Monthly Archives: October 2023

I See You

Posted on by
Reply

Alternating this afternoon between reading student papers and watching college football.

And reading this email from a Somali-American student of mine. “I just saw my grade and your feedback on it. I appreciate the well thought out and thorough feedback! I’ll be sure to apply it to my next paper! It feels nice to have educators in higher Ed that actually read my work with thoughts opposed to my high school.”

The most important roles I play are all related—listener, reader, assessor. “Professing” is overrated.

I have 53 students this semester. A lot of high school teachers have 153. I teach 12 hours a week. Most high school teachers teach 25. High school students aren’t truly listened to or read closely because there’s too many of them and too little time.

The distinguishing feature of the factory model of education, where secondary students come at you in waves of thirty every hour, is that it’s impersonal.

Manifesting Olympic Glory

Posted on by
1

Just when I was starting to think any chance I had of participating in the Olympics may have passed, the International Olympic Committee adds flag football (and cricket)*.

Ask anybody in Louisville, KY, and they will tell you that I was a flag football legend back in the day. With a little practice in the front yard, I’m sure I can find the same form as when I took a double reverse to the house (and kept running well past the endzone).

I will have to enlist the GalPal to shoot some vids of my front yard workouts to get the attention of the U.S. Olympic suits in Colorado Springs. Holler if you want to help as a hapless defensive player trying unsuccessfully to grab my flags as I make you miss like legions of defensive players before you.

*Pickleballers to the IOC, “What are we, chopped liver?”

Enable Much?

Posted on by
Reply

“When Mary Lou Retton, the decorated Olympic gymnast, accrued medical debt from a lengthy hospital stay, her family did what countless Americans have done before them: turned to crowdfunding to cover the bills.

On Tuesday, Ms. Retton’s daughter started a fund-raising campaign on social media for her mother, who she said was hospitalized with a rare pneumonia.

“We ask that if you could help in any way, that 1) you PRAY! and 2) if you could help us with finances for the hospital bill,” McKenna Kelley, Ms. Retton’s daughter wrote in a post on Spotfund, a crowdfunding platform similar to GoFundMe.

The public swiftly responded, with thousands donating $350,000 in less than two days, shattering the goal of $50,000.”

NYT

Another daughter did not reply when asked why her mother, with a net worth of “just $2 million”, did not have medical insurance.

I’m sure the $350,000 was the exclusive work of soft-hearted and headed liberals. Republicans are far too consistent on the whole negative consequences, tough love, and personal accountability thing to have enabled the Retton family.

‘Financial Crossroads’

Posted on by
Reply

The pastor just wrote. Said, “We are at a financial crossroads in this journey of Good Shepherd’s renewal.”

But Good Shepherd has had serious budget issues for ten years so I’m not sure that’s the correct metaphor.

Churches, schools, and other non-profits often get used to perpetual budget crises. And struggle to step back and take a wide-angle view of what to let go of given economic scarcity.

A Wholly Different PLU

Posted on by
Reply

PLU is recruiting much more locally; as a result, our student body looks like Pierce County for the first time ever. The Admission Office is also zeroing in on Hawaii and Eastern Washington, specifically Yakima and Toppenish. Consequently, we have a lot more low and middle income students than in the past. I dig the economic and cultural diversity.

This paragraph from a quiet, bookish, first year writer of mine provides a little flavor flav of the changes:

“Growing up, my dad was on the road a lot. He tends to jump around to different jobs. When my sister was born, he was a volunteer firefighter. I think he was driving for “S” when I was born. A few years later he transferred to “H”. Then worked as a paraeducator for X School District. He has been a funeral director, then went back to working as a paraeducator, and now works for X School District as a janitor. As the years went by, he began to feel stable enough financially to be able to stop driving. Which means he got to be home a lot more. This is probably why I feel I could talk to him. When he was home from being on the road he made sure to create a bond. Now that he hasn’t been gone days at a time for a few years, our bond has gotten stronger. My dad has taught me how to put up and fix a fence, and how to care for the goats, cows, and pigs. My favorite things to do with him are going to the livestock auction on Saturday mornings, and when we go to run errands just us two.”

Molly Seidel—Tough As Nails Millennial

Posted on by
Reply

If I had a dollar for every time one of my Baby Boomer peers bashed Millenials as lazy and soft I could afford to retire. In Monaco.

Don’t read this profile of Molly Seidel if you want to continue to wallow in uninformed, negative assumptions about an entire generation of young adults.

For me, Seidel’s story stitches together almost everything I’ve learned about mental health and subjective well-being from my Millennial writers over the last two decades. Put differently, her story is about much, much more than professional running.

Seidel, the second American and eighth overall in yesterday’s Chicago Marathon, qualified for the Paris Olympics next summer. More importantly, she had fun and felt great about her performance.