October 2007 Archives

Yesterday marked a major milestone on The Boy's path to dental adulthood - he lost his first tooth.  Actually, I kind of yanked it out of his mouth while we were sitting in the car waiting for Hublet to negotiate with the auto repair guy, but whatever. 

I was all excited, because I had been waiting over 6 years to use the super-cute tooth pillow that I received at a baby shower prior to The Boy's birth. I had shown him the pillow, complete with the little pocket, when he first discovered that his tooth was loose. This had disappointed my mother, who had somehow procured an even cuter and more elaborate tooth pillow, when I informed her that we had the tooth pillow issue handled, thanks.  Yes, there was tooth pillow drama. I know.

So naturally, when it actually fell out, The Boy decided not to use the super-cute tooth pillow in favor of a zip-loc plastic snack bag.

Which is probably just as well, since I seem to have lost the tooth pillow.

I'm just not cut out for Martha Stewart living.

I was going to title this, "Seen any good movies lately," but alas, I go too infrequently.  Of course, I can't blame that on The Boy or the cost of a babysitter, either.  I can, however, blame it on the fact that I haven't seen an interesting movie trailer in many, many months.  There are 2 possible reasons for this:

1. The folks in charge of trailer-making suck.
2. The folks in charge of making movies are making boring useless movies.

The latest ads for films I've seen either on TV or at the theatre have featured, in no particular order:

• Pained middle-aged people being played by either Susan Sarandon or Tommy Lee Jones.
• Animated bees, which might be interesting, except that Jerry Seinfeld's voice is so distinctive and distracting that I can't pay attention to the bee as a character because every episode of Seinfeld ever made is running through my head as soon as I hear him speak.
• George Clooney striding purposefully up a hill - why?  We don't know!  But it's George Clooney!  And he's STRIDING! UP! A! HILL!
• American flag imagery over a backdrop of despair.  Gee, I wonder if this is a war movie?  And if so, I wonder what sort of take on it the moviemaker will have?  Hmmmm.  It's a puzzle!
• Russell Crowe versus Denzel Washington in the dark, with guns and wet pavement.  Woo.
• Vampires!
• Angelina Jolie with a tail.  In 3-D.  And CGI.  And it's Beowulf.  I'm...well, uh...Huh.

And these are the ones that have at least made an impression on me - God knows how many others are floating around out there.  Sigh. At least I enjoyed 3:10 to Yuma.

So yesterday was picture day at The Boy's school.  Desperate not to repeat last year's mistake, I was planning on sending The Boy to school in a short-sleeved polo shirt and khaki shorts. That way he'd be both presentable in the photo and comfortable on the playground, since Fall has determined that it's just gonna skip N.C. this year.

But alas, I was not planning on The Boy being self-determining.  Upon reflection, I realize that I must not have been paying attention.  After all, this is the same child who only wore orange socks for his entire third year of life on this planet, and the child who wore either a Power Rangers sweatsuit or a Tow-Mater shirt for six straight months. In addition, he is very free with his opinions about what our family members are wearing, memorably informing my mother at the beach, "Wow, Grandmommy! You look almost good!" So yeah, The Boy has definite sartorial preferences, and this past Saturday he took a moment away from his Toon Town time to announce:

"I want a red shirt and a red-and-black-checkered tie to wear for my picture."

Oooookaaaay. Since I had errands to run anyway, and since I am SICK TO DEATH OF ALL THE WARM-WEATHER CLOTHES I OWN (see absence of Fall, above), I determined that a quick stop by Kohls might be the answer.

And bless you, Arrow shirt company, with your pre-packaged shirt/tie combos that help me avoid arguing about putting a blue and red tie with a black shirt. The Boy selected a red shirt with a red and black striped tie, some black pants (with adjustable waist, Hallelujiah!), and helped me pick out 4 new shirts and a dress.  We were officially ready for Picture Day.

Being a realist, I felt it necessary to prepare The Boy for the fact that he would likely be the only boy in a tie in his entire elementary school, so we armed him with the appropriate response to teasing, as well as a change of clothes for the playground, because it was going to be about 84 degrees that day, and a long-sleeved shirt, tie, and long black pants would be miserable.

