Here or Nowhere

The title is from Horace's Epistulae (1.17). It is a contested poem - Fraenkel thought it entirely ought of character for Horace, calling it "upsetting". It is definitely jolting; perhaps it is better to avoid any final conclusions. What I will share here is my understanding of it in recent times.
There are so many things I like about this poem, not least how it begins by the offering of teaching from one who yet "has much to learn". I like how this can be seen to compliment Seneca's disendo discimus - and other approaches to pedagogy that I am writing about in my book.
What is so shocking about the poem is that Horace criticises Diogenes' refusal to interact with the rich as being a form of excess: showing Aristippus as superior, for he can wear rags, as does Diogenes, albeit if circumstance requires, but he can also wear fine garb and eat fine meals. So the poem can be seen to promote parasitism (dining at the expense of the rich) over genuine friendship as the nature of the relations in this poem that are advised are of a purely worldly nature.
Stephanie McCarter's very enjoyable Horace Between Freedom and Slavery suggests that Horace in some of these epistles is the concept of the Aristotelian golden mean, which she writes goes

back to Hesiod. Wilson defines the term as 'the area between too much and too little' and as the 'opposite of excess' ... Aristippus has captured both the adaptability and the moderation that ought to be exercised in every situation.

In 1.17, "Aristippus offers a way of accommodating one's longings for public life and friendship with the great without sacrificing one's independence or consistency of character." This reminds me of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, where the Flyte mother discusses how wealth is not incompatible with the sacred (112-113).

I will be discussing this passage and these citations in my book. But what I want to write about here is the tension between friendship with the great/all the people who one can find in the world and contemplative withdrawal (the critics who do not like 1.17 feel Horace's allegiance to lie exclusively in the latter). Is Horace being sarcastic in the second part of this epistle as some say? Attacking the pursuit of profit? Or is amicitia with great men a test of virtue and modesty?
These are questions that are most relatable, and may represent tension felt from adolescence onwards: does one have a sarcastic relation to the world made by les gens du monde - and so is it the life well-lived to withdraw entirely? Or is it not necessary, foremost for oneself, one's own well-being, to be part of this potentially superficial world? To enter it, it is suggested, is a test.
The phrase "here or nowhere", where it appears in the epistle, becomes a symbol of the acceptance of the validity of participation. Because of this, I use it as my chat app motto: it is the admission that an outer face - while exposed to intricate traps (that even Diogenes could fall into, with his performance art exaggerations performed publicly) - is necessary for the holistic life.
This corresponds with Emerson's thought in "Self Reliance": "It is easy in the world to live after the  world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst  of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."
It can be seen that this tension is a timeless concern, but its implications and the shape of the trials associated with worldly life in this time in history are (as always) particular and do need especial thought and discernment (to say the least).
This is a tension that I have tried to bring forth (cf. maieutics) in my classes, in one way or another, over the years. Admission of whatever the topics of the moment are is integral to my courses, which are therefore always changing (they also change to attempt to cater to students' needs). But these aspects of the course are never the whole course, just a part of it.
And to that end, some of the links in this week's B/Logrolling section will likely end up being addressed in class (I am still finalising the syllabus).

B/Logrolling

A Letter From Hong Kong: I admit that from my distance, I did not immediately understand all of the angles of this situation, and this short piece is the best that I have seen. This passage in particular gives pause for thought:

Nor, sadly, can Hong Kong youth expect solidarity from the most militant of Western university students and faculty. They lost their taste for freedom years ago. Israel is apparently a bigger offense to their sensibilities than Communist China (or Iran). In all significant respects, these Westerners are the opposite of the young people I know. While Hong Kong students detest Communism, many of their Western counterparts embrace Marxism. While Western post-colonialists deride Western civilization, Hong Kongers wish they could have more of it. When Hong Kong students talk of a safe-space they mean a shelter from tear-gas and rubber bullets, not a refuge from offensive words. A trigger warning is not a professor’s presage of a painting by Goya; it is the sound of a revolver shot discharged skywards in the Causeway Bay night.

The site of Tim Wu, author of The Attention Merchants, with links to other articles he has written

Privacy is Power by Carissa Véliz (edited by Nigel Warburton - I am quickly becoming a fan, though have followed him for quite some time as he produces Philosophy Bytes, which has had quite a few good programs, some of which, back in the day, I used in my classes)

Who I'd like to have over at a dinner party (I have not introduced the concept for this section of B/Logrolling very well: what I mean to do here is to introduce 'content producers' [for lack of better name] whose sites are not on my static, standalone B/Logroll page):
Tim Hurst, host of WFMU's Techtonic podcast

Brush

Authorial Voice

This will probably sound odd. But I feel like I need some kind of dialogical therapy on my authorial voice.
As I was going through my notebook to see if I had once written about dialogical therapy (because I do not know what it is, but it sounds helpful in a Bakhtinian type of way: 'let's get all of the various perspectives out on paper' and not tainted with specific context like the 'talking cure' is), I came across an apposite note - and nothing on dialogical therapy. The note read: "Health - mental and physical - strangely not prioritised."
What happened to my voice?
How do I restore it back to health?
First, the diagnosis. I discovered something was wrong when I was trying to write my ideas, which are quite clear, but which could not be formulated in text because of decorum, which rhetoric recognises as structuring pedagogy and procedures of the discipline and governing the overall uses of language. In communicating, and communicating about communication on learning how to learn, the ideas must (obviously) be submitted to dictates of decorum. But how to get it right?
Then, I discovered another depth of the problem through comparison when I read the work of a very clear and authoritative-sounding writer who had assembled such a similar network of ideas as those I am working on, except her voice sounded like it was coming from a place of expensive good social dinners, which is definitely where I am coming from as I continue to make vegetarian pozole without the hominy and vegetables, which is to say, I continue to make chili - noted here for the recipe recommendation (which is to say, the acidic-hot 'sauce' added to the cooked beans towards the end).

Every time I begin to write, I look around to see if the enemy is approaching. I deploy theory like so many soldiers and leave a mess on the field. Or, I allow for Rothkoian approach and allow myself to paint the associations as they occur to me, but then remember I need to publish for academic reasons and drown that flight in declamation.
That's the melodrama - but if this were therapy, the emotions be brought out to play like children so as to have the opportunity to help them grow - so this type of story goes.
I am finishing off a paper that must be turned in today, but feel so strongly that so much academic writing (mine, in this case) suffers from the Midas touch, rendering the ideas it grasps 'unactionable' by pinning them down in respective bell jars, stripped from their vital context, smothered by the arcane which is necessary to respect a lot of complexity in a small space. Also, this language is so obviously not my own - with figurative like spoken languages, I am a fluent reader, not speaker, prioritizing the never finished work of comprehension. So I ask: is there a purpose for one who can listen but who is less able to speak?
Not all scholars (note: I am only an aspiring one) calcify and smother; just the majority. It is therefore a gift to do the academic job of delimiting a subject holistically: like choosing for the delimiting a statue whose finger happens to be pointing beyond the discourse.
Because I am pressed for time, which is to say, because it takes me so much time to write so little (or, sometimes, nothing), I will end this post with the B/Logroll links I prepared. I've decided to add a new feature to the series: ending by listing a blog or text whose author I'd like to have dinner conversation with.

