The Second Mile Is Easier
I like to cheat on things. Maybe cheat isn't the right word and maybe like isn't the right word either. What I have in mind is doing things half-assed, washing my hands, doing a workout on the...
View ArticleThe ability to reason requires (lots of) practice.
I have not yet mistaken my wife for a hat. But I have had this applied topology problem that probably is transparent in its solution, yet it has continued to vex me from time to time. My key ring now...
View ArticleQuestioning Our Own Competence
Miyagi: Hai - can see. No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher. Teacher say, student do.The Karate Kid (1984) With all the press about the CDC and the poor handling of Ebola containment, it...
View ArticleKrugman does IO
The IO in my title stands for Industrial Organization, one of the fields within Economics. The Econ department at Illinois used to offer a separate course on Antitrust. I don't recall when it stopped...
View ArticleI was not a sheep. Were you?
I've started reading the book Excellent Sheep, by William Deresiewicz. At the beginning of the book he describes the syndrome. Students at elite universities, who outwardly look super competent and...
View ArticleLa de da de de, la de da de da
Mekheye - An extreme pleasure, orgasmic, out of this world wonderful!Found here. What counts in this category changes as you get older. For me now, sleeping through the night rises to the top of the...
View ArticleThe purpose of college versus how to achieve it
I'm now about halfway through Excellent Sheep. I found myself arguing with it in the last several chapters I read. That is not surprising. I tend to argue with books like this. For example, after...
View ArticleA Halloween Thought About Teaching
For ideas to stickTake the longest lickPlace in the kid's headIt'll hold all that's said.Sugar Daddy
View ArticleHow well does my dad's morality hold up?
This happened a week or two ago, but definitely on the weekend. I went for a walk, nothing surprising there. Inadvertently, I broke with my routine slightly. I forgot to bring my keys and my...
View ArticlePlease call it Experimentation, not Trial and Error
Learning involves false starts, many of them. The learner needs to get used to that. Everyone says, "we learn from our mistakes." Let's hope that is true. Sometimes from my teacher's vantage it...
View ArticleA bit more on the Kindle Fire HD, Excellent Sheep, and my knees
I've now read enough with the Kindle Fire to draw a few conclusions.You absolutely need to have a case for it. I've got one from Amazon, called Origami, which is how it folds when you want to stand...
View ArticleDamn you, Saul
The good news is that there's a bit less pain today in my knees after getting cortisone injections, one for each knee. The bad news is that I was exhausted afterward and then didn't sleep well at all...
View ArticleThe Solitary Boy
What would childhood be like if there were many playthings but no friends, not because there weren’t other kids around, but because this one didn’t want to fit in? He was stubborn from the get go and...
View ArticleBelieve It OER Not
I'm schizophrenic and in several different ways. I suspect that many of my friends and colleagues in higher ed are schizophrenic too. One dimension of the schizophrenia that might not be so common...
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Pensions for State of Illinois Employees - Again
The piece linked below is now almost a week old. So it no longer counts as news. But it's been on my mind and now that Thanksgiving has past, I thought I'd write a bit on the topic. One has to wonder...
View ArticleEarly Morning Noise
After a week of holiday, the peace and quiet of this Monday morning welcome me back to the normal routine. Only it is not so quiet as one might think. The wind is howling. Yesterday the temperature...
View ArticleBig Public U - Cruisn' for a Brusin' (Regarding Undergraduate Education)
On Thursday in the penultimate class of the semester we were covering the Shapiro-Stiglitz "efficiency wage" model. In that model workers receive a wage premium as incentive to encourage them not to...
View ArticleThe Gap Between Student Performance and Faculty Expectations
Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways....
View ArticleThe Baby, The Bath Water, and The Newsroom
That is the greatest fallacy, the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)Here's a bit of a confession. I loved The West Wing and continue to watch...
View ArticleTilting at Windmills
When I was a young kid, sharing a bedroom with my even younger brother, my dad used to read us bedtime stories. While those were many and varied, three characters were repeatedly in the lead, each...
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