Monday Update, Holly Jolly Edition

At some point last week, my energy just utterly gave out. I may have written about this already, but it bothered me for a bit.  Then I remembered that this happens at the end of every semester.

The Runner of course has had a couple of races these past two weekends; the event in Memphis was great, and then this past weekend she drove with a whole flock of other moms over to Pigeon Forge to run a race. It turned out to not be the most convenient time for me, seeing as I was alone with all three children on the weekend between the end of classes and the start of exam week.  But I was happy to let her go.  We may alter the arrangements next year.

There were many many many conversations in my office suite today . . . and they were mostly addressing how demoralized we feel when we see the quality of work we are getting.  I hate to say it, because I want to believe the best of my students, but most of it is so weak.

Number One Son had his church children's choir program last night.  It was mildly entertaining, overly choreographed, and filled with regrettable attempts at "contemporary" music. The children are not being taught to sing or anything like that.  However, he had a blast doing it, and really hammed it up on stage (he had no speaking part, but did the motions with vigor). 

Little Red asks me to play an insanely difficult Wii game with him, and when I'm tempted to groan, "nooo," I remind myself that he loves me and won't be "little" Red forever.

The Mutt has only destroyed a couple of Christmas ornaments so far.

Adventures with Students, Vol 39

I was subjected to an outside teaching evaluation yesterday in my two literature classes. I am being evaluated for a teaching award, and my department chair had to administer the instrument before I entered the classroom.  So as soon as I came in, one of my saucier students blurts out that one of the questions on the evaluation was whether or not the instructor stays on topic.

Well, it was an honor to be nominated, at least!  I am not exactly the most focused teacher on the planet. Another student helpfully pointed out that they also asked about "sense of humor," and I replied that attempted jokes aren't the same thing as actual humor. Which earned a chuckle from a few people.

One of the most difficult things to manage this time of the semester is that some students who have utterly flaked out, flamed out, stopped trying, lazily floated their way through the term now want to make sure they get a reasonably good grade in the class.  My "favorites" are the ones who disappear for several weeks and then return as if nothing happened.

I now find myself in the position of the tiresome man who grumbles that in his day no one would think of this sort of behavior.

Monday Update, O Tannenbaum Edition

After the Thanksgiving observance comes the ritual Opening of the Attic, the ceremonial Unpacking of the Many Plastic Containers, the official Choosing of the Christmas Tree, and the Decorating Thereof, which was just done this very night. The boys were beside themselves excited. They of course decorated a very narrow zone of the tree by piling several ornaments per branch.

We have adjusted some of their aesthetic choices.

Today I was feeling pretty crappy due to a cold, but still, in the midst of an insight about Pope's "Essay on Man" as I was teaching the first part of the poem to my class, I apparently got a bit excited . . . cause next thing I knew my colleague from the classroom next door was pounding on the wall to get me to pipe down a little. It was all in good fun, but I didn't have any idea I was being that loud. Oh well; I may not be doing a great job, but at least I can't be accused of phoning it in.

Thankfulness is a discipline of the mind and heart.

There are plenty of things that weary me, but I'm not about to waste space on those right now.

Number One Son acts just like I imagine I used to act this time of year.  He absolutely loves everything about this season.

Monday Update (belated), "Deep Breath Before the Plunge" Edition

I have to admit that I don't feel like I'm doing a good job at anything these days.  Is it enough to do what's required to get by?

Especially doubting my performance at work.

I have learned that this is a cycle that follows just as surely as the September-October period is a tough haul. The weather turns bleak just as my mood does the same.

I recognize that it's just a mood, though, brought on by work related stress and the fewer hours of sunlight/bike riding.

Thanksgiving week is nice, though, because we get most of the week off. But we'll pay for it starting on Monday...cause the sprint from Thanksgiving to Christmas break is also brutal.

The poor preschoolers have been so very sick.

The Mutt has been trying our patience to the hilt.

We know we have plenty to be thankful for, but we're not feeling smug--we're tightening the belts for what we're pretty sure is coming.

Some things that have come up

1. People are doing the "thankfulness" thing on Facebook where they use each day in November to talk about what they are thankful for. This one acquaintance of mine who used the occasion to praise herself for her progressive political views . . . apparently missed the point.

2. In many ways, having a puppy is like having another child, only more so.  And hairier.

3. I was teaching the other day and talking about regional cultural differences--urging the students to be more thoughtful and less reflexive in their evaluations, especially of the South.  One student thought she could catch me out by asking, "where have YOU lived?"  My answer left her without much to say.

4. Colleagues and students alike are all feeling the cumulative stress of the semester. In the past two weeks, I have had a couple of students--both of whom had been missing big chunks of class--come to me and say that they've been having trouble. Both tried not to cry, and mostly succeeded. Neither was particularly forthcoming about the nature of their trouble. I tried to offer a little perspective and then sent them on their way with assurances that we would be able to work it out. I try to remember that it is an honor to be seen as a compassionate and reasonable person.

5. Everyone at work is surprised when I confess that I am an extreme introvert.

6. There is a research project I'm supposed to be working on. Yeah, about that . . .

Some things I wish I could tell my students

 . . . but that I do not generally say because I don't want to sound like a level 75 curmudgeon:

You cannot continue to expect to get gold stars just for showing up. Certainly, showing up is the first step, but it's only a first step. You may have been stroked and petted for doing the absolute minimum up until this point, but from now on the minimum is just that--it will keep you from utter failure, but that's about it. If you want to know true success, then you are going to have to determine that deferred gratification and mental/physical exhaustion are acceptable. Especially the deferred gratification part. You are also going to have to define success in terms other than monetarily. If you think you are in college to get certified for a job, you'd be better off doing other stuff. There is no reason to be at a university unless you are there to learn things in a broad and deep sense. Please learn, furthermore, that you are in fact always representing yourself to other people, both in what you wear and in how you choose to speak. You may mutter self-indulgent nonsense about "authenticity" and "self-expression," but you're not really convincing anyone--least of all anyone over the age of 30.  And PLEASE, PLEASE, for the love of Pete, think before opening your mouth. In fact, just play it safe and don't open your mouth at all. 

