Monday, February 20, 2006

I Want My Mommy! aka The Gen Y Mantra

An article from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/02/17/ariz
A good friend sent this to me. Needless to say, I'm stunned.

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Avoid Whatever Offends You
When faculty leaders talk about the various versions of the Academic Bill of Rights circulating among state legislators, many single out a bill in Arizona as the worst of all.

The legislation there would require public colleges to provide students with “alternative coursework” if a student finds the assigned material “personally offensive,” which is defined as something that “conflicts with the student’s beliefs or practices in sex, morality or religion.” On Wednesday, the bill starting moving, with the Senate Committee on Higher Education approving the measure — much to the dismay of professors in the state.
The Arizona bill goes beyond the measures that have been pushed in other states — in fact it goes so far that David Horowitz, the ’60s radical turned conservative activist who has pushed the Academic Bill of Rights, opposes the measure. “It doesn’t respect the authority of the professor in the classroom,” he said. “This authority does not include the right to indoctrinate students or deny them access to texts with points of view that differ from the professor’s. But it does include the right to assign texts that make students feel uncomfortable.”
Horowitz’s opposition to the bill is of little comfort to professors in Arizona. Although the legislation has a long way to go before it could become law, the idea that the Senate committee charged with overseeing colleges would approve the measure is upsetting to academics. They are also angry because the evidence cited by lawmakers to support the bill appears to be based on a misreading of an acclaimed novel.
The sponsors of the bill did not respond to messages seeking comment. But local news coverage of the session at which the bill won committee approval quoted Sen. Thayer Verschoor as citing complaints he had received about The Ice Storm, a novel by Rick Moody that was turned into a film directed by Ang Lee. “There’s no defense of this book. I can’t believe that anyone would come up here and try to defend that kind of material,” Verschoor said at the hearing, according to The Arizona Star. Other senators spoke at the hearing, the newspaper reported, against colleges teaching “pornography and smut.”
Actually, there are plenty who would defend teaching The Ice Storm, including the professor whose course appears to have set off Verschoor. The course — at Chandler-Gilbert Community College — was “Currents of American Life,” a team-taught course in the history and literature of the modern United States. The literature that students read is selected to reflect broad themes of different eras, according to Bill Mullaney, a literature professor. For example, students read John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.
The Ice Storm was a logical choice for teaching about the 1970s, Mullaney said, because the novel looks at suburban life at a crucial point in that decade: the collapse of the Nixon administration. While two families’ lives are dissected, Watergate is always in the background and the relationship between private morality and public scandal is an important theme.
Adultery is central to the novel and one of its most famous scenes involves a “key party,” in which couples throw their car keys in bowl, and then pull out keys to decide which wife will sleep with which husband (not her own) after the party. From comments at the Senate markup of the bill, it seems clear that lawmakers had heard about the wife swapping, but Mullaney and others doubt that they actually read the book. If they had, they might have realized that Moody’s portrayal of ’70s culture is far from admiring.
“The book is a satire of this culture,” Mullaney said. “There are these incredible moments of human connection that get through the morass of ’70s culture. But if you read the section on wife swapping, it’s showing how empty and unfulfilling and morally corrupt it is. So for these legislators to believe that this book is condoning wife swapping, the sad part is that they are passing this bill and they haven’t read the book.” (Privately, some faculty members less charitable than Mullaney think that the legislators may have read the book and just not understood it.)
Chandler-Gilbert officials said that Mullaney and all of their professors take a number of steps that indicate that they do respect students’ rights to avoid certain material. Mullaney, for example, had a reference on his syllabus to the controversial nature and “adult themes” of some works, and he draws students’ attention to that reference on the first day, when they have time to switch courses or sections. In the case of the student whose complaint apparently set off the bill, however, he ignored the warning and demanded an alternate book several weeks into the course, saying he hadn’t paid attention when Mullaney noted the material earlier. The student’s mother also called the college president (although the student is over 18).
Mullaney said that he respects the right of students to decide which courses to take, but that students can’t dictate books to be taught. “This is totally unworkable in the classroom,” he said. “If you have students demanding alternative books, and one student is reading one book, and one another, and one another — it doesn’t make any sense in terms of how you teach.”
If the bill became law, he added, professors would have to avoid controversial books so they wouldn’t risk losing control of their reading lists. “I joke that what I’ll do is just teach To Kill a Mockingbird — all the time,” he said.
Faculty and administrative groups are opposing the bill. Janice Reilly, president-elect of the Maricopa Community College District Faculty Association, said that the bill “very much infringes on academic freedom.” Reilly, a professor of counseling at Mesa Community College, said that “students have their own personal responsibilities” to pick courses, and that expecting professors to alter courses “hurts other students,” who want the emphasis on the original material.
Arizona State University has also come out against the bill. A statement from the university said that the bill is “overreaching” and that “informal processes” deal with any problems that come up with students who are uncomfortable with material. The university said that it hoped further discussions with legislators could produce a solution that deals with their concerns while also “protecting the academic enterprise.”
The Arizona Daily Star quoted Senator Verschoor as acknowledging that additional negotiations might be needed. He said that he doubted colleges would follow the bill’s provisions now “because of the whole academic freedom thing.”
To many, that “whole academic freedom thing” is indeed the crux of the matter. Mullaney said that a positive aspect of having his reading assignment get this attention has been the “unbelievably supportive” way his college’s president, Maria Hesse, and other administrators have backed him.
And he said that the experience has reinforced for him the value of teaching. “This all was a little difficult at first, with a flurry of e-mails attacking the college and my integrity,” he said. “But the more I’ve learned about academic freedom, the more sure I am that what I’m doing is right and that it matters — to teach students to think critically, to help students come a little bit out of their comfort zones.”
For now, at least, that’s still allowed.
Scott Jaschik

