Endless "Education"

Tonight I saw both my brothers for the first time in a long time.  My oldest little brother is back from 14 months in Australia.  He gave me a bracelet he picked up on his trip to Bali.  My youngest brother is a sophomore at MSU's James Madison and he is kicking butt.  I watched them both force feed themselves "Endless Pasta" because they're always trying to put on more muscle mass.  

Anyway, I was seven minutes late to dinner and when I came in I saw one of my favorite teachers from high school.  His dark brown hair has gone gray, and he's shaved his beard, but I recognized him instantly.  About five years ago, during the busy Christmas shopping season, I ran into him at Meijer.  This time I avoided him completely.  The idea of him asking me what I was up to was too excruciating to consider. What would I have said?  "Well, I'm at JCC (Yes, I really have been going to school for that long), and I'm working a dead end job that I have no interest in."  Yes, I could have said that, but I didn't want to tell my favorite teacher -- a teacher who I worked my ass off for -- that ten years after graduating high school my life was just a disappointment. 

So far this semester, school is painfully dull and underwhelming.  I am learning things in Geology, but that's it.  I'm hoping Art History turns out to be worthwhile because otherwise this semester is going to drag on forever in the worst way.  At first I couldn't figure out why my communications class seemed so easy and so pointless.  Then, when I started listening to my classmates, I realized that it really seems as though I'm in class with middle school students.  This lack of intellectual maturity actually seems to make it worse considering that so far the only comments our topics receive are shallow and non reflective.  

Sometimes I start thinking about the holes in the bottom of my running shoes, and the medicals bills that need to be paid, and the oil that needs to be changed, and I grow really frustrated with how much I pay for classes that leave me feeling like I'm still in junior high.  Yet, I am not going to blow it off; I am going to be patient and try, try, try, try, to learn something or help my classmates with their learning experience.  The very least I can do is mix things up a bit since everyone else seem to share the same underdeveloped and unsubstantiated opinions.  It's weird; anytime I'm in a course where I'm not learning anything, I always want to take on the role of teacher. Someday, I know I will spend less time going through the motions of getting an education, and spend more time actually learning.  

Oh yeah--I joined Phi Theta Kappa.  So. . . goodbye $80.00 I'll never have back.  I hope I made a wise decision.   

suckfest fall 2011

So far, this semester bites, HARD.

First of all, there are way too many good books to read and such little time.  I want to read all of the books shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and Jeffrey Eugenides (from Michigan!!) has a new book out called The Marriage Plot.  (That reminds me, since when did we switch from underlining books to italicizing them?  I was really out of the loop for that one.) 

Secondly: money, money, money!  I was signed up for fifteen courses, but then I dropped some credits in order to pay for it.  I set up a tuition payment arrangement, like I do every semester, but my fifteen credits payment was adjusted to be $825.00, which I definitely couldn't afford.  So, after dropping the courses I called and asked to have the payment plan updated which puts me at a cool $360.00 a month plan.  A week after updating it via phone I received an email confirming the update.  But a week after that I am debited for $825.00 smackers.  This put my checking account well into the negative.  That's totally awesome considering the number of other bills I owe this month. 

Thirdly, there are courses I can't take for a number of reasons.  One reason is money, another reason is that I didn't obtain the permission for a late sign up until it was SO LATE that there was no way I was going to be able to catch up in a five credit math course, and another reason is that my work changed their hours and there was no way I was going to be able to attend an early morning class I sortakinda wanted to attend.  Sortakinda because I could have used the letter of recommendation that would have inevitably come from enrolling in the course.  But sortakinda not because of so many reasons, including the fact that I've taken more literature courses than I need.  Plus, I have the syllabus and can read everything that would have been assigned, much of which I've already read, and I doubt I would have learned anything in that course, anyway. 

What I mean to say is that I am beyond that course.  Once upon a time I took a course with that professor and what first seemed great turned out to be really disappointing, like, disappointing on an existential level -- if that makes any sense. After that, I dropped out of school.  So, there's that.  Plus, I have dreams about the whole experience.  Maybe it's better to call them nightmares.  It's funny; there's no violence and gore, but everything in the dream always moves so slowly.  I'm always being stalked by something or someone, and I'm always filled with a sense of dread and despair.  I'm also uncomfortably aware that part of why I want that letter so badly is because I want some sense of closure.  I'm always after closure and I almost never get it.  I guess I want my closure to be this moment where I prove to myself that I can do really well in the class, and that I'm smart, and that any praise I received before wasn't utter bullshit.  I have this fantasy of being this deadly serious student who is absolutely relentless in this class, humorless and without mercy.  The idea of trying to leave community college without that is . . . difficult.  I've spent more than a year thinking about the moment I'd receive that closure and now the end of that arc has crumbled from between my fingers, leaving something less like closure and more like an abrupt and anti-climatic ending, one of those endings that leaves you saying FHAT THE WUCK??