Picture Day morning The Boy was in a very good mood, beaming when I told him how handsome he looked, and checking his hair in the mirror. When he got out of the car at the dropoff, the teacher helping out complimented him as well, and he looked pleased and a bit embarrassed.

Turns out all my worrying about teasing was for naught. Although The Boy was the only one in a tie, his  friend/nemesis was very impressed with his look, as were his classmates. I just hope he isn't pulling a Calvin face in the picture.

And I'm already planning the "You want those clothes, you get a job at the store and an employee discount and knock yourself out" speech. I have a feeling I'll be needing it.

Yeah, I know. But I've read the past couple of pieces Fish has written in the NYT about the academy's response to accusations of indoctrination, and they've been pretty well balanced. His latest piece includes the following:

In response to the Students for Academic Freedom's insistence that professors "should not be making statements ... about George Bush if the class is not on contemporary American presidents," the subcommittee offers this grand, and empty, pronouncement: "[A]ll knowledge can be connected to all other knowledge." But if the test for bringing a piece of "knowledge" into the classroom is the possibility of connecting it to the course's ostensible subject, nothing will ever fail it, and the only limitation on the topics that can be introduced will be the instructor's ingenuity.

My point is made for me by the subcommittee when it proposes a hypothetical as a counterexample to the stricture laid down by the Students for Academic Freedom: "Might not a teacher of nineteenth-century American literature, taking up 'Moby Dick,' a subject having nothing to do with the presidency, ask the class to consider whether any parallel between President George W. Bush and Captain Ahab could be pursued for insight into Melville's novel?"

But with what motive would the teacher initiate such a discussion? If you look at commentaries on "Moby Dick," you will find Ahab characterized as inflexible, monomaniacal, demonic, rigid, obsessed and dictatorial. What you don't find are words like generous, kind, caring, cosmopolitan, tolerant, far-seeing and wise. Thus the invitation to consider parallels between Ahab and Bush is really an invitation to introduce into the classroom (and by the back door) the negative views of George Bush held by many academics.

Read the whole thing - for Fish, it is remarkably succinct, perhaps because the NYT has a pretty strict word limit on op-eds.

Tried to reply to a comment on my site last evening and it got spam filtered.  The default setting is "accept comments from anyone," so I'm not sure what the problem is.  Apologies to Poppleton and LB.

I'll keep an eye on the spam filter, but in the meantime if you're having trouble commenting, just email me at bigarm at bigarmwoman dot com and I'll try to help you out...

This article posits an interesting hypothesis regarding the death of Edgar Allan Poe, and brings back memories of my American Lit survey courses from sophomore year.

I remember 2 things clearly from that course, taught by a specialist in Poe: 

1. Edgar Allan Poe didn't go by Edgar Allan Poe, he was just Edgar Poe.  The Allan got added in posthumously.
2. My professor was convinced, based upon this daguerreotype , that Poe died of a stroke. He always noted the way that one side of Poe's face drooped.

If it turns out that Poe did suffer from a brain tumor, then perhaps my somewhat eccentric, banzai-tree-pruning Poe specialist professor (who is still at Davidson and still teaching, I'm pleased to note!) was at least partially correct - brain tumors can be a factor in making strokes more likely to occur, after all.

Say that 3 times fast.

Over at Durham in Wonderland, K.C. Johnson explores the intent and assumptions behind a call for fellowship applications from the John Hope Franklin Institute.  His analysis, as usual, is interesting, so read if you're looking for insight into the intersection of the humanities and politics.

Me, I'm more appalled at the intersection of the humanities and illiteracy. Why? Check out the title of the fellowship's theme:

The Alternative Political Imaginaries

Okay, what?  No, really.  What part of speech is "imaginaries" supposed to be in this context? A noun? The second part of a compound subject, the first part of which is "political?" If either, then what the hell is an "imaginary," since we need to define that first before we go around pluralizing it.  Is it someone who imagines alternative politics? Is it an escapee from a Disney team of "Imagineers" who has decided to defect to academia and build Che Guevara-themed tea rooms?  Is it just a really poor pun on "luminaries?"  Evidence that the author may be overfond of absinthe with his or her morning toast?