B/Logrolling

Simon Sinek, "Most Leaders Don’t Even Know the Game They’re Playing In" (YouTube) seems to sum up the gist of his work in 30 minutes - with a very helpful section on how to relate to an emergent type of youth (insofar as one can speak of types...)

A Paris Review article on Fra Angelico that criss-crosses from the globe trotting associative to a silent monastery - also, made me think of how the enjoyment of Catholic religious art requires an understanding of history to be fully appreciated, as opposed to the Orthodox icon

The Community of Inquiry: Insights for Public Administration from Jane Addams, John Dewey and Charles S. Peirce (PDF) diss. by Patricia M. Shields which has a nifty section where the community of inquiry takes the form of an actual map: the graphic facts of a city assembled in Maps and Papers (Holbrook 1895) mapping out local evidence of problems for a community practise of politics. I like how this work could parallel nicely with CoPs, explained below.
I will make a note here on contemporary pedagogy: little of it - except nominally, occasionally - does the work to relate its approaches back to the tradition/trends it emerged from. Lave and Wegner popularised the so-called Community of Practice (CoP), which, by the way this term is cited in so much recent work, would appear to be an entirely contemporary phenomenon. But there's even a passage in Plato's Phaedrus that encapsulates something of CoP.
It is true that the genesis of CoP emerged from Lave's anthropological work - and out of the CoP of an IBM think tank if I remember correctly, but we know that ideas can surface in different environments at around the same time - Thony has written about this in the history of science.
But the uncanny similarities to Peirce/Dewey's approach combined with how CoP is being used in pedagogy makes these historical connections relevant. To illustrate, CoP was not just plunked down on a 'panopticon-style' classroom, but coherently fit with the constructivism that emerged through Dewey, who was influenced by Peirce's work on inquiry.

Dinner conversation I'd like to have with the author of this blog.

Amateur Scholarship

I was initially going to write a very short post pointing out the similarities in two extracts on the 'views of the universe' and the ideal orientation of man's mind within it. It turns out the underlying theme of the dispassionate took on a new dimension, and warranted a longer post, once I looked into the author of one of the extracts cited.
Does that ever happen to you, where you look for something you know you know, but you want to see it in a text, and googling for that knowledge leads you to a brand new source, and by extension, new ideas?
Before embarking on the theme of disinterested scholarship, I will begin with my original topic, which is now an apt preamble.
Behold, after the image, how both the extract by a 17th century Japanese sword-saint on the Way and the extract on Egyptian mythology, specifically about Horus' eye once recovered from its injury by Seth, are founded upon a knowing that surpasses man's knowledge yet is also connected to things that exist/ a physical, material consciousness:

What is called the spirit of the void is where there is nothing. It is not included in  man's knowledge. Of course the void is nothingness. By knowing things that exist, you  can know that which does not exist. That is the void.   People in this world look at things mistakenly, and think that what they do not  understand must be the void. This is not the true void. It is bewilderment. ... Until you realise the true Way, whether in Buddhism or in common sense, you may think that things are correct and in order. However, if we look at things objectively, from the viewpoint of laws of the world, we see various doctrines departing from the true Way. Know well this spirit, and with forthrightness as the foundation and the true spirit as the Way. Enact strategy broadly, correctly and openly. Then you will come to think of things in a wide sense and, taking the void as the Way, you will see the Way as void. In the void is virtue, and no evil. via

And:

... Seth is said to “steal or injure” the Wadjat  𓂀, because sensorial and fractioned consciousness (solar vision) inhibits the perception of universals, archetypes, or Ideas which is “lunar vision”. To regain the Lunar Eye or Wedjat   means that one regains a cognitive power, and the power which allows this “recomposition” of the Eye of Horus is Toth. … The loss of the left eye   Wedjat  𓂀 in the Egyptian mythology symbolizes a loss of vision, but more specifically a loss of holistic  or  holy vision   which allows for the reunion or  reconciliation of two  opposites in Unity .… Seth has the eye or vision in his grasp until Horus is able to recover it through the power of Toth . ... We cannot fail to point out how important it is that Toth: the  neter representing God’s Intelligence, is the one that allows for   the reconciliation of the reciprocal powers of Horus and Seth . This is not something that Man can achieve by himself, for as an image of the Supreme Being, the “gods” or neteru are the cosmic functions living in him, and to control them he must return to his innermost Origin and Unity.…In as far as the psychic or mental order of the Eye of Horus, it is demanded that one achieve the equilibrium of vision wherein one does not deny all metaphysical and divine qualities of the universe by an excess of analytical and sensorial (solar) consciousness, nor does one deny the manifest reality of the physical or material consciousness by total holistic idealism (which is excess of lunar consciousness). via

The latter appears (through superficial googling; my apologies if I am wrong) to have been written by an amateur Egyptologist, Christian Irigaray. The text seems to be a chapter in a book - which, considering no apparent professional involvement, betrays that it is a labor of love. The author's internet presence is made up by a series of related papers and an active Goodreads page - so part of the map of the intellectual activity that has gone into the amateur work is visible.
We live in an age of institutional "scholarship" that is obsessed with peer review - a direct outcome of the outmoded organizational principles that rule university, such as its hyper insistance on various forms of quality control (e.g. "publish or perish"; time-sucking administrative obligations; unpaid editing or writing work that is not necessarily related to one's area of expertise or teaching) that stifles the actual jobs that one is officially responsible for. What is more, the quality even despite this quality control is suspect. My experience is that articles in recent decades reveal how comparatively little their authors seem to be reading (where possible, I look for older articles on a subject which often contain a surfeit of sources). So, these institutional systems are not only outmoded but also ineffective.
I write outmoded because in this century's sequel to time and motion management that is  characterized by managers, managers of managers, and consultants, there is actually quite a lot of stellar (popular) work on what kind of leadership and organizational principles work most effectively in the long term. Spoiler: they are not focused on quality control. One model that I have heard mentioned by three independent 'leaders of leaders' (and Harvard's Good Project) stresses the importance of alignment of mission or purpose. The mission is to be negotiated on a local level, the larger mission being clearly connected to each individual's mission.
A labor of love is bound to be connected to a mission. Also: it has the power to be free range. Publish or perish "scholarship" is more likely to resemble the force-fed sickly chick of mass production, caged in, existing on an unnatural schedule.
This is not to say that I do not believe in university. There is a lot to be said in favor of much of the convention behind respective disciplines. Also, universities should be places where expert knowledge keeps getting passed down, so also increases. Also advantageous is being exposed in real life to the people thinking intelligent ideas: one can see how they live, how they move through space and information &c., and that can be another kind of important instruction. Universities are supposed to be disinterested places of learning, so with greater creative, liberal agency. Etc.
But where the writing is forced, how can university education expect to survive?