Fourthly: work, scmerk!  Basically, I have every reason to believe downsizing is going to happen in a few months from now.  At first, I was really freaked out, but then I psyched myself up for a layoff.  I was going to quit in August 2012, anyway, and it's not like I make that much more than I would on unemployment.  So, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I started thinking about the things I could do with more time on my hands.  If layoffs occurred it'd happen right around the time when I start working on my college applications.  I could write a novel!  I could become a boxing champion!  So on and so forth.  Then I psyched myself up so well that when I started to see signs that at least *I* would not be let go, I started to feel sort of. . . disappointed?

See, I took a couple days off of work this month for my anniversary.  Then I signed up for early morning volunteer work on the day of my anniversary because it's what I want to do.  It's not that I want to sleep in all day and be lazy.  Instead, I'd like to do something I'm passionate about. 

The problem with having a job that you don't dread going to is that it's hard to get away from it.  Awhile back there was a job opening at a local nonprofit that I care about.  It was just doing clerical work, but it would have been a foot in the door.  Even if it didn't lead to anything, at least I would have been working for a group that I believe in and care about.  Yet, I didn't apply.  I just figured, well, I have a decent paying job with benefits now so why mess it up?  Not only am I not messing it up by not applying elsewhere, I don't even apply to move up at work.  I don't apply for higher paying positions.  I just stay in the same place because no one bothers me too much that I can't deal with them, and because I am in that dull numb zombie place where it's easier to just deny my desires than fluff up my feathers and pretend that I actually want to move up.  Really, moving up at work is the last thing I want to do! 

A lot of people would love to trade places with me, I know.  But I can't help but want so much more. 

Sometimes I think I shove my soul so far down into myself that one day my insides will explode and everything inside me is going to cover the entire city.  But instead of having guts and organs I'd be filled with red, green, and gold paint, peacocks, pinwheels, James Dean, a fedora, the three Stooges, malted milkshakes, a zebra, Tom Waits' piano, Mae West, and maybe the Golden Gate Bridge.

So, basically, I've decided that this year I'm going to pop my collar.  ALL MY COLLARS.  It'll be my signature look.  People will see me, recognize me, and say to their friends, "Hey, there's that douche bag who's always popping her collar."  Yeah.

Secondly, September and October will be devoted to getting my finances in order.   And thirdly, I will try and take my cool professor's advice and write everyday.  I'm going to try for at least 1,000 words -- not this crap!  Real, literary, nonblog writing.  Non-diary writing.  Non-censored yet non-gut spilling. 

Also, I didn't receive an invitation to the honor society, even though I have the GPA for it.  I'm not sure how all that works, but I emailed the professor in charge because I've decided to end this habit I have of being a passive student outside of the classroom. 

People who pop their collars should be aggressive or they might as well not pop them at all! 

 

This transformation is going to involve listening to copious amounts of old Ani Difranco songs. 

Michigan: Destroying Education One Good Teacher at a Time.

                       

My Aunt has an MA in special education and for more than twenty years she's worked in a public high school teaching "emotionally impaired" students.  Most of these students live in poverty, many have been abused, some are foster kids, and many of said students have one or more parents who are incarcerated.  In the past some of her students have gone on to prison themselves for crimes like rape and murder.  Obviously, her job isn't easy.  Recently, she's taken an administrative position, even though she never wanted to be an administrator, simply to get out from under the thumb of a principal who has it out for her.

Why?  Good question.  Her peers and friends have speculated that perhaps he hit on her once and she rebuffed him, and maybe she didn't even know it.  Sound like they're reaching?  Well, if you knew her you'd be reaching too.  Simply put, she is an amazing teacher and an amazing human being.  Not only has she been a teacher for more than twenty years, she's also been a coach, a youth group leader, a mentor, and served on countless committees for her school. 

Her principal -- a person with business experience, NOT experience in education -- actually evaluated her in front of his cronies and began this evaluation/interview by asking her to repeat what he says are her shortcomings, allegedly prompting her with "and. . .?" when she stopped.  Obviously, he is an encouraging and sensitive leader.

So, with the educational overhaul in Michigan, she got out while the getting was good.  It's sad because without her in the classroom many students will suffer.  She was a great teacher (after twenty-plus years the principal allegedly said to her "someday I think you'll be a good teacher"), and she had a great rapport with students, and anyone who knows her knows that.  Of course, she's also been teaching in a school district where a huge portion of the students are failing their standardized testing.  The reasons for this are numerous.  As I've discussed with her before, her school budget is pitiful and she rarely has access to the type of technology that students love on the rare occasions she's able to utilize it.   And, again, she's teaching in an impoverished district, where her own students tend to be the most impoverished or coming from the worst situations at home.  To expect that they wouldn't experience a disproportionate struggle is absurd. 