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My rant...

Ya know, I really must be turning into an old lady. I don't get this Gen Y at all or their parents for that matter. More than once, I've stumbled upon articles that emphasize the strange "passive aggressiveness" of this particular group. (I can't think of a better description, sorry.) They are very demanding, such as the case of the new Gen Y employee that was turned down for a promotion. But are so dependent on their parents when something goes wrong. This same Gen Y employee had his mother call HR and demanded to schedule a meeting with his boss to find out why her son was "unfairly" denied the new position. GIVE ME A FRICKEN BREAK!

I've also had my run ins with this particular group at work. They know everything; I'm old and stupid. They are argumentative and show a lack of respect. ("I'm right so f*** you!") Hmm... sounds vaguely familiar. My middle-school math students and their parents?? Of course, I know that not ALL students/persons that fall within this bracket (born between the years 1978-2000) are like this.

Something interesting from Wikipedia...

"As members of Generation Y begin to enter the nation's colleges and universities in large numbers some of their Baby Boomer parents are becoming helicopter parents. Many college advisors and administrators worry that this could have a negative effect on Generation Y's social progress, ego, and developing maturity."[7] (The link to helicopter parents is an interesting read in itself.)

Maybe it's just selfishness on my part... Who's going to take care of us if this group can't take care of itself??

Just a thought or two,
Mon :-)

Saturday, February 18, 2006

These are so stupid but I'm more stupid for being addicted to them...

I am nerdier than 43% of all people. Are you nerdier? Click here to find out!

I am 42% loser. What about you? Click here to find out!


The Stupid Quiz said I am "Pretty Smart!" How stupid are you? Click here to find out!

A young man named Corey...