Monday Update, Hedgehog Edition

I forget it every year, apparently, but it happens every year:  in the two weeks following the Pig Pickin', everything catches up with me and it is like I'm buried for several days under an avalanche of paper.  Other things begin to slide as I begin to cut corners to keep up with the basics.  I usually spend the latter four to five weeks of the semester just shoveling.

This explains why the yard and the exercising and the diet, etc., are all utterly neglected in November.

I also find that the way I do my job creates a cumulative weariness that really takes a toll when the time change hits. I feel it in the gut, and I begin to get a bit impatient with, um, other people. 

Number One Son had a sleepover over the weekend, and apparently really enjoyed himself.  The report is that he and his friend woke up at 3:00 am ready to play.  They were dismayed to find that the parent didn't agree.

All of the children have been utterly consumed in their Lego building recently. There is an 8-foot table in our front room covered end to end.  Have there been some screechy disagreements? Unfortunately, yes.  We have discovered that The Mutt really dislikes it when I begin to speak loudly.  She generally goes and finds The Runner.  On Sunday morning, when the s*** really hit the fan, she not only found The Runner (in the kitchen), but wedged herself between The Runner's legs and the cabinets.

An older colleague was speaking with me about a demographic issue that she read about--that the 85+ population of this country will outnumber the 5 and under population by 2040.  The most amazing part of the conversation was that when I remarked that this is exactly why all the entitlements are dead--they cannot possibly keep up with the population--her response was essentially a shrug. At least she's getting hers (and mine. And her grandkids').

I find myself wearied by the incessantly self-involved among my friends and acquaintances. This is the most unpleasant of the side effects of Facebookification.

The question that remains for Piers is . . .

. . . how libertarian will he become?

In which Piers votes

I voted this year based on two concerns:
1. Fiscal/budget
2. First amendment

I don't even think that Social Security OR Medicare will even exist in any recognizable form by the time I am of age to "collect," so to speak.

Looming: the technology-driven change in the way education, especially college/university education, is delivered.

I will also note that there are colleagues of mine who are thoroughly and utterly hateful toward the state house representative because he disagrees with them on several issues ... And then they complain when he doesn't seem overly eager to bend to their requests (it will be a relief when/if their chosen candidate wins and in doing so is able to iron out all our difficulties).

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Monday Update, election eve edition

I am thoroughly ready for this long nightmare to be over. By which I mean election season. My fear is that we are rapidly moving to a kind of setup where the election cycle never really ends.

Now that we have set the September & October marathon behind us, we have turned our attention to other things, specifically some of the house and yard keeping that tends not to get done otherwise. The Runner massacred lots of our shrubbery this past weekend.

The front room of our house has the long table pulled out into the center, and it is covered--covered--with Lego building blocks. It's a mess, but Little Red and Number One Son built 30+ spaceships tonight.

The youngest shall hereby be known as Lefty.

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The Last Battle

A lot of students are reading this book right now because they're taking a course in fantasy literature.  I tell them it makes me sad, because things keep going so wrong for the main characters before they finally begin going right.  And I guess I'm just apocalyptic enough in my thinking to wonder if my children and grandchildren are going to have to endure a world getting worse and worse, like Narnia does, before it finally gets better.

Such are the thoughts of a melancholic father, I guess.

More importantly,

Happy Birthday to The Runner!


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In which Piers yawns

This is part of a flyer advertising a "banned books" reading tomorrow. I confess that this doesn't mean that much to me even though I am a First Amendment zealot. Mainly, it's because there's such a broad definition of "banned." Certainly, it's silly when any community or school tries to proscribe any written works. Not to mention counterproductive. But when even books like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone count as "banned," well.

But at least it gives participants ( in the reading, that is) the thrill of Standing Up for Our Rights. I wonder if they would do the same for the dude who made that YouTube video of recent fame.


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Monday Update, "whoops, it's been a while" edition

I did not intend to go this long without posting something, but the activities got the better of me, I guess.  The annual conference in Wise this year was especially important for me because some colleagues and I decided to take the first steps of a fairly significant research and writing project. There's no guarantee that it will work, of course, but if it does, it could be huge.  And of course, as things tend to happen, as soon as I got back from the conference I had a week of wall-to-wall work to take care of, so I've not done a thing on that stuff for about ten days.

I used to keep waiting for the day when I could catch my breath; I'm thinking it ain't gonna come. On the upside, though, this academic project may represent the Big Change I've been looking for (and a far healthier one than the other kind:  sports car, motorcycle, blonde bimbo, etc.).

The biggest moment (no pun intended) of the past week was probably when the boys got to ride for about an hour in the cab of a John Deere combine.  They loved it.

We were especially proud of the boys this past Saturday--they both played well and with good attitudes. I am pleased with the way Number One Son offers plenty of vocal leadership and encouragement to his teammates.  His hard work is really paying off; he is de facto captain of the team and has been scoring goals during every game.  Little Red bounced back after a couple of weeks ago when the wheels came off (incedentally, while I was gone to Wise), and played with some pretty good focus this week.  He does better on offense than on defense.  He also scored a couple of goals.

Continuing with the outdoor theme, one of the other big changes this fall has been that I've been participating in afternoon group bike rides (15-25 miles) with some fellow faculty members. It has been a big adjustment to the way I do things, putting me later getting into the office and much earlier in leaving it.  On balance, though, this is a positive development both mentally and physically.

I'm not going to specify, but I will say that this has become a single-issue election for me, and nothing either candidate does or says from here on out is likely to change my mind.

Monday Update, Wise Week Edition

And so, the annual week where I have waited too long to get my academic work done, so I spend about five days freaking out about getting the essay written before I get up there.  This year, the added degree of difficulty:  an entirely different schedule, consisting of afternoon bike rides; two sets of soccer practices and an additional flag football practice for Number One Son; and some evening meetings for me.

