Early Thirsty

I'm drunk.  I had a lot of bourbon last night (or this morning, or whatever).  I'm not crying now, but I had quite a good cry.  I haven't done either of those things in at least a month.  I'm thinking maybe I should schedule in once a month to get drunk.  It is sad that it may have come to this--like those married couples who schedule periodic sex.  But the alternative is not good.  I've been feeling like I might crack in half due to the stress.  I was briefly having chest pains last week.  I've just been keeping too much stress bottled up inside.  In years past, I would drink so much (so, so much) to relieve the stress.  But I've had real responsibilities with regard to taking care of my mom and doing my proffie job--and they have just simply precluded me from saying "Fuck It All" and getting drunk
for six hours or whatever.

What got me started drinking tonight?  What brought on this episode of grief and frustration and exhausted anger and feelings of desperation?  It wasn't my mom.  However stressful it is to care for a mostly-incapacitated person (with unspeakable challenges and all that), my preference would be to have the current state of affairs continue forever--because my mom is lovely and she makes my life feel more meaningful.

So it's not that.  It is the administrators who seem incapable of speaking truth.  Sometimes I wonder whether they even have any idea what is obviously right and wrong.  They rely more on superstition than on reason.  They remind me of the proponents of the GOP's healthcare bill--and how mindbogglingly gullible/moronic they seem to think the U.S. citizens are.  At best, the fucking administrators are so often like Al Gore--who when last night he was hawking his book (“The Assault on Reason") grinned and called Trump "one of a kind" and pretty much said nothing substantially negative about him.

It's hard having those in power relentlessly attempting to gaslight.  It's not like there have never before been Orwellian states or lying presidents.  But it's bad now.  It's absurd.

It doesn't have to be this way, does it?  I remember an administrator I once worked for who would spontaneously call me at random times just to say, "Hey, thanks for being here.  I really appreciate you."  Those were the days.

Q. Can you identify one administrator who has been wonderful, and why zhe was?

A. _________________________________

For-Profit Schools: Trump Delays Enforcing New Rules, Lifting Shares (Wall Street Journal)

The chart flava:

The WSJ story does not mention the University of Phoenix, Corinthian Colleges, or EDMC.

Compare, contrast, grimace, etc. . . .

link
link
and graphics

Speedy Rant, from Wombat of the Copier

Hey - girl who texts in the back of the 15-row lecture hall.. I honestly don't care if you text through the whole class OR get passive-aggressive in recitation, but it's one or the other, not both!  You can't text then huff "How are we supposed to know this?" for 90 minutes when you can't do any of the shit I spent 90 minutes doing for you right before lunch.  You know who isn't pissing in their panties right now?  The girls who sit in front and answered questions during class.  I know - I know - they're smarter than you or whatever your excuse is.  You know who ELSE is nailing the recitation quiz?  The kids who sit in the middle, and can't answer questions so they.... wait for it... wait for it.... ASK QUESTIONS!!!

So shut the fuck up.  Do yourself a favor and forget to pay your phone bill.  

Love, 

 WotC.  

#SXSWedu

Just a brief report, in order to vaguely maintain the tradition of reporting about conferences.  BONUS: This report has a few photos.

Next week, the sponsors for the glitzy, crazzzy SXSW will include alcoholic and energy drinks.  But SXSWedu is kind of the old schoolmarm cousin. Notice no beer amongst the sponsors----------------->

Fab was not there, but Chevron had a big booth with a faux chalkboard with Fab's name on it.  So big oil companies like Fab.  Who doesn't like Fab?











Here's a photo of 2,000 people watching Sara Goldrick-Rab talk.  But it seemed like everything she said has already been said at CM and RYS over the years, hasn't it?

There was a session in which about half of the attendees simultaneously stuck their phones up in the air to take photos of the speaker's powerpoint slide. Maybe about 40 of 80 total people in the room did that.

One of the best parts of the week was when I stumbled upon four Minerva students preparing for a session they had apparently organized.  I approached them because they just seemed like the most interesting people in the lobby.  And then I discovered that they were part of that rare species. (Only a few hundred people in the history of the world have ever been Minerva students.) Here's a photo of the two little cards they gave me:

While we were talking, six or seven of their classmates arrived with ice cream.  They were very friendly and willingly engaged in discussion with me for about twenty minutes.

I asked them what was the worst part about Minerva, and one of them replied that there was too much to do ("but in a good way").

I asked if the software they use for attending class ever malfunctions, and they replied that it does occasionally. They have a name for it: "tech days." But they said the "tech days" are essentially the equivalent of "snow days" at some other schools.

They genuinely seemed content with Minerva.  So I said, "But how can you know it's such a great school, if you've never attended another college?" And one of them pointed out that he had attended another college, and that he transferred in to Minerva and is glad he did. And he said he wasn't the only one who had transferred in.

They seemed like really decent, smart people, and they were so welcoming.  So, is Minerva "the future of college"?  Perhaps we'll know in twenty-five years.

That's it.  Please forgive the imperfectness of this report.  I didn't get any sleep last night.  Horses need sleep.

Your Real Gosh-darned Moderator,
Zooze the Horse

Pearson has a record loss, by Gina from Georgetown

Education publisher Pearson reports biggest loss in its history.

This raises two questions for me: 

1.  I am curious about everyone's experience with digital textbooks.  When I was forced to use one, the students were very resistant. They had a choice of buying access to the digital book or buying access to the digital book plus paying extra to get a bare bones printed version.  Nearly all them spent a little more to get the printed version.  They said they learn better with print.  These were under 30-year-olds.  Frankly, I was shocked!  I  thought the younger students would love the digital version and my older students would resist.  This was not the case; everyone resisted.

2.  Are faculty  who have a choice  in textbooks pushing back against choosing Pearson products because they have taken over so much of educational  publishing (textbooks, standardized testing in K-12,  the GED, etc.)?

Signed,

Gina from Georgetown

A Scuffle and a Professor's Injury Make Middlebury a Free-Speech Flashpoint. From the Crampicle.

In the wake of protests that disrupted a controversial speaker’s appearance and left a professor injured, Middlebury College has become the latest flashpoint in a national battle over campus speech and safety.

In a statement to the campus on Friday, Laurie L. Patton, the college’s president, described “a violent incident with a lot of pushing and shoving” as protesters swarmed Charles Murray, the speaker, and Allison Stanger, a professor who served as moderator, after the event. Ms. Patton apologized to Mr. Murray, Ms. Stanger, who was injured during the encounter, and “everyone who came in good faith to participate in a serious discussion.”

“We believe that many of these protesters were outside agitators, but there are indications that Middlebury College students were involved as well.” “Last night,” the president wrote, “we failed to live up to our core values.”

Even before it happened, Mr. Murray’s appearance had put those values on trial. Now the incident has stoked new debate — about whether the protesters were suppressing or exercising free speech, and about who was responsible for escalating the disruption into a fracas that sent Ms. Stanger to the hospital for treatment of an injury to her neck.

MORE

Monday Magic

If you could wave a magic wand and make today the ideal day at your school, what would be most
noticeably different from last week?

Big HUGE Hungry

If you removed the worst 20% of the faculty and the worst 20% of the administrators and the worst 20% of the students at your school, would you finally be happy?

Big, Big, Big, Big, Big, Big Thirsty

Which student do you remember most fondly?