. Spinning .

Lisa’s comment on Facebook this morning catches me cold:

Instantaneous access to information appears to be eroding our ability to thoughtfully reflect.

And it makes me stop and think. And try to form an opinion by experience. When I read, for example, I avoid going online (unless absolutely necessary, like with your first Faulkner) to seek help in understanding a book. Obviously I wouldn’t be running to the library to do this in pre-internet days but that’s not why I’m avoiding assistance; I want to be untainted by other interpretations and to see it based on my own experience of life, other readings, etc. But the thing is, is that I could indeed find anything I needed within minutes and get a whole slew of opinions and insight and angles that would help form my own take on things.

Steve points out another potential problem of technology referred to in an article by Kevin Kelly as they explore the nature of the beast and weigh the arguments against with some unfounded probabilities and very viable benefits. As Steve notes, there is a dearth of agreed-upon definition in trying to assess its impact. And the scale is tipped often merely by preference or what is given up in acceptance of replacement. Would you rather drive a Ferrarri or get there by horseback? On the other hand, your Ferrarri, no matter how shiny and red, doesn’t nuzzle you looking for sugar or run with mane flying across open fields.

Volleyball team going to court after filing a lawsuit against the college for cutting the sport? Equal Opportunity? Only reason they came to Quinnipiac College? For crying out loud, don’t these kids know that there’s an economic crisis going on? Why don’t they stay, maybe apply themselves to book-larnin’ instead, and then go out and compete for jobs some day. I sure hope their parents are paying for at least their side of the court costs and legal fees.

Look, I sympathize with what must be a very, very disappointing decision (almost kind of like, you know, losing your job or your house or stuff) but we all are making sacrifices–or an awful lot of us are. Meanwhile, we made it without the major baseball league playing and I think we can survive a year without QU volleyball.

I really, really need to stop reading the news. This, from the White House Blog on making college more attainable:

The fact that well over one million students who could qualify for aid went without it during the 2003-2004 school year is one indication that the application process is too complicated. Furthermore, students who do not apply for aid due to the complexity of the process may be discouraged from applying to college at all, reducing college attendance rates. As a result, the complicated process works at cross-purposes with our goal of increasing college attendance and completion. Experts widely agree that the system is in need of change. There are two broad strategies to simplify the financial aid application process that are currently under discussion.
One strategy is to make it easier to complete the current form. For example, according to The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS), about two-thirds of the questions on income and assets that are included in the FAFSA form can be automatically answered using IRS data. This means that the U.S. Department of Education could obtain this information directly from the IRS, and the student or family would only be required to answer the remaining questions.

Uh, I know that some of these forms are a bitch, but they are do-able. Perhaps college isn’t the answer for everybody? Maybe being able to fill out the application can be used as part of the entrance exam?

Well we’ll have tons of graduates if that’s what they’re after; pay more government employees to fill the applications out ’cause they’re too hard, make sure that every student can comprehend and pass through four years to graduate (tough break for English teachers who will have to learn to adjust their expectations of reading and writing from students) and let’s pay for the whole kit and kaboodle too. Yeah, we’ll have a higher rate than those other countries once more. But what quality of graduate are we shoving out there?

Ronni Bennett has an excellent post up at Time Goes By referencing Ralph Keyes, writing in Editor & Publisher, wherein he advises writers against retrotalk, that is, phrases and idioms that many young people or immigrants may not be familiar with.

It’s just another example of lowering standards to meet the masses (and make them feel good about themselves–that “everybody is a star” philosophy that I think is so asinine) rather than raising the level of literacy and encouraging the masses to rise to meet it. I can hear the teachers screaming now, but come on, this has been a slowly degenerating process of learning for several decades now and I am in awe that no one understands the problem well enough to see the solution. As Ronni points out, if anything, these days there are faster, easier, more immediate ways of learning than ever before via the internet.

Frankly, I think that everyone would be better off–teachers, parents, and most importantly, the kids themselves–if more rather than less were expected of them. This, from a Washington Post article in which Susan Jacoby is quoted, should worry us:

“That leads us to the third and final factor behind the new American dumbness: not lack of knowledge per se but arrogance about that lack of knowledge. . .it’s the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place. Call this anti-rationalism — a syndrome that is particularly dangerous to our public institutions and discourse.”

It seems to me, that older generations, with their minds stuffed to overflowing on decades of words can still quickly pick up on all the new terminology that comes from each new concept and trend, then the younger ones can bother to go look up what they don’t immediately ‘get.’ Maybe something good will come of the knowledge.

Looking around for some quick short class setups for web design, code, digital art, and some specific software instruction (Tinderbox, In-Design, etc.) to maybe speed up my learning process here. It seems to take me forever to logic out a process on my own until I break down and bug somebody when I can’t come to or find via research the answers myself. And while I still have a few good years left in me, I realistically don’t have a lifetime ahead of me either. Wish I could just plop myself into a random but relative classroom seat, or be invisible and pop in without anyone knowing I’m there.

