Why Are We Here? (In a Big Lecture, That Is)

“Why do we still have big lecture courses in universities? It is somewhat of a mystery…”

Brad DeLong briefly outlines the history. Fascinating.

Unsung, underpaid and indispensable

NewMexiKen already shared this post from Burque Babble with my own favorite teacher lady, but on reflection I thought others might find it interesting too — because we’ve all known school secretaries, but also for the larger macro-economic circumstance it describes — unsung, underpaid and indispensable.

That’s rank

US News and World Report has published its 2009 college rankings. Harvard is at the top. The highest ranked public university is Cal Berkeley at 21st; Virginia is 23rd, UCLA 25th, Michigan 26th, UNC 30th and William & Mary 32nd. California and Virginia are fine places to live.

NewMexiKen’s alma mater, The University of Arizona, is rated 96th among national universities — about the same overall then as its football team.

National universities according to USNews “offer a full range of undergraduate majors, master’s, and doctoral degrees.” Liberal Arts Colleges, such as Amherst and Swarthmore, are ranked in a separate list.

These kids will make great employees someday

Dallas public school students who flunk tests, blow off homework and miss assignment deadlines can make up the work without penalty, under new rules that have angered many teachers.
. . .

For example, the new rules require teachers to accept late work and prevent them from penalizing students for missed deadlines. Homework grades that would drag down a student’s overall average will be thrown out.

Dallas Morning News

Thanks to Bob for the link.

Drinking age

There’s a news item circulating that a number of college presidents recommend lowering the drinking age to 18. According to the reports, the presidents believe it would reduce binge drinking.

NewMexiKen has a better idea. You must be 21 to drink alcoholic beverages unless you are a high school graduate. My plan might reduce binge drinking AND lower the drop out rate.

This and that

School starts this week in Albuquerque — Wednesday is the first full day. NewMexiKen never started school before Labor Day and none of my kids did either. What’s with this August-to-May school year anyway?

I bought regular gasoline yesterday for $3.58 (I’m rounding off the tenth of a cent from now on). I was thinking I shouldn’t fill up (that is, I should buy short), because the price will continue to drop at least until election day.

What percentage of time during the Olympic coverage on NBC is actually spent watching athletes do athlete stuff? 10 percent? 15 percent?

There are rumors that McCain will pledge just one term to offset the age issue. I know an even better way — no terms. The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch tells us Why McCain would be a mediocre president. “A careful look at McCain’s biography shows that he isn’t prepared for the job. His resume is much thinner than most people think.” Amazingly, McCain is even more of a dilettante than W.

Remember my rant about Comcast and the comment from a representative of Comcast? Well, it seems the outreach is real:

From a sparse desk dominated by two computer screens in the new Comcast Center here, Mr. Eliason uses readily available online tools to monitor public comments on blogs, message boards and social networks for any mention of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company. When he sees a complaint like Mr. Dilbeck’s, he contacts the source to try to defuse the problem.

“When you’re having a two-way conversation, you really get to clear the air,” Mr. Eliason said.

The New York Times has more — Complaining Bloggers Have a Cable Company’s Ear.

The iPhone is great except for battery life, which is OK at best.

Saddest line of the day

“By [age] 5, it is possible to predict, with depressing accuracy, who will complete high school and college and who won’t.”

David Brooks, citing study by University of Chicago professor.

Most difficult to challenge line of the day

“In our view, the dumbness of this year’s general-election coverage has been its defining feature.”

Daily Howler

BTW, Somerby has a very good analysis today of a misreading of student scores in an article in last Sunday’s New York Times. Recommended.

‘The Dumbest Generation’

In the four minutes it probably takes to read this review, you will have logged exactly half the time the average 15- to 24-year-old now spends reading each day. That is, if you even bother to finish. If you are perusing this on the Internet, the big block of text below probably seems daunting, maybe even boring. Who has the time? Besides, one of your Facebook friends might have just posted a status update!

So begins a review by Lee Drutman of Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation. Gonna bother clicking and reading it?

Could You Have Passed the 8th Grade in 1895?

This is the eighth-grade final exam in 1895 from Salina, Kansas. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smoky Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. per bu., deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per m?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per are, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates:
1607
1620
1800
1849
1865

Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u’.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e’. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences, Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced andindicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

“The idea that a university education is for everyone is a destructive myth. An instructor at a ‘college of last resort’ explains why.”

In each of my courses, we discuss thesis statements and topic sentences, the need for precision in vocabulary, why economy of language is desirable, what constitutes a compelling subject. I explain, I give examples, I cheerlead, I cajole, but each evening, when the class is over and I come down from my teaching high, I inevitably lose faith in the task, as I’m sure my students do. I envision the lot of us driving home, solitary scholars in our cars, growing sadder by the mile.

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

Interesting and somewhat provocative.

