Student:
Teach, what the heck? Where you been?
Me:
I told the class on Friday that I would be out on Monday and Tuesday.
Student:
Oh yeah. You go to Vegas?
Me:
No.
Student:
I bet you went to Vegas.
Me:
No.
Student:
I bet you was just like the guy with the beard in The Hangover.
Me:
Zach Galifianakis?
Student:
Huh?
Me:
Nevermind.
Student:
[after a pause] Did you meet Mike Tyson?
"

Well-educated people also possess an enlarged capacity for independent thought. The ability to think, to develop belief systems that heed the higher callings of justice and empathy, serve as bulwarks against corrupt institutions that enforce blind obedience and destroy lives.

With such public good clearly evident to anyone who cares to look, one wonders why Gov. Tom Corbett persists in viewing public education as a private entitlement rather than a public investment. In only two years the governor will have slashed more money from higher education than all previous Pennsylvania governors combined since the Morrill Act [of 1862] was ratified.

Although Gov. Corbett has not stated his agenda explicitly, one can surmise from his actions that he would greatly reduce public support for higher education and transfer the state’s educational obligations to private or for-profit online schools.

Such a move would be a disaster for Pennsylvania. In the first place, for-profit online schools - the kind Charles Zogby managed before he became Mr. Corbett’s budget director - have a dismal record of achievement. Despite the copious influx of venture capital and student financial aid, for-profit universities such as Capella, Phoenix and Walden have an aggregate graduation rate of only 22 percent - an astounding 43 percentage points below the Pennsylvania public college average.

"
My former English professor and drinking friend brilliantly tears apart Governor Corbett’s proposed slashes to higher education in Pennsylvania’s latest budget. (via fortuneandglory)
"Teachers matter. So instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo, let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: to teach with creativity and passion, to stop teaching to the test, and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn."

President Obama, State of the Union Address (2012)

Help us, President Obama-Kenobi, save states like Pennsylvania from governors hellbent on destroying public education. You’re our only hope.

(via fortuneandglory)
fortuneandglory: Galileo was wrong. Or so says Dr. Robert Sungenis – and he’s a doctor who also has a Wikipedia page, which means it’s true. Forget the fact that his degrees have no relation to science. This man is well-studied and well-rounded with his B.A. in religion from George Washington University, an M.A. in theology from a “theological seminary” that “trains pastors, teachers, and Bible specialists,” and his doctorate from the unaccredited “distance learning” institution that is Calamus International University. In other words, this man is a pioneer of science. Oh, hell - even I’m cringing from my own sarcasm. This “doctor” has degrees that provide him as much intellectual credence as a certificate from the Academy of Performing Art in Clowning. Calamus International University is a well known diploma mill, which by definition is “an organization that awards academic degrees and diplomas with substandard or no academic study and without recognition by official educational accrediting bodies” (Sources: 1, 2, 3). Pay the fee, get the degree. Texas even has it on a list of “Institutions Whose Degrees are Illegal to Use” for being a “fraudulent or substandard degree.” Which means that his “First Annual Catholic Conference on Geocentrism” – geocentrism being the belief that the Earth is the center of the universe – will be a waste of one’s hard-earned $50… unless, of course, one is looking for some masochistic amusement on a lazy Saturday afternoon. As it’s described on the website for the conference, it will give “a detailed and comprehensive treatment of the scientific evidence supporting Geocentrism, the academic belief that the Earth is immobile in the center of the universe.” Oh, I’d love to hear this. The site is amusing, really… until one realizes how absolutely serious these folks are about this stuff. This is anti-intellectualism at its most bizarre. As one might presume, the purpose of all of this is so that Sungenis can sell his preposterous book, where he plasters his false PhD on the cover in an attempt to lend some sort of faux credibility to his nonsensical blathering. As one may also have guessed by this point, a main source these clowns cite in their scientific and academic arguments? The Bible. Yikes.

fortuneandglory:

Galileo was wrong.

Or so says Dr. Robert Sungenis – and he’s a doctor who also has a Wikipedia page, which means it’s true. Forget the fact that his degrees have no relation to science. This man is well-studied and well-rounded with his B.A. in religion from George Washington University, an M.A. in theology from a “theological seminary” that “trains pastors, teachers, and Bible specialists,” and his doctorate from the unaccredited “distance learning” institution that is Calamus International University. In other words, this man is a pioneer of science.