Read the excerpts over at DIW for further examples of literacy-challenged and unclear prose.

I wandered over to the foundation's website and discovered that the institute was all about being interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, uber-disciplinary - you get the picture.  Somehow over the past decade the humanities have decided that it's a really good idea to take all their disciplines--some with thousands of years worth of complicated contextualized content--and make gumbo out of it. Gumbo tastes good, it's pretty cheap and filling and a clever way to get rid of leftovers, but you generally don't learn much from it.

Except, apparently, how to turn words into meaningless mushy nonsense.

So The Boy loves baseball.  Well, it's T-ball, sort of.  The coaches pitch, but after 5 tries they can hit off the tee, and everyone bats through twice and it's over in an hour.  Defensive plays are nice, but not necessary to the game. All in all, it's a good arrangement - spectators don't get that deer in headlights trapped expression from the game dragging on, they play at 6:15 so there's plenty of time to get home, showered, and in bed at a decent hour, and the field is 3 miles from the house. 

But I've gotta say that in terms of behavior, this team is absolutely the WORST BEHAVED group of Kindergarteners and First Graders I've ever witnessed.  Oh, I can hear you now:  "But BAW," you gasp in shock, "surely you must be exaggerating!"  To which I can only reply:  HA!  HA!  Examples?  You want examples?  Oh, I'll give you examples, and I'll even change the names to protect the not-even-a-little-bit-innocent hellions.

First, there is the coach's son--let's call him Cletus.  WHY is it always the coach's son?  This past spring, the coach's son was a ginormous butthead who hogged the ball, the field, and the coach's attention, because he would. not. listen.  This go round, the coach's son is just a mean little bastard, and yes, I realize that I, a fully grown adult, am calling a 6-year-old a mean little bastard, but there's simply no other term that adequately describes him. He hits and pushes teammates, pretends his father doesn't exist, and actually CLEATED (as in, deliberately kicked with cleats pointed outward) an assistant coach last week.  Of course, the assistant coach who got cleated by Cletus also has a son on the team who won't listen (we'll call him Abel), and a younger son who likes to hit his brother's teammates with a bat (I've dubbed that one Cain). Interestingly enough, one of the teammates Cain hit was Cletus, so I guess that proves instant karma exists even for 5 and 6 year olds.  And no, I didn't go, "HA!  In your face, Cletus! Live by the cleat, die by the bat!" when it happened.  I made sure that Cletus was okay first, and then said it under my breath.

So, we've got Cletus the bully, and Abel, the other coach's son, and his little brother, Cain. Then there's Spacely, the OTHER assistant coach's son, who isn't a bully, but who I want to check repeatedly for brain damage.  I'm calling him Spacely for a reason, that reason being his tendency to wander off in the middle of a game, and ignore his father calling him, or correcting him, or telling him "no."

Sensing a theme, are we?

Spacely's soulmate is a little girl I'll call Zephyr, for lo, she is a free spirit.  So free, in fact, that no adult in America can constrain her free freedom of freediosity. Zephyr likes to play catch in the bleachers during her at bat. Yeah.

Then there's Damien, a mouthy little brat who also likes to beat people up and who tells any adult who intervenes "You can't tell me what to do!"

And let's not forget Gabriel, who looks like a pudgy kid from 1957 with a buzz cut and glasses.  He likes to call his teammates losers and brag about his abilities, which are non-existent.

So, since Hublet volunteered to help coach, and since this tends to leave him solo in the dugout during the at-bats, AND since the Cain/Cletus bat incident resulted in my marching into the dugout, grabbing boys and bats, and barking orders, prompting Cain's father to ask, "Are you a teacher?" and me to reply, "No! I'm just bossy!" I have become the default Dugout Mom. 

The job sucks about as hard as something not attached to an industrial strength Hoover can suck, in case you're wondering.

See, the thing all of these tiny spawns of Satan's loins have in common is a complete and total lack of parental control. Or intervention. Or anything really resembling parenting. There are no consequences for bad behavior for these kids, and the parents seem more than happy to foist them off onto other adults to deal with. I thought that my heading into the dugout uninvited and summarily prying kids off the fence and off of each other, plunking them onto the bench, and telling them to stay put would embarrass the parents into controlling their offspring.  No such luck.

