The start date for this is problematic for any professor taking the MOOC. Most of us are just beginning teaching for the semester and are faced with other start-of-session duties. The same is probably true for many others enrolled in MOOCs–and one of the reasons, I suspect, that so few finish them is simply that…
Shaun Johnson of The Chalk Face, a website dedicated to questions of public education (particularly to the struggle against the so-called “reformers” who are attempting to eradicate it), has a post at Good which, though it is aimed at demonstrating why the current “reforms” should be viewed with suspicion, also shows why we should be a…
In today’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman writes: I can see a day soon where you’ll create your own college degree by taking the best online courses from the best professors from around the world. The column, which seems to be more PR for Coursera than legitimate commentary on education, comes a day before a group…
In Chinua Achebe’s second novel, No Longer At Ease, the main character ends up taking bribes. He excuses himself by arguing to himself that the people given favor are all qualified… the son of the man in the following passage is already on the short list for a scholarship: ‘Please have a seat.’ ‘Thank you.’ He…
I’m getting rather tired of finding myself agreeing with Stanley Fish–but it has happened again. Though I have admired Fish’s intellect and verbal ability for some thirty years now, only recently have I found myself nodding in agreement with things he writes. What bothers me is that I suspect either 1) I wasn’t reading him…
No matter the metrics devised, grading is subjective. All grading. How can I say this? Don’t the scales created offer objective data? No. The decision-making in creation of the scales is necessarily subjective itself, making all evaluation using the scales just as subjective. Yet we continue to believe in the objective status of grades. Here…
The other day, an article appeared titled “The Ten Least Stressful Jobs of 2013.” Normally, I wouldn’t pay any attention to such an article (I think rankings of the sort provided are puerile, at best, and extremely uninformative and unhelpful), but this one places “university professor” at the top–and I am quoted in it. The reporter…
While I was reading Stanley Fish’s New York Times article “Religious Exemptions and the Liberal State: A Christmas Column” all I could think of was a comment Bill O’Reilly made at the beginning of the month, claiming Christianity as a philosophy, not a religion–and of an experience of mine as a young man. Fish discusses Brian Leiter’s…
As a teacher at a college with a student population made up primarily of minorities, immigrants, and/or first-generation college students, an article in today’s New York Times hit home. By Jason DeParle, it is titled “For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall.” One of my greatest frustrations, and one I constantly work…
During the presidential campaign, Ann Romney said, “I’m hearing from so many women that may not have considered voting for a Republican before, but said, ‘It’s time for the grown-up to come, the man that’s going to take this seriously, that’s going to take the future of our children very, very seriously’.” Except for the…