Dear Colleagues,.
Re my recent post on MEANING
(a difference that makes a difference)
semantics & semiology, semen and
seminary do not share a common
etymological root.
Poetic, maybe: signs and dissemination.
But not an all-in-the-family relationship.
Professor Kahl called this out to me
If Vicki Gorlock were still here she
could talk about her experience at
Brown University where, according
to her, there were no Gen Ed
requirements.
“We took what we wanted to take,
Sam,” she told me.
That might be seen to give us an
“on the one hand” against which
all the talk about enrichment and
elitism and the college vs high
school and breadth of liberal art
experience and high numbers on
the rigorous AP exam as well as
cost for credit gained etc could be
seen as on-the-other-hand: all the
many many ways to skin categories
as long as there is a shared & mutual
sense of the explicit and hidden
assumptions on which our principles
rest to justify our love.
As Jeff knows, my science requirement
consisted of a non-lab biology course
where I gained and have retained the idea:
HOMEOSTASIS,
an early version of Sustainability I think.
We had no composition requirement
although a course called Daily Themes
was an option for any one who wanted
to work out with words. But I am
grateful for a History of Art course
which may have fulfilled some area
distribution where I learned the word:
JUXTAPOSITION
These two words stand-for my under-
graduate experience. I could probably
come up with other terms, but these are
the ones that always pop up as
representative.Fundamental.
They mean a lot to me.
I taught the Academically Talented high
school classes inDurham
years—meeting 5 days a week and working
through surveys of American and English
literature. Wham-bam fight club experience
as intense or more-so as any of my 2 & ½
day per week renditions of survey and
period & special topic courses here.
It helped that I hadn’t read most of the material;
I was “teaching” (having given=up Eng for a
Philosophy major) in that our group inquiry and
never ceasing exploration was wide-open, with
none of the faux-Socratic guess-what’s-on-my
-mind pedagogy I’ve fallen into since I’ve come
to know it all.
It's good to see the argument across the
curriculum. Argument for Argument's Sake,
or what's a college for?
xxxooo, Sam
Re my recent post on MEANING
(a difference that makes a difference)
semantics & semiology, semen and
seminary do not share a common
etymological root.
Poetic, maybe: signs and dissemination.
But not an all-in-the-family relationship.
Professor Kahl called this out to me
If Vicki Gorlock were still here she
could talk about her experience at
Brown University where, according
to her, there were no Gen Ed
requirements.
“We took what we wanted to take,
Sam,” she told me.
That might be seen to give us an
“on the one hand” against which
all the talk about enrichment and
elitism and the college vs high
school and breadth of liberal art
experience and high numbers on
the rigorous AP exam as well as
cost for credit gained etc could be
seen as on-the-other-hand: all the
many many ways to skin categories
as long as there is a shared & mutual
sense of the explicit and hidden
assumptions on which our principles
rest to justify our love.
As Jeff knows, my science requirement
consisted of a non-lab biology course
where I gained and have retained the idea:
HOMEOSTASIS,
an early version of Sustainability I think.
We had no composition requirement
although a course called Daily Themes
was an option for any one who wanted
to work out with words. But I am
grateful for a History of Art course
which may have fulfilled some area
distribution where I learned the word:
JUXTAPOSITION
These two words stand-for my under-
graduate experience. I could probably
come up with other terms, but these are
the ones that always pop up as
representative.Fundamental.
They mean a lot to me.
I taught the Academically Talented high
school classes in
years—meeting 5 days a week and working
through surveys of American and English
literature. Wham-bam fight club experience
as intense or more-so as any of my 2 & ½
day per week renditions of survey and
period & special topic courses here.
It helped that I hadn’t read most of the material;
I was “teaching” (having given=up Eng for a
Philosophy major) in that our group inquiry and
never ceasing exploration was wide-open, with
none of the faux-Socratic guess-what’s-on-my
-mind pedagogy I’ve fallen into since I’ve come
to know it all.
It's good to see the argument across the
curriculum. Argument for Argument's Sake,
or what's a college for?
xxxooo, Sam
________
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