Three things (trying to conserve permitted postings): (1) Stephen, I don't believe I ever quit TIPS in a huff, though I am open to evidence to the contrary. As too many TIPSters can probably testify, I am (unwisely) all too willing to express my "huffs" on-line. I sometimes signoff (from several lists to which I belong) when I am traveling and need to reduce the amount of mail I receive. (Before it was common for hotels to have internet access, I used to return home after just a week away to find upwards of 1500 messages to be dealt with.)
(2) Need a giggle? How about a video series that satirizes psychotherapy? Lisa Kudrow plays a therapist of questionable judgment who "sees" her clients for 3-minute session over the web. It is called /Web Therapy/ and it is freely available on (of all places) the web http://lstudio.lexus.com/#vid1204 (3) David Books, columnist for the /New York Times/, just wrote a piece on this year's winners of the Sidney Awards ("for best examples of long-form journalism and thought"). Among them is this essay -- "In the Basement of the Ivory Tower," published in /The Atlantic/ June 2008 -- written by an adjunct college instructor of English composition about the problems he faces on a day-to-day basis and their wider implications for higher education in America. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/college Here's a snippet to whet your appetite [boldface added]: "I wonder, sometimes, at the conclusion of a course, when I fail nine out of 15 students, whether the college will send me a note either (1) informing me of a serious bottleneck in the march toward commencement and demanding that I pass more students, or (2) commending me on my fiscal ingenuity---my high failure rate forces students to pay for classes two or three times over. What actually happens is that nothing happens. I feel no pressure from the colleges in either direction.... There seems, as is often the case in colleges, to be a huge gulf between academia and reality. *No one is thinking about the larger implications, let alone the morality, of admitting so many students to classes they cannot possibly pass. *The colleges and the students and I are bobbing up and down in a great wave of societal forces---social optimism on a large scale, the sense of college as both a universal right and a need, financial necessity on the part of the colleges and the students alike, the desire to maintain high academic standards while admitting marginal students---that have coalesced into a mini-tsunami of difficulty. No one has drawn up the flowchart and seen that, although more-widespread college admission is a bonanza for the colleges and nice for the students and makes the entire United States of America feel rather pleased with itself, there is one point of irreconcilable conflict in the system, and that is the moment when the adjunct instructor, who by the nature of his job teaches the worst students, must ink the /F/ on that first writing assignment." Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
