Sushi out of water

2006-04-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

Core curriculum arguments have finally found their way to my secluded little campus.

We're a private university that caters to giving disadvantaged students a chance at college. This means we already have a developmental education program (high school supplemental level courses) that I may have the chance to teach in sometime soon. We make sure that students test into the right courses, not via their SAT or ACT scores, but by tests and projects that we ask them to take upon coming to our school. It's not perfect, and people squeak by and get into sections that they've got no business in, but for the most part the system works.

Additionally, we have a general education requirement for all degrees, even those seeking 2 year certificate degrees in things like medical transcription, technicians, and admin. assistant. Our general ed is comprised of at least 1 math class, 1 science class (more dependent on degree, of course) and 2 english courses, plus a mix of computer courses, social sciences, etc. that are chosen based upon the degree field.

In other words, our general education tries to be as supportive of the degree being earned as possible, and I don't mind that. My students are involved in the gen ed courses I teach because even though they are teaching core skills and ideas those classes are still teaching things that each student might actually use some day.

Core curriculum, on the other hand, which I've also taught, isn't always as easy to defend or define.

The core curriculum program I taught at in a previous institution had changed 3 english courses into 1, and had a history portion, a government portion (loosely based upon institutions... you were as likely to be studying religious law and institutions as american) and one basic intro class in addition to the english portion. It was rough sailing at the best of times because students didn't really always get to pick where they were placed, nor were they terribly interested in 90% of the course material. Plus, despite being "core" and "gen ed," my classroom was completely different from everybody else's, and their from everyone else as well, so despite our students learning the same basic concepts about composition, reading, and college they might not have been learning the same things in general.

Yet another style of core curriculum calls for all students, regardless of level or previous knowledge, to take the same set of classes. These classes are usually said to be the following:

1. Basic US Government
2. Basic US and World History (1 semester - 3)
3. Basic Literature
4. Basic Composition
5. Basic social sciences

I see one major problem with this sort of plan: I learned all this shit in high school!

"But our students don't know the bill of rights!"

Tough, stop accepting students from that high school then, or offer a developmental course that helps students from disadvantaged school systems catch up.

Don't expect ME or any undergraduate coming to college like me to pay more to take stuff that we've already taken. And that's final.

I know the bill of rights, I know major dates in US and world history.

I've even read the reading lists for most basic college literature classes, and I read a lot of this stuff my first year in high school.

And by george I would not be a happy student if I was expected to reread those things from freshman composition four short years later and cover them at approximately the same level.

If we think students don't know anything when they leave college ("College graduates should at least know their rights! They're horrible citizens if they don't!") we really need to check what sort of knowledge they're coming in with. The SAT and ACT do nothing to check for basic general knowledge--we know that. If you really want students to have learned this stuff then maybe an entrance exam of your own is in order.

But that's expensive, you may say. Yeah, that's right. But it's also not a college's duty, unless it's their actual sworn duty (as in my current institution) to catch people up. It's not college's job to teach high school crap. It's just not.

And I hope students or their parents refuse to stand for it. I sure wouldn't want to pay those prices to be told things I already know.

Students might not fight. Students love having "easy semesters." But that isn't what college is ABOUT people.

The sad part is that I don't have to argue any of this much in my current institution. But when I try to teach next year at a research 1 university I've no doubt we'll be talking about it a bit, at least, as it seems like a pretty hot ticket item right now. I refuse to budge though. I don't know why any college needs to make up for deficiencies in the high school education of its students. If high schools need help then changes need to be made at the state level to see that the basic survival information that college professors deem important is being taught. Period. End of story.

2006-04-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

Hello spontaneous buttsex....

So I saw Brokeback Mountain last night for the first time ever. It was finally actually in stock to be rented so I picked it up and watched it.

Not being gay, I can't honestly say for sure, but is this movie in any way accurate? "Oh, he's touching my hand! He must be gay! Let me open my pants and plunge him hard and anally!"

Uh.

