Blog Stats
- 2,758,608 readers since June 2008
Recent Comments
- Jim Loving on Robert Wright on Osiris, Jesus, Dives, and Lazarus
- longviewhypnosis on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- frauposaune on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Andre Fruge on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Dave on Barack Obama: The Leopard in the Book of Daniel?
- Aletha Balke on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- De Seksuele Sociale Norm - ilvy.com on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Kelsey on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Fake People, Pure Product - Ordinary Times on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Hailee Steinfeld’s ‘Afterlife’ Debuts in New ‘Dickinson’ Trailer - Screen Times on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- fred on Have Yourself a Maoist Little Christmas?
- Les on Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris: Is This What a Rising Christian Political Star Looks Like?
- Anonymous on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Pandora on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Pandora on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
Top Posts
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris: Is This What a Rising Christian Political Star Looks Like?
- Walt Whitman: "To be indeed a God!"
- "The Poet's Eye in Fine Frenzy Rolling": Shakespeare and the Origin of Religion
- "Courtly Love, Or, Woman As Thing": How To Do Lacanian Analysis Like Slavoj Zizek (Or, At Least Understand What He's Getting At When He Does)
- "The Vision of Christ That Thou Dost See": William Blake on the Many Faces of Jesus
- Who Is Stephen Greenblatt? Why Should You Care?
- Blogging Brian Greene's New Book, "The Hidden Reality"
-
Recent Posts
- Woke Fanatics? Essentialists vs. Nominalists
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.10: Emerson’s “Circles”
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.9: Imitation And Emulation With An Eye On Competition
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.8: Selection And Editing
- A Mini-Course In Rhetoric For Writers. Concept 2.7: Audience And Rhetorical Strategy
Recent Haiku Tweets
- AOC says it well. twitter.com/CNN/status/108… 1 year ago
- nytimes.com/interactive/20… 1 year ago
- RT @mrchan: So much has changed in America, and yet so much hasn't https://t.co/x2mthUr4Kc 1 year ago
- Perfect. twitter.com/newsundayheral… 3 years ago
- RT @goldenglobes: At tonight's #GoldenGlobes we honor Hollywood legend Meryl Streep with the prestigious Cecil B. Demille Award. https://t.… 3 years ago
Tag Archives: education
A Good Thing a Catholic Congregation is Doing in South Africa
Congregants recently pulled together enough funds to send to university 31 promising students from some of the poorest townships in South Africa: __________ I personally know of a Catholic priest in Southern California who is doing something similar (raising tuition … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Catholicism, college, education, life, peace, South Africa
Leave a comment
Do MOOCs Spell the End of the Traditional College Experience?
At The American Interest Nathan Harden, playing prophet, makes a pretty alarming prediction: In fifty years, if not much sooner, half of the roughly 4,500 colleges and universities now operating in the United States will have ceased to exist. The technology … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged college, education, Harvard, MIT, MOOCs, online education, professors, teachers, universities
Leave a comment
Not Waving, But Drowning
At the Daily Beast, Megan McArdle sees college as the American middle class’s last desperate bet for economic security in the fast-shifting global economy: If employers have mostly been using college degrees to weed out the inept and the unmotivated, then … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, China, college, critical thinking, education, jobs, the middle class, universities
4 Comments
Blessed are the Ignorant: Rick Santorum Adds a Beatitude to the Sermon on the Mount
“Blessed are ye who lack degrees, for such is the Party of God.” And they applauded. What manner of man is this? _____ “But woe unto those that are educated, for they art snobs.” Here’s a transcript of Rick Santorum’s exact … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, college, education, Harvard, Jesus, rick santorum, rush limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Sermon on the Mount, snobs, UCLA, university
3 Comments
The Bright American Future
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, college, education, geography, globalism, high school, history, illiteracy, school
