higher education
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Science, Art, and the Myth of the “Discipline”
I’m always delighted to read about college teachers who are are taking unusual approaches to pedagogy. Jailson Farias de Lima is one such teacher. In an article published on ProfWeb yesterday, he describes an innovative project he has designed for his chemistry students, challenging them to express their understanding of scientific concepts through art-making. Science… Continue reading
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Fiction Makes You Better at Stuff
I’m planning some research on whether reading/studying fiction and other kinds of narrative is really such an important thing to do. I was therefore immediately drawn to this article (even though it’s Saturday night and I’m desperately trying to finish grading a stack of papers): a commentary on why techie geeks should read fiction. Is… Continue reading
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This Book is Too Sad
A reader and colleague sent me this question the other day. What would you do in her position? Dear Siobhan, A few of my college students (note, not the class as a whole) have told me they’re having a really hard time with the book we’re studying in class because it’s too sad. It’s The… Continue reading
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How Sexy is Too Sexy?
How much explicit sex is acceptable in a book required for a college class? If students have some say in whether they read the book, does that make a difference? One of my courses includes a list of eight novels about adolescence. Four or five students will read each novel and will work together to… Continue reading
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The Art of Running Away
It’s been a tough semester. I’ve described some of the trials already: a new course that didn’t work very well, an unsuccessful experiment with blogs, a number of unpleasant end-of-semester exchanges. More than a month after the end of classes, I’m still dealing with a challenge to one of my plagiarism rulings, and still awaiting… Continue reading
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The Least Stressful Job on Earth
My husband sent me this article this morning: the Globe and Mail summarizes some key points from a list of the most and least stressful jobs on earth. #1 least stressful job? University professor. I’m not exactly a university professor, and some of the conditions I work under are quite different from theirs. My students,… Continue reading
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Why You Should Fall in Love with Abed Nadir or Some Other Imaginary Person
I want my students to believe that it’s good to fall in love with fictional people. But I may be wrong. My English course for Child Studies majors is called “A Question of Character.” We’ve spent the last few weeks discussing what “characterization” means in literature, and what “character” means in life. Along the way,… Continue reading
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Corporatizing Education: A Justification
So let me just put this out there. Yesterday I attended a talk by the renowned/infamous literary theorist Stanley Fish. Fish’s talk was entitled “What are the Humanities Worth?” He began exploring this question by referencing Louis Menand’s article “Live and Learn: Why We Have College.” Menand poses a similar question, often asked by students:… Continue reading
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Classroom Blogging
I’m having my students keep blogs again. I’m both excited and wary. Student blogs are a lot more fun to read than papers, but they’re also more difficult to evaluate. The setup process has gone fairly smoothly so far, but it’s still been a lot of work. Reading a ton of blog posts every week… Continue reading
About Me
My job is to teach people to read and write; aside from that, I like to learn things.
Classroom as Microcosm 