As Michigan moves closer to privatization and using high-stakes standardized testing to put a choke hold on tenure and teachers, I think we should all be questioning the legitimacy of using testing as an accurate evaluation of teacher performance.  The entire premise of evaluations these days rest upon the all-mighty standardized test.  Yet the evidence that high-stakes testing EVER produced results is in a constant state of unraveling.

Before the stylized and emotionally manipulative Waiting for Superman hit the box office its star, former DC school chancellor Michelle Rhee was promoting the success of high-stakes testing using the supposed success story of the Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus whose proficiency in math went from ten percent to fifty-eight percent in two years.  The narrative of the poor inner city school district that thrived under high-stakes testing was everything Rhee and like-minded school reformers needed to appeal to politicians and the public in order to end unions and tenure. 

But here's the problem: Recent evidence indicates rampant cheating, not better teaching, was responsible for the dramatic increase in test scores. 

The news of cheating at Noyes hit the news on the heels of a report issued in Georgia that documented the systemic cheating that took place in forty-four of the fifty-six schools.  The report went beyond the statistical analysis in previous cases, and delved into the culture that was created after No Child Left Behind was enacted.  The report also shows that it was administrators forcing teachers into cheating, even gathering them into rooms where they spent the day erasing and rewriting answers. 

One would think that when supposed success stories used to prop up high-stakes testing turn out to be lies that some bright member of government would take notice, or perhaps an education reformer would admit that maybe they were wrong or, at the very least, more study is needed. 

Well . . . not if you're Michelle Rhee.  If you're Rhee you simply blame your "enemies" for somehow gathering every union sympathizing statistician to claim that the odds for  "winning the Powerball grand prize"  are better than the odds of having such a high number of erasure marks without alteration.  One problem with this conspiracy theory is that the developers of the tests actually have machines that are set up to recognize erasure marks and flag tests for an unusually high number of erasure marks.  So while Rhee and like minded defenders would like to explain this away as some sort of union driven character assassination, the facts don't support her delusions. 

Okay, so maybe it's really hard to let go of something you were once so sure of.  But even that theory doesn't make sense when you consider the cheating problem with high-stakes testing even before NCLB. After all, it was only 1996 when the Chicago Public School cheating scandal hit the fan.  Chicago had embraced high-stakes testing, before it became a national mandate, and it didn't quite work out.

So, where's the proof that high-stakes testing works?  In these cases a teacher who didn't cheat could have easily been fired, where as a cheating teacher could have been heavily compensated for producing inflated scores.

This idea of replacing the traditional education model with a business model has infected higher education as well, as evidenced by the growing for-profit college industry that churns out graduates with high debt and little hope of gainful employment.

Promoters of high-stakes testing and privatization fail to recognize the negative effect the high turnover of teachers has on students.  For many of the students in my Aunts course, they need solid long-term mentors because they already have enough failed relationships in their personal life.  Young transients spending a few years in Teach for America, or local college volunteers, aren't going to be around long enough for many of these students to create the stability so desperately needed.   

Since when has big business ever been good for children, anyway?  Remind me again, was it labor laws that stopped dangerous child labor, or did all the robber baron industrialists simply decide it was against their moral codes?

I'd like to be more hopeful, but it seems to me that Michigan is intent on killing public education, and the best I can hope for is resurrection, someday, when these so-called reforms fill us all with regret.

Metacognitive Reflection: Eng 132. The Argument Essay.

I reached the fourteenth single typed page of my essay a day after it was due and it was then that I realized I needed to par down my essay to a simpler argument rather than going on to propose a long grand solution.  

In the past I might have decided not to turn a paper in, completely sinking my grade and blowing off the class.  The fact that I finally recognized what needed to be done in order to complete the project is, to me, a skill that I am coming closer to reluctantly mastering. 

The process of writing this essay began in our previous unit when I researched narrowing curriculum in the US.  Having recently read Freakonomics, I was very surprised to find out that systemic cheating had occurred during high-stakes testing prior to No Child Left Behind while our current Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, was managing those cheating schools. Yet, despite Duncan's previous experience, high-stakes testing is still a part of every public school in America post-NCLB.  It made me wonder if such major advocates of high-stakes testing legitimately believe it can measure and improve schools or if it's a political war on unions and the public school system.  

Despite my suspicions, I didn't want to be so pointed about my theories on the agenda of some advocates of high-stakes testing.  The reason being is that I wanted to write an article that would have a broader appeal than the article that I offered a rhetorical analysis on in our previous unit.  

