Category Archives: Education

The Financial Calamity That Is The Teaching Profession

The paragraphs below are from an article in The Atlantic by Alia Wong with the same title I’ve given to this post. I’m just going to let them speak for themselves. Teachers have never been particularly well paid, but in recent decades … Continue reading

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These Vindictive Responses To Students Saying Awful Things Are Disproportionate And Wrong

Six white seniors at Desert Vista High School in Arizona took a photo of themselves wearing shirts that spelled “ni**er.”1 Understandably, students of color at Desert Vista are appalled at their classmates’ behavior – see the video at the top … Continue reading

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I think this Key & Peele video is brilliant.

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From Guernica: “The Teaching Class,” by Rachel Riederer

This is a really interesting and thought-provoking essay that I think anyone concerned about the state of higher education should read. Riederer makes a complex argument. Here are some excerpts: The rise of adjunct labor in universities is also a student … Continue reading

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“You’re a Man. Why Are You Teaching Women’s Studies?”

For me, the most difficult part of refusing to be silent about the fact that I am a survivor of childhood sexual violence has been figuring out when and under what circumstances to reveal it to my students at the … Continue reading

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Just One Complaint While I am Doing End-of-Semester Grading

So I’m sitting in my office earlier today, waiting for students to hand in their final assignments, which for some include assignments on which I gave them extensions. One student, who has done barely a stitch of work all semester, … Continue reading

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It’s Nice to Know Someone’s Doing Higher Education Right

Rebecca Schuman has a piece up on Slate, “Doing Higher Ed Right,” in which she writes about Iowa State University, which is “the only—only—institution of higher learning in the entire country to spend the last eight years hiring full-time faculty … Continue reading

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South Carolina “Fun Home” Censorship Update

(To listen to the best bit, I’d recommend advancing to the 17 minute mark.) After the South Carolina House passed a bill cutting $52,000 from the College of Charleston for including Alison Bechdel’s memoir Fun Home in a campus reading … Continue reading

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Public Safety, Racial Awareness, and a Community College Class in Workplace Writing

“Can we talk about this email that the college sent out to all the students?” one of the men in my technical writing class asked me, staring at the laptop open on his desk. “I’m pretty sure you’d have given … Continue reading

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A Good Conversation Starter: “A Machiavellian Guide to Destroying Public Universities in 12 Easy Steps”

From The Chronicle of Higher Education, here are the first four steps: Denigrate public education, and public institutions in general, as drains on private wealth and “job makers” to the point that no one would dare ask for increased support. This … Continue reading

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