[As I did a
couple years back, I wanted to start the fall semester by highlighting a
few of the things I’m working on and looking forward to this fall. For this
crowd-sourced post, I’m sharing some of the fall plans of fellow scholars and
friends—I’d love to hear about what you’ve got going on for the final few months
of 2014 in comments!]
First, one more
plan of mine: in mid-October, I’ll have the opportunity to be one of the social
media chroniclers of the Delange Conference
IX at Rice University. You’ll be able to read my live responses to that
important event and conversation on
Twitter, but I’ll be following it up with a mid-October series in this
space as well.
My colleague and
friend Kisha
Tracy follows up Thursday’s
post on FSU’s strategic planning with her own thoughts on the process: “One of the major
takeaways so far is the idea of what the ‘student of the future’ is going to
look like, particularly here at FSU (interesting
read). As Technology Working Group Chair, this has been on our minds, as
has the concept of what we want our culture here to be like (re: online courses
of varying kinds in particular). I've been collecting useful quotations
from readings here.”
Paul
Beaudoin follows up Kisha’s thoughts, adding, “I have lots of ideas about
the ‘Student of the Future,’ and in many places of the world, that student has
already arrived.”
AnneMarie
Donahue follows up my arguments for multilingualism in that post, noting, “Multilingualism is a not
only an asset to the student but is a core 21st Century Skill (a term I'm
slowly growing to loath as this is often just equated to technology based
education, but at core is a decent term). However, I would argue that
attempting to educate a student in an additional language at 18, 19, or 25
(which is the average age of the FSU student) is like closing the barn door
after the horse escaped. Multilingualism needs to start at a childhood
endeavor. If you are hoping to inspire a love of another culture, great
multi-cultural tolerance (another word that I just despise...if the best you
can offer your fellow man is tolerance, you aren't doing a good job at being
human) or if FSU's goal is simply to introduce students into a multicultural view
of America then there are better way than asking someone to sit through Spanish
I & II. I worry that I'm coming across a belligerently
ignorant in this love to not educate. I would have loved to learn another
language, but I'm learning disabled and learning languages is really difficult.
Colleges and universities by and large do not have plans in place for students
who, while determined and hard working, still have difficulties with
processing. Trust me, I know. This comes from a lifetime of working twice as
hard just to be a C+ student. Language
courses could be a great way to start a student looking at America as a
non-English primacy world. But there are other ways to do this without
compromising their curriculum or alienating processing deficient students.
Perhaps, if the goal is multi-culturalism and not multi-lingualism then a new
class or series of classes could be created to satisfy this.”
The great Ian Williams follows up my discussion of
blogs as scholarship in that same post, saying of this blog that it “exemplifies
thoughtful, timely scholarship—the delight of seeing a mind unfolding, not already
unfolded” (which may be the most pro-Ben thing I’ve ever posted here, and I
apologize, but I wanted to share it as a perspective on why blogs should be
treated and evaluated as such).
Another
colleague and friend, Heather Urbanski, shares some of her fall plans: she’s “working on
editing a new collection
for McFarland on Memory and Popular Culture (drafts are due in November)
and presenting a paper on The Hunger
Games and collective memory at the
Northeast PCA/ACA conference at the end of October.”
Jay Shaw notes, “My daughter is
auditioning for The Nutcracker this
Saturday. First ballet audition for her, big day for both of us.” That’s today,
Saturday 9/6, so make sure to send some good thoughts her way if you would!
Next series
starts Monday,
Ben
PS. So one more
time: what’s on your autumn agenda?
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