tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33458138932711081692024-02-08T15:15:46.151-05:00Academic Lumpenproler. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.comBlogger105125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-79031178645296919162009-06-01T17:34:00.003-04:002009-06-01T17:40:11.160-04:00I QuitSchool, not "The Academy"... I'll teach math to anybody that'll sit still and listen for the rest of my life I expect and promote literacy generally whenever I get a chance. Teaching and Learning have been much the biggest part of my social life for most <I>of</I> my life; you don't change such things in a heartbeat even if you want to.<P>Anyhow, I quit <I>this blog</I>; I'm not going to be studying this particular aspect of the mess we're in with anything like the same urgency or consistency (or so I conjecture) so I'll just shove everything that would've otherwise gone here into, as of now, <A HREF="http://vlorblog.wordpress.com"><I>Open A Vein</I></A>. Thanks for your kind attention.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-2048255546568695812009-05-29T08:50:00.002-04:002009-05-29T08:54:54.605-04:00Another World Is PossibleXero on <A HREF="http://profacero.wordpress.com/2009/05/17/on-changing-higher-education/">"changing" higher ed</A>. Clear vision and an angelic voice. Almost makes you glad to be alive.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-49225158966225414532009-05-28T17:39:00.001-04:002009-05-28T17:40:28.473-04:00One Links List Deserves Another<A HREF="http://www.aftface.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=531">Catching up</A> with FACE.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-43350844359133145282009-05-28T17:29:00.004-04:002009-05-29T07:37:49.757-04:00nothing in his life became him<PRE><br />people that care about me don't like it<br />when i call myself a failure and so maybe<br />i oughta knock it off... but by golly,<br />there's sure good *evidence* for it <br />if you like that kind of thing.<br /><br />i've referred to teaching <br />freelance as an "adjunct" <br />(after four years on the tenure-track)<br />as being "sent down to the minors"<br />and that's how it felt for a long time.<br />i still got to play the game.<br /><br />and i even had a pretty good run:<br />thousands of students have learned<br />quite a bit of math with my help.<br />meanwhile, i got to talk to lots<br />of other teachers about the art.<br />still.<br /><br />i haven't even *learned* anything<br />that counts as "being a pro" to me;<br />not anymore. i've gotten to be<br />a <I>great</I> math tutor as i see it<br />but am scared to even think about trying<br />to find paying tutees, for example.<br />and the point here is that *all* the<br />"professionalism" here (as always)<br />is *getting paid* and i'm worse than<br />a beginner at getting paid.<br /><br />also a damn fine lecturer sometimes.<br />but a pisspoor assigner of grades.<br />i've gotten so bad at *this* that<br />i have to quit.<br /><br />"i have to quit".<br />gee. when you put it like that<br />it almost feels like you're *not*<br />about to get a sinking feeling<br />that just *keeps* sinking.<br />as in, for about an hour just now<br />and no end in sight.<br /><br />anyhow if you can handle *that*, try *this*:<br />i *want* to sell.<br /><br />hint: you don't have to actually *believe* it.<br /></PRE>r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-78588263991086882032009-05-27T07:07:00.003-04:002009-05-27T07:15:55.588-04:00I Might As Well Learn To Spell "Jaschik"A <A HREF="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/27/offtrack">review</A> of <I>Off-Track Profs</I> in <I>IHE</I>; <A HREF="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/26/distance">"The Distance Ed Tipping Point"</A>.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-63641700471078880522009-05-23T09:36:00.002-04:002009-05-23T09:45:51.558-04:00Students Viewed As Important<A HREF="http://www.ams.org/notices/200905/rtx090500611p.pdf"><I>The Formation of Scholars</I> reviewed</A> in the <I><A HREF="http://www.ams.org/notices/200905/">Notices</I></A>.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-28263264385301201062009-05-22T09:06:00.003-04:002009-05-22T09:38:25.816-04:00Watch This Space<A HREF="http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2009/05/the-rise-of-private-policing-in-the-us.html">The rise of private policing</A>; Linday <A HREF="http://majikthise.typepad.com/">Beyerstein</A>.<P>Brazen <A HREF="http://thisbrazenteacher.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-do-we-need.html">on D. Quinn and <I>Ishmael</I></A>. Must look into this.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-64315565483808013562009-05-17T08:32:00.002-04:002009-05-17T08:34:34.158-04:00No Good Deed Unpunished<A HREF="http://www.utla.net/system/files/CivDis_standingup.pdf">Teachers busted</A> in LA (<A HREF="http://www.utla.net/">United Teachers LA</A>).r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-88871418231745874912009-05-16T15:09:00.003-04:002009-05-16T15:13:17.548-04:00As Rome Burns<A HREF="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22673">"The Universities in Trouble"</A>: Andrew Delbanco surveys recent lit in <A HREF="http://www.nybooks.com/"><I>NYRB</I></A>.