Ah, me. I'll bite.
Thomas Troward once said that The Law of Floatation wasn't discovered
by looking
at things that sank. It was discovered by thinking of things that naturally
floated.
Bloopering focuses on the sinking of things, not the floating of things.
A long time ago, in another lifetime that thankfully ended fifteen
years ago, when
I talked of students using "I didn't mean anything by it" bloopers, I offered
up the
classic one of a student writing in a test essay of the Romans defeating the
Carthagians
in the Pubic Wars. Everyone at the table laughed in disbelief. But, what was
significant
was the shaking of their heads in a "what's academia coming to" that spoke
loudly of
derision. Yet, it turns out that the student thought he had heard me say
"pubic wars"
instead of "punic wars," my NY accent at that time being somewhat heavy and
hard on the
southern ear, and as he tried to listen and write at the same time had written
"pubic
wars" in his notes. That's what he studied; that's what he wrote in his essay.
And, he
didn't even know what "pubic" meant!
I once participated in an extraordinary informative and insightful
workshop by my
friends, the late Tony Grasha of the University of Cincinnati. It was called
Cognitive
Biases, Perceptual Illusions, and Other Tricks of the Mind: Implications for
Teaching and
Learning." He was talking about how easy it is for a student to hear and write
down
something different from what is being lectured, if for no other reason that a
student's
focus isn't truly focused. When someone in the audience later asked, with a
subtle
snicker, if he would call such mistakes 'bloopers," offering up an example
similar to the
one I once used, he firmly answered that "bloopering" is academic short-hand of
the
prejudicial ethnic and racial jokes, that, unless part of a research project,
when used by
an authority figure such as a professor to describe a student by its
implication is subtle
ridiculing, disrespecting, and demeaning however it might be unintended, rather
than
revealing an understanding of a cognitive bias that's wired into all of our
brains. The
tricks of the mind that show up in our written or spoken words are not
stupidity or
incompetence; they have a scientific, researched, cognitive basis for
explanation that
demand empathy. I don't see the humor in bloopering and I wonder if students
really do.
In the presence of the grade-granting professor, do you really think most would
take a
professor to task? Or, in their fearful defense, would they feign support and
laugh?
I just feel strongly that "bloopering" outside the research lab comes
to the
precipice of dangerously belittling of students that too often caters to an
under one's
breath snickering perception that "we're letting anyone in" or that "they don't
belong,"
or that "academia is going to hell," and that allows the inclined to set "them"
apart and
below "us." After all, the real importance is not so much what a student wrote
or said,
but why. Was it under the hurried and pressured circumstance of a timed final
exam essay?
Was it simply the coincidence of an unchecked typo? Was it the result of a
cognitive
bias? Was it the consequence of a trick of the mind? Student bloopering, as
it's often
presented, too often assumes and infers inadequacy, unpreparedness, and, at
it's worse, an
incapacity that too often is taken a proof that such students aren't worth our
time and
effort.
Accused of being too serious or that I should get a life, if you will.
Nevertheless, I for one, and for what it's worth, just don't see the benign
humor in
bloopering as a student's expense. I just don't see a positive value as they
are
presented. It would be an interesting study to see how many of us really do.
And remember, anytime we have a thought that excludes others, be it a
thought of
unkindness, disbelief, hopelessness, or whatever, we lose the power of
intention upon
which to draw. On the other hand, when hold tightly and constantly to our
inclusive
thoughts of empathy and encouragement and support for others no one will be
fearful
around us.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History www.newforums.com/L_Schmier.htm
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
(229-333-5947) /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\____/\
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mountains \ /\
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hills" -/
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