Yes Yes Yes

I’m getting cautious about Google’s monolithic standing in tech innovation/leverage, but Patrick MacDonald has the right idea (hat tip to Jenny, who pulls out the dead-on quotation from Anil Dash: “If YouTube has created something fantastic, and it required copyright violation to do so, then copyright law should be changed to make it legal. Laws are ours, people — they’re not carved on stone tablets“). I would so love to be in on that.

Grind?

Seems as though everyone is pointing to the Chronicle’s [pseudonymous] dyspeptic denunciation of graduate students, about which I feel a wave of indignation amplified by the twinge of sympathy I feel for Prof. Gradgrind. Let me explain.

First, Gradgrind’s stunning narcissism disgusts me. If her students discover that their fascination with [subject area] doesn’t warrant devoting themselves to teaching careers, Gradgrind should be relieved for them. They’ve attained a state of self-awareness and self-differentiation that surpasses Gradgrind’s. Gradgrind, in turn, needs seriously to re-evaluate her proclivity to vest her identity in her students’ replication of her choices and her career path.

Academia isn’t the only field that benefits from the fruit of advanced study. If her students are flourishing in non-academic vocations, Gradgrind should commend them with pride — not denounce them as deceivers. People who know me well can imagine my “barely contained fury” expression and tone as I type this.

Second, academia displays and perpetuates numerous deeply-embedded pathologies, such that sensible, intelligent, critical thinkers have plenty of reason to hesitate before committing themselves to teaching in higher education. Among the drawbacks are having to work with people such as Gradgrind and the careerist clones of whom she’s presumably proud.

I appreciate New Kid’s candor (and follow-up here) about the ways she (or he) was a difficult grad student for her advisor. I don’t hear her hitting the same points that Gradgrind did, though, and New Kid sounds a great deal more sympathetic to me.

Higher education involves coaching students through stages of erudition and critical thinking with which they’re less well acquainted than are their teachers. Under the circumstances, they’ll make mistakes and miss points as they try out new ideas and practices. That’s not a sign that they’re deceivers or incompetents, it’s a sign that they’re learners. Some among these students will perceive their misstep and self-correct; some will listen attentively (and critically, I hope) and adjust their efforts accordingly; some will refuse to acknowledge that their work could possibly have been improved; some will recognize their work‘s weakness, but will decline to extend themselves to improve it. My own work with students has been hindered by their encounters with Gradgrinds who imperiously imposed arbitrary standards (frequently reflective of Gg’s own specialization and inadequacies) and by Prof. Feelgoods who gushed about how marvelous their students are (without providing critical perspective on their “growing edges”). Gradgrinds and Feelgoods drive me batty, because I devote vast energies toward providing students with feedback that gives specific explanations of where their work could be improved, how improved, and why that’s an improvement — but how are students to distinguish my feedback from the capricious narcissism or the inflated encomiums?

Learning involves acquiring the capacity to make pertinent distinctions; Gradgrinds and Feelgoods obscure those distinctions, making students’ job all the more difficult, so that their failures “justify” Gradgrind’s self-absorbed scapegoatery. When students who want to learn can rely on teachers who devote their efforts to helping students learn, together they can attain great things. When students and teachers withhold their efforts, or offer false affirmations (whether “This work is publlishable!” or “I see what you mean, Professor”), or concern themselves solely with what benefits themselves, the sound pursuit of shared learning suffers.

NYC Man

Beginning Thursday, I have a series of obligations in New York in relatively rapid succession (after having not been in New York for ages). Thursday, we’re heading in for the Springsteen concert; then a week from today I have a meeting with the board of Affirming Anglican Catholicism; then in a couple of weeks, we’re going to a party there (Margaret’s opportunity to meet Joi).

I’ll comment on Anglican stuff another time.

As far as my going to a Manhattan party for cool people, I expect we’ll have a good time, but the decision concerning what I should wear will combine considerable anticipatory stress with inevitable futility. A pouchy, homely, middle-aged guy with no fashion sense will look dowdy no matter what.

That leaves the Springsteen concert, about which I’m feeling more excited than I expected to. I’ve been following closely the reports on the setlists page, thrilled that “Thundercrack” has been a predictable element of the encore, studying the unfamiliar material so I’ll be primed to enjoy it when the time comes. Evidently he’s drawing heavily on Born to Run this tour, which makes my job easier; he’s been playing “Night,” “She’s the One,” “Born to Run,” “Incident on 57th St,” and even “Jungleland” at some stops (not “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” which Pippa always calls “Devil In The Freezer,” her favorite mondegreen). But wait! Last night in Ontario, Bruce invited members of the Arcade Fire onstage to play his “State Trooper” (a song Pippa likes) and their “Keep the Car Running,” both in place of “Thundercrack.” Now, I admire the Arcade Fire and I appreciate local-color spontaneity in a concert set, but I’d be pained to miss the song I’ve waited ages to hear live.

So if you can’t get hold of me in Princeton these days, try New York City.

AKMA At Bible Disco

In a moment of weakness, I agreed to talk on an Irish radio program called “Talking History.” They were looking for a Bible scholar to go with Prof. Helena Sheehan from the School of Communications, Dublin City University (I’m told she was once a religious, now an atheist) and Dr Brendan Purcell from University College Dublin; I asked whether there weren’t abundant Bible scholars right there in Ireland, but they didn’t answer the question. Maybe it’s my quaint American accent. I figure that if I do enough radio appearances, it increases the chance that I’ll get good at it someday, but in anticipation it feels as though I’m doomed to the eternal repetition of the futile.