I coached Number One Son's soccer team on Saturday!  We were lacking the official coach, and the assistant coach was out, so I stepped up to essentially tell the boys where to stand on the field.  To my great surprise, they listened to me, and as the game went on, I got more vocal at helping guide their efforts.  I had a heck of a lot of fun, actually, and really enjoyed encouraging them as they did good stuff (we also won 6-0, and Number One Son scored his first two goals ever, so that helped).

A lot of hullabaloo at work about the results of some silly online employee survey we were all supposed to take last year (they even handed out mugs and cups and post-it note pads with a special logo).  The published results say that five persons in my department completed the survey, which is a mystery since everyone in the department remembers taking it. But since we have been called on the carpet for an apparently tepid response, we are to compose some sort of plan for addressing some of the shortcomings. I would be tempted to take it more seriously if the firm tasked with tabulating our responses had, you know, bothered to include all the responses that were given.  The whole exercise is silliness.

The more time we spend filling out online surveys, and doing administrative paperwork, and formatting documents to meet spec, the less time we have for doing the things that make our jobs meaningful (and count toward things like tenure and promotion):  research, writing, teaching.

On the bright side (and this is unsurprisingly unrelated to work), Number One Son is doing so much better at everything this year, it's night and day.  He really loves his second grade teacher, and has so much more confidence.

In which Piers gets struck

The news from yesterday was bad, following weeks upon weeks of bad.  I've got an academic paper to write that maybe ten people will listen to, and which if I'm honest will probably never see the light of day again--certainly not in a publication. I have a department meeting to attend tomorrow afternoon, even as I am withdrawing as far as I can from the administrative and political workings of the various levels of my institution.  I'm teaching complicated material to students, expending enormous amounts of energy.

And all of this effort for what?  Am I really working for any kind of good, or is this just an elaborate and stressful way to spin my wheels?

In which Piers reviews an important lesson

There are those people for whom you can be super important . . . As long as they need you for something. When that's done, you find yourself on the outside looking in again. I've begun to experience this phenomenon at work. While it is not the most pleasant thing in the world, I'm at least glad to know where I stand.


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Monday Update, Post-Soybean Edition

Well, the Soybean Festival came to town this past week and brought the rain with it . . . yes, that's right.  All summer it has barely rained, and then when there's a week long street festival:  it rains.  Hard.  We'll take it, but it does mean that I have to mow the grass now.

The coming of the Soybean Festival is traditionally (for me, at least) the time that work really kicks off . . . and so this week the soccer practices (and flag football for Number One Son) have really taken off along with meetings and such.  The schedule is now even more involved because Little Red has soccer practice and games as well.

Speaking of soccer, Little Red scored 4 goals on Saturday . . . the boy has a little motor.  Number One Son also played really well, though he could use just a bit more aggression.  He took a couple of shots on goal, but they didn't go his way.  He has come a long way since his days of standing still in the middle of the field.

My good friend JVG has cajoled me to start riding with him on weekday afternoons after work (three days a week).  It is a new thing for me, but it has worked out remarkably well.  It gets me away from campus and pays at least some modest physical dividends.  Today we rode a good 25 miles or so.

On our ride, we ran across a heartbreaking sight:  two puppies, obviously litter mates, probably 6-10 weeks old, walking along a ditch by the side of the road.  They were both gaunt--you could see their ribs and their hipbones.  They were also starved for attention . . . it's probably a good thing I was on my bike and not in my car, or we might have two more dogs here at this house.  For a while, the memory of the two of them wagging their tails and reaching up for my hand just sapped the strength right out of my legs.

I have a little over a week to prepare a presentation for the annual conference I attend in Virginia.  Should be simple, since I clearly don't have anything else going on.

At the end of week two,

A self-assessment:

1.  In my attempt to reboot myself and my career, I have come to recognize that I need to protect my time.  This may involve closing my office door when it needn't be open, or leaving the office for the confines of the library, or leaving campus altogether.  The place will get along fine without me, and I have found that time is easily wasted here at my desk.

2.  I also feel remarkably detached from the bulk of my work.  I'm okay when it comes to teaching, but the rest of it doesn't even begin to penetrate.  I am trying a new set of tasks & responsibilities in an effort to shake off at least some of the lethargy.

3.  High on the priority list is learning to write again--a daunting prospect.

4.  I am trying some group bike rides in the mid-afternoon after work a few days per week.  Again, it's a matter of doing things differently to see if I can jump-start some energy.  I am not accustomed to riding with people, so it is a bit of a challenge.

5.  No matter the number of laudable goals, to make any kind of personal change at 38, when also attending to a family, mortgage, etc., is a big-time undertaking.  I am attempting to be patient when results don't come as quickly as I would like.

LOL, Chronicle.

The above item is from the daily digest from the Chronicle of Higher Education.  That's right:  those students at Harvard were too flummoxed by Ambiguity to understand they were cheating when they were, you know, CHEATING. 


You know what this deserves:

Getting started for the 8th Time

I love the first couple of days of school, when I can come into a class and surprise them a little with the way I present myself. I'm sure some of them have heard that I'm a certain way...but the majority are expecting a high school replay.

Of course, this means many more things to keep track of.

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Taking Stock, Pt. III

I am a bit distressed that I view the upcoming year with weariness rather than anticipation. But it is what it is. Some of the things that make me weary (and I do understand that these are my issues):

1. Colleagues who poor mouth every little thing. Every single day. The Perpetually Aggrieved Grad Student is an okay stance for a while, but maybe at some point north of 40 years of age one needs to find a new approach.
example:  today's "outrage" was that the Chancellor of this institution remarked in a department meeting that he doesn't really bother with reading the NYT or the WP every day.  ZOMG! Doubleplus ungood crimethink!