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-33399935681639189372009-05-15T08:02:00.005-04:002009-05-15T16:25:16.213-04:00It Only Encourages Them<A HREF="http://uninspiredteacher.blogspot.com/2008/05/its-teacher-depreciation-week.html">"Teacher Depreciation Week"</A> by an <A HREF="http://uninspiredteacher.blogspot.com/">uninspired teacher</A>.<P>An internet-ancient (2004) <A HREF="http://hnn.us/articles/6591.html">post on grade inflation</A> dedicated to the Invisible.<P>Changing higher ed: Sherman Dorn <A HREF="http://www.shermandorn.com/mt/archives/002984.html">sums up</A>.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-37206290466971612142009-05-15T07:42:00.001-04:002009-05-15T15:56:40.202-04:00listening the most precious thingthere's plenty of rope; plenty of lamp-posts. so the billionaires fear one thing most of all: free assembly. crowds are alright... free people are even kind of acceptable... but crowds of free people topple empires.<P>the "work" of the captives of the system: sit quietly and listen. if you do <I>this</I> well enough, they let you speak to some of the other captives... on the condition that you <A HREF="http://vlorbik.blogspot.com/2009/03/targeted-tutoring.html">produce certain documents</A>.<P>the purpose of these documents is reported to be "see why, eh?" but, no doubt due to my faulty wiring at the factory... i appear to've been some sort of <I>experimental model</I> or something... this scans as gibberish to me. what the system appears to require—as a sort of tax for having had access to all those precious listening ears—is an <I>accounting</I>: who was listening? to what? when? where? why were we not informed?<P>these documents <I>replace</I> the captive listeners in the next level of the hierarchy (as the most precious thing). and just as, ideally, <I>no one will speak</I> except the captive-in-front during a listening session, no <I>document</I> should "speak" by ever being actually <I>read</I>: each one should be so much like thousands of others that it can be filed and forgotten (until it can be safely destroyed; around here that takes about three months).<P>and then you move up, up, up... evidently there are robotic entities at some organizational level processing meta-reports about meta-reports... all to the effect "everything here still safely under control"—<I>and essentially nothing else</I>.<P>when "something goes wrong" the documentation tree must be actually <I>searched</I>; the goal is to determine which branches of the "tree" (what "student", "instructor", "committee", "department", "college", or whatnot) will be threatened with, typically, a requirement that they produce more bricks with less straw.<P>people can somehow live this way. without crawling up into books for several hours a day too, though that would certainly appear to be the <I>easiest</I> way.<P>heck, if you're allowed to <I>read</I> while you're supposed to be <I>listening</I>, it's hardly even a waste of time at <I>all</I>...r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-49497203080667713602009-05-14T15:38:00.002-04:002009-05-14T16:10:43.878-04:00Dog Goes Right On Biting Man<A HREF="http://burntoutadjunct.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/excuse-me-can-you-spare-a-humanities-chair/">Burnt-out Adjunct</A> on <A HREF="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/12/workforce">an <I>IHE</I> thread</A> on the erosion of tenure.<P><A HREF="http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2009/05/lessons-for-girls-trust-your-instincts.html">"Lessons for girls"</A> at <A HREF="http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/"><I>Not of General Interest</I></A> (etc.)... polymorphously perverse boys can play too.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-17496386312505467022009-05-12T16:22:00.003-04:002009-05-12T16:26:13.475-04:00What Cannot Be Controlled We Destroy<A HREF="http://underassault.blogspot.com/2009/05/taste-of-aris.html">A taste of ARIS</A>.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-84999732525071793162009-05-10T10:35:00.005-04:002009-05-10T17:59:12.281-04:00The University In Ruins<A HREF="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_200610/ai_n17197646/">"Pedagogy of Debt, The"</A>... in a beastly ad-ridden format alas... was my introduction to Jefferey J. Williams; next I found <A HREF="http://pedagogy.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/8/1/25.pdf">"Teach the University" (PDF)</A> and <A HREF="http://firgoa.usc.es/drupal/node/35523/print">"Debt Education: Bad for the Young, Bad for America"</A> (an HTML page claiming to be a PDF... life is complicated). Go, look... find rooftop, shout...<P>The hat-tip goes to <A HREF="http://decasia.org/academic_culture/"><I>decasia</I></A>... but this <A HREF="http://www.chutry.wordherders.net/wp/?p=1821">review of <I>HTUW</I></A> shows me that I prob'ly <I>shoulda</I> known about Williams from reading <A HREF="http://howtheuniversityworks.com/wordpress/archives/198">Bousquet</A>...r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-61517612698179449482009-05-03T13:20:00.002-04:002009-05-03T13:24:15.111-04:00An Entire Indifference"<A HREF="http://adswithoutproducts.com/2009/04/17/i-dont-want-to-be-a-professor/">"I don't want to be a professor"</A>": <A HREF="http://adswithoutproducts.com/"><I>ads without products</I></A> on Coetzee on Beckett.