Coda

We are so quick to discount mythology or lessons from other arts. But, as our author above who may be an amateur scholar pointed out so niftily, Aristotle had rejected Egyptian mythology because, unlike Plato, he had not been educated in it. My elaboration would explicitly state that these sources still convey lessons that could stand to be repeated and internalized by everyone. One such lesson is contained in the passages above: the more accurate understandings are those that are holistic, and good (this latter word is not as problematic as it seems: the sword-saint in another work writes that good reveals itself if one is committed to living according to it; dedication makes up for lack of understanding and knowledge). Vico argued about the importance of both particularly in connection with university education, but how much of university work today upholds these points?

Brushes: link 404s but tape brush by Pfefferminzchen; Horus eye png.

Culture

I am ostensibly trying to write my publish-or-perish book again, and as I have done until now, ended up discarding most of my thinking on the subject matter. Also, as one of the topics is culture, I am having a hard time finding an approach to the subject without getting mired down in extant scholarship, so much of which I do not entirely agree with.
It seems to me that much "theory" (which can be less theory than doctrine - see Myers' writing on this; also see), to which I would add more recent theory, lacks full consideration of consequences. There is plenty of literature (the roots of which now decades old) that argue against "nation" as a construct. Empirically, there is indeed evidence of a back and forth (and other directional) exchange of ideas and ways of being among 'nations' today. It is argued that nationhood is a bunk concept. National symbols, in intercultural literature, are often presented as essentialist propaganda. Nationhood is argued as an outmoded concept to be "disrupted" for the betterment of an international flow of economics and ideas, or at least acknowledgement that this flow moves outside of older geographical patterns.

This is related to the problem of multiculturalism. A glance at my blog reveals a little bit of different cultures, but in my case, I actually lived in these places for years, have (or more accurately today, had) competence in the languages; have family members representative of these cultures. People like me are not uncommon today, and related labels have been coined, such as "third culture kid". I am explicitly making this disclaimer, because I have observed a superficial multiculturalism, or even careless cultural appropriation (see Root's book Cannibal Culture). I see people who praise themselves for their cultural awareness, but already from the point of view of hubris, this is problematic. What I prefer to call interculturalism is hard and often uncomfortable. It is also something that is very difficult to explain to people who have not been exposed to different cultures. Perhaps it can be compared to the idea of growing another set of eyes.
Not quite like this but similar is when you have a friend in palliative care, and on your runs you look for beautiful things to take pictures of to send: an extra awareness of surroundings can be gained, and once obvious things have been photographed, you begin to notice increasing subtleties, like how light itself can create beauty as it falls on or through segments of nature; how the wind causes foliage to drape like the expensive gowns of yesteryear. Awareness of another's being can call into relevance and sight more than what one had before. This can be explained by hermeneutics.
My favorite book on the topic of cultural 'knowing' continues to be Kristeva's Etrangers à nous-mêmes, because it ultimately brings the difficult point down to our virtue and responsibilities as individuals. This is different from the euphoric individualism that celebrates every last detail of the separation of person into their own unit. Rather, it draws from οἰκείωσις, the Stoic theory of appropriation which sees individuals as part of a greater whole.

This has been my experience of cultural exchange. I will never forget a childhood experience of being given a shell necklace in Thailand (this was back in the day when fair-skinned people were a sight to be beheld there; we got to these places because my mother spoke Thai) and feeling so inadequate at only having the little trinkets my mother had us bring; this act of giving what one has has stayed with me, and something I have looked to do myself, though any introductory class in anthropology will cover just how problematic giving is. Diseased blankets is only one example.
The model I try to follow is one of respect and listening to others.
In American history, the right to due process has played a very important part. I mention it here because of its role in listening.
But speaking of law, I read (via) an interesting Gibbon quote today that sums up quite well the practical difficulties of multiculturalism:

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter XXVI:

As long as the same passions and interests subsist among mankind, the questions of war and peace, of justice and policy, which were debated in the councils of antiquity, will frequently present themselves as the subject of modern deliberation. But the most experienced statesman of Europe has never been summoned to consider the propriety or the danger of admitting or rejecting an innumerable multitude of Barbarians, who are driven by despair and hunger to solicit a settlement on the territories of a civilised nation. 

Or consider the difficulties of achieving equality: would we be able to afford our laptops? Difficult questions arise.
To everything I write, I can hear people slapping potential labels on me. But I have rarely been content with labels.There are other ways of defining and looking at these matters.
I am keeping that for the book.

And I definitely have my biases, models I respect and wish to cultivate.
As a cliffhanger, I will note the existence of an early American text drawing on Varro in praise of agriculture and related  virtues of thoroughness and patience. Lessons from the natural world. Lessons only had through exposure to nature.
To illustrate, because I run long, I often pass one of the natural springs at the outskirts of the city where I live. At first, I was puzzled by just how many people would go to fill up bottles at that spring. But over time, and through increasing heat, I filled up my handheld there with increasing frequency and noticed two things. First, the taste, which is so good. Second, the water clearly contains minerals - I not only did not miss any salt, but found the water 'more nourishing'. As a result, I think a lot about water on my runs. How up to 60 per cent of the human body is made of water. How even twenty years ago, I knew people worried about the depletion of water tables. Water is important. Are we preserving its sources?
The etymology of culture has roots in the cultivation of the earth. I think this is important. The word gained its figurative meaning referring to collective customs only recently (according to Etymonline; I have not looked into this in more detail and my memory is not cooperating as I write this post - I am still working on how and where I store things in my mind). The thesaurus ends with a beautiful quote by Yeats, which I think will provide a sufficient if not conclusive end to this post:

For without culture or holiness, which are always the gift of a very few, a man may renounce wealth or any other external thing, but he cannot renounce hatred, envy, jealousy, revenge. Culture is the sanctity of the intellect.

Brush: misprinted type; png made from Vesuvian memento mori floor mosaic from grey ghost's pinterest (found via google images).