2. Colleagues who wrangle about word choice as a way of controlling the direction of conversations...and the ways other people think.
example: In our department meeting the other day, I remarked that since the English Society (a former student organization attached to our department) had died, we need to do a better job actively communicating with our students.  One of the department's most notorious busybodies took it on herself to correct me--"you mean to say it's inactive," she said.  Those who know me can anticipate how I responded.

3. Constant breast-beating about the debt burden students face . . . while the students post on Facebook about spending their "refund" checks on electronics and video games.

4. Constant uses of the following words, even by fellow academics, no matter whether they make any logical sense: vitriol, outrage, hate, rights, diversity.
example:  All last year, this institution celebrated 50 years of "diversity."  What they meant is that it was the 50th anniversary of certain milestones of racial integration on campus, but they didn't even take it on themselves to say "racial diversity."  It was just "50 years of diversity."  At an institution of higher learning. 

5. That one colleague who is now insisting on "pay parity" across colleges and departments on campus, apparently in the service of some mythical-yet-authoritative notion of "equal pay for equal work." He has been in higher ed for more than 40 years.  When he used part of our department retreat to pose this question statement to the provost, I admired the provost's restraint in not responding, "how long have you been in this business?  Since when has pay parity ever existed?" 

Taking Stock, Pt. II

Let's think more specifically about how I can make my characteristics work for me. Or as the Dread Pirate Roberts says, let's list our assets.

1. I am congenial and kind and engaging toward my students. I generally have a good rapport with them and enjoy a measure of popularity as a result. I know this is one of the ways I succeed at my job, but I also know that it demands a lot of me and my time and my emotional energy. It is also far too easy to get trapped by the notion that popularity and admiration are things to be sought...I would be lying if I said I don't enjoy my reputation.

2. I am a careful, methodical worker who seldom shows brilliance but does demonstrate a kind of steady reliability. I am not a self-promoter or a terribly creative sort. But when it comes to the kind of scholarship I am able to do, this may serve me well. We in the humanities are plagued with books, with "creative" approaches to our disciplines. Perhaps a slow but careful approach will yield a greater work in the end.

3. I have tried to create and maintain a reputation for honesty and discipline and hard work and even-handedness. Maybe I will be called on at some point to exhibit those qualities in a way that can really do my colleagues, my institution, or my profession some service. If I am not granted that chance, at the very least I can look myself in the eye.

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Taking Stock

Given that the school year is about to begin with me still grappling with some doubts about my place, a bit of self-examination seems in order.  What strengths do I possess, and how are they balanced against my weaknesses?

1.  I am an analytical thinker.  I am not particularly creative.
2.  I am a skillful and engaging teacher.  I am not as good at the research phase of my job.
3.  I do not speak overly much.  Sometimes I think I've said more than I actually have.
4.  I am usually kind and compassionate.  I am quick to avoid conflict.
5.  I have a sense of humor about myself.  That sense of humor can be overly self-deprecating.
6.  I mind my own business.  I imagine this can seem cold.
7.  I know the difference between what's important and what isn't.  This can also seem cold.
8.  I am unselfish and loyal.  Not always able to say no when I should.
9.  I am introspective.  Too introspective.  For an example, see this entry.

An encouraging word

Comment I got today on my GSH evaluation:

• Dr. Hill simply lit up my world. He made sure we understood the text and was patient when we did not. He also taught me how to think differently, I wish I could learn under him again.



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A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 10

With our department "retreat" (i.e., our all-day meeting to start our academic work year) tomorrow, it's time to move from grappling with concerns about my career and profession to grappling with what's required over the next few weeks.  So I'm drawing this little series to a close with a set of things I might do to move forward from here.

1.  Choose an entirely new set of service activities to invest myself in.  I've been doing many of the same committees for years now; maybe it's time to take on something I wouldn't have considered even a few months ago.

2.  Rid myself of interactions that bring me no peace or enjoyment.

3.  Look for work elsewhere.

4.  Spend more time exercising and less time in the office.

5.  Double down on my own academic projects and let everything else take care of itself.

6.  Resign myself to the way things "have to be."

Something has to change...just not sure in what way yet.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 38

Two statements involving Number One Son, both from yesterday evening:

1) "guess what? I have a girlfriend." 

2) "yes, sometimes in class he visits Jonathanland, but he come right back to us when I get his attention."

A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 9

In a continuation of my reflections from yesterday's post, I want to discuss the remainder of the article I mentioned yesterday.  One of the chief intellectual problems I face is the question of just how valuable in a broad sense my work can be.  The writer points to at least one way the humanities remains valuable even in an increasingly commodified higher ed climate:

To say that excessively specialized humanities scholarship today is irrelevant is not to say that the humanities are irrelevant. The humanities are that space in the university system where power does not have the last word, where truth and beauty as well as insight and eccentricity reign supreme and where young people come into contact with the great traditions, writing, and thinking that have made us whom we are today. The humanities introduce us to our ancestors and our forebears and acculturate students into their common heritage. It is in the humanities that we learn to judge the good from the bad and thus where we first encounter the basic moral facility for making judgments. It is because the humanities teach taste and judgment that they are absolutely essential to politics. It is even likely that the decline of politics today is profoundly connected to the corruption of the humanities.

"The corruption of the humanities?"  This is where I would be likely to be looked at askance by some of my colleagues.  I don't think there's any question that the disciplines of the humanities are in themselves the most worthy to be studied:

What unites culture and politics is that they are “both phenomena of the public world.” Judgment, the primary faculty of politics, is discovered, nurtured, and practiced in the world of culture and the judgment of taste. What the study of culture through the humanities offers, therefore, is an orientation towards a common world that is known and understood through a common sense.  The humanities, Arendt argues, are crucial for the development and preservation of common sense—something that is unfortunately all-too-lacking in much humanities scholarship today.

