Thursday, March 18, 2004

What's the frequency?

Hard to believe two days almost ticked by with no new words at blog.  See, the new online term (Spring II) started on Monday, and I'm experimenting with a whole lot more writing in that forum.  Trouble is, it's private.  Behind closed portals.  I could share my password (and I'm tempted; oh! how I'm tempted), but then an imposter could misrepresent me, variegate my teacherly persona.  Who would that be good for?

Been busy as heck with teaching.  EN106ers are pouring over Postman and Agre.  Our next essay is a kind of strange staged, imagined dialogue between Postman, Agre and you (the person writing the essay).  We're reading Welcome to the Always-On World, holding it up alongside Postman's middle-late chapters, and looking for ways to laceweavemesh the texts.  Today, students suggested interests in disruptive technology (God forbid, cell phones in church!), social networks (best friends online) and time-squeeze efficiency models brought on by mobile gadgets.  All of these themes bubble and churn in Agre and Postman.  

Feeling philanthropic, I picked up a few other volunteer teaching assignments this week, covering for a certain blogger you might know who's been on interviews lately.  Job interviews, not the talk show circuit (I won't do it; I won't attempt the satire).  So I picked up his section of LS301 this afternoon: one hour and fifteen minutes of really incredible student-lead discussion on the Childhood chapter from Building a Bridge to the 18th Century. We talked over the metaphors for childhood as a social construction: tabula rasa, plant organism and market.  Good stuff.  The most interesting moments came during one student's explanation of a local program called  Exchange City which is like an urban simulation field trip for fifth graders where they effectively act like laborious adults.  Others in the class had been through this program.  Turns out one of the students in LS301 was once assigned to the assembly line--a factory job making checkbook covers--when she went to Exchange City in fifth grade. Now she aims to be a labor activist who lobbies for pay-production fairness.  

Enough.  I agreed to cover two other classes for Dr. Job-Marketeer tomorrow morning at eight and nine, and I'm not accustomed to coursing my Friday morning blood flow to teaching pace by eight o'clock.  So I'll trick System with a jug of coffee.  Gonna watch the last few splits of March Madness then hit the hay. 

Bookmark and Share Posted by at March 18, 2004 11:09 PM to Dry Ogre Chalking
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