oriented, practical, real-world, implicitly interdisciplinary.
At my college, we have a vast GenEd system: 12 specific educational goals to be met through a menu of specific courses that meet those goals. Between the weird scheduling blocks, the four-credit system (don't even get me started!), more-specific requirements for GenEd for some majors, and other scheduling issues like field study for teaching preparation, students often have a difficult time completing these requirements, and they tend to make decisions based on what fits in their schedules rather than what courses might best for their educational programs. More fundamentally, students do not understand the purpose of GenEd, and understanding is further hindered by the way that advisers tend to talk about the program: "git yer GenEds out of the way early."
In essence, GenEd is reduced to a bunch of boxes that must be checked off on a form required for graduation. There is little explicit discussion of the REASONS for GenEd. However, if you DO look into the rationales, you find it's along the old models. For example, many of my courses meet the social sciences goal: "an understanding of the principles of behavioral and social sciences and/or institutions, together with a critical appreciation of how scientific knowledge has been constructed, including methods of validating the results of scientific inquiry in studying human behavior." Notice how this is all about epistemologies and methods that are expected to be discipline-specific, as opposed to an issue-specific or problem-specific approach.
In my view, this is one reason why GenEd doesn't resonate with students. It is framed on ways of thinking rather than on problems/issues students might face.
miscellany from recent reading
Here are some possibilities for various teaching projects:
1.Alex MacLean, Over: the American Landscape at the Tipping Point (Abrams). Aerial photos on the (destruction of the) American landscape.
2.Michael A. Wolf. The Zoning of America: Euclid v. Ambler. UP of Kansas. Good if I ever get to teach planning law. (Not that I really need a primer on Euclid v. Ambler, which I read every time I teach a short segment on planning law.)
3. Michael Porter. On Competition (Harvard Biz Press). I'm attracted by the description of it as brisk outline of his principles, followed by some real-world applications.
1.Alex MacLean, Over: the American Landscape at the Tipping Point (Abrams). Aerial photos on the (destruction of the) American landscape.
2.Michael A. Wolf. The Zoning of America: Euclid v. Ambler. UP of Kansas. Good if I ever get to teach planning law. (Not that I really need a primer on Euclid v. Ambler, which I read every time I teach a short segment on planning law.)
3. Michael Porter. On Competition (Harvard Biz Press). I'm attracted by the description of it as brisk outline of his principles, followed by some real-world applications.
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