What this means is that teaching the humanities is absolutely essential for politics—and as long as that is the case, there will be a rationale for residential colleges and universities. The mania for distance learning today is understandable. Education is, in many cases, too expensive. Much could be done more cheaply and efficiently at colleges. And this will happen. Colleges will, increasingly, bring computers and the internet into their curricula. But as powerful as the internet is, and as useful as it is as a replacement for passive learning in large lectures, it is not yet a substitute for face-to-face learning that takes place at a college or university. The learning that takes place in the hallways, offices, and dining halls when students live, eat, and breathe their coursework over four years is simply fundamentally different from taking a course online in one’s free time. As exciting as technology is, it is important to remember that education is, at its best, not about transmitting information but about inspiring thinking.

Sadly, most of my colleagues would take the above as an ideological attack aimed at their chosen disciplines/values/etc.  As long as this kind of critique is seen as a kind of anti-intellectual demagoguery (I have heard similar critiques--and their authors--be summarily dismissed with just this language), the necessary adjustments (and I do believe they are utterly necessary) will not take place until the market forces our hand--which it may have already done, given the kind of conversations I hear when the state secondary and higher ed curricula come up.  

The article does counter one oft-suggested solution:

The focus on pedagogy is a mistake and comes from the basic flawed assumption that the problem with the humanities is that the professors aren’t good communicators. It may be true that professors communicate poorly, but the real problem is deeper. If generations of secondary school teachers trained in pedagogy have taught us anything, it is that pedagogical teaching is not useful. Authority in the classroom comes from knowledge and insight, not from pedagogical techniques or theories.

The pressing issue is less pedagogy than the fact that what most professors know is so specialized as to be irrelevant. What is needed is not better pedagogical training, but a more broad and erudite training, one that focuses less on original research and academic publishing and instead demands reading widely and writing for an educated yet popular audience. What we need, in other words, are academics who read widely with excitement and inspiration and speak to the interested public.

More professors should be blogging and writing in public-interest journals. They should be reviewing literature rather than each other’s books and, shockingly, they should be writing fewer academic monographs.

To say that the humanities should engage the world does not mean that the humanities should be politicized. The politicization of the humanities has shorn them of their authority and their claim to being true or beautiful. Humanities scholarship can only serve as a incubator for judgment when it is independent from social and political interests. But political independence is not the same as political sterility. Humanities scholarship can, and must, teach us to see and know our world as it is.

The critique he levels against "pedagogical" thinking is apt, I think.  My experience has been that while some of my students who focus on Education are quite bright, the qualities they bring to the classroom (when and if they become teachers) will have very little to do with the theories they know (especially that blasted "Bloom's Taxonomy" which is apparently gospel) and much more to do with the actual things they know--how much and widely they have read, how intellectually curious they are, how carefully they are able to analyze not only their own thinking and writing but that of others.  Conversely, I have observed many colleagues both in graduate school and later--and there were some whose teaching could not be saved, yea, even by years of workshops on classroom management techniques.

But because this sounds suspiciously "conservative," it would be dismissed right out of hand, especially in the current climate.

A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 8

What I have been trying to do these past few weeks, as I've written my way through some pretty difficult personal and intellectual problems, is chart out a course for the next few years. Up until this point, there have been some pretty significant markers of progress--objectives that had to be hit.  I had to earn each degree--B.A., M.A., Ph.D.  I had to earn a job and then earn tenure and promotion at that job.  Now that I am tenured . . . what, exactly?

The usual answer is publish.  But I am forced to admit that I don't see it happening--not only because I'm frankly not smart or focused enough to put together a book, but I'm not sure I believe in the degree-book-tenure-book pattern taught to me by my beloved mentors at UNC.  The other day, I stumbled across this article, which seems to encapsulate a lot of what I've been thinking.  Here are some excerpts:

Railing against college professors has become a common pastime, one practiced almost exclusively by those who have been taught and mentored by those who are now being criticized. It is thus only fair to say upfront that college education in the United States is, in spite of its myriad flaws, still of incredible value and meaning to tens if not hundreds of thousands of students every year.

That said, too much of what our faculties teach is neither interesting nor wanted by our students. This is a point that Jacques Berlinerblau makes in a recent essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Observers of gentrification like to draw a distinction between needs and wants. Residents in an emerging neighborhood need dry cleaners, but it’s wine bars they really want. The application of that insight to the humanities leads me to an unhappy conclusion: Our students, and the educated public at large, neither want us nor need us.

What is amazing is that not only do our students not want what we offer, but neither do our colleagues. It is an amazing and staggering truth that much of what academics write and publish is rarely, if ever, read. And if you want to really experience the problem, attend an academic conference some day, where you will see panels of scholars presenting their work, sometimes to one or two audience members. According to Berlinerblau, the average audience at academic conference panels is 14 persons.

I am under no illusions about the importance of the things I study.  I do find them interesting and even valuable to my understanding of the way rhetoric is employed in political, religious, and literary contexts in the Tudor and Stuart eras in England.  I am well trained enough to extrapolate points to other periods and contexts as well.  I think the rigor of what I study helps me be more rigorous as a thinker and as a professor (i.e., teacher).  However, I know that a book published on the things I study, assuming I could produce such a thing, would not be what anyone actually needs.

While there are exceptions, little original research is left to do in most fields of the humanities. Few important books are published each year. The vast majority are as derivative as they are unnecessary. We would all do well to read and think about the few important books (obviously there will be some disagreement and divergent schools) than to spend our time trying to establish our expertise by commenting on some small part of those books.

The result of the academic imperative of publish or perish is the increasing specialization that leads to the knowing more and more about less and less. This is the source of the irrelevance of much of humanities scholarship today.

As Hannah Arendt wrote 50 years ago in her essay On Violence, humanities scholars today are better served by being learned and erudite than by seeking to do original research by uncovering some new or forgotten scrap. While such finds can be interesting, they are exceedingly rare and largely insignificant.

