My niece is going to be Cinderella [link] for Halloween and I'm thinking of sending a costume for my nephew. What could be be that would coordinate?

A pumpkin?

Eeee! With wheels on the side, so that he's her carriage!

I'm not sure how that would have flown with the professor of the one class I blew off, but I did make a conscious decision to coast for a C in his class so I could devote 25+ hours a week to studying for Survey of Art History II. At least I did crack him up by talking about the Creamy Consistency Rule for acrylic paint mixing.

-- he used to just want a research 1 institution (he is on the market this year), but his experience (and mine, I went to a school like the ones above) has made him warmly welcome a job at places like that.

Yeah, I'm in a Research 1 university, and I often daydream about being in a smaller school like the one I attended. But in the sciences it's hard to work outside of Research 1, because you need a lab and lots of graduate students, and Federal grants, and collaborators who you can team up with.

In the humanities, though, I think it's possible, as long as you have access to the information you need and can connect with other scholars at converences or by exchanging visits. I envy the people who are able to strike that balance.

Can you believe I've known you since your junior year?

...it doesn't seem like it's been that long, does it?

To defend my fair profession, I think this has a lot more to do with how many more students are going to college from lower-achieving schools, which often have too many students and too few qualified teachers to have any kind of sustained writing program...

But I don't think it's fair to say that we aren't preparing them as well as we used to.

Kristin,
I totally agree and I hope you don't think I was faulting high school education as a whole.

And generally I think it's great that more people have access to higher education than in the past. It just sucks that they aren't really prepared for it and then, as a prof, your job becomes something else entirely. But then again, at my last school, we couldn't force people to go to the writing center even if they did have a problem so possibly I'm still just really bitter about that.

In related news, public vs. private education: [link]

In related news, public vs. private education:

Interesting, and I'd really like to see more teasing out of the different factors affecting science/math performance on the one hand and reading/history on the other (with the understanding that that sort of thing may be somewhere down the road in future studies).

ION, could they have FOUND a less appropriate commentator for the article than Mr. Cato Institute Guy?

Kristin,

I totally agree and I hope you don't think I was faulting high school education as a whole.

And generally I think it's great that more people have access to higher education than in the past. It just sucks that they aren't really prepared for it and then, as a prof, your job becomes something else entirely.

Yes indeed. I don't judge your frustration, really, and I know that you aren't faulting all of high school education. I'm sorry if it felt like I was lashing out at you; I really didn't intend that at all. I just hear statements about how unprepared college students are because of shoddy high school education a lot, and many people don't make the distinction that you do. I guess I just want the general public to understand that it isn't the preparation that has changed so much as the access to college education. And yeah, that's a mixed blessing.

Blah. I'm also exhausted and cranky, which is no one's fault but my own. Hugs, babe. We're totally good.

On the one hand, I turned in a Shakespeare paper two weeks late one time in college, without saying a word and without expectation of favorable treatment. (And wasn't marked down for it.) On the other hand, the following year, my professor lost my midterm exam (mine and about five others) and had to write a paper to provide a midterm grade, making me do extra work to make up for his space cadetry!

And then there's the teacher who called me perverse in class, but since I was 19 at the time, I did not yet have the self-possession to say, "Yeah, and?"

These kids are shameless, horrible people.

I think it's a shame that instead of learning philosophy from bob bob, they're learning personal responsibility, which mommy and daddy should have taught them. Maybe they tried, but there were never any concrete losses to make them appreciate it?

I mean, they're missing out on the bob bob. And perhaps will always blame him instead of themselves for the consequences.

They fail at life.

Also, I hate attendence rules. If I can pass your class without being in your class? There's something wrong with your class.

Also, also? My book is not a collection of blog posts. They're ESSAYS, MOTHERFUCKER.

Yeah...I mean, a lot of stuff I write started out as blog posts. No denying it. But to say that means to me that you think I publish my LJ diarrhea...don't pass go, don't collect $200. And I don't do that.