Plogging Blogging

A central theme of my summer seems to be cleaning up. While I thought I had been reasonably free of superfluity, recent circumstantial challenges have revealed a lot that would benefit me by being removed. I feel unprecedented gratitude for the trials, for I see their direct correlation to opportunities for improvement. I had not been aware of how critical this was.
Plogging is a Swedish portmanteau, coined to describe a recent trend of jogging while picking up litter. I am comparing it with blogging because I wonder if this activity might also result in cleaner sections of the internet landscape, places where bees thrive - as opposed to the trash heaps that attract flies, who, as that spiritual tale warns, will seek the tiny piece of trash even in a landscape of flowers; bees, the opposite.
My thought here about plogging the blogging is to make a renewed attempt to the motion of blogging, with an added attempt to clean up my thinking (cf. para one, above). As I have written before, I think that blogging can be a virtuous activity.
A central topic of my blog is learning how to learn. I see this as a continued touchstone even now. Last year, I wondered about including management skills in my teaching, and did in fact develop this. It was enough that I had been open to this idea: circumstance itself brought certain pieces, through networked learning and collaboration, that allowed this to be developed. I can reaffirm, then, the thought I sometimes have to console myself when I feel that teaching is a task so far above my competencies/knowledge/skills (problems include how to reach all students when only meeting with a hundred of them once a week; the problem of knowledge itself - a topic I will shorthand here by referring to Hadot's brilliant consideration of Heraclitus' Φύσις κρύπτεσθαι φιλεῖ - often translated (problematically) as 'nature loves to hide'). This consoling thought is that my ability to teach will always be wanting, so my main concern must be to not close doors to the learning of my students. My primary task is therefore to try to foster a love of learning, not quash it. To reward attempts. To acknowledge that a seed planted can suddenly be registered years after it was first planted.

I don't know if I will be able to get some momentum going again with blogging, but I hope I will. I think I might include an aggregated component, which I have benefited from on other blogs (e.g. Siris' evening notes). To this end, I will end this post with a short list of interesting links I have found. But not before sharing a paragraph that has helped me immensely with the fact that I have not had a break or holiday in years. This could be elaborated on but the spirit of it is in this post. I am still processing quite a bit. The spirit of this post is: some things are not up to us; what is up to us is how much cleaning up we are doing of that which is up to us. I've condensed the passage below, though the original is already wonderfully condensed, so that it would fit tidily into the desktop wallpaper I made for myself: 

EVERY DAY
You don't get weekends off.
No.
Here, there's no such thing as weekend.
Today, I'm putting the pressure on.
I'm on the attack.
I will get beat up, knocked down and drilled.
But I
will
not
STOP.
- Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual

There are many kinds of soldiers, and many kinds of cleaning up. To learn this requires more than one kind of learning. Learning how to learn is not only beneficial, it can also be a matter of survival. I think that this message is also delivered in Bryce Courtenay's The Power of One. Such as where he writes: “I learned that in each of us there burns a flame of independence that must never be allowed to go out. That as long as it exists within us we cannot be destroyed.” To clean up is to find this flame that cultivates our fruitful continued growth.

Links of interest:
Aeon, "Atoms and Flat-Earth Ethics" on objectivity and overcoming commitments
Book Haven, Chris Fleming on the Tyranny of Cool Ideas
"If", Rudyard Kipling
NYR Daily "Orientalism: Then and Now"

Books of interest:
Living Dangerously, Ranulph Fiennes
The Hunting of the Snark, Lewis Carroll
(topic) doctrine of signatures
Aristippus of Cyrene
(topic) dialectical behavioural therapy
Organizational Trauma and Healing, Pat Vivian, Shana Hermann

Film:
Coyote Waites
All Passion Spent (1986)

Art:
Nick Brandt's Inherit the Dust
The Pine Trees screen (松林図 屏風, Shōrin-zu byōbu)
Gongshi decent enough explanation here (included because I put one in the images accompanying this blog post)
Préhistoire : le vertige du temps Entretien avec Rémi Labrusse
Au-dessus de tout  À propos de : Pierre-Henry Frangne, De l’alpinisme, Presses universitaires de Rennes
Prolific the Rapper x A Tribe Called Red - Black Snakes [edited]

Quotes:
Deng Xiaoping's, cross the river by feeling the stones. One stone was Shenzhen. (From one of the many YouTube videos about Shenzhen - I think it was WIRED's.)

Brushes: misprinted type. Gongshi png.

Experiment

Once upon a time, someone said something to me I thought quite shocking: that one could benefit by experimenting in life, to gain a clearer idea of what helps one flourish. I have probably returned to this idea because in conducting the periodical internal housecleaning that it so necessary, I have uncovered quite a bit of lazy thinking - including some that is self-righteous adjacent. So, it would help to start to experiment to find ways to get out of these bad habits. I found some useful ideas in Rich Roll's latest podcast (though have yet to listen to the last half hour). One of the anecdotes recounted reminded me of one I heard a few days ago: the late Serbian Patriarch Pavle had been asked what he thought of Milosevic, and whether he blamed him, etc., to which he responded that such an approach was irrelevant as the true problem lay in each individual. If they were better, the situation would be better, he said.
I was not "better", last week. I recounted to a colleague a deviant statement made by a third colleague who had shared his understanding that university be akin to kindergarten for adults (his view rendering the essay redundant, laughable work). I realised afterwards just how wrong that was of me on so many levels. I recount the specifics here only to show an example of what I consider to provoke a self-righteous response. But here is another response: what if one understands that other people are always, in their minds, doing the best they can? It doesn't make sense to criticise their actions (outside of classrooms - though even correction of students can be done in multiple ways). The question is whether one can navigate around Scylla and Charybdis, accepting them in their present state (for who would want to be blocked the opportunity for later change? So why would one slap a judgement on someone else?) The question is whether we can try to help those around us grow, just as we see we need to grow, and also would like help ourselves. Is this not the pedagogical mission? And if we claim to be teachers/instructors/etc. and are not doing this, are we truly what we claim to be?
Another thing I have noticed is how much fear can build up inside that distorts vision. I am pretty sure that this fear has caused me to act in an uncalled for way from time to time, which is to say that I have caused my own problems.