As a result—and it is hard to hear for many in the scholarly community—we simply don’t need 200 medieval scholars in the United States or 300 Rawlsians or 400 Biblical scholars. It is important that Chaucer and Nietzsche are taught to university students, but the idea that every college and university needs a Chaucer and a Nietzsche scholar to teach Chaucer and Nietzsche is simply wrong. We should, of course, continue to support scholars, those whose work is to some extent scholarly innovative. But more needed are well-read and thoughtful teachers who can teach widely and write for a general audience.

There's plenty more in the article which, for the sake of space and in order to not weary my reader, I will save for another related post.  Still, this strikes me personally because I see so many colleagues and former classmates publishing wonderful stuff, and I greatly admire the work of my graduate school mentors.  I wonder why I cannot contribute in the ways they have, but almost immediately have to ask myself if anything I would write would in fact be a contribution.  Does this mean that I am a small-potatoes teacher in a small-potatoes college and must resign myself to that?  I have been able to tell myself that this position I am currently in, though it doesn't realistically allow for serious research or "scholarly" development, does fit my introverted personality and unwillingness to aggressively market myself.  It fits my service-oriented outlook.  I have told myself that because I am good at teaching, and because that teaching  (at least in the way I do it) is an important work, I should be satisfied with where I am and what I'm doing . . . and what the prospects appear to be.

Unfortunately, I'm losing confidence in all those things.

A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 7

Yesterday, I overheard a conversation in the lounge (this was at the office) between some of my co-workers.  One of them, who is no doubt in a position to know such things, was talking about some of the curriculum changes in secondary ed, and how they are likely to affect the way things go for higher ed.  Apparently (and I knew this was coming anyway), there are some plans in place to have a majority of students in our state come to college with composition credit already earned.  This would be a big change for my department, of course, because at least half of our total sections are composition sections.  And frankly, given the constant competition on campus for students to fill out sections, missing students from composition sections also means missing the opportunity to recruit them for literature survey classes.  This means, unfortunately, that the makeup of our department is apt to change.  It also means that the amount of resources to which the department is entitled is apt to change.  It also means that the makeup of the courses we teach is apt to change.

We (my colleagues and I) might be forced to make the case for why our discipline matters in a 21st century regional state university.  And frankly, if we can't make that case, we shouldn't have the positions we have.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 37

Second grade! Time to get back to it!

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A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 6

Work begins in earnest this week, as Number One Son goes back to school, as we settle into the Fall routine, and as I get ready for my slate of classes for the term.

Before that, though, comes the annual department "retreat" (the word "retreat" is misleading because it's only an all-day meeting...apparently you can use department funds for food at a department "retreat" but not for food at a mere "meeting."), in which we will discuss yet again how to increase the visibility and appeal of the major for the sake of numbers.  We will discuss how to communicate the benefits of the degree, how to attract more students to the major, whether nor not to purchase marketing materials, and so on.

This all puts me at a real disadvantage because I am torn between the institutional demands of the department and the demand of truthfulness.  More specifically, I can tell people that the English major is important--but I can't truthfully say it's important for the reasons I am "supposed" to say it's important.  Especially nowadays.  I can no longer tell students that graduate study is a good option.  I cannot tell students, given the employment climate they are likely to experience for the foreseeable future, that a humanities degree will be useful for getting them a job.  I've taken to hedging, saying that English is a good degree because it meshes well with just about anything else and allows you to heighten and broaden the strengths you already possess.  The problem is, to really benefit from a degree in the traditional humanities (English, History, Philosophy), a student has to invest more time reading than everyone else, has to figure out how to join the various disciplines into a unified whole, and has to love learning for its own sake.  Put bluntly, almost none of my students have that ability--or even that desire.

In a climate where everyone wants to know how their education dollars are contributing to measurable results, it's hard to be a cheerleader for my discipline--at least the way it is currently practiced.

An anatomy of absurdity

a.  I arrive at the office, and unload my MacBook Pro (well, technically the STATE's MacBook Pro), my iPad, and my iPhone, making sure to check the battery status of each device.

b.  I pull out the journal I am using (with its brand of paper that handles fountain pens okay), and choose one of innumerable pens to write with--usually sure to choose a color of ink that I did not use the day before.  Then I write my entry for the day.

c.  Meanwhile, I'm also opening two email programs and two browsers, arranging them across the two-monitor setup on my desk.

d.  I check Facebook, my RSS reader, my blogs, and I keep an ear out for text messages.

e.  I delete rafts of "sale event" messages from various online merchants, and campus email messages I do not need, and skim several dozen articles, dumping promising ones into Instapaper. I also double check electronic and paper calendars for the important events of the day.

f.  I drink loads of coffee while all this is going on.  Black.


g.  And then I try to concentrate.

The Inaugural use of the Perry Stare.

This is a picture Lileks is fond of using when he wants to comment on something rather . . . risible.  I would like to take the picture and use it (with attribution to Lileks, whose work I admire very much) on occasion when I too run across something rather . . . risible. 

This Perry Stare goes out to my pastor, a man whose heart is assuredly in the right place, who brings energy and honesty to our little(ish) church.  He is, however, a young man, and sometimes speaks as a young man.  Yesterday was one of those times.  When speaking about the second chapter of Genesis, and how it depicts God's perfect provision of a mate for Adam, he felt the need to address the unfortunate reality that marriage in real life may not always be as perfect as that of our forebears. 

He said that when people find themselves in unhappy marriages, it's because they didn't wait for God's perfect provision for them.  Or it's because they rushed into a relationship.  Or it's because they haven't trusted God enough, or done it His way, or whatever.  Essentially, he was asserting (not arguing) that marriage discord comes about because someone sinned or tripped up, and can be avoided if one properly seeks divine wisdom.  As "evidence," he read a little bit out of C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. 

