Saying goodbye to a 120-year-old failed technology
I’m finally doing it this semester. I’m getting rid of grades in my writing classroom. It’s been a long time coming. As with many things, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has pushed it over the edge. Why continue supporting a 20th-century technology that demonstrably does not work?
Honestly, I’ve tried to…
Not just another collection about writing …
You may be thinking to yourself, “What?! Another collection about writing on Medium? Give me a break.” 🙄
In a way, I am rolling my eyes with you. Do a quick search on writing, and you’ll see that Medium is saturated with writing…
Understanding cultures of critique
“How dare you? I’m almost twice your age.” I received this response from a student in my early days of teaching. I often taught at a community college where at least half my students were twice my age. Middle-aged adults don’t always take criticism well from a freshly-minted college graduate.
…
Try subtracting the cats
To many of us, this question seems preposterous. 2+2 = 4. Right? How can that be racist?
To be honest, I hadn’t thought much about this myself until a family member shared a quote from a Fox News story about a new teacher training initiative in Oregon. Presumably the link…
An exercise in finding real discussion
No matter what political party you support, logical fallacies don’t really change. In the past week, I’ve seen several posts attempting to “bookmark” the status of our economy for our future selves. This will show up in four years as a Facebook memory, so we can compare just how worse…
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A Smart note about empathy
“Empathy requires inquiry as much as feeling” (Jamison, 2014, pp. 5–6). To truly be empathetic, we must research, ask questions, and explore people’s experiences. For example, I might be sympathetic towards students and their struggles with COVID-19’s effects on education. I might even understand what those struggles might be. But…
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A smart note about empathy
Empathy comes from the Greek word, empatheia, or “into feeling” (Jamison, 2014, p.36). To be empathetic doesn’t mean just feeling sorry for someone. True empathy is about entering into a person’s pain, like entering another room or another country. True empathy requires movement … not just action. You might feel…
Late-night isn’t dead … it just smells like it
Though I’m sad to see Conan leaving the late-night arena, I must admit that I haven’t watched much of his TBS show since the pandemic … well, since my partner and I had twins, actually. In high school, I forced myself to stay awake so I could watch Late Night…
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A smart note about information metaphors
Print metaphors no longer work in the digital age. Stop thinking in pages! For centuries, we’ve used books as a metaphor to structure our experience … at least in that thing we call “Western Civilization.” Before that, we used speech and other forms of experience to structure our experience.
In…
I like this idea of using Yoga poses as a metaphor for the writing process. It makes me think of both activies as techne or a skill that is highly contextual. I would be really interested in hearing more about how writers might apply yoga philosophy to our mindset or approaches. For example, I think there is a principle called "do no harm," which might help us understand the peer review process better. Or maybe maybe Shiva can help us destroy our writing so we can start anew 😉.
By the way, you might try submitting some of these to Age of Awareness (a Medium collection). They would like this kind of thing.