Maybe I'm just used to more obvious romantic tension in movies, but if I hadn't been looking for it in Brokeback about the only knowing look I saw was when one guy was checking out the other in his rearview mirror.

And maybe I'm just being silly, but I find it hard to believe that anybody's gaydar is that good. If somebody is sleeping by me and they grab my hand or you know... whatever... my first thought is NOT "you want me! yay! buttsex!" but is more along the lines of "oh hey there, I'm not who you think I am... you're all drunk and sleepy and shit..." because, quite honestly, that's more often the case I'd think.

But instead we have these two characters that go from having their first serious conversation to buttsex all at once. No passing go, no collecting their paychecks, just boom! Buttsex.

Again, not being a gay guy around that time period, maybe this was normal. Maybe you didn't ask if the person was gay before stripping off your pants. Maybe you didn't do a little handjob action first. Maybe you didn't even kiss first. But DAMN did it seem completely random without those things happening.

It could just be that I like a more gradual progression into sex in my movies--whether gay or not--and most hetrosexual movies that I've seen have a more gradual progression, or there is a lot of strife associated with the morning after (which they showed pretty well in Brokeback, I'll admit).

But without more buildup to begin with I can completely admit to really not caring about the main characters till at least halfway through the movie when it became obvious that they really did love each other--at least to me. To read some reviews would suggest that people saw that in these characters from that first encounter. I'm sorry, but I'm not just seeing it.

And even after I "saw the love" so to speak, I still wasn't as into the relationship as I'd hoped I'd be by reading what other people wrote about it. Which is kinda sad really. Maybe I just read too many glowing reviews.

But, in any case, I just find it very hard to believe that anybody jumps from hand holding to buttsex with nothing inbetween.

2006-04-06T12:28:00.000-07:00

I've got a creepy student.

He's not a bad student, or a stupid student, but he's CREEPY.

He leaves class to go to the bathroom, always asking very personally first, and he comes back looking... er.... happy...

He asks me how to do stuff and then makes very happy little moany noises while I answering.

His clothes are all stained in the front around the crotch area with... something.

And he stays after class for my office hours which is perfectly fine but he is asking things that don't pertain to class at all, which is allowed mind you, as long as they have something to do with computers since I teach so many of the computer classes, but I'm still completely quirked out by him.

Oh and he smells like weed, which might explain the other behavior but ick. He's like 45ish and just kinda sets off all my creepy censors.

See? I knew I'd get away from talking about theory crap eventually. So here you go.

2006-04-06T11:55:00.000-07:00

The final 2-3 seasons of Friends were completely, utterly neutered.

"Neutered" actually isn't a bad term to describe what happened to the show. The first few seasons, which I have been rewatching, are actually funny. The last seasons simply weren't.

It's easy to say that the writers ran out of jokes, or that Matthew Perry's drug addiction killed it, or any number of other excuses, but instead of focusing on WHY the changes were made, I'd like to focus on what changes are made (and what they say about me).

The first couple seasons are full of sexual jokes--and they are honestly funny sexual jokes. Better yet, they are jokes based around situations that happen to 20 somethings and they are jokes that people might actually say to one another.

The later seasons relied upon physical humor, Ross got shrill, and some situational humor was brought in as well, but none of it really seemed as powerful as those early days.

And the sex was gone.

I'm sorry, but where did it go? Was there a censor crack down? Did they think that 30 somethings don't make jokes too? What the heck happened to turn a good show into a mediocre at best one?

There's innuendo flying out all over the place in season 2. Monica and Rachel fight over the last condom in their apartment. Chandler teases Monica by licking her muffin so she won't eat it, and then has a mouthful of food and cannot make the requisite muffin-licking joke. There's hundreds of brief moments of spectacularly written humor about the six leads' lives.

And yet, it all went away and got lost somewhere in the ten season run.

We all know sex sells, and that it is bad for women when it is used to sell products. But is it bad when rather ordinary sex jokes make it onto TV?

Do we need sex to laugh?

