Tag Archives: 2017

Met Henry dog, Great Dane, up close last night. I felt out-of-scale small. He has short hair like a hound dog, looks like a hound , but two sizes too big. He’s six years old, or six and a half, Mrs. B__ said, and he’s 200 lbs. I thought of Sedaris on Great Danes—”bubbling seepage,” “there are cheeses that last longer.”

Back at noon-something after writing—no, reading—online an New York Times article about some teachers promoting certain educational technology. I’m sure, as article points out, there are ethical problems and questionable pedagogy, etc., but I guess I’d see these teachers as too ambitious for teaching. Teaching’s selfless, but these “teacher influencers” want to go to conferences and get famous and so they work hard, blah, blah.

I don’t care to keep criticizing. It’s—and I thought earlier today about mediation —acting as a go-between—ideas mediate between our minds and the physical world.

I feel I have more to say. Let’s see what comes. Another couple pages of writing before a nap.

I could start a program to educate people that they didn’t need to be educated—the Life of Brian, “Think for yourselves!” “Think for ourselves!” problem. Maybe—probably—it’s stupid to think my idea is better than what happens now. I mean, some people seem influenced by flawed societal values (beauty, fame, wealth as goals, etc.). One thing I might oppose would be, say, spending attention on sports. On other hand, sports-watching is something people can do together, and no doubt, togetherness is important, too.

See, so (I hear whirring-pulses of washing machine. I did a load of underwear and work pants last night—shirts and pants now), so, yeah, I come back to this as a reason to publish: I think of those whose published ideas influenced me since my—well, since I started to read, really. Just to name a few: Carse, Kerouac, Thoreau, Annie Dillard, R. Hugo’s essays, Kay Ryan’s poems, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., the Bible, Wendell Berry, Emily Dickinson, (Simone Weil (that essay I read in college rhet class) and others—my point is that these ideas did shape mine own. So many ideas from these (and informal mentions, too, in news or mag articles, say) influenced me.

That I do have cool ideas—and maybe these are worth sharing—worth simplifying and sharing. I write so much more than anyone needs to read, including myself.

[From journal of Sat., 2 Sept. 2017, Journal 259, page 35-6]

6:54 a.m. So, yes, there were things that happened yesterday, and even by writing, defining, thinking of them as things, as discretely describable entities, I’m pulling them out of context, at least. (I’m reminded of times an adult would tell a story briefly, maybe in one line, as in “that reminds me of the time __X__ (person) did __Y__ (thing)” and I’d want to know more of the context, the set-up.)

Anyway, yeah, so things always happen in a context, a sequence, though sometimes things seem a non sequitur, seem not to follow. Now I’m just overgeneralizing—blah. Blerg. So, I could draw boundaries around some things: walking the dog last night.

Back at 7:45 after adding Elmer’s craft glue to that front reinforcing strip (see pages 2-3) and then I let the book, this book, lie under weight and I annotated pocket pages. And so now I’m back and I have several things to write about. Watching 5 episodes of season one of The Detour last night (on demand)—Jason Jones and Natalie Zea. It’s a pretty funny show.

[From journal of Sun., 29 Jan. 2017, Journal 245, page 164-5]

Maybe I’ll try using the paper-bag journal next, you know? I’ve made a few kraft-paper books before but haven’t used them. I guess I’m afraid it’ll be hard to write. I’ll need thicker markers on the dark paper—though it won’t likely be any coarser than that narrow book of watercolor paper I used last year for journal. And maybe kraft paper is acidic and won’t last more than a few years. Eh, so what? Why not give it a shot?

Just now dog’s outside and in the sun in R___’s yard between our houses, and E__ had his drone flying and kids at B____s’ were out and it’s sunny and nice out, really.

Ok, reading online, Wikipedia—”kraft” means strength. A German process. Lower lignin and less acid (mostly NaOH, sodium sulfide) but there are chems used for anti-tearing properties, possibly including urea formaldehyde and/or melamine formaldehyde. So, shoot, I don’t know if it’s OK to use and keep or not —but probably it’s no big deal.

Just got the sound-ding of an email—from D__! Maybe I’ll wait and read it later, keep it as a treat for later.

