How's your ADD- July 7, 2008 Can you remember what your attention span was like before email and the Internet Can you recall what your work habits were like--and how they felt--before the era of computerized multitasking Do you have games on your computer Can you work on anything on screen without checking your email every few minutes Are you able to concentrate so deeply on a task that you lose track of time--and of competing distractions Or has the wired world destroyed that particular experience of absorption for you...http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/2008/07/hows_your_add.html Reading- July 6, 2008 Beyond wonderful: Tom Perotta's collection, Bad Haircut. This is a series of coming of age stories all told from the perspective of the same boy, over a period of years, during the 1970s. They get better and better as you go--and are compact, observant, subtle, restrained, and often absolutely surprising. It is a positive joy to watch Perotta get from point A to point B in each tale--the route is never direct, and never predictable, and it always makes such perfect sense. Hysterically funny...http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/2008/07/reading_1.html Curiouser and curiouser- July 6, 2008 Lewis Carroll was one of the first to tell stories through a child's eyes--and in so doing he did much to help invent the genre of children's literature. Along the way, he framed lasting notions of how children's minds work, and of the kinds of curiosity, anxiety, determination, and uncertainty they feel. There is something archetypal about Alice; her story and her character were wholly unusual in her day, but have since become utterly embedded both in popular culture (we all know the story,...http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/2008/07/curiouser_and_c.html What's it worth to you- July 4, 2008 How valuable is tenure And can teaching be better--for teachers and students--without it Rich Vedder outlines a thought experiment: The biggest hellhole in education in the solar system, arguably, is the Washington, D.C., public schools, but they have a chancellor (superintendents want a grander name) Michelle Rhee who is interesting and a bit different --which of course is what the system needs. Most recently, Rhee fired hundreds of teachers and teachers aides because they were not certified,.http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/2008/07/whats_it_worth.html Dark side of donor intent- July 2, 2008 In general, I support the idea of donor's rights -- if you give a major gift to a college or university, for example, you have the right to attach certain conditions to it. If the recipient doesn't want to meet those conditions, then no gift. Of course, there are times when the issue gets messy. Colleges and universities have tended to be a bit cavalier in their respect for donor intent--and donor intent can last a very long, very inconvenient length of time. Princeton is currently embroiled..http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/2008/07/dark_side_of_do.html Cursing for credit- July 1, 2008 From the London Times: Pupils are being rewarded for writing obscenities in their GCSE English examinations even when it has nothing to do with the question. One pupil who wrote "f off" was given marks for accurate spelling and conveying a meaning successfully. His paper was marked by Peter Buckroyd, a chief examiner who has instructed fellow examiners to mark in the same way. He told trainee examiners recently to adhere strictly to the mark scheme, to the extent that pupils who wrote only...http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/2008/07/cursing_for_cre.html |