The Answers My Friends , , ,

 Massive Myn Lead Lives
              of Quiet Inspiration
 
     Academics in a Post-Literate Neo-Oral Age
                   putting IT in play.
 
“Trivia question: which three chemistry professors
from Asheville sang Karaoke with a bunch of drag
queens in a gay bar full of pink flamingos last night?”
(Facebooking it)
 
Mount Sinai in Manhattan (one of the nation’s top medical
schools) is admitting  students to med school without organic
chemistry, physics, and MCATs  (NYTimes 10/30/10)
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/nyregion/30medschools.html?th&emc=th
 
The program promises slots to about 35 undergraduates
 a year if they study humanities or social sciences instead
 of the traditional pre-medical school curriculum and
 maintain a 3.5 grade-point average.
 
facebook et al. Many of you participate, announce, describe,
carry on converse-action, post images, videos, links, comment,
criticize, congratulate, support, praise, text, talk, type, skype,
with smart phones tap the web for information, location, weather,
places to eat, tickets on airlines, directions, guidelines to replace
convertible tops on 66 Mustangs, lyrics to “Dust in the Wind,”
first  line of last rites: Placebo Domino in Regione Vivorum,
(“I please the lord in the land of the living”), commentary on
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, habits & habitats of peregrine
falcons, sea turtle sustainability, sharing with facebook  friends
or  2 or 3  fellow auto-didactics gathering the wealth, naturally
selecting what suits one’s interest  & agenda & necessarily
ignore-ant of the rest.   .
 
No such phenomena as A.D.D. on  facebook: every one paying
attention efficiently with ease.  Could this be a collaborative
genius?  Common Sense co-operation? Generator for emergent
phenomenon and values?
 
School & Be Schooled.
Content’s galore.
Subject matter: ubiquitous.
Bulah Land of Good & Plenty
 
Not what we know that counts so much (what with the
common redistribution  of  cerebral wealth), but whether
we can put it in play. Need we argue?  May  we suffer a
see change together?  Those are pearls that were our I’s.
 
The students apply in their sophomore or junior years in
college and agree  to major in humanities or social science,
rather than the hard sciences. If they are admitted, they are
required to take only basic biology and chemistry, at a level
many students accomplish through Advanced Placement
courses  in high school.
 
Wouldn’t you think that universal  access to content subordinates
subject-matter and prioritizes attitude, outlook, frame of  minding?
Making  a difference that makes a difference in what is called
General Ed (if not special ed: the disciplines, majors &
minors naturally restricted by guild concerns and
cultural lag.)
 
I wonder when Education will experience the same reconfiguration
challenges as automotive industries?  The book I’m reading now
(Ken Auletta’s Googled: the End of the World as We Know IT)
reveals my illiteracy.  

I’m too old for this.
 
Steven Pinker (Harvard neuro-linguist) claims every utterance carries
two agenda: Taking Care of Business (obvious apparent, surface)
& Negotiating Relationship.(indirect, not so obvious or superficial.)
 
TCB = mere token content for NR. 
It’s the play that counts. True? IT’s
never what it seems to be about. Yes?
Need we argue? Share our search for
knowledge and intellectual freedom?
Read my lips so to speak, in manners
of speaking and ways of talking as it were.

xxxooo, Sam