Tag Archives: human nature

Self-reliance

After having listened to 10th and 11th graders running for student council for next year, I am struck by two things.  The first is that as a whole, they tend to be more creative without being offensive than they used … Continue reading

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Teaching 2015 (review)

Below is a set of notes to myself at the start of the last school year.  The start of this year seems an appropriate time to review them. This document is an attempt to put together some things I know … Continue reading

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Take-aways from 1.19.16 English class

You may remember that I made a Google form to ask students what the “major take-away” of the class was and what question(s) remained after the discussion. I give the responses below; at this point, I leave the lessons to … Continue reading

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Letters to a freshman

A friend of mine in his first year of college periodically writes to get my opinion on things he hears and talks about at college.  He sent me a recent email questioning some statements from one of his courses.  His … Continue reading

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Ten influential books

The “10 influential books” meme is going around Facebook right now, so here are mine.  They’re not all on the list for the same reason(s), and after Lord of the Rings, in no particular order.  It is definitely the single most … Continue reading

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Plato or postmodern?

I started reading Rebecca Goldstein’s Incompleteness on Kurt Godel and his theorems—and life. It’s more a “popularization of science” text than anything else, which is not what I wanted. However, one interesting point has already emerged. Assuming she’s right, both … Continue reading

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“… a tall blond man”

The third paragraph of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man starts with the following lines: One night, I accidentally bumped into a man, and perhaps because of the near darkness he saw me and called me an insulting name.  I sprang at … Continue reading

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Assume a cow is a sphere…

In my previous post on Emerson, I noted that  I am reading Cornel West’s The American Evasion of Philosophy and while he self-admittedly has a political position to make with his book, his opening section shows a much more complete portrait … Continue reading

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Emerson

I am reading Cornel West’s The American Evasion of Philosophy and while he self-admittedly has a political position to make with his book, his opening section shows a much more complete portrait of Emerson’s thought than either the Self-Reliance or American Scholar essay … Continue reading

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Some go up and some go down?

A response to the question posed in the previous post: We had a brief moment when we were moving toward social literacy in computing. At St. John’s, it occurred thirty years ago, and I remember it clearly because it was … Continue reading

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