And since I cannot actually beat them into submission, my options for keeping the peace are limited.

I'm laying in a supply of duct tape, though, in case of emergency.

For I am lazy and it is Monday.  Here are a couple of fun 'net quizzy things (mostly via Andrea)

I am a Cool Nerd Queen.  Big surprise. Take the quiz.

Your past life diagnosis:

I don't know how you feel about it, but you were female in your last earthly incarnation.You were born somewhere in the territory of modern Yukon around the year 1300. Your profession was that of a preacher, publisher or writer of ancient inscriptions.

Your brief psychological profile in your past life:
Timid, constrained, quiet person. You had creative talents, which waited until this life to be liberated. Sometimes your environment considered you strange.

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:
Your main task is to make the world more beautiful. Physical and spiritual deserts are just waiting for your touch. Keep smiling!

The Yukon?  No wonder I hate the cold. Good to know that I'm consistently considered a weirdo, though.

From here.

Okay, at the risk of doing some totally inappropriate girly gushing, I've gotta say thanks to all of you super-awesome folks who have volunteered to send a postcard.  It's really cool getting emails from readers from places I've never been, or only visited once in passing...yay!  Plus, since most folks read w/out commenting, it's nice to know that there's actual reading taking place.  So again, yay!

But that's not the only reason why it's like Christmas on Thursday in October.  Oh, no.  You see, today I picked up a copy of the Chronicle of Higher Ed, and guess what was on page B4 in the Review section?

A David Horowitz article slamming the AAUP.  For those of you who may have just fallen off a turnip truck, publishing Horowitz in the Chronicle criticizing the AAUP is kind of like tossing a hunk of pure sodium into a bucket of water.  Wheeee!  I'll be keeping a watch on the discussion boards over there just for my own amusement.

On a related note, another academic has published an op-ed in Inside Higher Ed arguing against professors inserting personal political viewpoints (or really much personal info at all) into the classroom.  In reading several such articles over the past weeks, and in the comments section to this one, I've come across more than one commenter quoting Kurt Vonnegut:

" I argued that it was a teacher's duty to speak frankly to students of college age about all sorts of concerns of humankind, not just the subject of a course as stated in the catalogue. "That's how we gain their trust, and encourage them to speak up...."- Kurt Vonnegut

and using it to argue equivalence between "offering information about all the different viewpoints on a particular subject" and "me, me, me, glorious me, fabulous me, here's what I think, me, me, me, let's have a rap session, man, because students totally can't learn unless a viewpoint is embodied."

I don't know if Vonnegut intended that quote as encouragement for those professors with egotistical leanings toward the cult of personality (cough, WARD CHURCHILL, cough), who feel the urge to cover students with wild-eyed rants about the fabulousness of themselves and their opinions, but in my experience the kinds of folks who sling Vonnegut quotes around to justify their harangues are also pretty overdeveloped in the self-esteem department.

I don't think you can draw any large conclusion about the "all me, all the time" culture of the 60's and 70's and the subsequent development of this mindset, but it is interesting.  Plus it gives me another excuse to blame the baby boomers for every evil thing that's ever happened, ever, so it's a win-win for me.

While getting worked up into a froth in the post below -  

HAT WATCH, DAY - umm.  I forget:

Purple and Black Spider.  The legs extend in a nimbus that reaches a good 2 feet from her head.  Where is she getting these things?

And thanks to all of you who've responded to my postcard plea below.  I'm still taking volunteers...Anyone got any friends in Alaska?

Oh, and something I just thought of while perusing this post and its associated links:

You can rest assured that no matter how much of an ass I may think you are, I will never publish your personal information (complete with satellite imagery) online, either with or without veiled and threatening commentary, due to your political views or actions. And that's a Big Arm Woman guarantee! Granted, it's a guarantee I would have assumed most folks wouldn't have to make, because it's way beyond the pale, but you know what they say about "assume."  Jesus. What is WRONG with people?

