and Dialecticians. Also Colleagues Across
the Curriculum
I sent PASS to the registrar, as the mid-term grade
for all of you, assuming you are proceeding with the
work options according to the first day handout.
Closer to completion, I will send out a Grade Sheet
with the options described. You will fill-in what you
did, sign it off—each option--and return the sheet
with a portfolio of your work by the last day. I will
read it the first part of summer. and e-mail my response.
Looking Good on the Resume
My younger brother Jonathan, the one I already told
you about who would have graduated first in his class
from prep school but got bumped for tossing a moon
out the back of his school bus & so hitched to
California to study sitar with Ali Akbur Kahn, work
on Cannery Row, thumb back east to attend Yale &
edit The Lit, quit college spring of his junior year
motivated by Joseph Spence in concert—walking
away under an April moon & the sound of spring
peepers and never returned, no he never returned
yadda yadda yadda:
ended up teaching composition for dance & philosophy
at U of Utah tenured for permanent half-year
appointments the past 20- years with no credential but
a HS diploma from the school that bounced him and
years of world experience with the Tandy Beal dance
troupe. . .
sat in a class a couple years back, took out a 20 dollar
bill, held it up and tore it in half, passing it to the next
student who ripped it in fourths quarters & so it went
round the table until confetti: ridiculous to the savvy &
offensive to the conscientious seminarians efficiently
attentive as dancers to learn philosophy & not destroy
money our means of commerce as essential as words
to talk.
The gesture slipped in between sleep and waking life
last night as I considered giving all mid-term A’s again:
my pedagogy of somewhat creativity (say) in collision
rather than collusion with the dominant Assess-mental
Accountability status, me wondering whether scientific
inventiveness, artistic expression, or mere foolish ha ha
and HA might emerge from the crash & impact of
these two “matrices.”
Legal tender for institutionalized higher ed. on the one
hand and rip-it, rip-it-good: see it's no thing but paper
on the other hand. Empowering & Disempowering at the
same time. Liberal art, the bisociation of 2 or more
matrices.
&&&&&&&&
Earthquakes, Tidal Waves, and Nuclear Meltdown
A teachable moment, we say—us classroom teachers
of the liberal art kind—when some extraordinary event
breaks in to disrupt normality: an emergency, an emergent
phenomena .Unexpected. Unaccounted for—not part of
my aims, goals, and measurable outcomes.
So...what?
The only academic (as opposed to non-academic) question
to ask. Fundamental. Stunning. Stupid in the best sense.
On the one hand: do something.
On the other hand: just stand there.
On the one hand: mundane.
On the other: profound
On the one hand: agony
On the other: ecstasy
On the one hand: control
On the other: none
On the one hand: care
On the other: care less
And how do those 2's Just Get Along with no injustice
to or diminishing either? I'm asking. This is "school" mode.
Not your "church" & "state" Mere academics..
xxxooo, Sam (Feel free to punch Reply-to-All if you
feel these remarks worth modifying or imporving. )
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