Oh, hell - even I’m cringing from my own sarcasm. This “doctor” has degrees that provide him as much intellectual credence as a certificate from the Academy of Performing Art in Clowning. Calamus International University is a well known diploma mill, which by definition is “an organization that awards academic degrees and diplomas with substandard or no academic study and without recognition by official educational accrediting bodies” (Sources: 1, 2, 3). Pay the fee, get the degree. Texas even has it on a list of “Institutions Whose Degrees are Illegal to Use” for being a “fraudulent or substandard degree.”

Which means that his “First Annual Catholic Conference on Geocentrism” – geocentrism being the belief that the Earth is the center of the universe – will be a waste of one’s hard-earned $50… unless, of course, one is looking for some masochistic amusement on a lazy Saturday afternoon. As it’s described on the website for the conference, it will give “a detailed and comprehensive treatment of the scientific evidence supporting Geocentrism, the academic belief that the Earth is immobile in the center of the universe.” Oh, I’d love to hear this.

The site is amusing, really… until one realizes how absolutely serious these folks are about this stuff. This is anti-intellectualism at its most bizarre. As one might presume, the purpose of all of this is so that Sungenis can sell his preposterous book, where he plasters his false PhD on the cover in an attempt to lend some sort of faux credibility to his nonsensical blathering. As one may also have guessed by this point, a main source these clowns cite in their scientific and academic arguments? The Bible.

Yikes.

fortuneandglory: Obscure History Mini-Lesson of the Moment Vol. 2 Roosevelt’s List: The Japanese-American Concentration Camps Take American history in the 20th century? You may only know the story because of your own curiosity. Take it in the 21st? The story to you was probably no more than a one-paragraph blip in the midst of your textbook’s World War II Unit. Call them “internment camps,” call them “war relocation camps,” or call them “concentration camps” as many lawmakers of the time did - whatever the name, the result was the same: over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry living in the United States - the majority of them American citizens - were forced from their homes and imprisoned in barbwire fenced and military guarded camps during World War II.  The purpose of FDR’s so-called “wartime necessity” that was Executive Order 9066 was to rid the West Coast of any people who may have been sympathetic to the Japanese cause, with the Census Bureau illegally providing confidential information for their rounding up and imprisonment. Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi expressed a widespread sentiment when he said of the order: “I’m for catching every Japanese in America, Alaska, and Hawaii now and putting them in concentration camps. … Damn them! Let’s get rid of them now!” While they certainly were not made for systematic slaughter like Nazi Germany’s concentration camps, many Japanese-American families who had been locked up lost their homes, personal possessions, pets, and vacant businesses during their up to four years spent in the camps. During this time, families were subject to military barrack style housing, described by the War Relocation Authority in 1943 as “tar paper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind.” Dusty from being in the midst of the desert - which was always either too cold or too hot - internees had access to camp schools, hospitals, and post offices, but were forced to abide by camp-determined curfews and share not only living quarters, but a mess hall, bathroom facilities, and laundry areas.  President Ford would make a proclamation in 1976 stating that “we have learned from the tragedy of that long-ago experience forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American, and resolve that this kind of action shall never again be repeated.” Yet, the U.S. government would not officially apologize until 1988, when President Reagen signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. This provided $20,000 in reparations to those still surviving who had been placed in the camps, due to the government’s “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership” during World War II. Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Vol. 1: The Emerald Gem: Bare-Knuckle Boxing in 19th Century England

fortuneandglory:

Obscure History Mini-Lesson of the Moment Vol. 2

Roosevelt’s List: The Japanese-American Concentration Camps

Take American history in the 20th century? You may only know the story because of your own curiosity. Take it in the 21st? The story to you was probably no more than a one-paragraph blip in the midst of your textbook’s World War II Unit.

Call them “internment camps,” call them “war relocation camps,” or call them “concentration camps” as many lawmakers of the time did - whatever the name, the result was the same: over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry living in the United States - the majority of them American citizens - were forced from their homes and imprisoned in barbwire fenced and military guarded camps during World War II. 

The purpose of FDR’s so-called “wartime necessity” that was Executive Order 9066 was to rid the West Coast of any people who may have been sympathetic to the Japanese cause, with the Census Bureau illegally providing confidential information for their rounding up and imprisonment. Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi expressed a widespread sentiment when he said of the order: “I’m for catching every Japanese in America, Alaska, and Hawaii now and putting them in concentration camps. … Damn them! Let’s get rid of them now!”