Brush

Can I try to experiment to live without fear? To inhabit moment to moment and stop worrying?
Can I experiment to try to find my voice and what it is that I have felt for so long now that I need to write? Academic fear is very real: one knows that one's arguments can easily be refuted, that one can never have read all the relevant books... But the very beautiful pragmatic American approach says: cut your losses and begin. Begin to have any chance whatsoever at getting somewhere. And the time is nigh when you can start to riff from idea to idea and know what sources there are behind those ideas.
I will end this post on one idea I am thinking about. It has to do with some of the sources behind the idea that we should all be heard, which I hope this post makes clear that I respect. That said, some of the models for that approach quickly veer off into relativistic cacophony or willful ignorance. For example, one paper, quite prominent in the field of contrastive rhetoric, stresses how "classroom dialogue that underscores difference in rhetoric ... could perpetuate Othering, cultural stereotyping, and unequal relations of power." It is astonishing that it is assumed that equal relations of power is that simple. In fact, this entire post, written by someone who shirks at the idea of lording over others, demonstrates that despite such antipathies, self-righteous impulses can develop and be at once made manifest while remaining latent. What of those who are not self-critical? Does experience not teach that something is always in power, that hierarchy will exist in one way or another? Note that this does not mean to say that attempts at unity are futile; rather, the spirit in which one approaches unity is most pertinent.
This is why the pursuit of large words like truth and equality is to be stressed. Nowhere in Plato will you find a prescription for the achievement of such goals; in fact, Socrates says that he can only pursue truth and never possess it. It is not a complicated idea, this humility. But it is an unpopular one.
While children's books generally present truth and equality as virtues that can be achieved, I would like to point out that as adults, very few live by those precepts. How many adults forgive the person who stole their metaphorical lollipop? Or who confess, in the end, to stealing it in a moment of weakness? Or who live with an open heart?
Indeed, my colleague may have unwittingly been on to something when he equated university with kindergarten because it could truly be asked whether we would all pass the test we put to children. We ask of the child to temper its zeal and to be patient. Etc. Such growth of character is crucial to the prolonged existence of humanity. The experiment here is to find ways to retain the rudimentary lessons of childhood in order to fully be the adult. 

Brush

What Is A Literary Polis

One of the problems I encountered this year was dealing with the assumption that literacy has been gained if one can comprehend written sentences and use the google search engine. The basis of this assumption lacks self-criticism to the degree that it is considered acceptable to "hate lists" (of the kind that are best internalised if there is to be literacy of genres, further reach of perspective) and demonstrate impatience at being indicated any idea that is not to personal taste. This assumption is not to blame if it has grown unobstructed through university education, and has a degree behind it, supporting, in this way, its existence: ironically, on paper.
But are we literate if we can read a passage and use google? Or are there different levels of literacy - to thus instill in the former assumption a degree of humility?
To follow an Aristotelian line, as put forward rather succinctly by Edith Hall in Aeon, one is to practice clearly and precisely systematic communication of the rudiments of one's ideas which may then be further developed among more advanced 'readers' through specialist, technical language. (This approach was popular in Victorian times: think, for example, of Farraday's lectures.) Following this line, it may be seen that literacy is of course developed beyond an elementary level. It may then be asked just what kind of constellation of ideas one must have to be able to follow - and then create - cartographies of complexity. Literacy in this respect may be seen as something that is never fully mastered (as universes are not mastered by single human minds), but explored with varying degrees of depth.
Hall argues that Aristotle's approach to philosophy was to make the rudiments available to the general public through his exoteric works that would draw on beliefs commonly held by the majority as their starting points. Put in the terms I am discussing here, Aristotle appealed to the public by building on its platitudes to raise the literacy of the polis. One of my pet ideas right now is about how important it is to discuss the role of a literacy that has depth-perception, as it is crucial to society for enabling a temporary distancing from oneself (where one enters into another's argument, for example) as this movement teaches that one is not the centre of the world.
This literacy will be reflected in  self-reflection (following the hermeneutic arc). The more I think about this arc, the more it seems to me bound to pedagogy, or to epistemic fluency: to achieve a high level of literacy seems bound to the ability to understand which requires some conscious knowledge of how things are learnt. So, a higher level of literacy might then require both a knowledge of a given subject and a knowledge of how knowledge is obtained or used.
I think this idea is illustrated in Shannon Cain's definition of literary citizenship (via mhpbooks). It acknowledges listening/reading,  teaching/mentoring/being mentored, and sharing - which speaks to what I wrote above. The latter reminds me of what some call the conundrum of saving a human life vs. a library - what is the more important: life or the learning?
Cain's definition of literary citizenship follows:
•    Read. A lot.
•    Subscribe to literary magazines.
•    Buy books. Review them, and publish the reviews.
•    Teach.
•    Celebrate the achievements of your colleagues. Champion their work.
•    Share your power.
•    Donate to small presses. Volunteer. Join a governing board.
•    Practice humility.
•    In workshop, be patient and kind and truthful.
•    Attend talks and conferences. Listen hard.
•    Mentor a new writer. Be mentored.
•    Be a good friend to other writers. Keep generosity in your heart.

Brush via

Meaning

The last post I wrote was ambiguous. I have been thinking about different "publics" and the problem of dialogue. Possibly because of my multicultural background (multi-culti being a word that can have as many negative as positive connotations), I am less interested in arguing and more interested in finding ways forwards for discussion.
My concern is that the devotion to dialogue is not universally shared.
I asked an expert on dialogue what to do if dialogue is not invited and, granted that the question could be construed as being out of place at a conference where the purpose of the paper was to extol the benefits of dialogue, I never got an answer. I am not an expert. And I am only beginning.
I just hope my beginning will not be my end.
Meaning: will I be afforded space in which to speak? Or will I be mowed down - the green, inexperienced grass that I am, immediately?
What is it that I want to say? That dialogue is a balsam, that it is possible to disagree without needing to destroy, that dialogue is like marriage: something for shared good, and because of this, is worth making some concessions to. One example of such would be the patience to listen to what the other side is saying. It can be difficult because sometimes we do not like the way that messages are packaged. But if we let the message wash over us, we may be left with talking points.
But sometimes I wonder if my ideal regarding dialogue is unrealistic.
For example, interacting with one who describes Plato as going off on "bizarre, loopy speculations" could make it difficult to have a conversation about Plato if one has a different understanding of the premise of life that one considers Plato to be exploring. Wondering about how one would come to such a statement (of the "bizarre, loopy") caused me to think that some texts function as a Rorschach test: this is an unformed idea as of yet, but what I mean is that for some, perhaps, interaction with Ideals/Ideas/Infinite (? - I need to figure out what I mean here, basically, deep abstraction) - where it ceases to engage becomes a Rorschach test. By ceasing to engage I mean entering into what I will call the hermeneutic suspension of disbelief. In other words, the entry into the meaning of the text, even where this will require difference from personal meaning.

Source: Old Hong Kong in Colour, Otto C. C. Lam, Chung Hwa Book Co. Profiled here.