Trying to discuss unions, public schooling, and teachers in our current political climate seems impossible to do rationally.  Many voters are desperate for jobs and are uneasy about the future of our economy.  Plus, I've seen concepts of social justice in education routinely criticized by educators and civilians alike.  Even the mention of "social justice" is a good way to be labeled a liberal and thus conservatives close their minds and tune out.  That is why I decided to appeal to our economic concerns when addressing the need for cultural education and a diverse curriculum.

The debate over education seems to be everywhere but I tried not to assume too much about my audience.  I wanted to explain concepts in a way that almost any adult could comprehend.  I included statistics for the purpose of ethos, my own analysis for logos, and discussed hungry children for the purpose of pathos.  

My use of pathos was influenced by a report on children living in poverty that aired on 60 minutes.    

I considered using more pathos but I decided to use restraint as a result of our reading discussions.  When I read an essay that relied too heavily on pathos I was turned off and felt like I might as well have been reading a greeting card, so I tried to minimize the pathos and use it primarily in my conclusion. 

One thing that helped me understand audience and argument was our assignment of reading three sample essays and discussing them in our group.  I really liked that because I was able to read different styles and see how each author transitioned from each supporting paragraph. Our classes overwhelming rejection of the pathos saturated anti-gay marriage article helped me understand that without ethos and logos even readers who share a similar point of view my be turned off by such empty and manipulative arguments.

While I didn't introduce research that contradicted my argument, I felt that I acknowledged the voices of others when I discussed the noble intentions of high-stakes testing advocates.  I felt like I was using peer review response guidelines I used in class where I can alternate between offering a compliment and then criticism.  Although I sometimes find that difficult to do, it is a practice that I will use in future courses and essays when I want to reach a broad audience. 

Online Learning Will be the Death/Birth of Me!

I had surgery a week ago and all the research and reading I thought I'd get done turned out to be a total bust because I've pretty much spent the week in a haze of pain, painkillers, and anesthesia induced nausea.  During my time off of work, I struggled to do any school work, or to concentrate on anything school related.  Yet, I did manage to complete a small paper, take a test, and offer a few responses to my classmates work.  I didn't feel so bad when I realized that my Creative Writing teacher has not been in since July 20th.  On July 20th my professor promised to respond to numerous assignments that week, and yet, nothing.  I've decided that I'm going to email her and make sure she isn't having anymore"technical difficulties." 

So, the other day I came across an article in The Chronicle about how community college students fail more online learning classes than in person classes, and are less likely to graduate.  This doesn't surprise me, but some of the comments pissed me off.  I'm particularly prone to being pissed off given that I've had such a difficult time with an online course this semester, and I've come to see how difficult it is for students to succeed when a professor decides to go AWOL throughout the entire semester. Some commentators like to point out how many students just aren't as technically savvy as they're alleged to be.

First of all let me say "DUH" and "not so fast!"  My DUH comes from knowing that a lot of students taking online courses are ADULT LEARNERS of all different ages.  Some of them did not grow up with the internet or texting.  And as one commentator pointed out, many people who don't end up in the brick and mortar environment are not people from wealthy or privileged background, and thus they may be less likely to have grown up using the latest technology.  BUT without online courses THEY WOULD NOT AND COULD NOT BE THERE. 

My NOT SO FAST comes from the fact that many of my professors are the ones completely clueless to technology.  My constantly MIA professor has never articulated where she'd be keeping any course materials, and her syllabus is written to be creatively absurd and obtuse, rather than being helpful or providing any understanding of where to find course materials. 

Following a long period of silence and no assignments, I found a message to us explaining our professor's long absence by clicking buttons at random.  Where this message was located was not even a place that she regularly updated and when I copied and pasted the instructions to our message board another student asked me where I had found them, thanked me for posting them, and said that she would not have seen them otherwise.  I've had a course with this student before and I can assure any asshole detractor out there that she is not a technologically inept slacker. 

This course has been a complete nightmare.  The near constant absence of my professor has hindered my learning at every turn.  But what really gets to me is that this is a professor that is so beloved by her face-to-face students, but if it wasn't for teaching awards and ratemyprofessor.com I'd never have guessed it. 

So, the way I see it there are numerous issues.  The first issue is difficulty with technology.  On one hand, this may largely be the fault of the learning institution that fails to adequately train their teachers.  But on the other hand, teachers should take the initiative to learn the technology on their own.  After all, every online student is told they need to be "independent self starters," so it's reasonable to expect online instructors to take the same initiatives expected of students.  

