Category Archives: Writing

A Wholly Different PLU

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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.”

Shannon, Stephen A. disagree on NFL MVP this season

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Never mind that the season hasn’t started.

This is a new low.

Even with the intense individualism that marks life in the (dis)United States, I will never understand the preoccupation with MVP races.

Last I checked, basketball, football, baseball are team sports. I don’t give a shit about who is the most valuable player. Now, mid-season, late season. Tell me one thing, what’s your winning percentage?

That said, it’s prob time to name the MVPP. . . Most Valuable Pressing Pauser. Are you a contender or pretender? Contender. . . someone named DanDanTheRetiredTranspo Man; Don in the premier destination for technology development; the GoodWife for her behind the scenes support, Reverend Wright, two Centrist baboons, the list goes on and on. If you’re not on the short list, I suggest you work a little harder on your brand.

Read New York Times Opinion Pieces Like You Hit A Tennis Ball

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Follow through by reading the top “Top Comments”. They always expand the “discussion”.

Por ejemplo, here are two of the top comments from today’s Mauren Dowd essay titled, “Coup-Coup-Ca-Choo, Trump-Style“.

Excellent point H.A. And then there’s this from Jim in Cincy.

Touché Professor Snyder.

Notes on The Gambia

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When it comes to travel writing, Matt Lakeman is the man.

Among the better sentences, “Much of Jammeh’s government, reign, and conduct are pretty normal for a terrible African dictator, but at least his billowy white robe and trademark scepter is quite striking.”

And this tutorial took me back to my travels in East, West, and Southern Africa.

“As a poor country gets more tourism, the locals adapt. Many become more welcoming and friendly towards tourists since they represent an opportunity for personal and national enrichment. But other locals become more adept at exploiting tourists, whether through fraud, deception, or guilt.

One form of the latter treatment is to yell at random passerbys, usually to get attention to make some sort of sale or offer a service. This is by no means a unique element of West African travel. Any tourist who has been to Egypt, Morocco, India, Thailand, etc. knows exactly what I’m talking about.

The amateur tourist makes the mistake of defaulting to polite sensibilities and grants attention to the bystander who shouted “Hello, sir!”, “Excuse me, sir!”, “Nice to meet you, sir!” “Where are you from, sir?”, or whatever, and is soon sucked into a time-wasting and generally annoying sales pitch or preamble to a sales pitch. The experienced tourist keeps looking forward, not granting an iota of attention, in order to signal that they will not be suckered in and parted with cash.”

I also learned a new word, “sexpat”.

Siddhartha Mukherjee Writes In Bed

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I sang his praises here. He won a well-deserved Pulitzer for general nonfiction for Empire of All Maladies. And he deserves a Nobel Prize for science writing for helping a knucklehead like me (mostly) understand cellular biology.

I’m just settling in with The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human.

Here’s the backstory to the book and his writing process.

I Failed

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How will large language models/artificial intelligence change K-12 education? Maybe the better question is will large language modes/artificial intelligence change K-12 education? Through teaching, research, and writing, I spent most of my academic career trying to make high schools more democratic, more international, more personal, and more relevant and purposeful.

I’m sad to report that I failed bigly. The fact of the matter is, except for all the surreptitious texting under desks, the typical high school today functions remarkably similar to the way Cypress (California) High School did when I graduated in 1980. What other institution in American life can you say that about?

Lesson learned. K-12 education is incredibly resistant to change. Like YouTube, surely ChatGPX-like devices will have some effect, but probably not enough to fundamentally alter the teacher-student relationship. One education scholar uses an ocean metaphor to explain the futility of education reform. Schedule tweaks, new curriculum initiatives, education technologies, all create changes on the surface of the ocean just as high winds do. Descend to the ocean floor however, meaning the teacher-student relationship in the classroom, and the water’s darkness, chemistry, and animal life are completely unaffected by the tumult on the surface. The teacher still mostly talks and the students listen.

Despite it being so obvious, it wasn’t easy to admit my my failure, you know, professional identity and ego and all. But the consolation is a quiet confidence that I have made a positive difference in a lot of individual teacher’s lives. Despite not having dented their work environment, I have made meaningful contributions to their professional success. I’ve failed, but I’m not a failure.

And even though I’ve admitted defeat and let go of my teacher education identity, I am still helping individual teachers on occasion, just fewer of them. Yesterday, for example, one of my first year writers from Fall 2021, a prospective teacher, wrote me seeking advice. Here’s how she started her missive:

“I hope all is well! I am reaching out to you because I need some advice. I figured you would be an excellent person to reach out to because you are part of the education faculty and have taught abroad and done things I want to do with my life. I also think you won’t sugarcoat things and you will tell me the truth.” 

I liked that she didn’t think I’d “sugarcoat things”. So, in that spirit of keeping it real, I predict high schools in 43 years, make that 2066, will still look and feel pretty damn similar. Given my protein bar consumption, it’s unlikely I’ll live long enough to see if my prediction comes true. I hope it does not.

Postscript: Not an “institution”, but same idea.