While it is interesting how freely some use older works as inspiration for their own work, I am also concerned with the question of the work involved in getting as close to the original contextual meaning of a text as one can. But here is a fun exercise (by which I mean not so fun): try teaching a course in reading comprehension, and seeing how many (especially of the more intelligent!) students will take the time to write an accurate summary of an extract - when this is exactly what you ask for, after teaching strategies to check comprehension.
Maybe I should have highlighted that paragraph somehow, because I think it is actually central to my main point here.
It seems to me that some 'contemporary' work borrows more from the technique of the sophist: refusing to stop long enough at words and ideas to flesh them out, being more inclined to verbal gymnastics where words are in Heraclitian flux. But I mention Heraclitus, and I often wonder how equipped anyone not an expert in him and on pre-Socratics is to understand him. Still, the reason I bring him up is because I like how eloquently this popularizer of change being the only constant that seems to be the underlying component to much thought today also stressed the importance of wariness of opinion. Opinion is another 'problem area' that comes up in class.
Here is another 'fun' class exercise. Invite students to explore their 'opinions' with the qualification that merely stating it is not enough: asking that they support it, and then find a counterargument, and either refute or make a concession. The counterargument happens to be a feature of many business plans - which is to say that this should be a skill that is 'pragmatic enough' to warrant practise, but it is an exercise that is consistently met with resistance, despite how it is packaged.

Source: Old Hong Kong in Colour, Otto C. C. Lam, Chung Hwa Book Co. Profiled here.

On my blog, I have been wont to skirt around certain topics. In real life, because of the nature of my decisions and the early zeal I once demonstrated (ah, zeal, the trait of the puberty that some never grow out of), I am not so concealed. I feel sorry for the zeal, but know that I have been taking the path that I needed to take, that I am growing how I want to, given that this is the only life I am given and I only have a certain amount of time to pursue... I am going to say it... the truth. I find it fascinating how the acceptance of plurality that has emerged from cultural studies (in my opinion through the Boasian cultural relativism - though of course he is criticised for not being relativistic enough today) has come to mean complete denial of the validity of an attempt to pursue truth. I find it so necessary to do so much reading because this is one of those points where dialogue is shut down entirely. 'If you believe in the possibility of truth, you must be a bigot' the reasoning seems to go, 'how backwards you are and not aware of contemporary reality - you must be an enemy of progress.' But if applied to me, I would think such reasoning unfair. Among other things, I am quite a fan of the internet, and think it has renewed a Republic of Letters' type exchange.
I could be asked at this juncture why I care so much about dialogue. Why do I spend so much time reading "verbal gymnastics"? Firstly, I think there are many forms of communication and do not think that everything is to be read in the same way. Nietzsche, for example, may be viewed as a poet of provocation. One need not agree with everything he writes to see value in thought-provoking nuggets.

Source: Old Hong Kong in Colour, Otto C. C. Lam, Chung Hwa Book Co. Profiled here.

Further, as I only intimated yesterday, those of us who entered postgraduate work in recent times will likely demonstrate in the titles of our work - as Perloff noted in her PMLA address -  the markings of the effects of Theory in our work. Until I read that address, I had not fully realised the extent to which my approach is indeed something in between the before and the now. It is a fact that I was instructed to interact with Theory in my dissertation, though I was permitted to deviate. One thing I would like to point out is that while these older Theorists had the advantage of 'having' to read the works that I gave myself the task of reading (e.g. Plato), I do not see this as being the case today. I think pursuit of these texts is becoming a matter of personal choice.
So, this means that there is ever less potential for there being a 'shared language' of exchange. Some will immediately cry: good riddance! How oppressive to learn that Language! To which I would reply (taking a line of thought from Freire) that indeed it does take effort to learn, and time but (again calling on Freire) this does not mean having to deny your 'own langauge'; rather, it is to give you the chance to be bilingual.
My feeling is that while there may actually be a move to shut down bilingualism (whether explicit or not - Freire suggests that this is implicit and internalised, then reproduced), there is also a great need for it, for it is also understood - somewhere, and again, maybe not explicitly - that cross-fertilisation can be a great source of vital ideas that bear fruit.
I think it is very important to rid one's 'real life dialogue' of the banter of negative critique, because this quickly deteriorates into argument. The art is in taking the time to sort through the common areas, and consistently cultivate these.
I do not think I am ready to enter into public discourse fully, because I still need time to figure out where those areas are. All I know is that I do not want to be contributing to the argument: I'd rather give up ideas and tend to a literal garden before doing that.

Source: Old Hong Kong in Colour, Otto C. C. Lam, Chung Hwa Book Co. Profiled here.