The second issue to me seems to be that *some* professors confuse "flexibility" with never having to attend courses.  An online course allows me the flexibility to "attend" at two in the morning, but it does not mean I don't have to show up, do the work, and engage my fellow classmates in discussions.  A professor telling me that they've been on vacation all week and thus haven't been available (of course mentioning this after the fact is especially priceless) is not going to cut it.  I have no problem when a professor tells me ahead of time that they're going to be on the road for the day and thus can't be reached, but to say that you can't be bothered for a whole week or two is a bit ridiculous.  Get a blackberry or a laptop and take it with you if you must take extended vacations when class is in session.  And if you're a professor that tells students to communicate and also makes it clear that there are "NO EXCEPTIONS" to certain course requirements and due dates, then I am going to find this hypocritical behavior particularly insulting.

Are there students that confuse "flexibility" with not having to attend or participate?  Of course, and the consequence is failure. 

Not having a professor participate or grade assignments in a timely fashion makes it difficult to learn because without grades or comments a student can be on the wrong track and have no idea.  It also puts so much of the learning process on the shoulders of students.  If all of my classmates were intelligent and engaged learners then I wouldn't mind so much, because when I'm in a class with a high number of intelligent students my experience is more valuable, but sadly that is not always the case.  If I'm in a course where I'm supposed to learn by discussing our course topics with a student who refuses to believe that the FCC is a government agency, then how am I supposed to learn from that or ever develop a factually accurate, let alone meaningful, dialogue? 

If a professor isn't there to provide guidance, or credibility, then we're stuck in a situation like that (and yes, that has actually happened). 

Although I've had many better experiences with other professors, there are still very few instances of professors that try to develop a community of learners in online courses.  I guess I could say the same thing is true in person, too, but I find that it's particularly important online, especially given the fact that online students do tend to be non traditional students with full time jobs and families, and all the reasons in the world to give up on education.  Plus, in person students find more opportunities to connect through campus organizations like the honor society, Men of Merit, Sisters in Strength, athletics, student government, and the Writing Fellowship program.  While I'd love to participate in the latter, the required course is offered only during the weekday afternoons while I'm at work.  If this course was offered at night, in the very early morning hours, on weekends, or online I could swing it, but otherwise forget it.

So, when I read an article about the failure of online students and an alleged professor wants to lay the blame on students assuming online courses are going to be "easy" I get a little pissed off at the simplification.  

The good that has come out of this partially craptastic semester is that I've realized that perhaps my calling in education is in online learning.  I've come to realize that a focus on technology or online learning doesn't mean I need to sacrifice my interest in special education, either.  In fact, my visually impaired uncle and his girlfriend have been able to utilize new technology to surf the web and keep in touch with us and a larger community of visually impaired friends.

A lot of technophobes are afraid that the internet will isolate people, but they fail to recognize how much connection can be created through the internet, and they don't recognize its amazing potential to diversify the classroom.  But it doesn't mean that we don't need professors, and it doesn't mean we don't benefit from community and discussion.  Those are two myths that need to be busted because a successful online course is not a correspondence class, nor is it independent study. 

While I'm stuck at JCC I'm going to try my hardest to make a case to my professors and to the administration as to why strengthening online courses is so important.  And this time, when I nominate a professor for the faculty of the year award, I'm going to nominate a professor for an online course and I'm going to have hard data measuring the success of the course, the professor, and also the importance of legitimizing online courses, professors, and thus online learners. 

Yes, I will spin this semester's steaming pile of shit into gold!  Yes Yes! 

argh

It's Thursday evening and the assignments for Creative Writing that should have been posted Sunday or Monday are still not posted.  So, we have wasted almost another entire week doing nothing.  Also, I have a minor medical procedure coming up, so I'm trying to prepare for it by getting ahead in courses, buying books to read, updating my life insurance information, and of course buying Fruity Pebbles because I haven't had them in a long time, and I think anytime you put yourself in any danger you should be able to indulge in a guilty pleasure beforehand.  Oh, Holy Fred Flinstone, give me the patience to get through this course.   

Eng 132: Metacognitive Reflection on my Rhetorical Analysis.

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Diane Ravitch
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For my next paper, I plan on arguing against high stake testings and the type of school reforms proposed by Michelle Rhee and like minded reformers.  So, when it came time to write a rhetorical analysis of an author, Diane Ravitch came to mind. 

I wasn't particularly familiar with Ravitch, but I remembered seeing her on an episode of The Daily Show.  I remember thinking she was awkward, and that she didn't seem very good at arguing or appealing to her audience, but that she was intriguing, and she had intelligent arguments.  So, I decided I would research her.

I started researching Ravitch by reading her various articles on the internet and in databases.  Her articles were interesting enough, and flawed enough, to be worth a critical review.  One thing that I noticed again and again was that even when she wasn't writing something to be read in an education specific publication, she wrote for a very narrow audience and didn't provide much evidence.  Although she discussed poverty on The Daily Show, she doesn't use her articles to tell stories about these students, and she doesn't work very hard to appeal to an audience using pathos. 