To be honest, there are plenty of situations that are funny that don't include it at all. But if a set of writers are very good at writing one particular kind of joke, then I'm all for them continuing writing that kind of joke rather than trying something else and failing horribly (which was the case here, I believe, for whatever reason). There were plenty of chances for hilarity in those late seasons and it just didn't happen. Rachel could have been discovering the truths of sex after having kids. Monica and Chandler could have explored the fertility issue more. On Sex in the City, Charlotte was shown being given hormone shots in the butt to make her ovulate. This could have been done to Monica as well and at least THAT would have explained how bitchy and goddamned hyper they made her character in the last two seasons.

So sex? Necessary or no? And if no, what could have been done to make Friends funny without it?

2006-03-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a lot lately, and to be honest my position on evolution vs. intelligent design has become bordered on confused.

"Why" you ask, "It's so very clear that teaching intelligent design is wrong." And of course, you're right: insisting that a teacher teaches intelligent design is whacked. Especially since it always came up in discussion past ninth grade anyway.

To be completely honest, my background on the issue is, at best, murky. I don't understand why a conservative mindset would find issue with teaching evolution in schools at all. After all, the actual teaching of evolution in K-12 education goes something like this:

1. Definition of evolution
2. Mention of Darwin. Memorizing his dates of birth and death and the title of his publications.
3. Talk about vestigial organs. Memorizing the vestigial organs in humans, whales, and birds.

Of the group I've spoken to on this issue, most never even got to step 3.

Somewhere in there we discussed that evolution was a hot button topic because it wasn't completely provable, and though evidence pointed toward it we weren't entirely sure if natural selection really existed or if we were just making science out of chaos.

Somewhere in that conversation some student would always bring up God. Again, this might not be true everywhere, but having 1 christian in 30 students seems fair. In any case, the student would bring it up. Several people would chime in that maybe god CONTROLS evolution. They never gave it a name, but it seems like a reasonable balance that gets away from cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance and balancing of dialectics is an important part of life--I get it, I sure do--but the easy out of intelligent design was always there. Students thought they were being clever for bringing it up, and their teachers more or less agreed that it did take a certain amount of cleverness to come up with a solution during a class that would keep both sides at bay.

Having the teacher specifically mention intelligent design, then, kills that argument--whether we're talking god or flying spaghetti monsters. And it's a shame because I imagine that some students got a lot out of making that argument within themselves instead of having it handed to them.

In any case, I've been reading Haraway and have stumbled into the idea that evolution as written by men through primate studies casts women into a subordinate role that is difficult for science to break away from. Admittedly, the book was written in 1989 and published a couple years later, certainly there's been some feminist-ran primate studies and evolutionary writings since then, but it gave me pause.

If we as feminists are to be against evolution as its written now, and are to be looking for new stories that give women room to grow and expand--then what?

Intelligent design is easier to bend than evolution, unfortunately, in this respect. Because it's very easy to say (since none of us can actually talk to the creator of the universe) that god created women to hold a subservient role till now, when she is freed by the overpopulation of the world into a non-reproductory role and can pretty much do as she pleases.

In evolution, there's little scientific evidence of any biological change in women or female apes to suggest that a sea change is eminent.

But if we base our new stories off of intelligent design we'll be sure to fail since the parties behind it are mostly conservative and feminists are mostly not, and even though it's easy to rewrite the ID story in a compelling feminine way, that doesn't mean it'll be accepted anyway.

Yet I see no reason to NOT push for both stories to evolve (pun intended) into something women can be proud of. If both stories, evolution and ID, are going to be part of societal construct in years to come, then we have some reason to work with them and see what can be done.

I'm a proponent of working with what I am given. As such, a lot of people don't seem to like me much. "You're just as bad as they are if you use evil societal artifacts against their creators." Yeah, I've heard it. I'm still not sure why though.

A good chunk of rhetoric is understanding one's audience--or so I've been told, and told, and told. And if your audience is people who love the Department of Homeland Security and God, then by all means you need to find ways at getting to them and pertinent issues through those things.

