Jan 17 2007

Insert title here

After the second day of classes, I am giving even further thought to dropping my education degree. Even though I am quite close to completing the required courses for the B.A., I just don’t know if I can handle the banality any longer. Paradoxically, the entire School of Education claims to focus on critical thinking, yet during class, critical thinking skills serves as nothing more than an aloof theory; it is rarely put into practice.

As a primary Psychology major, I do not need to have Bloom’s Taxonomy drilled into my head any more often. I don’t mind hearing about it within the psych courses because at least there is some type of application or analysis therein. However, within the education courses, it is simply mentioned and remains theoretical. I believe that juxtaposing the education and psych classes is a primary part of the problem. Maybe if I didn’t observe higher-level thinking in undergraduate courses, I would merely attribute it to ‘playing the game that is college.’ However, that is not the case, but rather a flaw within the schema of the School of Education.

The education classes are so routine and devoid of critical thought that they could be easily compared to ineffective parenting. Imagine, briefly, that you have a new toddler and (s)he has a ‘shape sorting’ block toy. If you hold the child’s hand and continuously guide his or her hand to the appropriate hole, (s)he has learned nothing at all. If you firstly introduce the concept to the child, and then allow the boy or girl to experiment independently, the child has acquired an understanding that wasn’t previously there. The Ed. classes are similar to the initial part of the metaphor, as the psych classes are to the latter.

I guess for now, I’ll stick to it and play the game. I’m just not sure how long I can stomach the Scantronesque mentality and methodology. In the spirit of the Education Department, though, I’ll leave you to fill in the title for this entry–please do so in the space provided and marked “Insert title here.”

|:| Zach |:|

Jan 17 2007

What is the goal of a writer?

Recently I started reading Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. It is typical Mann in that every scene is an intricately woven web; a coalescence of words so delicately crafted that you timidly turn the page, as to not disturb the sleeping ink. One passage was so powerful that I couldn’t resist sharing it. In it, Mann eloquently describes what it is to be a successful writer. He says:

For a major product of the intellect to make an immediate broad and deep impact it must rest upon a secret affinity, indeed, a congruence between the personal destiny of its author and the collective destiny of his generation.

Now, sit down and write!

|:| Zach |:|

Jan 16 2007

Stickin’ it to the man!

Last night proved to have one exceptionally amusing incident. When I was getting ready to leave, I remotely started my car to give it a chance to warm up. As I was sitting, I noticed an incredibly bright light coming in the window. When I got up to get a better look, I realized that there was a police officer sitting directly behind my car shining that bright beam into it.

My first thought was that he would write me a ticket for my expired plates. However, I remembered that expired license plates is considered a moving violation, and since the car wasn’t moving, it couldn’t be issued. The officer got out of his car and went up to mine. He started shining his flashlight into the driver’s side window, but to no avail. Because of the extreme tinting, he couldn’t see in at all. He then got the ingenious idea of looking in the front windshield instead. However, the tinting on the windshield nipped that idea right in the bud as well.

At that moment, I turned my car off and armed it. He turned his flashlight off, hung his head in defeat, and walked back to his vehicle. He simply drove off, leaving my car unscathed by his supposed authority. Karl Marx would be proud of the proletariat’s victory over the bourgeois, or in this case, a representative thereof.

|:| Zach |:|