The Runner was helping out in the nursery at the time, so there was nobody I could scrawl an "UH OH" note to . . . but her reaction when I relayed the point was much as I had expected:

This kind of thing is what occupies a lot of her time as a therapist.  The above is spoken by a young man, very much as a young man, secure in what he believes and in his understanding of how the world works.  I hope he and his wife (and children) never experience the trials that befall even the most well-intentioned of people, but I have come to suspect that life has its own ways of robbing us of our illusions.  Either way, I also hope that a few more years of study (if he can discipline himself to do it) finds him singing a slightly different tune.

In which Piers gets his hands dirty

My bike suffered a full-fledged component failure on Thursday last week.  After 4,000+ miles (that's not as much as it sounds, trust me), it was probably about time that an entry-level bike with entry-level components gave up at least something.  So, I have ordered a replacement part.  I am waiting for it to arrive, and in the meantime am taking some time to disassemble parts of the bike for some well-overdue cleaning.  I've discovered that I can be really patient and careful with tools when I have a need to be, and I actually take a lot of pleasure in tinkering like this.  I would replace more items on the bike if it were not for the cost of actually PURCHASING said items. 

Unfortunately, the only other bike I have is a single speed made for work commuting and really casual riding, not the more serious "exercise" riding I do in the mornings.  So for at least a little while, I'm going to be sitting on my thumbs.  And resisting the urge to BUY MORE TOOLS so I can TAKE THE BIKE APART EVEN MORE.

I also tried to make the argument to The Runner that this shows how much I need a third bike (I have my eye on this one), but she was not convinced, alas.

A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 5

There are many ways in which the academic landscape is changing, and stories like this will continue to come up in the coming few years.  The opponents of such moves (in this case, the shuttering of the University of Missouri Press) will express their "outrage" (outrage?) in the most moralistic and inflated language possible. 

I've read several articles on this particular closing, because it symbolizes one of the many changes that will happen--needs to happen--to the academy in the United States, especially that portion populated by public institutions.  The money is not there like it once was, and it is unlikely to return.  The publishing industry is changing as modes of publication change.  The notion that an academic monograph (published at a loss, bought almost entirely by libraries, and almost never read) must be the sole standard for tenure at a major institution is being scrutinized--and needs to be further scrutinized.  Given these trends, the expectation that things will not change (sometimes unpleasantly for those working in university settings) strikes me as odd.  The entire academic enterprise simply cannot continue as it has been. 

Things will look very different in ten years.  The question is whether or not our academic institutions--university presses among them--anticipate and adapt to what must inevitably come.

In which Piers knows he is super preoccupied

...because he can't even read.


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When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child,
that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman's second glance, a child's apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother's papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father's voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.

-- The American Scholar: Joyas Volardores - Brian Doyle


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A Crisis of Confidence, Vol. 4

In larger, more research-oriented institutions, the pre-tenure period is one for putting together a serious volume of research that can be published as a scholarly monograph. Post-tenure, an assistant or associate professor is supposed to be putting together further volumes as he or she works up the academic ranks to a full professorship. Unless one then chooses to enter administration as a dean, the position of full professor is the career pinnacle.

I have earned tenure at my institution, but have had very few meaningful publications. Some of that is a natural outgrowth of my teaching load--four classes a semester, plus more during the summers.

Some of that is also due, however, to my own abilities and choices. I focus a lot of attention on my classes and students, and on serving my department and college, and on my family needs. I am also not the most focused or prolific of researchers (nor am I very creative in my approaches to the work). On the upside, I am not at all willing to send out just anything--I'm not going to put out any material with my name on it unless I think it is really worth something.

So, how do I progress in my career? I do not have to publish to receive tenure--that part has been done. If I want a promotion in another five to six years, however, I do need to produce. Likewise, should I feel the need to move to a different institution, I need to look better on paper than I do right now. I could opt for the administration track, but I doubt whether I'm cut it for that kind of work...at any rate, I don't want it right now. Can I avoid stagnating, though?

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A crisis of confidence, Vol. 3

When I arrived at this institution, times were flush and everyone was living (comparatively) high, thanks to all kinds of money in the state coffers.  Perks were doled out relatively liberally.  And of course, everyone acted as if the good times would last forever.  And then the state budget collapsed.

Tough times make for tough choices, and the state contributions to this institution have shrunk from year to year.  This has caused some of my colleagues to act angrily--especially after the 2010 election put the GOP in charge of the state legislature for the first time in roughly forever.  Seeing a plot to systemically gut higher ed, they have tended to refer to state legislators as slope-browed homunculi incapable of seeing what is self-evidently true:  what we do here is super duper important and should be funded to the hilt.

As a result, I have heard many assertions about the value of higher education to the taxpayers of this state, but few arguments.  I recall a special faculty senate subcommittee that was formed a couple of years ago to do the typical things:  convene a conference, gather stories of people with hardship, demonstrate at the state capitol, etc.  And, as is usual for ad-hoc groups of this nature, the effort collapsed within a year because its goals were neither clear nor actually possible.  That was okay by me, because I saw in the confrontational approach a fatal strategic flaw.

Things have not gotten better.  In fact, the challenges are greater now than they were before, especially for an institution such as this one, which has no particular prestige attached to it and is not likely to generate a significant endowment to help manage its own affairs.  If this place is to be successful over the medium to long term, those of us who work here are going to have to be able to articulate--in non-condescending ways--arguments for why the work we do here is valuable.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind, in response to the current situation (I should probably revisit these in later installments):

a.  The "jobs" angle has been overplayed and overpromised, especially in fields like the humanities and fine arts, and even the hard sciences.  Quit pitching an education in the liberal arts & sciences as a sure pathway to employment--this just isn't true anymore, and these kinds of claims end up looking more like broken promises.

b.  The money isn't there like it used to be, and university faculty members should remember that there are plenty of constituencies fighting for the remainders.  We are not entitled to any of it, especially if we do not want the oversight that comes with using someone else's money.

c.  The advances in computer technology and connectivity are in fact going to change the way we do our work.  We need to be prepared for a pretty significant shakeout and embrace rather than fight the outcome.