I'm not good at it by any means, but I think it can be done. Did you know that there are clauses in the Patriot Act that could be used to outlaw racism and white supremacism? Did you know that there are ways to bend the ID argument into one that is suprisingly pro-woman? Did you know that you can report someone to the Department of Homeland Security for online harassment that would not be strictly illegal under some states laws, and yet is still clearly wrong? (For example, in some states you must use the individual's full name in online postings for it to be considered libel or slanderous. So people who wish to harass others simply don't do that. And yet we could, by way of that Department, report them for using online handles that are specifically tied to one individual or even simply first names when it is clear who is being written or spoken about... there could be a lot of good done). But no, clearly these auspices are evil and we have to find other ways of defending women and our rights. I'm still not sure why. If there are loopholes in so-called "evil" arguments, why not use them against their makers?

Why not force the opposition to construct arguments in such a way that they can ONLY be used for the purpose intended, so their intention is clear? Because, I feel, if political intentions were clear, then far fewer people would be placated and accepting of them, and then we'd stand to make some ground.

Vanity vs. Gluttony--doomed to hell either way so wake the hell up

2006-03-19T09:16:00.000-08:00

Why is America so obsessed with obesity?
And why is it that women with normal BMI's are harassed by other women and some men as being overweight and undesirable? (That BMI is not even a good measurement of overall health isn't important here--that people don't realize anymore what a good BMI looks like is, and that if they can't even recognize medically acceptable "health," such as it is, how do we expect them to measure what isn't healthy and what is actually underweight?)

That our country is seemingly in the thrall of a sort of fundamentalist leadership isn't much up for debate. Whether you agree or disagree with the morals that are driving decision making right now, they are being informed by Christian ideals. Seperation of the state and church be damned because killing babies is wrong according to God and all that.
If we're going to go ahead and believe that killing blastulas is wrong because of God, maybe we should start applying God to other societal obsessions and seeing what comes out the other end.

Here, I will look at weight. Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins and it is clearly defined in the Bible as being wrong. I've never once actually heard a religious argument made against fat people, probably because it's very easy to throw that "love thy neighbor" crap back in such a Christian's face. Nevertheless, the rule is there.

Our society seems to assume, however, that fat people are gluttons and guilty of this sin--they just don't ever seem to call it a sin. We hear nonstop about how fat people simply lack willpower, that they should just lose weight as if there were some sort of miracle cure for fatness. Medical disorders are disclaimed as patently absurd, even though I myself suffer from one that could very well cause me to gain massive amounts of weight at any time if I were to no longer take birth control and other medications. We essentially seem to believe that fat people must do nothing but eat even though the evidence of this in an ordinary fat person's life is hard to find (news stories of truly impressively large individuals don't count--the 1000 pound man found with a couch embedded in his back is NOT the day to day life of an average overweight american). It is assumed that fat people simply stuff themselves all day long, that they can stop, that they haven't already cut down their eating as far as they can go, and that they choose not to exercise and do other things to help themselves.

And it's really not true. Can it be true in some instances? Sure. Probably. But it is an unfair assumption to make.

Why do we hate fat so much anyway? Why is gluttony such a horrible sin?

After all, vanity isn't really seen as a sin at all. Take a gander at any of the skinny people saying that fat people "just need to stop eating" and you'll likely get an eyefull of vanity. Whether the person is actually attractive or not, he or she most likely is skinny, perhaps dressed seductively, and completely unaware, it would seem, that they perhaps are sinning against the great church of the united states as much as the fat person.

If we're going to get so damn hung up on SOME of the deadly sins as a nation I call that we get hung up on all of them.

And I'm not even really a practicing Christian.

If gluttony is going to be wrong and looked down upon then we definitely need to turn our eye to the vain as well. We need to turn our collective eye on them and make them feel as uncomfortable as they have made the fat feel.

Dear Conservative public,
You might think that skinny = heavenly, but in creating a world where fat is ugly and sinful, you're simply creating a less moral society where vanity, rudeness, and bitchiness rule.
If you really think you're going to save the world you're doing a really crappy job at it.
Love,
Sushi out of water.