Elbow Room (dear Gary series)

Dear Gary,

(Christa told me I should stop picking on you,
but you're dean of teaching and learning now
and it's like writing to my congressmyn--which
people say is good to do.  "What can we do to
help," somebody will raise her hand and ask
after some political stump, and then write-your
congress-person is always advised. Even Obama
encourages it. )
  
             General Education rumination..

Elbow Room  (for embracing contraries)
 
In general: an environment that embraces contraries
would be different than one that did not, true? It
would be a difference that makes a difference.
 
And an ENVIRONMENT that embraces an environment
that embraces contraries as well as an environment
that does not would be even more embracing.
 
IT’s an environmental issue (how high the roof top,
carpenters?) and not just instrumental. housekeeping :
specific this's and that' s--how to fix  flooding in
in the kichen, cabinets & cupcakes.  ..
 
Elbow’s AIM/GOAL. To draw a distinction
between non-disciplinary and disciplinary
relationships & the need for  complementary
rather than competitive relationships between
both—or rather: competitive relationships that
are  recognized as complementary.  
 
              An environed mental issue.
 
In considering and amplifying the idea of
                       NON-DISCIPLINARITY
Elbow does not mean what we usually mean by
experiential educating—the “affective, social,
putting-into-action ingredient in learning”—but
non-disciplinarity as a role in developing
                
                cognitive intellective process.
 
Disciplines teach the discipline – Chemistry, Sociology, 
History,  Philosophy – so I can talk and think in these
disciplines, like learning a language.
 
Interdisciplinary approaches find some topic and then
apply  these various-ways-of-talking to address the problem.
 
Discipline discipline discipline all the way down.
 
                             ***********
 
                        Nondisciplinary
 
Converse
Lunch table converse action.
Late night dormitory discussion.
Talk walking the walk up to Mt. Mitchell
or in the groves of Academe beneath
buzzing cicadae.  Trans-2^nd-floor Jensen
argument (once had a colleague close his
office door on me when I wondered if 
there was any such a thing or state of
mind as Beyond the Literal and the
Metaphorical) . Facebook & blog
extended threads.  Live  unscripted
sustained Talk Going On. Whisky  talk,
Dean Kahl calledit—a form performed in
Ron Wilson’s living  room  in the early 70’s .
Basement Writers Analogies Across the
Curriculum talk talked several summers
in the basement of Spidel,  late 80’s. Car
Talk talked driving to local workshops
and conferences— for  some reason I
would not include forum talkand depart-
mental meeting talk, maybe not even
retreat talk it depends.
 
Class discussion talk? 
You might think so but I’d say no no
it’s rehab talk talked under the specter
of discipline and counts too much (often
given points credit) to be nondisciplinary.
 
Look: don’t confuse these specific
examples with the  Kind-of-Talk
I’m attempting to indicate with
them: they are mere tokens of
non-disciplinary talk and not not
not the spirit of non-disciplinary talk
that might could also be an integral  part
of (and not  just accidental to ) the
curriculum?
 
Huh?
Know what I mean?
Know what I’m saying?
NO?  Talk to me.

A little elbow room please.
Improve my  terms. Always
just  asking for it— begging.
Not disciplined. Playskool too...
 
xxxooo, Sam