Midweek update

Had my first flat of the season today. Knew something was up when the ride felt squishy.

Swim lessons for the boys. This makes them most tired, which is good because they go to sleep more quickly.

This is the kind of weather in which one thinks it would be nice to have a pool. Until one remembers just how much work it takes to maintain one. I mean, the yard and tiny garden is apparently more than we can handle as it is.

Reading lots of interesting stuff these days--more than I can keep up with, honestly. Also read a couple of things that were supposed to be sophisticated and intelligent...but were instead tedious and dull. Alas.

Visited the life insurance guy today. Time to put a substantial policy in place. I wish I could have answered his questions about future plans and income, etc., with less pessimism in my heart.

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Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 36

Every year since he was three, Number One Son has had swim lessons with the UTM Children's Center in mid-July.  Every year, he has fretted and fussed about it until the lessons actually started, and then he was all about showing off how good a swimmer he is.  So it was without much surprise that I found myself explaining to him yesterday morning that yes, he was going to have to go and participate, and no, he wasn't going to be able to just skip one day, and yes, we would see if mommy could take him into his room beforehand.  We did manage to get The Runner to take the children to their rooms at the Children's Center. 

However, Number One Son didn't get in the pool yesterday, because he fibbed his way out of doing it.  Overcome with anxiety over the upcoming lessons, he took advantage of some confusion and told the teacher that he had not been signed up to go (this in spite of the fact that he was wearing sandals and swim trunks at the time).  When the little deception was discovered, he got stern talkings-to from teacher, The Runner, and me.  He didn't like it, but I hope he remembers how uncomfortable it was when the next time arrives that he is tempted to be sneaky.

A crisis of confidence Vol. 2

What's wrong with "accreditation."

SACS Accreditation is right around the corner, and as in the article above, the emphasis here on campus has been overwhelmingly on getting the paperwork right and on having all the furniture dusted before the satraps and other functionaries arrive.

Having the furniture dusted is nice, and accreditation is important for all sorts of reasons. I just wonder if the questions being asked are the necessary ones --given the way higher ed is heading. I don't really think they are.

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Just a little rain

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A crisis of confidence vol. 1

I'm in a profession that is facing a real crisis of legitimacy.  Most reports involving student learning indicate that despite the millions of dollars poured into higher ed, outcomes have remained static or worse.  Meanwhile, one only has to look around to see a distressing level of silliness in many of the things going on (especially in the colleges of humanities & fine arts and of education) even while tuitions and fees continue to rise and colleagues complain that the state is paying a smaller & smaller percentage of the institution's expenses.

It's not just here, of course; in some ways, we are insulated from the worst features of academe simply because there's comparatively so little at stake at a small regional campus like this one.

 From one of many many articles on this topic:

The higher-education bubble has been inflating for decades, and it’s ready to burst, or at least deflate. That’s because many Americans are realizing that the huge cost of college is often a waste. Whereas college degrees used to be regarded as sure-fire investments, the labor market has become glutted with people who have been to college but can’t find “good” jobs.

Did you know that 22 percent of customer-sales representatives and 16 percent of bartenders have bachelor’s degrees?

Furthermore, at many schools, academic standards have fallen to the point where students can coast through without learning anything worthwhile. As University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds recently wrote, “The higher education bubble isn’t bursting because of a shortage of money. It is bursting because of a shortage of value.”

As a result, many students and parents are looking for less expensive, more effective alternatives to the traditional degree. They’re finding plenty of new options with online courses and independent certification of competencies, such as ACT’s National Career Readiness Certificates.
This educational revolution will transform higher education for the better as people shop for good value for their education dollars rather than robotically enrolling in a college, taking its courses and paying its bills.

During the bubble, colleges could get away with offering lots of courses that met a standard that former Indiana University English professor Murray Sperber characterizes as “the faculty/student nonaggression pact.” That is, the professor didn’t demand much of the students and gave high grades; in return, the students didn’t expect much from the professor, who wanted time for academic research projects.

The students were happy: Who complains about courses with high grades but little work? The professors were happy, and the administrators were happy because students getting good grades typically don’t gripe or, more important, drop out.

But courses in which students just go through the motions without learning anything are a waste of time and money.

The good news is that in the new higher-education world, courses like that will be jettisoned. Like dieters giving up doughnuts in favor of more nutritious, low-calorie foods, college consumers will look for affordable courses that lead to demonstrable educational gains.

The housecleaning in higher education also will sweep out lots of courses that exist only because professors like to teach them. Such courses typically focus on narrow, trendy or highly political subjects that interest the professor. For example, students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, can take “The Psychology of Clothes: Motivations for Dressing Up and Dressing Down.” In the new era of value consciousness, such boutique courses will be culled out.

Not only will boutique courses go, but professors will be required to do more of something many dislike and avoid as much as possible: Work with students.

(link)

I will admit that I resent being tarred with the same brush as some of my more unscrupulous colleagues at much much larger institutions.  But then again, they have a greater responsibility given the prominence of their appointments . . . and they have in many ways failed the rest of us (my mentors, thankfully, do NOT fall into this category) by giving our profession such a wretched reputation. 

I have much more to say on this matter, so it will probably come back up--as it is I'm already well past my usual brevity.

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True freedom means the freedom...

...to fall on your face, or stumble, or worse. And there is no way to avoid that risk unless, like so many, you would prefer to not carry the burden of meaningful choice.

This is one of the many things it is my duty to teach my students and my children.

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A partial list of pivotal moments

for their last assignment, my governor's school students had to write about their experience in school, which led me to think about school moments that were important to me. Here are the first three that came to mind:

1. That time in the fourth grade when I passed my first addition time test (after many practice rounds courtesy of Mom).
2. Having to rewrite (for no credit) my John Paul Jones report for my 5th grade teacher Miss Kaiser.
3. The time I got in trouble for laughing when a fellow 7th grader, reading out loud from the book of Acts, mispronounced "Annas" as "anus."
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