Kindergartener Voted Out

A Port St. Lucie, Fla., mother is outraged and considering legal action after her son’s kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

Melissa Barton says Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo had her son’s classmates say what they didn’t like about 5-year-old Alex. She says the teacher then had the students vote, and voted Alex, who is being evaluated for Asperger’s syndrome — an autism spectrum disorder — out of the class by a 14-2 margin.

CBS News

We Get Emails

Bob Ormond sent along this item:

Despite a court-ordered ban on the teaching of creationism in US schools, about one in eight high-school biology teachers still teach it as valid science, a survey reveals. And, although almost all teachers also taught evolution, those with less training in science — and especially evolutionary biology — tend to devote less class time to Darwinian principles.

The quote is from an article at New Scientist

And LP sent along a link to this good story that analyzes some mythology about Thurman Munson, the great Yankee catcher in the 70s, and his competition with Carlton Fisk.

“Obviously, something happened. Somewhere. At some time. But I’ve got three versions of the same story, and none of the versions checks out.”

Even one more reason to make today a national holiday

It’s National Teacher Day.

Around 1944 Arkansas teacher Mattye Whyte Woodridge began corresponding with political and education leaders about the need for a national day to honor teachers. Woodbridge wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt, who in 1953 persuaded the 81st Congress to proclaim a National Teacher Day.

NEA, along with its Kansas and Indiana state affiliates and the Dodge City (Kan.) Local, lobbied Congress to create a national day celebrating teachers. Congress declared March 7, 1980, as National Teacher Day for that year only.

NEA and its affiliates continued to observe National Teacher Day on the first Tuesday in March until 1985, when the National PTA established Teacher Appreciation Week as the first full week of May. The NEA Representative Assembly then voted to make the Tuesday of that week National Teacher Day.

Thanks to all the wonderful teachers in NewMexiKen’s life, K-12 and beyond.

Learning how to write good

Online Creative Writing Courses Offered Free by Top Universities and Educational Websites

Link via dangerousmeta!

Yet another good line

“If the cost of milk had risen as fast as college since 1980, as Grassley has noted, a gallon would be $15.”

Timothy Egan in an op-ed on elite college endowments.

Scariest photo of the day, so far

Most Stunning View in Town Is the One at the Pump

Stay in School to Outsmart Death?

Researchers from Harvard Medical School looked at data from the National Health Interview Study from 1966 to 2003. From the 1980s to 2000, the findings show that those who lived the longest were the most highly educated.

The “highly educated” were defined as anyone who had had at least one year of college. The researchers defined “low level” of education as having at most graduated from high school.

WebMD

It isn’t the education itself but rather that educated folk are less likely to smoke and less likely to be obese.

Hey kids, no more truant officers

John McCain:

Also, I do not believe in mandates. I believe that every American should have affordable and available health care and I’d like to talk just an additional minute about that. But I’m not going to mandate that they do. I want every American to have affordable and available education. But I’m not going to mandate that they do.

Transcript from CNN.com. Pointer via digby.

Best story of the day, so far

As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

The above from author Susan Jacoby in an article in The New York Times. Ms. Jacoby has recently written The Age of American Unreason.

There’s also this: “A few years ago she participated in the annual campaign to turn off the television for a week. ‘I was stunned at how difficult it was for me,’ she said.”

NewMexiKen knows I’m unusual, but my television hasn’t been on since the Grammy Awards show Sunday. The computer — now that’s another story.

Best file name ever

A friend writes in his Christmas letter that his high-school-age son named a file reallylonghomeworkblahblahblahblah.doc.

At 71, Physics Professor Is a Web Star

Walter H. G. Lewin, 71, a physics professor, has long had a cult following at M.I.T. And he has now emerged as an international Internet guru, thanks to the global classroom the institute created to spread knowledge through cyberspace.

Professor Lewin’s videotaped physics lectures, free online on the OpenCourseWare of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have won him devotees across the country and beyond who stuff his e-mail in-box with praise.

“Through your inspiring video lectures i have managed to see just how BEAUTIFUL Physics is, both astounding and simple,” a 17-year-old from India e-mailed recently.

Steve Boigon, 62, a florist from San Diego, wrote, “I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes.”

Professor Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest hits. He is part of a new generation of academic stars who hold forth in cyberspace on their college Web sites and even, without charge, on iTunes U, which went up in May on Apple’s iTunes Store.

New York Times

Follow the link to learn more about Professor Lewin and find links to his podcast lectures. An MIT education for free. Aren’t the internets grand?

Over reacting. Ya’ think?

Functional Ambivalent has his thoughts on the fourth grade teacher who dropped her pants — and the school that went into lock down as a result.