In my opinion, unless people like Ravitch start focusing their arguments on children and use more pathos, they don't stand a chance against people like Rhee who are anti teacher tenure and pro high stake testing.  Rhee's narrative strokes people's reptilian brains, and Ravitch's doesn't. 

When I read "Why We're Behind: What Top Nations Teach Their Students But We Don't," I was really interested in what Ravitch and Cortese had to say about curriculum in the US and abroad.  I thought their arguments seemed logical, but I didn't see much evidence within their article supporting their claims. I decided that I'd review this article, an article I mostly agree with, because I wanted to find the flaws in the argument, and find a way to build a better one that can appeal to a broad audience, and successfully convince readers using logos, ethos, and pathos.

What really informed my initial writing was the student essay we had to read in class.  Although, there were times when I didn't like that essay and I wasn't sure if ours were supposed to look exactly like that one.  I figured that it had probably been the best article in the class, and so that's why it was used, so I didn't know if it was a good idea to do it differently.  Ultimately, I think I did stray from the example essay because I'm a lot more critical of Ravitch and Cortese's article than the student writer was of his or her author's work.   But I really didn't like reading this essay because it makes me apprehensive about going into more depth about the article or Ravitch's claims.  I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. 

After I wrote my outline for the course, I didn't completely stick to it, but I did follow my initial outline more closely than I've followed any of my previous outlines.  I think that is just because I was working with a smaller number of sources and the focus was much more narrow than in our previous papers.  

After I posted my first draft I received a couple of comments on my essay which I took into consideration when revising for my second draft.  It was helpful, but it's always more helpful when they are received earlier, rather than receiving them the day our next draft is due. 

For me, the annotated bibliography was harder to write for sources that weren't books, because I have a lot less to say about a short article than an entire novel. 

After revising the essay I looked over the citations and adjusted the margins according to our guidelines.

I don't think I found any part of the process for this paper particularly helpful.  I knew what I was going write and so I wrote it. 

For me, my favorite part of this process was the research and the writing.  Sometimes, when my vision isn't too blurry, I think I'd like to research for the rest of my life.  But, my least favorite parts of the process was changing the margins.  I just don't like changing margins and never have.  It's just like how I can't stand looking at miniature golf courses, even though I don't have a good reason for feeling that way. 

Casey Anthony: Teachable Moments.

The Casey Antony verdict has really taken me back to that moment in my middle school classroom where my English teacher turned on a television so we could all watch the OJ Simpson verdict.  There was no context, no discussion, just an all white school of pubescent kids modeling their parent's and teacher's opinions.  Of course, his guilt was assumed to be without a doubt. 

So, I've heard a lot about Casey Anthony lately.  I hear about it from friends, family, and coworkers.  Sometimes Caylee's death is twisted into arguments against abortion. 

I am tired of it.  I'm (always) tired of Nancy Grace.  I'm tired of the mob mentality.  I am tired of watching the media cover one child's murder while a child was just savagely murdered in Michigan, and while children are abused and murdered every day.  Caylee can't be brought back to life, so let's not pretend we're talking about justice here.  If we want to talk about justice, we ought to be talking about preventing child abuse, murder, and offering support services to parents who, perhaps, had no positive role model in their own childhood, or who suffer from mental illness, addiction, or feel they're at a breaking point for any reason.  We ought to not be twisting a child's death into a political arguments against abortion, but instead preventing unwanted pregnancies, and that ISN'T going to happen when funding for places like Planned Parenthood gets stripped away by people who ignore that the vast majority of their services have nothing to do with abortion.

Planned Parenthood provided me with my first prescription for low cost birth control, and in doing so it prevented unwanted pregnancies, and that means Planned Parenthood  prevented abortions.

The justice system is horribly flawed, but I find it particularly strange that so many members of the angry mob point this out only in relation to Casey Anthony and OJ Simpson.  When were there so many people outraged over the convictions of innocent people who were later exonerated by DNA evidence?  Where was the massive press coverage when Michal Anthony Green was exonerated by DNA evidence, but only after spending 27 years in prison. 

While I consider Nancy Grace's sociopathic tendencies evidence that she is out to exploit and capitalize on the victims she covers, I believe many people who are outraged are good people in need of catharsis.  I understand that, but let's not confuse it for justice.

If we want to talk about justice we should be talking about supporting (politically and financially) high tech forensic labs that reduce the risk of contamination of evidence, and provide examiners the tools they need to create a case based on more than circumstantial evidence.    We should be talking about setting up scholarships that encourage our brightest scientific minds to go into criminology and forensic pathology. We should spend less time devoting news coverage to Casey Anthony's trial and verdict, and more time focusing on the children that have been victimized every single day, sometimes right next door to someone sitting on the couch, cursing Casey Anthony. 

