Subjects (Current)
After today's events, I need to say something more about my education and the burdens (and other hidden traps) it represents. I suppose three kinds of events occurred, and these inspired (if that's the right word) what I'm going to say. God-daughter and the Lioness have both completed their orals. Whiteness is having panic attacks about BGR. And Karis visited today.
I think I had a rather undistinguished formal education. if anything, the only distinguishing mark is that it has gone on so long. My last exams were in 2004 – I took two modules and got As for both 'Advanced Research Methodology' and 'Principalship and Teaching Performance' – but I'm still doing this really longwinded piece of writing, and I'm very bad at this. I work in spurts of nothing nothing nothing nothing then 20,000 words a week. It scares me, it exasperates my supervisors, it terrifies some other people.
The key points really are that 1) as Whiteness said, I am formidable because I seem to know a bit about everything; 2) as Karis says, I am formidable because I can create reliable and functional frameworks out of nothing; and 3) as others have remarked, I'm formidable because I have some gifts with language both oral and written. This is the outcome of the educational blessings God has showered upon me, and from which I think I've taken much profit, as that post shows.
I hate being thought of as formidable though. It isn't false modesty. I have to be honest enough to say that I am indeed formidable to some. But I must also urge my students, year after year, to strive for the same levels of formidability. I know that most of them can outlast, outpace, outscore and outperform me. It is pretty obvious. I just wish they would do it more often.
So what am I studying these days?
A bit of everything as usual. Completed more alchemical courses, studies in human nature and inhuman unnature, the economics of modernisation, the history of the Cold War, the literature of southern Europe, and the form guide for the 2007-08 English Premier League soccer season. It isn't really a course of study. I just like learning things.
And here's a secret.
I can't stand it when I don't understand things. So I go home and read up on them. When students ask me questions I can't answer even from first principles, I go buy a book or surf the net or invade the library. Because I have had thousands of students, I have learnt a lot because of them. Don't you people stop. Each one of you makes a difference to the way I think and do things; a few have made me radically different in attitude or direction. This is one of the reasons I respect every single one of my students. Without them, I'd be an increasingly illiterate old fart.
I think I had a rather undistinguished formal education. if anything, the only distinguishing mark is that it has gone on so long. My last exams were in 2004 – I took two modules and got As for both 'Advanced Research Methodology' and 'Principalship and Teaching Performance' – but I'm still doing this really longwinded piece of writing, and I'm very bad at this. I work in spurts of nothing nothing nothing nothing then 20,000 words a week. It scares me, it exasperates my supervisors, it terrifies some other people.
The key points really are that 1) as Whiteness said, I am formidable because I seem to know a bit about everything; 2) as Karis says, I am formidable because I can create reliable and functional frameworks out of nothing; and 3) as others have remarked, I'm formidable because I have some gifts with language both oral and written. This is the outcome of the educational blessings God has showered upon me, and from which I think I've taken much profit, as that post shows.
I hate being thought of as formidable though. It isn't false modesty. I have to be honest enough to say that I am indeed formidable to some. But I must also urge my students, year after year, to strive for the same levels of formidability. I know that most of them can outlast, outpace, outscore and outperform me. It is pretty obvious. I just wish they would do it more often.
So what am I studying these days?
A bit of everything as usual. Completed more alchemical courses, studies in human nature and inhuman unnature, the economics of modernisation, the history of the Cold War, the literature of southern Europe, and the form guide for the 2007-08 English Premier League soccer season. It isn't really a course of study. I just like learning things.
And here's a secret.
I can't stand it when I don't understand things. So I go home and read up on them. When students ask me questions I can't answer even from first principles, I go buy a book or surf the net or invade the library. Because I have had thousands of students, I have learnt a lot because of them. Don't you people stop. Each one of you makes a difference to the way I think and do things; a few have made me radically different in attitude or direction. This is one of the reasons I respect every single one of my students. Without them, I'd be an increasingly illiterate old fart.
etched with acid at 9:39:00 pm
5 Comments:
Yes, I have no idea why some people are so afraid of you. You're are after all, a rather harmless (if insane) literature teacher disguised as a chemist...
As opposed to being an increasingly literate old fart?
Question: Does literacy really take the scare out of an old fart? For that matter, does tech-savvy means that more of his students should fear him more?
And for KZ:
Here! You're not supposed to unleash your biting wit on old farts! Only other old farts, such as myself, are entitled to deride others as fellow old farts, literate or otherwise, you young whippersnapper, you.
haha...reminds me of High and Mighty Traps =)
hierophant: my friend, you have but pierced one level of disguise...
anthony: I fart classical farts, I'll have you know.
albrecht: being polyliterate (or polymathic) is a terrifying attribute; most students are taught to be on-task, on-target, on-the-ball – they can't cope with no-task, no-target, all-the-balls.
xinhui: you're funny and intelligent; please meet anthony and albrecht, two very good OLD friends.
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