Being Academic

 Being Academic

Half of each of all my classes is anarchistic

and,  as a consequence: chaotic. Mothering

invention?  Cultivating innovation? Beginning

again & again.  Zero base thinking.  Up from

Old Scratch. Transgressing protocol. Nourishing

emerging phenomena. Stunning &  Stupid:

prerequisite for study & the play  of students.

The Violent Bear IT Away." Sometimes.  More
often than naught, we sit waiting for Goedel

The kind of thinking that got us into this pickle,
says  Einstein, can't be the kind that gets us out.
What kind is that?

What kind is the other?

The Halls of Academia on the one hand.
Groves of Academe on the other. Not the
same deal or values.  A sustainable and
resilient fight going  over this distinction:
that would be academic.

(Scheduling, attendance policy, quizzes and
exams, in class movies, cap stone events,
posters, grade point averages (gpa), rigor
& credit and stuff like that: not academic.
Not even close.)

What is called ACADEMIC?

Via Negativa: what is NOT academic?
gardening, skiing powder in Utah,
showing horses  in Lexington,  taking 
the Ford to Redmons for repairs,
feeding inner city children and or
homeless, picking blueberries on
Mt Mitchell, agonizing over a critical
essay on something or other for some
journal or  other, doing  home work in
any discipline, dressing up and trick-

or-treating. I could  go on. Galore.

Most activity is not academic.  GetRDone
purpose, aim, goal, measurable outcome
agenda-driven stuff: not academic.
Not even close.

What is academic? Do I have to spell it out?
Huh? What? What the? What the heck? 
What the heck kind of a deal is that? What
the heck kind of a deal is that kind of a deal?

Being merely Academic. Sitting in  an Ivory 
Tower while walking the River Trail. While
driving to  Connecticut.  Academic I have
with me always  but it's not the not-academic.
Do not conflate,  collapse or confuse. Merely
academic.  Incommensurate with what is not.
Crucial, the difference.  Need we argue?

Being Academic.