Yet another cost of college

College towns bring together academic minds, alumni, students and sports enthusiasts, especially in the fall when football fans flock to reconnect with the nostalgia of happy college years.  The reasons they come – pageantry, culture, tradition and idyllic settings – are also the reason many want to stay and become homeowners in their college town.  According to the third annual Coldwell Banker® College Home Price Comparison Index (HPCI), while Ohio State may be leading the nation in the football polls, it is the Ball State Cardinals and Stanford Cardinal and their athletic conferences that hold the distinction of being located in the nation’s most affordable and expensive college towns, respectively.

Coldwell Banker-HPCI

The link above has all the details. Pointer via The Quad, which had this convenient summary. Price is for “a 2,220-foot, 4 bedroom 2 ½ bath home with a family room and two car garage.”

10 MOST EXPENSIVE
1. Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. $1,677,000
2. Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass., $1,381,250
3. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Calif., $1,306,333
3. U.C.L.A., Los Angeles, Calif., $1,306,333
5. University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, Calif., $1,287,500
6. San Jose State University, San Jose, Calif., $1,145,000
7. University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, $843,750
8. Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., $708,000
9. Florida International University, Miami, Fla., $638,333
9. University of Miami, Miami, Fla. $638,333

10 LEAST EXPENSIVE
1. Ball State University, Muncie, Ind. $150,000
2. Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, $151,250
3. University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Okla., $153,750
4. Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Okla., $162,000
5. Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, $163,250
6. University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, $163, 278
7. University of Louisiana Monroe, Monroe, La., $164,499
8. University of Houston, Houston, Texas, $169,736
8. Rice University, Houston, Texas, $169,736
10. Utah State University, Logan, Utah $172,978

The University of New Mexico is tagged at $317,319. My alma mater, The University of Arizona, at $286,667.

How the news gets it wrong

The Daily Howler takes apart a report on schools in The Washington Post, which had written how one Maryland elementary school had improved its reading scores. As Somerby reveals, the whole state had pretty much the same gains. In other words, the journalist didn’t do his homework to provide context. (Here’s the Post’s report.)

It’s not dissimilar to the journalist here in Albuquerque who reported school taxes hadn’t gone up in so many years because the rate hadn’t changed. A simple look at any sequence of tax bills would have shown that during the same period assessments had risen markedly, so of course actual taxes had risen.

Or the journalist here who reported that 150,000 people were expected at a three-day event in an 18,000 seat arena.

I simply do not understand these kinds of mistakes.

There was an expression in my old profession that applies, I’m sure, to many other fields including journalism: “A lot of journalists are underpaid, and many of them deserve to be.”

Death and Taxes

Well, taxes anyway.

NewMexiKen received the property tax bill today — just seven days before the first half is due. (Nice work, Bernalillo County!)

Most of the agencies are up a few dollars but a couple are down a few too. One however, is a big change. The taxes for Albuquerque Public Schools are up a whooping 29.2% over last year.

Now I happen to think schools are underfunded and teachers (most of them anyway) underpaid. But 29% in one year? I need to start paying attention — it’s 36% of my tax bill.

Here’s another interesting one — taxes for the University of New Mexico Hospital are 22% of my total bill.

And overall, in eight years, my property taxes are up 50%. (The assessment is up just 22%, so most of the increase is in the tax rates.)

How about you? Do you ever look at your property tax bill?

Remembering the ‘Happiest Years’

Johnny makes us all feel better.

Going back to school

Mental Floss has an article on “12 College Classes We Wish Our Schools Had Offered.” Here’s just three; follow the link for the others and details:

Simpsons and Philosphy (Cal-Berkeley)

The Science of Harry Potter (Frostburg State)

Far Side Entomology (Oregon State)

Extra bonus: Strange High School Mascots

Top 10 Best Law Schools for Hispanics

1. New Mexico (27%; 22%)
2. Miami (12%; 8%)
3. Texas (17%; 4%)
4. USC (16%; 6%)
5. American (14%; 6%)
6. Florida State (8%; 7%)
7. Arizona State (15%; 7%)
8. Stanford (11%; 7%)
9. Arizona (12%; 8%)
10. Florida International (28%; 17%)

First number is percentage of Hispanic students; second Hispanic faculty.

Source: HispanicBusiness.com via Discourse.net.

NewMexiKen finds HispanicBusiness.com’s headline (which is the post title here) interesting. Shouldn’t the top 10 “best” law schools for Hispanics parallel the top 10 best law schools period?

Why college?

A provocative essay by Anthony Kronman, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale University, on the meaning of college — and finding the meaning to life. Well-worth reading, but hard to summarize, but here’s two key thoughts:

… But despite their differences, all rest on a set of common assumptions, which together define a shared conception of humane education.

