Cultural Dimensions

Decoding the Rules of Conversation

By Pamela Druckerman

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/opinion/decoding-the-rules-of-conversation.html

Ms. Druckerman’s essay resonates at two levels.

At the most basic, she is an unusually intelligent person, a gifted writer and, I would speculate, a very pleasant person to be around.

Me, The Great

Sylvia and I were discussing relatives during our beach walk the other day, and I realized that most of the people I called “aunt,” and “uncle,” were in fact “great” aunts and uncles.

And this led me to realize that, thanks to Alex and Kate Didion, I am also a Great Uncle.

Remembering that ambassadors and former ambassadors get to be called “ambassador” no matter where they are, I now wish to be addressed as “His Excellency, Garrison The Great Uncle.”

It Must Be Very Sad When Children Start School

“It must be very sad when your children start school.”

I stared blankly. A moment ago I’d been asleep on the couch, then the doorbell rang and here was this tall, blond man, blathering about school. Odd, but I had to respond…

Russia’s Ukrainian Disaster

Nearly everyone believes the best way to solve problems is careful discussion among reasonable, rational people. Unfortunately, political conflicts often produce emotional dimensions that have the ability to sweep away exchanges of this kind, and the long-term crisis in Ukraine is a case in point.

What if reasonable, rational people on each side were able to bypass the politicians and sit down to develop a solution?

No Child Left Behind is a Sideshow

The New York Times editorial of February 21, 2015 (“Don’t Give up the Gains in Education” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/opinion/sunday/dont-give-up-the-gains-in-education.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0 ) makes reasonable arguments if you are willing to accept its very traditional premise:  the school is the locus of educational improvement.

But recent research challenges that premise.

Martial Arts, Grit, and Education Reform

After decades of failing to change education by “fixing schools,” some in the U.S. are beginning to look beyond the closed loop of the classroom and consider the attitudes students bring both directly to school as well as to the whole concept of education and learning.

Flipped Out Over Flipping

I’ve finally had it. I can’t stand it any more. I just saw another serious academic article touting the benefits of the “flipped classroom.”

This last one was one too many. I flipped out.

Measuring The Inexpertise of Experts

A recent story quoted two professors at the University of Illinois as saying that many self-described education experts weren’t actually experts. The professors determined this by first looking at people quoted in the media on education reform, then looking to see how many had Ph.D.s and then running their names against databases containing research citations. It seems that lots of published and popularly cited experts were under-credentialed.

I’m not impressed with the study.

Martial Arts and the Italian Door

In another essay, I described how the support and encouragement of others made it possible for me to succeed in taekwondo. One interesting little vignette was left out of that story, for the excellent reason that it’s not relevant to the main message. But it is fun, so here it goes.

Playing with Languages

Everyone has plans for retirement, and a key goal for me was refreshing some of the foreign languages I’d studied.

I’ve dabbled in lots of languages, including exotics like Albanian and Hungarian, but wanted to be reasonable and focus on restoring ability in the languages I knew the best:  French, Romanian, and Bulgarian.

Motivation and Sports

In the initial round of college football’s first playoff, players at favored Alabama and Florida State knew they had to do well to win, but saw the real challenge as the next game—against each other.

By contrast, players at the underdogs, Oregon and Ohio State, believed they would need to have an exceptional performance to win.

Rental Car Journal

A Review of the Chevrolet Malibu, Hyundai Sonata, and Chrysler 200

During the last month, I’ve had the experience of driving three of the major entries in the American market’s fiercely competitive mid-size market. These vehicles, all of which I drove courtesy of rental companies, give an interesting window into the state of the automobile industry today.

Fitness Follies and the Apple iWatch

The iWatch is scheduled for April of 2015.

And CEO Tim Cook is telling us it will sharply improve our fitness.

Don’t Give In to Poverty

James Harvey of the National Superintendents Roundtable has provided some valuable insights into the international education rankings that are so often used to bash the U.S.

And Thus Spake Google

The humanities are under attack. Enrollments are plummeting, tax cutting zombies in state legislatures are looking for more reasons to cut higher education funding and, most worrisome, a national panel of distinguished persons has published a report.

As an historian and former lesser deanlet in a college with the word “humanities” in its official title, I find the attacks discouraging. And, as someone who writes about technology, I can see further dangers. Specifically, is computer technology in general, and Google in particular, going to destroy the role of the humanities in studying foreign countries and cultures? Even foreign languages themselves? Is French writer Fabien Cazenave right to suggest Google’s Translate software as a solution to the EU’s multiplicity of languages?[i]

In Memory of Roger Blair

Roger Blair was a wonderful friend for 44 years.

We met through mutual acquaintances and got along extremely well though we couldn’t have been more different in personality and in interests.

Links!

TOTAL F*ING MAGIC

All You Need to Know about Computers and Telecommunications

If you’re uncomfortable reading news about computers and telecommunications, if you feel like you can’t quite get up to speed with what’s happening in this interesting and important area, Total F*ing Magic is the place to start. http://www.total-fing-magic.com/

You Can Do a Biography or Autobiography. And It Can Be Affordable http://www.partners-for-writers.com/