It's not that I think Casey is innocent, by the way, but it's really hard to tell what I think and what I feel when every image of her I've seen on television and online -- at places like huffingtonpost.com -- shows her smirking.  Guilty or innocent, the media has a definite bias against her, because they have a bias towards sensationalism.  And this was one sensational case. 

Having just recently devoted so much of my time to reading about the life, time, and work of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, I do feel a particularly strong fear and disgust towards mob justice and media bias that favors sensationalism over evidence.  So, I find the attacks on the jurors to be especially disturbing. 

According to the Innocence Project, 272 people have been exonerated post conviction, based on DNA evidence.  Obviously, our justice system is far from perfect, but to abandon it and return to mob rule and gut instincts would be to return to the days of Wells-Barnett where many innocent people were tortured and executed, and where the guilty escaped or would never stand trial, simply because the mob didn't hold them accountable, because the mob follows instinct, rather than evidence.

Even with the flaws of our system, holding our justice system to a high standard isn't only about protecting defendants, it's also about the victims.  For every person wrongfully convicted the real threat to society walks, and can live without fear of being caught.  The Innocence Project has helped gather data and  propose reforms that can help both innocent defendants, and victims.

There are many times when I wish America did things a little more like many other countries.  I wish we didn't have factory farms.  I wish we didn't go to war in Iraq.  I wish we had universal health care.  I wish college tuition didn't cost so much money.  I wish American sitcoms could be a little more British.  But, I've always considered our justice system, our promise of a fair trial, to be the crown jewel of our system. So if we're talking about justice, we ought to be talking about protecting it.

When good teaching doesn't work.

Normally, my Writing Experience II class is set up so that when we begin to post our papers we're in our own small writer groups and are unable to view the papers posted in other groups.  This time, however, I can view all the groups, but I can't comment on them.  I'm not sure if it's a mistake or not, but I've been reading everything everyone posts.  There are times when I want so badly to comment, but I can't.  For instance, right now a person posted a paper on the subject of arranged marriages within the "Punjabi religion."  There are many things I'd like to say about this paper, the first being that there is NO "punjabi religion."  It's a region, it's a people, and they all practice different religions.  But that's besides the point.

The point is that English 132 with Kristine Pursell is a course I've considered probably the most effective at laying out material, utilizing technology, and creating a dialogue that is sustained throughout our units.  So it was very surprising to me when I noticed that a few of the papers aren't what we were assigned.  We were assigned to create a rhetorical analysis of an article, with the article informing our research for our next paper: the argument essay.

Instead of providing analysis of an article, these few papers are informative or argumentative, and they don't even begin to analyze another author's work.

In this unit we were provided instructions, power point presentations, information in our coursebook, and we read an example of a rhetorical analysis which we discussed and analyzed in assignments.  These students participated in that, and it would have been impossible for them to come up with their assignments without having read the sample essay.

So . . . how does this happen?  Okay, so I've read The Chronicle articles about the students that bullshit their assignments, turning in papers on Madonna rather than Napoleon, and I've seen similar things happen in my Creative Writing class.  But I don't think these are papers of students who decided they were going to bullshit or do whatever unique project came to mind.  I'm pretty sure these are serious papers, and so I can't figure out where the confusion could be coming from.

I would like to know how this happens.  How can students who are capable of putting together a paper at all, completely misunderstand the assignment?  Now, I have been confused by professor's poor instructions before, but that isn't the case here.

I'm not someone who believes in the myth of the perfect teacher being able to reach every one of their students.  When I was in high school, I had a pretty good science teacher who couldn't get me to perform in his class or turn in my assignments, and it wasn't his fault.  But, I always understood the directions of the assignments, I just slacked off and didn't do it.  So, it's still disconcerting when I can't come up with an explanation for how and why someone's understanding of an assignment could be so completely off.  In a lot of my classes I can think up ways in which a professor could have done things differently, or explained something more effectively, but in this case I can't come up with any solutions. 

It's not just a matter of misunderstanding one assignment, but how can a student be taught to comprehend their assigned tasks so that they don't make the same mistake in future courses?  Is such a thing possible? 

I started doing a little Google research on the topic, but I for now I can't find anything that answers my questions.

For now I remain. . .

baffled. 

Admissions: The Scarlet A of a Bad Student.

A smarter student would probably just kiss ass and keep his or her expectations of the community college classroom low.  Unfortunately, I have a hard time remembering that rule, and really only remember it when I begin to think of the Four Year admissions process. 

In high school I was somewhat of a polarizing student.  I received glowing letters of recommendations from three teachers, but I was also getting suspended and taken to task by the world's most boring Civics teacher.  So far, every piece of advice I find on applying to Four Year recommend "being honest"  and explaining indiscretions.  What they really mean of course, is apologizing, learning, growing, etc.  And in some cases I can honestly do that, but in other cases I can't because there are plenty of "indiscretions" that I don't feel any remorse over.  I guess I should focus on the things I HAVE learned and grown from, and should skip anything resembling "Hey, I missed more than forty days of school in the eighth grade so really you should look at my high school career as an improvement!"

