Inside Out

This is an unusually insightful film, beautifully rendered. I don’t know what my children saw in it, though Number One Son said that it was the best movie ever, and Little Red wants to see it a third time. I am an emotional movie-watcher, sometimes embarrassingly so, and sure enough I cried at several points.

The development at the end of the film, where the new Core Memories are shown as being multicolored, is brilliant — and all the more so for being understated in how it is revealed. That’s the point behind the story, that growing up destroys those islands within us even as it replaces them with far richer rewards. We don’t get to experience it without cost, though. What a humane and compassionate way to present that truth!

I also appreciated the inclusion of Frank Oz and Dave Goelz voicing minor characters, seeing as the main characters are presented looking very much like muppets—and of course the credit sequence is brilliant.

This is why the best “children’s” productions are the ones that speak to the adults just as much as the youngsters. This is why we watch Pixar films.

“HOW WE SHOULD STRUGGLE WITH CIRCUMSTANCES.

It is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. For what purpose? you may say. Why, that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat. In my opinion no man has had a more profitable difficulty than you have had, if you choose to make use of it as an athlete would deal with a young antagonist.

Notes From: Epictetus. “A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion.” iBooks.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/fM8jE.l

The Idea of a University

Useful Knowledge then, I grant, has done its work; and Liberal Knowledge as certainly has not done its work,—that is, supposing, as the objectors assume, its direct end, like Religious Knowledge, is to make men better; but this I will not for an instant allow, and, unless I allow it, those objectors have said nothing to the purpose. I admit, rather I maintain, what they have been urging, for I consider Knowledge to have its end in itself. For all its friends, or its enemies, may say, I insist upon it, that it is as real a mistake to burden it with virtue or religion as with the mechanical arts. Its direct business is not to steel the soul against temptation or to console it in affliction, any more than to set the loom in motion, or to direct the steam carriage; be it ever so much the means or the condition of both material and moral advancement, still, taken by and in itself, it as little mends our hearts as it improves our temporal circumstances. And if its eulogists claim for it such a power, they commit the very same kind of encroachment on a province not their own as the political economist who should maintain that his science educated him for casuistry or diplomacy. Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith. Philosophy, however enlightened, however profound, gives no command over the passions, no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentlemen, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life;—these are the connatural qualities of a large knowledge; they are the objects of a University; I am advocating, I shall illustrate and insist upon them; but still, I repeat, they are no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness, they may attach to the man of the world, to the profligate, to the heartless,—pleasant, alas, and attractive as he shows when decked out in them. Taken by themselves, they do but seem to be what they are not; they look like virtue at a distance, but they are detected by close observers, and on the long run; and hence it is that they are popularly accused of pretence and hypocrisy, not, I repeat, from their own fault, but because their professors and their admirers persist in taking them for what they are not, and are officious in arrogating for them a praise to which they have no claim. Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man.

—John Henry Newman (1852)

In which Piers Observes Institutional Disarray

What happens when a professional degree program in our college of Education, Health, and Behavioral Sciences finds that its students can barely manage the language requirements outlined in the university catalog? The difficulty is putting some of these students in a bind because their time to degree, retention, and financial aid numbers are all affected when they have to spend several semesters satisfying the foreign language requirement.

The astute reader will note the flavor of language I am reduced to here: that of the higher ed administrator reflecting on student outcomes.

So how is this issue dealt with? One might expect, for instance, that the department in question do some collaborative work with the persons responsible for foreign language instruction. One might also expect them to look at entrance requirements for their degree program, or perhaps even to request a curricular adjustment through the usual and appropriate channels by which such adjustments are usually made (in this case, through curriculum revision requests that are examined by multiple administrative and faculty committees before being approved by the full Faculty Senate).

This department in question did in fact take the final option. They requested that all language requirements be waived, period. Their request was voted down in a meeting of the Faculty Senate. I was present at the meeting and it was a pretty hot conversation at points (including, alas, the times when I was speaking). Faced with this setback, the department in question attempted to resubmit the same request again, whereupon it was turned back because Robert’s Rules of Order do not allow for denied motions to simply be resubmitted.

