[Left] This image will be more important later on in the post, so just keep it in mind for now.Here is some random, trivial news that you nonetheless can't do without:
- This article is from June 2008, but I just recently became aware of its existence. It is written for The Atlantic by a professor at a small liberal arts college and a community college. It is a pretty damning account of how a lot of people are being shoved toward school, even if they're clearly unqualified for it or if it would have little practical value for their career.
For more own experience in college and substitute teaching, I do think this is still the case. People who have no interest in learning and school go to college and community college because it is another year that you don't have to get a real job. Then, as the article spotlights, there are people interested in learning that just don't have the capacity or the underlying ability to do college-level work. While it would be nice for there to be more services to "bridge" this sort of gap, I don't really have a solution at all.
- Slate has a good interview, the first of two parts, with Bill Cosby. He mostly talks about The Cosby Show, which is always a good thing. Also in Slate, a reviewer pans the accuracy of Dan Brown's latest book. And Bill Simmons being sponsored by Miller Lite isn't a gag.
- In neato dinosaur news, scientists have found a smaller version of the T-Rex in fossils. You know, if Jurassic Park was real, I would love to have a pet dinosaur. I promise that I would take care of it and everything! It would awesome, especially one of the ones with a long neck, that I could ride down like a slide. I would also like the plush dinosaur featured above. (See, told you it would be important later.)
- And finally, in strippers news, Las Vegas Weekly notes that the pole is on the rise (get it?) culturally. According to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, a former transportation director is in trouble for shaking down witnesses, and also allegedly traded contracts for sex parties on Lake Erie. Lucy Lawless' new show has strippers cast as extras. And this company is advertising a book from an Ivy League-educated stripper who just recovered from breast cancer.
I liked that article Steve. My cousin Dan was teaching at some small private college in Mass near Boston--can't think of the name of it right now. He was teaching just one introductory history class--much like the writing/literature class described in the article. Dan only taught there I think for one year since as he put it--"it was just a school for rich people to send their kids that couldn't get into a regular college". He had to fail a ton of kids too. Most students were not remotely interested in taking the class. Anyway--good pick Steve!
ReplyDeleteThanks Mike Smith!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I remember my days as a TA at URI - I should blog about that too at some point. For every 10 papers I got, about one would be an A, four in the B/C range, and the other five would be C- to F range. This was a general education class for a lot of non-writing majors, so I suppose that's to be expected, though.