The reality is that high school is a bag of contradictions and I'd rather just skip discussing it all together.  When it comes to writing a personal essay I again run up against the problems of trying to sound like me while simultaneously branding myself like a product, while trying to reconcile the contradictions.  It seems like a nearly impossible task to undertake in a short essay. 

How do you try and show that despite academic pitfalls you're intelligent enough, equipped enough, to be a successful student at a Four Year university, running up against 18 year old valedictorians?   You can't prove things that you've taught yourself.  You can't prove the hours you spend using Rosetta Stone learning a foreign language, or teaching yourself programming language, or learning about credit, or the financial aide process, or just about anything you were never taught in a class or by a parent.   

One reason why I hate writing personal narrative essays is because there is the desire to reconcile all the contradictions to conform to some singular thesis or narrative.  How do you explain that while your parents emphasized reading and being smart, you were expected not to become too smart, or that you'd be encouraged while simultaneously undermined?  In this reality tv obsessed culture, how do you explain the nuances of a family?  How do you explain that no, your mom's not a hoarder so much as she just becomes overwhelmed.  How do you brand yourself as a student from a working class background of parents who didn't go to college, while also marking your step mother as an graduate student alumni from your college of choice?  How do you explain the dual sensations of success? Or the self mutilation that comes with being a successful student? 

The problem with researching the admissions process is that all the advice is geared towards baby chicks fresh from high school.   At 28 years old, recommendations about excelling in a sport aren't really helpful or realistic.  The disappointing news is that community service hours are, supposedly, given more weight than being able to hold down a full time job.  I've done community service, and continue to, but probably not as much as a student with more time and less financial obligations.  Despite the possibility that my job may not be appreciated by an admissions board, I'm still going to play that up.  I have a history of excellent performance reviews and, in this increasingly career oriented climate colleges are finding themselves in, a person who can hold down a job and work well with others should be of interest to a school.  I mean, my Step Aunt has a husband who graduated from Harvard but he's been out of work for years because he looks like an Elf on his way to Mordor, and he has the worst personality I've ever had the displeasure of coming across.  Most people learn to survive by getting a haircut, smiling, and not complaining about every little thing -- but he's still waiting for Gandalf the Grey to make his dreams come true. 

Now, historically, I've always heard that college's want "well rounded" students, and that seems to be what many of their transfer admissions web pages are implying, if not stating outright, yet according to some of my recent research well rounded students can be at a disadvantage.  Time magazine reported that Rachel Toor, a former admissions officer at Duke University, says that admission officers favor "angular kids, those with a much more focused interest or talent" over well rounded students.  According to Time, the same thing goes on at Cornell University.  I'm not planning on applying to any place so ritzy and selective, but if this is true for the public universities I'll be applying to, then it could actually work in my favor. 

But, like everything else in life, so much of the information I find is contradictory.  Even reading the comments to an article just makes it that much more confusing! Some argue that you should absolutely know what's going in to your letter of recommendation, others say that you must sign the waiver of confidentiality (which I was going to do anyway) to be taken seriously.  But, others have argued that not knowing what's in a letter means you could get a crap letter, which is worse than no letter at all!  Some posters tackle the more interesting and controversial subject of the role letters of recommendation play in admissions when so much of building a relationship with a teacher is based on things like social class, race, and classroom size.  That's worth reflection, but for now, I'm just concerned that I make sure to only ask professors who will correctly spell my name. 

In the New York Times blog article a commentator, and alleged teacher, wrote " I can’t stress this enough, WRITE A FORMAL THANK YOU NOTE FOR THE RECOMMENDATION. If I can take an hour to personalize a letter for your future, you can take five minutes to personalize a thank you card. After eleven years and over 100 recommendations I have received nine thank you cards. I know this because I keep them. It baffles me that seniors in high school are so entitled that they can’t even formally thank someone for their time and effort. This is a big one for me."

So that makes me feel really happy that I overcame my fear of my horrible handwriting to send my Econ teacher a Thank You card.   I wrote as slowly and as legibly as I possibly could. 

Ultimately, applying to schools is going to be an exercise in trust and faith, both of which I have in very little supply.  But I still need to do as much as I can to brand myself.  If/When I finally receive some sort of comments on my Creative Writing assignments, maybe I can fix them up and do something with them for my portfolio.  I actually tried at poetry this semester, and I've gotten better.  I figure that poetry is good because it's short, and hopefully it's short enough so that an admissions officer doesn't lose interest and chuck it in the trash bin. 

So, I'll continue to research the admissions process.  Looks like I have some books to buy.