The first is that there is more than one good answer to the question of what living is for. A second is that the number of such answers is limited, making it possible to study them in an organized way. A third is that the answers are irreconcilably different, necessitating a choice among them. A fourth is that the best way to explore these answers is to study the great works of philosophy, literature, and art in which they are presented with lasting beauty and strength. And a fifth is that their study should introduce students to the great conversation in which these works are engaged - Augustine warily admiring Plato, Hobbes reworking Aristotle, Paine condemning Burke, Eliot recalling Dante, recalling Virgil, recalling Homer - and help students find their own authentic voice as participants in the conversation.

Though critics have attacked “great books” programs as a kind of indoctrination into a European-dominated intellectual canon, the students in my Directed Studies class respond in the opposite way. They become rambunctiously independent. For they learn that the greatest minds in the world are on their side - or aren’t, and feel entitled to quarrel with them. A college freshman who has read Descartes, and who crafts her own reasons to reject his invitation to doubt, is on her way to an independence of spirit that is surely one of the conditions to living a meaningful life.

Thanks much to dangerousmeta! for the link.

Lipstick In School

According to a news report, a certain school in Garden City, MI was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the washroom.That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night, the maintenance man would remove them and the next day the girls would put them back. Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. He called all the girls to the washroom and met them there with the maintenance man. He explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night. To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, he asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

Neal Boortz

American History for the iPod

Want to hear one of the most popular courses at Berkeley, History 7B, The U.S. From the Civil War to the Present? It’s available free as 38 podcasts (of roughly 50 minutes each). The lecturer is Professor Jennifer Burns, who will be leaving Berkeley for the University of Virginia next year.

There are other courses and lectures available from Cal and other schools. Check out iTunes U via the iTunes store in iTunes, not your browser.

Can It Get Any Better for Appalachian State?

First, Appalachian State beats “Michigan in football. Then Miss Teen South Carolina Lauren Caitlin Upton plans to attend….”

Freakonomics

One way to keep the high school dropout rate low

Don’t have any high schools.

“The first class of 33 students at the Territorial Normal School in 1886 was greeted by its first teacher and principal, Hiram Bradford Farmer. This initial student body included 16-year-old students with no high school education, since there were no high schools in the Arizona Territory.”

The New ASU Story

The Territorial Normal School evolved into Arizona State College in 1945 and Arizona State University in 1958.

University of Arizona fans still refer to ASU as Tempe Normal. 1-2-3, Beat Tempe.

Stuff ‘R’ Us

Try to unscramble a rack of letters from GRE Vocabulary Word Scramble. Hit play again (after checking the answer) or refresh your browser to get a new word.

Here’s a short item on a Pregnant Woman On The Way To Hospital Charged With Reckless Driving And Subject To Virginia’s Abusive Driver Fee of $1050. 57 mph in a 35 zone. (She wasn’t in labor, but thought she was.) What d’ya think?

It still surprises me a little when I click on a page and it knows where I am.

Some of these are LOL. Annoying things to do on an elevator.

The Fifteen Most Dynamic Duos in Pop Culture History.

Somebody’s idea of The 20 Most Beautiful Colleges in the USA.

Confusing headline of the day: Men’s Undiagnosed Diabetes Down. How could they know?

The Boy on the Bus

An exceptional column today from Joel Achenbach about schools and busing and teachers and race.

Trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones

Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, gave the commencement speech at Stanford a couple weeks ago. It’s quite good and worth your time.

NewMexiKen particularly had to agree with this sentiment:

I grew up mostly among immigrants, many of whom never learned to speak English. But at night watching TV variety programs like the Ed Sullivan Show or the Perry Como Music Hall, I saw—along with comedians, popular singers, and movie stars—classical musicians like Jascha Heifetz and Arthur Rubinstein, opera singers like Robert Merrill and Anna Moffo, and jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong captivate an audience of millions with their art.

The same was even true of literature. I first encountered Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, Lillian Hellman, and James Baldwin on general interest TV shows. All of these people were famous to the average American—because the culture considered them important.

Today no working-class or immigrant kid would encounter that range of arts and ideas in the popular culture. Almost everything in our national culture, even the news, has been reduced to entertainment, or altogether eliminated.

Read the prepared text.

Thanks to dangerousmeta! for the link.

The Day You Became A Better Writer

“I went from being a bad writer to a good writer after taking a one-day course in ‘business writing.’ I couldn’t believe how simple it was. I’ll tell you the main tricks here so you don’t have to waste a day in class.”

Pretty straightforward and useful stuff from Scott Adams.

100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know

The editors of the American Heritage® dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know.

“The words we suggest,” says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, “are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language.”

The entire list of 100 words.

More school administrators with their head up the wrong place (it seems)

“Young Derek Jackson was suspended for an alleged violation of Bailey Middle School’s dress code because he had a close-shaved haircut.”

You can see what this is about at Pandagon. There’s even a haircut photo.

How can a kid’s haircut be too short?

(Or too long for that matter?)