Leave a comment
Salman Khan’s TED Talk and Website
______ And here’s his exciting website.
Critical Thinking Quote Watch: Derek Bok on the Primary Goal of a College Education (and Higher Education’s General Failure at Reaching It)
The following quote comes from Derek Bok’s book, Our Underachieving Colleges (Princeton 2006, p. 8): Many [college] seniors graduate without being able to write well enough to satisfy their employers. Many cannot reason clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, cells, critical thinking, Derek Bok, education, philosophy, reason, science, st. augustine, thinking
Leave a comment
At Last, an Honest Budget: Why I’m Glad Jerry Brown is Governor of California
When Jerry Brown ran for governor last year, I voted for him. One reason I did so was because I believed that he would be likely to keep everything above-board, budget-wise. He has delivered in spades. After recently vetoing a budget … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, budget balancing, budget cutting, California, college, deficit, education, jerry brown, Politics, silicon valley, taxes
1 Comment
Community Colleges, the Enrollment Bottleneck, and a Dirty Little Secret
On April 8, 2011, the New York Times ran a piece on students making: . . . a strategic financial decision to attend community college first as a cost saving measure. The cost savings can be large (perhaps somewhere in the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged antelope valley college, bottlenecks, California, college, community college, dirty secret, education, higher education, money, students, teachers
5 Comments
Critical Thinking in the Classroom Watch: What Miguel Aguilar Does
In the Los Angeles Times this weekend is an article about an unusually successful 5th grade teacher in LA Unified, Miguel Aguilar, and I notice that he very specifically teaches critical thinking to his students. Here, for example, is how the Times describes … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged education, miguel aguilar, pedagogy, teachers, teaching, what the best teachers do
Leave a comment
What’s an undergraduate education for?
I like the way Tim Lee, a CATO Institute scholar, thinks about undergraduate education: [T]he primary function of an undergraduate education is to allow the student to join a scholarly community, and in the process to soak up the values and attitudes … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged college, critical thinking, education, liberal, life, philosophy, reason, the Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson
5 Comments
Two Questions for Professors: Are You Demanding and Do You Teach Critical Thinking?
The following is in Salon today: [W]hat if the downward trend in learning extends into the echelons of higher education? That’s what Richard Arum argues in “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses.” Arum, a sociology and education professor at … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged college, critical thinking, education, professors, reason, teaching, United States, university
Leave a comment
The Decline and Fall of the Male Empire
Hanna Rosin charts it:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 2011, 21st century, America, education, feminism, hanna rosin, men, the world, women, women's equality, women's rights
1 Comment
California Budget Crisis Watch: As Jerry Brown Assumes the Governorship, Education Braces for Big Spending Cuts
The State of California faces a $28-billion funding deficit over the next 18 months, and education costs consume 40% of the state’s budget. That means that cuts to education are coming. Big cuts. Here’s the Los Angeles Times today: Treasurer Bill Lockyer, who … Continue reading
The Case against Dumbing Down
I don’t know about you, but I’m totally against dumbing down subjects or language use before my students. I believe, for example, that if the undergraduates sitting before me in a class have limited vocabularies (and they all invariably do), it’s … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged academic culture, college, education, epistemology, pedagogy, vocabulary
4 Comments
Sarah Palin’s America
The Sarah Palin life model is internalized by a child:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, anti-intellectualism, Calvin, college, education, elitism, hobbes, life, Sarah Palin
4 Comments
Sarah Palin Shows Disdain for a Middle Class Teacher
In the following clip, Sarah Palin doesn’t even try to conceal her contempt for a teacher (that is, someone devoted to developing the life of the mind and a love of books in her young charges). It’s as if Sarah Palin were saying to this … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, conservatism, education, learning, Republicans, right wing, rush limbaugh, Sarah Palin, stupidity, teachers
15 Comments
Why Read Literature or Watch Good Films? Martha Nussbaum on the Role of the Imagination in the Cultivation of Empathy
Here’s a great quote from Martha Nussbaum’s new book, From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law (Oxford 2010, xvii): That ‘terrified’ gay teenager needs, and deserves, equal respect, and a sphere of liberty equal to that enjoyed by … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged college, creative writing, democracy, education, ethics, film, literature, martha nussbaum, morality, poetry, teachers
4 Comments
A great Henry David Thoreau quote
No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged college, education, Henry David Thoreau, life, literature, philosophy, poetry, psychology, vision, walden, William Blake
Leave a comment