Thinking Aloud In Public

This post has been updated: addendum added below.
A fusion of two texts I was reading in the same day gave me the idea that blogging might be considered as 'thinking aloud in public'.
The latter link takes you to an old Scientific American post by Bora Zivkovic, whose belief in the important place of the blog seems sadly idealistic almost ten years later, though noble. Like Tony of Renaissance Mathematicus lore, many of his posts explore the boundaries between science and journalism, like in this post with a wealth of ideas and links. Tony, however, remains an active blogger. My search for Bora's more recent work led me to his website page where he asks: what should I do next? "Blog some more," say I.
I continue to feel inclined to do my bit to fuel the idealism behind the web, which extends to its pedagogical promise, as outlined by the Revisiting the E-Quality in Networked Learning Manifesto. Incidentally, Bora's second post links to a visualisation of the Republic of Letters (as his blog posts gives his historical overview of the exchange of information) and is a wonderful illustration of the kinds of resources that the web makes possible. This in turn links to a 9-year-old Stanford digital humanities initiative which I mention because I found it to still contain some relevant kernels. Note though that many of these pages have changed their addresses and may need some extra googling to find.
But (after my extended absence from my own blog) it is occurring to me that it takes 'extra' work to keep this promise alive. Just like how the manifesto I linked to suggests that networked learning demands "greater professionalism in teaching and support for learning. Grafting on technological advances does nothing to mitigate this need for maturity in formal learning environments."
And I submit this as my reason why the promise of blogging has fallen short: it takes a lot of work - or, more specifically, time, which I seem to have less and less of (needing to read more and more: it just doesn't end). It is a luxury to be able to blog - which by extension leads to the interesting observation that hype rubs off on even bookish types.
But is blogging not a public necessity in some way? Sharing our thoughts in a somewhat visible way, to help each other sharpen our senses?
What I would like to sharpen my senses regarding concerns the question of whether it is possible to be bilingual in Theory and tradition. For many, that is already the wrong question to ask. To which I cite the ongoing popularity (in the public sense) of returning to dig into the classics, sans Theory, to get a taste of ancient Rome or a feel for Dante's Inferno. It is true that there may also be a fair share of inaccurate movies or misattributed quotes - but the introduction of such nonetheless tends to change the discourse, if momentarily and superficially.
Since the 1980's, it has not been required to do the requisite reading to claim some level of proficiency in both Theory and tradition. Among those studying the humanities, unless one has a very specialised field or focus, or attended a very particular college, I am inclined to agree with the statement that postmodernism is likely to be like the air we breathe: at least, bound to have permeated some approach we take. Or maybe this is only true of East Coasters and their equivalents. I am not married to these ideas...
Once upon a time, it was said during my career as an undergraduate, that one could forget about persisting in academe (to say nothing of progressing) if one were to openly pursue anything that smacks of a Christian line of thought. This is purely anecdotal and may or may not have anything to do with me. It does pertain to my question about bilingualism, though. It would hold - if the anecdote is true and assuming that higher ed instructors represent a range of types and also assuming that it is appropriate to equate this line of thought with tradition - that there would likely be some form of bilingualism extant, somewhere. 
When I was 20, I wrote: "[James] Clifford argues that 'a permanent and ironic play of similarities and differences, the foreign and the strange, the here and the elsewhere is ... characteristic of global modernity.' ... I agree with Clifford when he writes that 'Humanism ... still offers grounds for resistance to oppression and a necessary tolerance, compassion and mercy.' It is a noble goal, but so often the search for connectedness not only devolves into a search for similarities but also the eradication of aspects inherent to culture. Hybrids emerge."
It would seem that the answer is that bilingualism is not possible as it is transformative: to follow the line of hermeneutics, once there is an exchange, if it is a genuine exchange, both parties will be changed.
By way of conclusion: What if some texts and exchanges are in fact Rorschach inkblot texts? ADDENDUM: In my next post, I address why this blog was deliberately ambiguous. I am sorry for distressing certain readers.
ps. it is really funny how blogger's spellcheck indicates "blog" and "blogging" as incorrect.

Photo from: Old Hong Kong In Colour, Otto C. C. Lam, with an Introduction by Peter Cunich. 

For purchase at Chung Hwa Book Co.

Featured on HKFP Lens.

Teaching Teaches: Managerial Skills, Constructivism

In my new move to take stock of the transferable skills I have gained in the past 17 years I have worked in higher ed - to list those that promote epistemic fluency - I am thinking I might write a series of posts to help articulate what indeed they are, as I prepare to rewrite my resume. I plan to do this regardless of whether I remain in academe. This is because epistemic fluency has become a central organising theme behind the course objectives that I design. Epistemic fluency, as I see it, is learning how to learn how to do things; the "meta" of learning. The spirit of it can be seen in Socratic dialogue: Socrates demonstrates how a certain type of questioning can be applied to any trade, to reveal some of its essential features. It was by reading Plato that I came to this idea - but once I came to it, I saw it everywhere.
Readers of this blog know that I am personally invested in course design, specifically, how to design a course to maximise the quality of material taught and student engagement with and retention of this material. As of last year, I made little experiments to my teaching style, and as I have continued to do so again this year, it occurred to me that I am also exercising managerial skills in this execution of class design.
For example, one needs to assess the quantity of resources at one's disposal (time, materials, number of invested students, for example). One needs to review pedagogical approaches and then make decisions. One can back up the shortcomings of any approach, or shortcomings in students' realisation of course objectives throughout a semester - so, make on-site changes - by calling on experience. One chooses the medium through which to deliver content, and masters new platforms where necessary. These are some examples of managerial skills.

In the teaching of my two courses on culture, I have decided on the following. As my second year students are generally receptive, it is quite an intensive course, with homework reading assignments being half overview, half a selection of primary sources. It is a historical survey highlighting a selection of different viewpoints, in detail. It is a general survey that highlights a series of more specific thematic features, not unlike Auerbach's ansatzpunkt, highlighting one issue here, some figures there, another set of events here, and so on. Presenting culture as ongoing negotiation of a number of concerns, ideas, hegemonies, freedoms, etc. The lecture period is spent, at the beginning of the year, with half the class going over bullet points of 'more important terms/figures/events' from the readings, and the other half with exercises asking students to engage with, for example, the primary sources, or a work of art, etc., and apply the ideas from class to other material, making their own connections.
For the senior class this year, I began with about four "teacher centred" lectures to model an 'academic approach'/an approach to realise the course objectives, which I explained the gist of. Students were told they would then prepare their own projects, demonstrating the same approach, on one of a series of themes presented (that relate back to the original lectures, which contained many resources as part of the reading homework). Each week, different 'phases' of the project will be discussed, as a few groups present the progress of their project in miniature presentations. It has been explained that students are responsible for all guidance given in class to the realisation of these 'phases' (which is to say that if they do not come to class, they need to be sure to catch up on what was missed).
In addition to completing these phases (e.g. picking a topic, narrowing it down, evaluating and gathering resources), there are periodic reflection logs that students are required to write, describing the subject of the phase they are asked to consider, then listing their personal response and analysis, and what they learnt. They will be given a final and different set of reflective prompts at the end of the semester.

My hope is that by encouraging attendance in this way, students will be exposed to other subjects not their own. And as they are encouraged to critique, they will be engaging with those subjects. Also, each individual project is to demonstrate an awareness of historical precedent, an Auerbachian awareness of the larger context and the interconnectivity of different areas of life. Each student will focus on two to three more specific areas (a painting, a document - together with analysis of this and what it represents) that together combine to demonstrate an understanding a larger topic. Put another way, the larger topic will be broken down into key 'points of departure' that show the various perspectives on it.
There is enough polemicising at this time in history. After reviewing the kinds of soft skills that are sought in the workplace today, I decided that the goal of the course should be to demonstrate an understanding of various, sometimes competing perspectives. (Students may convey their own view if they want to, but they must all demonstrate an understanding of other views.) In other words, they are to demonstrate good, old-fashioned comprehension skills.