I hadn’t posted in awhile, especially anything about myself (online journal), which was the whole point of starting the blog in the first place. So I’ll start with something that happened the other night.
I was watching the Olympics, good background noise when playing Literati on Yahoo. There was a knock on the door and thought it might be the neighbor. For some reason I didn’t check the peephole and answered it anyway, a “salesman”.
Now I use the term loosely as he could not have been more than 16 or 17 years old. The speech was canned and choppy at best. The part of the spiel that caught my attention was that he was “selling magazines for points”. I struck up a conversation and although he seemed less nervous, he remained polite, “Yes ma’am, no ma’am” and so forth.
Being the nosy person that I am, I asked him if he was in school.
“Yes ma’am, I want to study computer programming.”
“Are you staying out of trouble?”
“Yes ma’am.”
I continued browsing through the magazine listing and tried to find the least expensive subscription; wouldn’t you know it was Catholic Digest. Remembering how tough it was when I sold insurance door-to-door in rural West Texas, I asked him how his sales were going.
“Ma’am, I thank you for just looking. I told everyone that I would get at least one sale tonight and I’ve been knocking on doors for the last three hours. You’re the only person who has taken the time to listen to me.”
I gave him a couple of sales tips and we continued our conversation as I filled out a check. I can’t remember what led to the next comment… “You must have a good job to live in these nice apartments.” I agreed and suddenly felt like I did when I was teaching. The kids always presumed, at least in the Title I schools that teachers were rich and that money was no object. In a sense, it was true. Transported back to my hometown of Lubbock, Texas by that comment, I thanked him but added that I’ve had to work really hard to get to where I am.
I shared with him about the winter when our gas and electricity was cut off. (Lubbock is colder than a witch’s tit or so the saying goes.) Fortunately, we had kind neighbors that let us run one of those long, orange extension cords from their house to our one bedroom to plug in an electric heater. I can’t even imagine every going back to that place and time, it still amazes me. He laughed in a way that said “I’m with you! I totally understand!”
Corey became more interested and asked about my first job. I told him that I was desperate to work so my mom “altered” my birth certificate so that I could get a work permit. (You had to be 15; I had just turned 14.) I loved my brown polyester Taco Bell uniform and for the first time in my life, I felt as if I had some control.
The neighbor I was expecting came by so I told her that I’d be over in a minute. Corey thanked me for the sale and appreciated the visit. I hoped that in that short “teachable moment” that he knew that as long as he continued to work and persevere, he would have a chance to change his own life.
I thank God for the opportunity to become humbled. Before he walked away, happy as a lark, I wished him well and said “God Bless.” By his response, I could tell that he had at least one God-fearing bone in his body and that a parent or grandparent was teaching him well. “Work hard and have faith,” I reminded him as he walked away.
“Thank you, ma’am!”

In only three questions?

Your Personality Is

Idealist (NF)


You are a passionate, caring, and unique person.
You are good at expressing yourself and sharing your ideals.

You are the most compassionate of all types and connect with others easily.
Your heart tends to rule you. You can't make decisions without considering feelings.

You seek out other empathetic people to befriend.
Truth and authenticity matters in your friendships.

In love, you give everything you have to relationships. You fall in love easily.

At work, you crave personal expression and meaning in your career.

With others, you communicate well. You can spend all night talking with someone.

As far as your looks go, you've likely taken the time to develop your own personal style.

On weekends, you like to be with others. Charity work is also a favorite pastime of yours.

You're such a card...

You scored as Big Slick. You are the comrades in arms, best buddies Big Slick - Ace-King. Not prone to rash decisions, you are impeccable, recognize a good opportunity, but won't procede unless the conditions aren't just right and you have gathered all the evidence.

The Hammer

69%

Big Slick

69%

Pocket Kings

63%

Pocket Queens

56%

Pocket Aces

50%

What starting Hold 'Em hand are you?
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Thursday, February 02, 2006

Hey, I'm a Lesbian! (You know she is!)

Pppermint Patty
You are Peppermint Patty! Peppermint Patty is a pro on the baseball diamond, but in the classroom she's a D-minus all the way. Bold, brash and tomboyish, what she lacks in common sense she makes up for in sincerity. She's the only one who calls Charlie Brown "Chuck." Oblivious to much that goes on around her, for a long time she seemed unaware that the funny-looking kid who plays shortstop" was a beagle. She has trouble staying awake in class; most of her waking hours in the schoolroom are spent analyzing the probability patterns of true-false tests.

Which of the Peanuts Characters Are You?
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