So a friend of mine forwarded me a post that's been making the rounds on a mailing list frequented by the thinky folks in the education world.  No, not the people who actually DO the educating; the people who think about how the people who do the educating should go about educating other people.  Yeah.  Those people.

The article deals with the oh-so-topical-and-touchy subject of "advocacy in the classroom."  Short summary?  See title of post above.

Anyway, the article, she is long, so I'm doing the excerpt thing here. Follow the link above for the whole article.  First, I'll give you the paragraph wherein the authors defend advocacy over neutrality: 

"While such advocacy has costs and risks, we give it a conditional defense.  First, for the educator to take a neutral stance on such issues would tend to give students the relativistic message that no answers are better or closer to the truth than any others regarding moral, political, and religious questions.  This is to promote a dubious
doctrine that students are too ready to embrace out of laziness, defensiveness, and postmodern cultural  influences.  A neutral instructor could try to preempt this relativistic implication by notifying students that her own refusal to advocate a position is due to the neutrality required by her role and not because of personal indifference or the lack of objectively correct answers.  Yet such an explicated neutrality still has the disadvantage of failing to model a concerned but responsible defense of a position.  Such modeling may contribute to the educational goal of creating engaged and independent citizens.  A professor who never advocates conclusions can model critical reasoning but not commitment.  The neutral professor might try to further close this "commitment gap" by giving examples of sincere engagement by other intellectuals and activists.  For example Pope John Paul II's opposition
to abortion could be contrasted with the arguments and stories of feminists defending abortion rights- thereby giving students models of  engagement to choose from.  However, such pedagogy still has a cost.  Students would not encounter flesh and blood individuals taking a stand on contemporary issues- commitment would only exist on paper or in classroom videos, not in professors."

So if a professor doesn't take a stand, students believe that there is no answer? Couldn't a professor say, "Here are the arguments for and against.  Pick one and defend it." And students are incapable of dealing with ideas unless they are physically embodied inside the classroom by a professor? Curious argument, and somewhat revealing in terms of what the authors think about the mental capacity of students.

It goes on in this vein. Perhaps sensing that their article might be considered long and rambling, the authors helpfully summarized their ideas in a numbered list, which I will produce here (my comments in bold):

"Our discussion of advocacy yields the following proposal:

1)  Professors should avoid indoctrination in their advocacy.  In particular professors should not:
* Attempt to influence students to believe things without regard for the evidence
* Coerce student agreement or silence to secure the prevalence of their own views
* Lie about or distort material
Sounds good so far! How's that working in reality?

2) Professors must support independent intellectual inquiry.  In particular they should:
* Make clear that different views and questions are welcome
* Present a balanced discussion of reasonable alternatives and relevant considerations regarding issues discussed
Okey-dokey. 

3) Professors should avoid advocacy which prevents the accomplishment of course goals.
Sure. Note to former professor who I shall refer to only as Grendel girl (explanation to follow) - PAY ATTENTION TO THIS ONE!

4) Professors should only advocate positions which they have good reason to believe are correct.
Um, okay?  Isn't this a bit subjective?  Some people apparently have good reason to believe that fire can't melt steel...or that the earth is flat...But okay, moving on.

5) Professors should only advocate when they have reason to believe advocacy will contribute to student development.  The value of advocacy may include:
* Fostering values necessary for education and inquiry
* Teaching basic humanitarian principles and virtues necessary for good citizenship
* Promoting views that are not taken sufficiently seriously by students
What are these values?  Who decides? No, really.  Who decides? Because this goes beyond a professor presenting pros and cons of particular items within the subject's purview. Plus, when people start talking about "virtues" and "good citizenship," I get that creepy feeling. Again, who decides?

6)  The pedagogical value of advocacy in item 5 should outweigh any costs of advocacy in class time or the unintentional alienation or intimidation of students."
Woah.  So advocacy is bad, unless it's for subjects that are self-evidently "correct," or that a teacher "is reasonably sure are correct," or that an instructor feels are "virtues," or items that "students aren't taking seriously," in which case: ADVOCATE!