I was disconcerted to learn that the station referred to the our talk as a “disco,” which I gather is a “discussion” (much as “convo” is “conversation”). The topics that have been proposed rest at a pretty basic level (“Bible: Who wrote it and where did it come from ie ….Was in inspired by the Holy Spirit or did it come from a range of Authors who were writing for multiple audiences?” “Status of the Bible today: Should it be viewed as mythology ie Greek or Celtic Civilization etc”). We’ll see how well I manage to address my disco partners, the presenter, the audience, and my own sense of impending predictable missing-the-point. (The show won’t be broadcast till December, I think, so for the time being you’ll just have to take my word on how it goes.)


Well, that was odd. Somewhere at the studio end, an electronic sound source was beeping continually, as though there were an open line (we know it wasn’t on my end, ’cos they called both the landline that runs to Princeton and my cell that’s directed through Chicago). They couldn’t track down the beeping today’s taping, so they’ll figure it out during the week and call me for a later interview that they’ll edit in.

Oh, and they added David Edgar to the lineup; I wish I could hear the other participants’ contributions so as to respond more precisely to the matters they raise, but I doubt that’ll be possible. More details as the story develops.

One Headache Not Enough

Margaret has taken Eric Van Lustbader’s The Testament out of the library in order to brief me on the latest claimant to the Dan Brown Award for Disproportionate Literary Success. In this deplorable travesty — which, like Brown’s tripe, claims to be based on historical research — Lustbader proposes that the two opposed secret societies (one a Gnostic Franciscan group whose goal is universal democracy — yes you heard that right, “Gnostics for Democracy”) and the other a military Order in favor of fascistic dictatorships (paradigmatically,. the Pope), these two factions operate in what they call the “Voire Dei” which supposedly means “the truth of God.” Is there any language of which this is an intelligible claim? “Voire” is evidently an Old French word for “truth,” which has migrated to modern usage in the legal expression “voir dire,” so I take it that we’re supposed to recognize the Latin form “Dei” and go along with this macaronic pseudotheological term? (Quick check: Google does not reveal any other use of the phrase “Voire Dei” than Lustbader’s novel. I guess that’s because, you know, it’s an über-secret.) Sheesh. . .

Second Helping

Fred Sanders brings the TheoLOLgians up into the medieval period. In so doing, he illustrates the confusion surrounding the identity of Pseudo-Dionysius (his picture associates the theologian with St Denis of France, as did many before Abelard began unravelling the differences between Pseudo-Dionysius and Denis, and Dionysius the Areopagite — don’t make that mistake(not that Fred is confused, but he accurately represents Pseudo-Dionysius as the object of confusion)!), but my favorite is the Heloise and Abelard “Invisible Bible.”

Post-X Euphoria

Yesterday I finished the draft of my chapter on technology and religion. I’ll print it out for Margaret to scour, and will send it to a couple of people if they’re interested, but it’s essentially done. That feels good.

I still have some book reviews and presentation transcripts backlogged, some letters to write, and I’m about to sign and send in a book contract (in my defense, it’s about preaching, a topic I’ve been interested in writing explicitly about for a long time) for the book after next. But with the tech/religion chapter out of the way, I begin to feel as though I’m really on sabbatical, and can think and write. For instance, I’m going to just sit and read and think today — no formal writing.

Good stuff.

Education, LMS, and Online Worlds

The advances marked by EduSim and OpenSim impress me a lot, but I’m still vexed that people have invested so much energy into building “lessons” and “education” into these online domains.

The longer I homeschool and the more I interact with online technology, the more firm my conviction grows that formal teaching is part of the problem, not part of the answer. Sure, some people learn well from assembly-line containerized pasteurized homogenized educational products — but the world in general is better served by people learning to learn apart from the intrusion of the infrastructure of units, credits, lockstep progression, and “managed” learning (as in “learning [or ‘Lesson’] Management Systems” such as BlackBoard). LMS-world takes as its implicit norm the students who have no distinct excitement about any aspect of learning, so must be coaxed through the educational process as cattle through an abbatoir. Instead, we might set as our exemplary student an Edison or a Volta, and then oriented our educational resources to appealing to that aspect (and capacity) of a learner’s curiosity that most nearly approximates the discoverer’s ceaseless hunger to learn.

The environment for education has always favored interest-based learning, but online technology amplifies the extent to which everyone is an explorer, an inventor, a discoverer. If we could only learn to develop resources that make graduated complexity possible, and then get out of the way, we’d be offering ourselves and our students a much greater gift.

Matter of Taste

A year or so ago, our friend John was ragging me about my iTunes library. I was scrolling along, looking for songs he might enjoy, when we got to the middle of the B’s.

Blind Alfred Reed
Blind Blake
Blind Boy Fuller
Blind Joe Reynolds
Blind Joe Taggart
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Blind Mamie Forehand
Blind Roosevelt Graves
Blind Will Dukes
Blind Willie Davis
Blind Willie Johnson
Blind Willie McTell

John already knew I love the blues, but thereafter he brought up my preference for blind musicians (or, at least, musicians nicknamed “Blind”) several times.