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-14032280275285270632009-05-01T16:10:00.003-04:002009-05-01T16:13:06.365-04:00Just Say Hell No<A HREF="http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/2009/04/service-and-servitude.html">"Service and servitude"</A>, at <A HREF="http://notofgeneralinterest.blogspot.com/"><I>Not of General Interest</I></A>.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-78886633125417090182009-04-30T06:34:00.002-04:002009-04-30T06:37:17.807-04:00Diversity My Big Toe<A HREF="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/30/resilience">Queer Professors From the Working Class</A>: <I>Resilience</I> editors interviewed in <I>IHE</I>.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-802148329867468402009-04-29T17:49:00.002-04:002009-04-29T17:52:54.345-04:00Next Year: General StrikeTomorrow is <A HREF="http://thenewfacultymajority.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-majority-faculty-day-now-on.html">New Faculty Majority Day</A>. Buy an adjunct's lunch.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-11620397321552443022009-04-21T17:58:00.003-04:002009-04-21T18:21:27.297-04:00Chop Wood Carry WaterSo there was this guy on the bus today collecting signatures and he passed the clipboard over the aisle to the woman in front of me and she filled some of it in and signed off on it evidently and passed it back because from what he said he was filling in some stuff she'd overlooked when another fella came up and asked him about working collecting signatures. And they start talking about that and I remark to the petition-signer "The Democrats are <I>mobilized</I>!" because guys getting directions to the hiring hall for political work on the Midstate Transit is pretty doggone inspiring. And she asks am I a Democrat and I say "No, I'm an anarchist... they keep locking everybody up and if that's good government, give me the other thing". And she appears to understand me completely because this ain't the Ivory Tower here or even the Workfarce Center... Midstate Transit, this route, is pretty much <I>street level</I> though much to their credit the drivers maintain <I>some</I> order. And they're building an enormous new jail smack downtown and all. And the guy wrapped up with the other guy and, I imagine because I was conversing with his last contact, asks am I registered and I say no I'm pretty sure I'll've been purged by now; it's a long time since I voted. And there's really nothing more to report after that. <I>I'm</I> not headed for the hiring hall. Yet. I've <I>got</I> a job. For now. Still quite a pleasant encounter.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-61059220770007973102009-04-19T13:46:00.001-04:002009-04-19T13:49:49.286-04:00Make A Wish<A HREF="http://www.shermandorn.com/mt/archives/002969.html">"Northwest Florida State College president indicted"</A> (Sherman <A HREF="http://www.shermandorn.com/">Dorn</A>).r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-3627957749036415092009-04-10T10:01:00.006-04:002009-04-10T14:07:08.950-04:00See You In The StreetsHere's the amazing Thomas <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Geoghegan">Geoghegan</A>, in <A HREF="http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/24/thomas_geoghegan_on_infinite_debt_how">an NPR interview</A> (at <A HREF="http://www.democracynow.org/"><I>Democracy Now!</I></A>) about <A HREF="http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/04/0082450">"Infinite Debt"</A> (a piece in the recent <A HREF="http://www.harpers.org/"><I>Harper's</I></A>).<P>A-and <A HREF="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/early300309.html">"Reading, Writing, and Union-Building"</A>, by Steve Early in <A HREF="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/"><I>MR</I></A>.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-29789108814771084312009-04-05T17:51:00.002-04:002009-04-05T17:55:55.132-04:00Practically Mainstream<A HREF="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090413/arana">"Higher Education Takes A Hit"</A> (as the truth becomes more widespread) in <I>The Nation</I>. I had to let my subscription lapse because about a quarter of the issues never came. Used to be a great magazine though.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-17313756006982002322009-04-04T23:51:00.004-04:002009-04-05T00:54:33.415-04:00And Expect You To Say Thank You<A HREF="http://decasia.org/academic_culture/?p=488">"The farce of the private university campus job"</A> by eli <A HREF="http://decasia.org/"><I>decasia</I></A>.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-41145840269078278152009-03-31T06:38:00.002-04:002009-03-31T06:43:36.010-04:00A Good Way To Wreck Your Career<A HREF="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/03/31/forthays">Revolt Against Outsourcing</A> (Jaschik; <I>IHE</I>).r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3345813893271108169.post-31260095459491913642009-03-30T10:47:00.003-04:002009-03-30T10:49:23.739-04:00Business As UsualA great HS math department destroyed: JD2718 on <A HREF="http://jd2718.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/more-bronx-science/">Bronx HS of Science</A>.r. r. vlorbikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02746118913980983815noreply@blogger.com1