While they certainly were not made for systematic slaughter like Nazi Germany’s concentration camps, many Japanese-American families who had been locked up lost their homes, personal possessions, pets, and vacant businesses during their up to four years spent in the camps. During this time, families were subject to military barrack style housing, described by the War Relocation Authority in 1943 as “tar paper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind.” Dusty from being in the midst of the desert - which was always either too cold or too hot - internees had access to camp schools, hospitals, and post offices, but were forced to abide by camp-determined curfews and share not only living quarters, but a mess hall, bathroom facilities, and laundry areas. 

President Ford would make a proclamation in 1976 stating that “we have learned from the tragedy of that long-ago experience forever to treasure liberty and justice for each individual American, and resolve that this kind of action shall never again be repeated.” Yet, the U.S. government would not officially apologize until 1988, when President Reagen signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988. This provided $20,000 in reparations to those still surviving who had been placed in the camps, due to the government’s “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership” during World War II.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Vol. 1: The Emerald Gem: Bare-Knuckle Boxing in 19th Century England

"What use one makes of a historical explanation is a question separate from the explanation itself. Understanding is more often used to try to alter an outcome than to repeat or perpetuate it. That’s why psychologists try to understand the minds of murderers and rapists, why social historians try to understand genocide, and why physicians try to understand the causes of human disease. Those investigators do not seek to justify murder, rape, genocide, and illness. Instead, they seek to use their understanding of a chain of causes to interrupt the chain."

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies 

And this is why I want to absorb all of the information about everything.

(via fortuneandglory)
"Facing dozens of teenagers every day brings you down to earth. At eight a.m. they don’t care how you feel. You think of the day ahead: five classes, up to one hundred and seventy-five American adolescents; moody, hungry, in love, anxious, horny, energetic, challenging. No escape. There they are and there you are with your headache, your indigestion, echoes of your quarrel with your spouse, lover, landlord, your pain-in-the-ass son who wants to be Elvis, who appreciates nothing you do for him. You couldn’t sleep last night. … They’re looking at you. You cannot hide. They’re waiting. What are we doing today, teacher? The paragraph? Oh, yeah. Hey, everybody, we gonna study the paragraph, the structure, topic sentence an’ all. Can’t wait to tell mom tonight. She’s always asking how was school today. Paragraphs, Mom. Teacher has a thing about paragraphs. Mom’ll say, Very nice, and go back to her soap opera."
Frank McCourt, Teacher Man (via fortuneandglory)
"

I told them, You have a right to think for yourselves.

Silence in the classroom. I said, You don’t have to swallow everything I tell you. Or what anyone tells you. You can ask questions. If I don’t have the answer we can look it up in the library or discuss it here.

They look at one another. Yeah. The man is talking funny. Tells us we don’t have to believe him. Hey, we came here to learn English so’s we can pass. We gotta graduate.

I wanted to be the Great Liberating Teacher, to raise them from their knees after days of drudgery in office and factories, to help them cast off their shackles, to lead them to the mountaintop, to breathe the air of freedom. Once their minds were clear of cant, they’d see me as a savior.

For the people in this class life was hard enough without having an English teacher preaching about thinking and bothering them with questions.

"
Frank McCourt, Teacher Man (via fortuneandglory)
"

There are days I’d love to walk out of here, slam the door behind me, tell the principal shove this job up his arse … It’s clear I can’t teach the simplest thing without their objections. Their resistance. Simple sentence: subject, predicate, and maybe, if we get around to it someday, the object, direct and indirect. I don’t know what to do with them. Try the old threats. Pay attention or you’re going to fail. If you fail you won’t graduate and if you don’t graduate blah blah blah. All your friends will be out there in the big wide world pinning their high school diplomas to their office walls, successful, respected by one and all. Why can’t you just look at this sentence and, for once in your miserable teenage existence, make an attempt to learn?

Every class has its chemistry. There are some classes you enjoy and look forward to. They know you like them and they like you in return. Sometimes they’ll tell you that was a pretty good lesson and you’re on top of the world. That somehow gives you energy and makes you want to sing on the way home.