Taken by itself, this seems a fairly innocuous list - the usual pablum about "challenging viewpoints," etc. And within the context of liberal arts/humanities education, this sometimes is useful. Particularly in literature, when you spend a lot of time making connections between past and present in terms of literary themes. But the reality is different, as anyone who's taken lit courses in the past decade or so knows. When Beowulf becomes a vehicle for discussing Palestinian liberation in every class, it's no longer about stimulating student reflection, unless you think Grendel authored the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And let's get serious about what sort of advocacy one is liable to encounter in today's academy, particularly on the humanities side. I'm at one of the more conservative universities in a pretty conservative state, and yet - Grendel!  Palestine! WTF!

As for neutrality, to this day I have no idea of the political persuasion of my MA thesis advisor, someone with whom I had a close enough personal relationship to invite her to my wedding. And yet, I somehow managed to read and understand both sides of the arguments I was presented with, and to utilize deductive reasoning within her classes, all without being exposed to Points Of View in The Flesh!

For me, this is about trust. I don't trust people who are overwhelmingly on one side of a debate to offer guidelines about advocacy, particularly when every example of advocacy within their article falls conveniently on that side of the debate. If the roles were reversed, I'm sure the authors would see the double-edged-ness of this particular sword.

Ah, fall.  95 degrees, hot as all hell, and apparently the drought has had zero effect on the plants that cause my sinuses to go nuts.  Huzzah.

I have a couple of goodly rants building, but I may wait until I'm no longer on legal meth to write them, as Sudafed has the tendency to make my reasoning somewhat, erm, jumpy.

In the meantime, a shameless plea for help - The Boy's 1st grade class is doing the "Get Postcards from all 50 States" thing, and I don't have many contacts outside of NC.  So I thought I'd post the address and ask any kind souls who may be so inclined (and who live outside of North Carolina) if they may consider sending a postcard from their native state. 

Since we live in the era of porn and goofiness, I'm not going to post the address here - just email me if you'd like to help at bigarm at bigarmwoman dot com and I'll email you the addy.

Okay, so I was trying to find the Graduation mini-movie from Kim Possible, which apparently ISN'T AVAILABLE for either download or purchase - don't get me started yet again on my craptastic DVR which isn't TiVo and which therefore SUCKS because it doesn't understand the concept of ONE HOUR MOVIE and only recorded half the episode, thereby ruining our family's entire evening of fun and viewership, DAMN YOU DIRECTV DVR! - and ran across a phenomenon called ToonTown, which is like EverQuest for the Elementary set, except free. Well, this is from Disney, so obviously you can pay for "an upgraded experience," but there's a lot to do for free, so free it is.

The Boy and I created a toon, and I thought, "This'll be fun for a few days."

Famous last words.

That place is freaking addictive!  We fish, and play games, and defeat evil cogs by throwing pies in their faces, and have pets and help friends in battle, and  - good grief.  There's a reason I never started World of Warcraft, or any other MMORPG.  I understand my limitations, and my tendency to be sucked into the internet.  However, I grossly misunderestimated Disney - a mistake I shall not repeat, friends.

So now I have my toon, and The Boy has his, and he uses his TV time on ToonTown. 

Good news - no TV.  Bad news - I've become obsessed with completing the task that will give us Frame 16 of the Sound Gag Training Movie, so that we'll have a new and improved weapon in our anti-Cog arsenal.

I can't believe I just typed that sentence.

Sigh.

At least my TV Boyfriend and his Geeky Ginormous TV Brother will return tomorrow evening, so I can be distracted from my burning need to defeat Cogs.

So I took Friday off in an attempt to recover from Monday through Thursday, and it just didn't work out the way I had anticipated.  Then I spent all day Saturday and Sunday driving to Raleigh and back twice and doing assorted things, so the house is a wreck, I am exhausted, and there's a t-ball game tonight. 

Plus, I have somehow managed to spill part of my tall, skim, light whip mocha from Starbucks down my cleavage.  Didn't get a drop on my sweater, but my underpinnings now carry the aroma of cocoa.  Good God.

And drop-off lady was sporting a gigantic stuffed pumpkin on her noggin this morning.

I know it's only Monday, but can I have a do-over for this week?