Today I find out that this double denial (which, I may add, might legitimately cause one to question one’s course of action in the usual course of life) led the department in question to simply request a “Course Substition” (which we use frequently for students who are transferring credits, for instance) that was administratively granted by their dean and then by the office of student records . . . to apply to all of their students and for all university catalog versions. They then simply started officially (but quietly) advising their students to just not take foreign language classes. This came to the attention of our colleagues in the foreign languages division of our department only by accident . . . someone let it slip.

Now the issue is being addressed by our dean to the provost, and I imagine that it will get very interesting. If I am in his shoes, I call the responsible parties in and absolutely read them the riot act. But that’s probably why career advancement for me is a lost cause.

labor omnia vicit improbus

Nec tamen, haec cum sint hominumque boumque labores
versando terram experti, nimil improbus anser
Strymoniaeque grues et amaris intiba fibris
officiunt aut umbra nocet. pater ipse colendi
haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque per artem
movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda,
nec torpere gravi passus sua regna veterno.
(Virgil, Georgics, Book 1.118-124)

I have developed a schedule this summer wherein every Wednesday I do the mowing and other necessary yard work inasmuch as I can get to it. It often seems zenlike in its completion — not because it creates in me a sense of peace, but because the act itself has to be the reward for all the lasting good it does. What I mowed two days ago will look untended by Sunday. The weeds will continue their inexorable march into the flower beds, and we will spray and hoe and pull and trim and dig to the best of our abilities, and the grass and the flower beds and the shrubberies will all require more of the very same treatment before we’ve managed to catch a breath.
Virgil says that the gods gave us agricultural labor to keep us from torpor, from sinking in laziness. I guess he must be right about that one.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 53

On Motivation

Every couple of years I am asked to serve on the faculty for the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Humanities, an annual event at my institution wherein some of the brightest rising HS seniors come to campus to take college humanities courses and engage in other “nerd camp” type activities. It has a long history here and I am glad to be a part of it when my turn comes around.

I find that the greatest difference between these HS students and my average college students is that this group is extraordinarily motivated to study and to learn. Even when they are overwhelmed or at least unpleasantly surprised by the pace and the intensity of the work, they attack what’s in front of them. It is as if, mirabile dictu, they value the experience of academic work not just for the credit it will get them, but for its own sake.

Lost in all the yammering about “what shall become of the humanities? How shall we make them relevant” is the most honest truth about it: the experience of learning is worthwhile most of all for its own sake. Grappling with Hobbes, for instance, or the assertions of an american anthropologist from the early part of the 20th century, needs no argument for its relevance—not if one actually cares about learning.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 49

General parental updates:

1. Number One Son has continued his running this past month. He ran an obstacle course/mud run with The Triathlete over the weekend and was just as proud as could be. He has managed to score some sweet new running shoes in the bargain too (we did not pay retail for those, no way).
2. Little league has dragged to a halt recently due to all the rain. Little Red has managed one game in two weeks, I think, and Lefty’s schedule hasn’t been much better. There has been some notice of whether or not a certain little girl has been a spectator at Little Red’s games, though he insists that he doesn’t care whether she is there or not (though he asks every inning). He went to her softball game the other night —- only to see Ms. A, his beloved first grade teacher. So he says.
3. Now that the children are all out of school we have a bit of schedule-jostling to do. Number One Son can come to campus with me, but he’s not really old enough to silently occupy himself. . . he tends to break into song, wiggle all over the room, ask for food every 15 minutes, that sort of thing. Needless to say, I’ve opted to just sit with him at home even at the expense of my own work.
4. We are discovering that Lefty is SUPER DUPER talkative if given a chance. The last couple of times Grammie has been here to visit, he has chattered her ear off, obviously enjoying every moment. It may have to do with having an appreciative audience that he doesn’t have to compete for . . . she is very accommodating and asks lots of questions.
   
5. We are also about to enter into summer camp and day camp season, right as baseball season wraps up. Good timing, and good to have them occupied with things other than Minecraft.