There are some classes you wish would take the ferry to Manhattan and never return. There’s something hostile about the way they enter and leave the room that tells you what they think of you. It could be your imagination and you try to figure out what will bring them over to your side. You try lessons that worked with other classes but even that doesn’t help and it’s because of that chemistry.

"

Frank McCourt, Teacher Man

This is always a great reread when in need of some inspiration and brutal honesty about the frustrations of teaching mostly reluctant and apathetic teenagers. 

(via fortuneandglory)
"Except for a few precious hours on Friday nights, I had little of what is generally called a life. My wife and I seldom went out. My normally robust correspondence dwindled to nothing. I was unable to file our income taxes until July. Though I took pains not to appear so to my students, I was often despondent. One morning, when my wife remonstrated with me for picking up a drunk hitchhiker by myself on a lonely road late the night before - ‘What if he had pulled a gun?’ - I responded, half joking, that if I could just get myself shot I might not have to correct any more papers.

My point here is that even under ideal circumstances, public-school teaching is one of the hardest jobs a person can do. Most sensible people know that. Anyone who claims not to know that is either a scoundrel or a nincompoop; or, to put it another way, a typical expert on everything that’s wrong with American public education and the often damaged children it serves."
Garrett Keizer, “Getting Schooled: The re-education of the American teacher” (via fortuneandglory)

(Source: harpers.org)
"It’s nothing new that some kids find reading a chore. What strikes me is the frequent lack of correlation between the ability to read and any inclination to do it. That, and the number of time I hear some say, ‘I hate to read.’ A girl tells me so in private and sobs so preposterously that I worry I might laugh. After she calms down, I gently suggest that she read a passage aloud. Her fluency is impeccable; she could work for the BBC.

I discover how much the students enjoy reading aloud; girls vie for the part of Emily in Our Town; the unlikeliest boys take a shot at Whitman’s Song of Myself. I come to suspect that it is not reading they hate so much as reading in isolation. The same radical privacy that I seek in books, my mind’s way of eating its lunch alone, is what turns their stomachs. … They are acutely social creatures, these kids, and it is a slow learner indeed who fails to grasp that fact even as he prattles on about building a more social democracy."
Garrett Keizer, “Getting Schooled: The re-education of the American teacher” (via fortuneandglory)

(Source: harpers.org)
"Given my empiricially based conviction that a stable home life is the single most reliable predictor of a student’s success in school, I am surprised that the Republican Party, self-appointed champion of ‘family values,’ takes no pains to press the point. Of course, to do so would undermine its agenda of dismantling public education, ham-stringing teachers’ unions, denying same-sex couples the rights of marriage, preventing working mothers from achieving income parity, curtailing reproductive rights, outsourcing manufacting jobs, and filling the coffers of the various charlatans who sell education in the form of standarized tests."
Garrett Keizer, “Getting Schooled: The re-education of the American teacher” (via fortuneandglory)

(Source: harpers.org)

fortuneandglory:

We tell these kids, work hard, get your diploma, go onto college, study, study, study, we’re going to test you to make sure you can graduate and go on and be productive and successful, here are the bubbles, fill them in, number two pencil, don’t talk, raise your hand if you need more scratch paper, bubbles, bubbles, bubbles, do not go ahead when you reach the stop sign, bubbles, bubbles, bubbles, you should have peed beforehand. I hate it, so why shouldn’t they? I tell them they need to take it and be serious, don’t just fill ‘em in, they must do it because it’s for their own good, I tell them this when I don’t believe it myself. False prophet. Those bubbles don’t do a damn thing, and I am thinking it as I watch them carefully fill them in as if a bomb might go off were they to fill-in outside the bubble. Those bubbles don’t do a damn thing except disrupt our usual daily schedule. Bubbles aren’t relevant to their lives and they know it, we know it, who knows it. Unless they grow up and make bubble tests for a living. Good money in that, I hear.

They get frustrated, then we get frustrated with their frustration. What is it anyway, this school thing, this teaching thing. It’s all about balance, they said in college. What should I do about discipline? Well, you have to find a balance. Lecturing? Balance. Late work? Balance. But be consistent. Unless there are extenuating circumstances. Then don’t be consistent. Just find a balance. And be consistent in your balance. Balance is key. I learned to be a goddamn tightrope walker in college. Man on wire or man on the edge. Just be consistent.