[From journal of Sun., 19 Februaree 2017, Journal 246, page 249-50]

Oh, I wrote “paper” on my arm—I think that was about how really all I was getting from the Recorder’s office (and from every other source) was that it’s really not the paper I need but the info from it (which info can be digitized, of course). The old documents—some of the thick papers (the linen finish of the 1872 map—and why so many blank pages?) are neat, but I don’t know.  Maybe there was a better point last night when I write “paper” on my arm—or maybe it was half-baked even then.

Ah, well. So, it’s Thanksgiving. I’m alive. M’s door-opening sound I just heard, then floor creaks, then carpet-scuffles, then M’s sigh. I’ve been writing her sounds, and not looking at her but peripherally—she came and kissed my neck.

[From journal of Thurs., 23 Nov. 2017, Journal 263, page 105-6]

This weekend I followed my feelings, which said, “no, I don’t want to do anything more.” I didn’t stitch that third block of grocery-bag signatures, I didn’t glue that Xmas ad-flyer onto the second stitched-but-uncovered set of signatures, and I didn’t photograph filled journals, though I considered doing that, too.

So, yeah—it’s a quiet weekend. And that’s OK. At least I got a little more sleep than usual. Here’s hoping we don’t have to drive into city for Thanksgiving on Thursday—though I remember Aunt D__’s voice from recent years telling me to drive in (her point being that M lives here with me alla time—we can do her family thing on holidays).

So, yeah—6:32 [a.m.]– I gotta go poop the dog and shower. Skip the shave. Get to school on time for faculty meeting.

There were blue outside lights at A___’s this morning—in support of that Rockford cop killed a couple weeks ago. But damn, they don’t give off much light. But as Rockford firesfighter, he [A__] wanted to show his support for police. I haven’t seen blue lights at the L__ house, where Rockford cop lives, in our ‘hood.

And so, here I am, a little tired but ready to face my day. Today won’t be too tough, I don’t think. I can type up notes 1st hour so kids can use these. I feel OK. I’m ready to go work. I’m not dreading it or anything.

I wasn’t entirely unproductive. I did three loads laundry. I cut an onion for M as she made chili in p.m. I ate leftover pizza for late lunch and Reese’s Chips Ahoy in p.m. No chili for me.

[From journal of Mon., 20 Nov. 2017, Journal 263, page 69-71]

And I all day felt like I had something else to say about the meeting—I did have one idea soon after (I couldn’t write—I’ve been told not to write during meetings, indirectly by __, more directly by __) that I can’t defend the undefined in words and arguments—since arguments depend on definitions, trying to mount a defense of my classes by saying what’s defined (in curriculum and rubrics) can never matter all that much—I didn’t do that yesterday.

( __ doesn’t seem to like standards-based grading. … But even he probably wouldn’t defend my idea that my sensibility, my mind, my interactions with students matter more than any curriculum plans.)

So, yeah, I felt I had nothing all that useful to add. S.B.G. doesn’t seem all that great—it doesn’t seem worth all the effort. I see __’s point that having specific standards gives a teacher specific things to tell kids to work on—a narrower diagnosis. He even said … that his model is a coaching model. But we coach kids (others) to improve at specific skills, skills that are pre-defined, like shooting a basket, whereas in my open-definition class, kids could do better work than I could imagine—or at least my assignments wouldn’t be too narrow. See, and even as I write that, I’m thinking of kids who did half-assed jobs on their assignments—that’s not admirable.

But as M expressed within recent months—if a lit class is gonna be about anything, it should be ideas, not skills. As I let the dog in a few mins ago, I thought how the Odyssey isn’t really all that psychologically complex—my sophs can mostly get it, understand Ody’s motives. I read something recently, a brief interview with Alain de Botton (I think), where he said a big problem now is that people think what’s popular is not related to what’s true. Alain said we ought to be able to use popular modes to teach/lead others to truth. I’m not sure I agree with that, for several reasons (I’m not sure there is truth, for one—though of course that isn’t to justify Trump telling lies).

Anyway, I still haven’t said much about the meeting. I will say that it felt odd, a little odd, to sit there and not say anything. … But save your comments—when you used to make those comments, you were probably leading the group off track. You weren’t being helpful.

[From journal of Tues., 2 May 2017, Journal 250, page 110-11]