… and *many* dollars short

yesterday was evidently th’ day of higher ed
(lee bessette in ihe).

me? long bus-ride to campus, lunch at bernies,
surprisingly tiring walk to the department
(i’m still recovering from the crud… hell,
i’ve still *got* the crud… but maybe mostly
recovering from the recovery: during break
i lay in bed hacking and sniffling quite a bit
and did *very* little walking),
check both mailboxes (both empty [dammit]),
drop by offices of two of the lecturers
i’m grading for (both elsewhere; both also
unmet by me and no particular arrangements
made yet for this quarter; one of ‘em has
an office *hour* posted for tomorrow, so
probably this’ll be cleared up by about
11:00 AM wednesday in that case; the other
has none posted &’ll maybe have to be reached
by e-mail); go to *third* lecturers office
(during a posted office hour) and find him
there; collect two envelopes full of week-one
homework from him; walk back to bernie’s;
one more drink; long bus-ride home.

actual grading will begin within hours.
but, to paraphrase that great
abuser-of-alienated-labor, scarlett
o’hara: today is another day.

(this is in no realistic sense a *typical*
day of the quarter… which’ll very likely
be quite a bit like *last* quarter: several
days a week with several hours of grading each
[along with, yes, lots of those long bus-
-rides]). thank you and good day.

hat-tip: sherman dorn.

… if there *were* any…

“why teachers like me support unions”: JD on EduSolidarity.
my post appeared next door.
f(t)‘s picks. so far.
*my* pick? kate’s best and brightest. isn’t she great?

gotta give ‘em hope

marc b. on schools without administrators in L.A. and beyond.

lazy idle little schemer

i’m back at work slinging the math.
i’ve posted a few details in MEZB.

don’t forget the motor city

“adjunct” faculty march at US social forum (detroit june 22). sponsored by AFT 477 (wayne state).

(allied media con)

rtfm

first monthly newsletter for NFM
(“new faculty majority”: national coalition for adjunct and contingent faculty).

a petri-disch community

florida school reform in WaPo.

now with bloglike pop-up commentation from users:
deschooling society (dot-digress.it).

my life in schools.

primary first.
i was… more than most people even…
the subject of an *educational experiment*:
at university elementary school in the sixties
many of us even as kids spoke of ourselves
as “guinea pigs” for indiana university,
its ed school in particular. there were
great big ungainly boxes like a filing cabinet
on wheels that ran remote controls for
closed-circuit-TV cameras following us
through our lessons. for example.
and we were tested tested tested
you’d better believe… the “iowa test
of basic skills” seems to have come up
pretty often (anyhow the name sticks).
but remember it was the sixties:
we were also getting “the new math”,
a from-the-ground-up approach based
on *set theory*. this approach allegedly
flopped nationwide because its teachers
didn’t understand its principles.
ours sure did and it was far the clearest
thing in school or life then or now
as far as i’ve been able to determine.
there was plenty of (what’s now called)
“discovery learning” going on too:
it was the very *age* of “do your own thing”
and our teachers had breathed in its spirit
at a rich source. (iu bloomington, as we
will see, was my very *garden of eden*,
the paradise i’ve been exiled from
[for my knowledge of good and evil]).

so there was a lot of best-of-both-worlds
and i was right at home. in fact, i was
pretty much at home *anywhere* in those days
and i knew it: my family did two years
(“kindergarten” and “4th grade” for me)
abroad with *lots* of travel time
in croatia and the rest of what was then
known as “yugoslavia”… slovenia, serbia,
bosnia, and so on… plus poland, czechoslovakia
(another name change for the present-day),
austria, and on and on. *we* were together
and it felt it would just naturally always
be so. we five: dad, mom, elder sister
hannah, me, younger brother nathan.

sixth grade was pivotal. i’ll have mentioned
it already in this very blog i think; anyway
i hereby promise to return to this subject.

guaranteed to raise a smile

twentieth anniversary of u. of bridgeport faculty strike.

nearer my g-d to thee

bousquet plugs labor videos of the year (in th’ chronicle). marc’s yootoob “channel” deserves a plug of its own.

see also: inside higher ed

chronicle coverage for CAW (coalition on the academic workforce).