I thought we were done with Helicopter Parents and Militia Mommies way back in August of 2006. But nay! Velcro Parenting still grabs! They’re all still hovering and floating and attaching and waiting to get their hook and eye boots on the ground as they drive their kids — and colleges! — crazy!
Continue reading → Velcro Parenting, Clinging Children and the Return of Helicopter Parents
We are big supporters of the power nap. We know sleep heals. We believe you can make up on missed sleep even if it kills you.
We in academe like to think of the University as a universal stomping ground for the sharing of ideas and the formation of ideals. We like to believe we’re all equal. We hope we’re really all in this thing together. The University likes us to believe we are all valuable and we all have the same substance, but the truth in the corridor is that professorial charisma is dangerous to the capitalistic core of any university.
Continue reading → Why Universities Crush Charismatic Professors
Teenagers easily get bored. To fill that idle time they can study, play or work. Sometimes that idle time turns into crime in the streets and the best way to use teen energy is to put it to work in the marketplace so they become vested and productive movers in the community. There’s no better cure for teen angst than working for your daily bread.
First the car industry went bankrupt; next on the economic griddle — as argued in the Chronicle of Higher Education — is the rising astronomical cost of a university education that is about to burst a bloody mess upon us all.
Are you kissing your beloved the right way? Are you aware there is science in lips and research in the tongue? A soft, magical, kiss has hard science behind every salty pucker.
Continue reading → The Artful Kiss and the Scientific Pucker
We were disappointed to read this week that students are paying more
and getting less for the money they spend to get a college education:
In 2006, the last year for which data is available, students at public colleges and research universities paid about half the cost of their education — defined as the cost of instruction, student services and a portion of spending on operations, support and maintenance. That is up about 10 percentage points since 2002. At community colleges, students covered
about 30 percent of their education, up from 24 percent.At private institutions, the increases were less steep, but students cover a greater share: at private research universities, students paid 55.8 percent of the cost of their education in 2006, up from 55.3 percent in 2002. At private colleges that offer bachelors degrees — essentially, liberal arts colleges — the student share went to 63.5 percent in 2006 from 57.7 percent in 2002. At those that offer masters’ degrees, it went to 83.6 percent in 2006 from 75.5 percent in 2002.
Hubris is dangerous in the classroom. The student that believes nothing can be learned that isn’t already known catches nothing. The instructor that believes in an all-knowing prescience guarantees nothing worthwhile is cast for the capturing. That battle between student and teacher can dangerously become a war between good and evil — and that fight leaves no winners on the field of learning.
Continue reading → How the Superman Syndrome Ruins Student Writing
Science has proven when an animal is trapped by fire it will always try to flee the flames, even if that means leaping off a ledge or jumping into unknown waters and into death. We saw evidence of that self-salvation in the brutality of the World Trade Center as people willingly leapt from windows one hundred storeys above the ground — some even joined hands in the free-fall — just to escape the fireball burning their bodies.
We must always teach our children universal ideas. The temptation to “corridor” teach them — instead of bending young minds open to other doorways for learning — is a national failing of a teaching philosophy.
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