I designed the course this way because the seniors generally think they know it all and are resistant to teacher-centred lectures. I am tired of grading essays that show that students only glossed over the material: it defeats the point of the learning at this level. So, I made the managerial decision to focus on whether students can engage, in detail, with something; can demonstrate an understanding of difference. But it pains me to recognise that some of the more factual teaching is bound to get lost in this process. For example, while students think they know it all, at least a handful of them could afford to go back to my second year class, and take it again (note: only next year will I be teaching students I also taught in the second year). I plan on simply giving directives to such groups, instructing them to look at this or that historical document, figure, etc. But that is not the same as the more colourful and filled-in overview (which is already a condensation!)
Thence the managerial skills: to make a decision. Decide on what the primary objectives are, and execute to those ends. It will not be perfect. But this is where experience comes in, to help try to fill the gaps. I have made it very clear in my fourth year class that it is dialogic: that the content will come through our discussion. I have reiterated this by using the features in my digital classroom (which is merely support for the class, not a substitute) to feature, for example, good questions students ask, and what the answer to the questions are. Students are invited to ask questions; are told that this is not a course where they will be judged as ignoramuses if they ask (there are some classes they take where this is the case); they are told that articulation of what they know and what they don't know are viewed as tools in this class.
They are tools because they will use them to make something (thence the constructivism in this title - a word I am using from its popular meaning in education, though its philosophical meaning is not lost on me, and which I have used in at least one academic paper).
We will see, though, what is indeed created by the course at the end of the semester. But I will retain my managerial status regardless; I've read enough literature on managerial skills to know that failure is as appreciated by good managers as it is by teachers who love to learn.

Reflection and Reflexion on the Classroom

It is thanks to a blogger friend that I have returned here to give an update. Please note, though, that what is below is but a first-draft; if I edit, this won't get published 'til mid-August (though if I somehow find time, I will edit and remove this disclaimer).
Without reading old blog posts, I felt as if I had left this chrysalis behind, because so much of the breadth in thinking I had been working on here came into place, and I know that when I look back on older writing after reaching such plateaus, I only have an eye for all that was missing of the foundation (elementary ideas) that went into reaching that plateau.
But I claim to be a lover of process, so this means leaving in sight (as opposed to discarding) the earlier steps.
And the premise of what I am about to write is also based on 'what came before', for when I review the changes I made to my classrooms this past semester, I was very aware just how much past experience was there to temper the changes.

 

In my largest intro class, I added two online components: reading based online, and students required to comment a few times during the semester online. Their comments could be summaries to their own links on the weekly topics they found useful or interesting; insightful questions on the material; analysis. I also gave students the opportunity to set their own colloquium questions: there were about thirty they contributed, from which two appeared in that test. Early in the semester, I tried to 'lecture' the material through asking students questions and bringing their answers or observations into how I covered the material, but students found that too intimidating. I then experimented a few classes with setting them group exercises using additional source material, structured so that the exercise would review key points from the reading. This worked for 1.5 of the three classes. But my experience obviously told me that this was not a good way to go on (so many students need more structure and modeling and help - at this level - identifying what hey points are), though the students were happy for the change of dynamics. I ended the semester by delivering 20-30 minute lectures, followed by group class exercises. These varied in their content: asking students to find topics from the reading/lecture in song lyrics; giving them images asking them to expand on what they learn from that image and connect it to the reading, then share this information in brief presentations; etc. Such exercises are very labour intensive because, especially when choosing groups to share, I need to remember which groups are doing better with the exercise and call on those groups. It is also necessary to end class with a brief recap, which means tracking all the students said and being sure to include anything they may not have commented on. Etc.

In sum, I used a combination of didactic and flipped classroom techniques. I continued to use aspects of the blended classroom, but as in previous years, did add a grade component to encourage more use of the internet (which essentially means, putting the graded homework component online). I used Google Classroom, but did not use it to the fullest extent. For example, it was important to me to see which students were being thoughtful in their online comments - so I did not have Google tally up the homework points.
The way in which I included the online component did not save me any time - if anything, classes became more labour intensive. Not only did I lecture, but I also had to come up with exercises, and in addition to grading, I had to scan the online comments and enter in that work assessment manually. I also took attendance, which took time to be entered.
However. I think that this was the way to go in terms of getting the results I wanted from students. They were engaged, actually did the work ! , and seemed to enjoy the class (I do ask students to assess the class, but one always wonders about evaluation re. truth).
The final thing I will add here is the importance, in my opinion, of having very clear epistemic goals if this approach is taken. For example, in a course on culture, I decide about which events/figures/themes/etc. are the bare minimum I want students to know - but in addition to that, I also decide on the set of abstract skills I also want students to practice, eg. comparative analysis. I ask myself: assuming students will forget most of what is taught in this course, what is the gist you want a vague trace of to remain in their minds?

Most of what I have written about in this post reflects classroom elements I have been using for years; this is why I began by referencing the importance of experience. Experience tempered my introduction of change - when I saw students not being as self-directed as I thought they might be (I admit I did wonder if new generations would indeed be as far-more-internet-savvy-than-their-professors, as some media implies), I re-introduced the more didactic, modelling element to class.
For undergraduate classes, I think it is appropriate to continue to begin class by establishing the gist of what one wants students to take from the class - but to leave time for students to articulate their own understandings, extrapolations, comparisons, etc.
The hardest aspect of these courses comes with the upper level (fourth-year, ie. senior-level, courses, where something as simple as having students summarise a variety of texts they will use as the foundation for their analysis, is a challenge for some. I teach this in those classes that last two semesters, hoping students will master this by the second semester. Those students who make the effort to engage with class always make immense improvements. But what happens is that some seniors seem to check out after the first few weeks of the second semester. It is this dialogic element plus analysis that some seem to wish to skirt past - though, in my opinion, this forms the basis of the liberal education, an skirting by it means a lower level of literacy. And civics.

I am the kind of instructor that aims for a 100 per cent success rate, which is why I am concerned about this: others might look at the 20 per cent or so students who make great progress as success, and call it a day. In fact, the large majority of my students make progress (I am thinking of the numbers this year). But it is the few students who don't, or that single student whose final work was worse than the mid-term work, that cause me to want to keep things fresh and reconsidered in terms of how I teach each new year.
It is probably because of this that sometimes I feel a little burned out (like now, when I am supposed to be marking papers). It also does not help that in academe there are other things that need to be dealt with, like backstabbing colleagues (though this does not mean the backstabbing is personal; merely, that one is in the way of someone else's ideas of how things should be done), or like all the research papers to be written. This comic says it all (via Piled Higher and Deeper).
I don't know if my way is sustainable: as it happens, this past week I have totally (accidentally) missed out on two important obligations, which aside from being mortifying for someone like me, makes me wonder if I can go on like this. I was given more than an average course load, but still...
To conclude, I will be thinking about one of the best essays I have read in an age (and one, those who know me, might say it could have been written by me: just swap out the art and book references to mine from hermeneutics, the message would remain the same). It is by Jenny Odell, entitled, "How To Do Nothing". Among other things, the essay raises the question of maintenance (or what we could call sustainability) vs. development. It is my secret wish that this author will want to co-author a paper with me. I will be keeping the idea of maintenance in the back of my mind as I mark those papers...