Just received a comment from someone whom I’d quoted via an article in one of my posts on the education system and today’s students and want to highlight it here as it has somewhat restored my faith in mankind, even as it points out another failing:

It is I- XXX, here to respond to you’re misled beliefs on this story. First of all, its true that I contacted an essay website, I was in a panic, and I wanted to give it a try. I never had any intention of turning in the paper custom-written for me because that would obviously be plagiarism. I was hoping that it would spur some ideas of my own because I was having a huge mental blank. The day after I hired the service, I wrote the paper myself and got a top 3 grade in the class. I realized that I do have the confidence and ability to write a good paper. Yes, I was wrong for attempting to ask someone to do my work for me, but hey I made a mistake, and I learned from it. My problem is with this reporter-Thomas Bartlett who like most reporters, never accurately record quotes. I NEVER said that it was acceptable to have someone research for you. Furthermore, I did not say I defend the idea of paid research either. This reporter took some of my words out of context and embellished it with his own words to prove his point. Talk about ethics, this reporter needs to check himself out. My professor actually refused to be included in this article because he thought the reporter had suspicious techniques for gaining and reporting information. In conclusion, I do not condone academic paid research or false statements by obnoxious reporters. I learned that reporters are like rappers- you can’t believe everything they say (they might be high on something).

I apologize to XXX as he claims he has been misquoted by the reporter and I believe that it is highly likely to be the case. And knowing that XXX is majoring in philosophy and religion, I would think that his intentions are pure and that the inexperience and judgment of youth had been the mitigating factors in his decisions and are highly forgivable.

However, I might suggest that this same youth factor has affected his reaction here as well in his suggestions that “Thomas Bartlett, who like most reporters, never accurately record quotes” and “I learned that reporters are like rappers- you can’t believe everything they say (they might be high on something).” would indicate a sweeping generalization and stereotyping of reporters (and rappers) that he no doubt instinctively finds as distasteful as plagiarism and twisting of facts in reporting. I’m also a bit wary of the excuse of “panic” and a “huge mental blank,” but I’m a hard-ass on cheating but have faith that XXX is on the right track.  As many philosophers have noted, there cannot be good without evil, and sometimes we all have to taste the bad to convince ourselves rather than believe someone else’s word–which as XXX has noted, cannot always be believed.

So thank you, XXX, I appreciate your honesty and willingness to come forward and wish you the best of success in all your achievements both at James Madison and your promising career ahead.

While I think I’ve neglected to properly acknowledge the accomplishments of Carolyn in getting into a special writing program at Vassar, I’d like to congratulate her now along with a big hip-hooray for Mary Ellen and her achievement of acceptance into the prestigious Writing Associates Program at Trinity.

Despite the general doom and gloom of lost jobs and the poor economy, it seems to be a good year for writers, and for these two ladies, along with Steve’s poetry being published, Lonnie Ann’s acceptance at her choice of art schools, and Josh & Kas’ good fortune, I’m really happy.

Yeah, and maybe a tad jealous.

Very disappointed to see that not only is hypertext or any other form of new media not represented at the Tunxis Writers Festival this year, but that the public is not being offered the ability to attend this community college function. Odd, at a college that’s ahead of many in stepping over the edge into the New Media field by offering two courses devoted to New Media, and many others such as Digital Animation that apply.

Maybe this all goes back to Dene Grigar’s essay on how hypertext, et al, is presented at the academic level, Electronic Literature, Where is It?, and whether it is a discipline unto itself or if its relationship to Literature, etc. is undeniable.

With the economy turning things upside down and the remedies themselves changing the playing field, many folks find themselves switching plans and directions out of necessity. From today’s msnbc, “Experts expect fewer manufacturing jobs, more health care work”:

This summer, Swank hopes to complete his Ph.D. in organizational management and leadership, shutter the metalworking shop he has run for 20 years and, if things go according to plan, take a teaching job.

I can’t help but hope that more of the stimulus money goes towards production of product though. Instead of forcing people, many who have decades of experience and skill in their fields, to compete with a younger more technically savvy work force, focusing on keeping factory skills inside the U.S. borders would be a major step in the right direction. And while many jobs transfer into health care administration, education, and construction, it’s not always a simple fact. Engineers with expertise in the design of  cars and airplanes are not automatically qualified to start building bridges and roadways, just as an Algebra instructor wouldn’t be expected to do as great a job in teaching Shakespeare.

From FactCheck.com:

Whether the education system in the U.S. has improved greatly or needs great improvement may depend on whether a president is nearing the end or just beginning his time in office.

Oh.

Or, maybe I finally found me a way to make some money.

Yes folks, plagiarism is a good option for students who are simply too stressed and busy to write their own papers. And now it seems that even this service has ended up as an outsource to India. I’ve noticed over the years of writing literary posts that there’s a stunning number of folks looking up (doing research?) on all the literature that I’ve myself posted upon. It’s a tipoff that either I hopefully have inspired someone or else they’re busy copy and pasting whole entries when they follow the posts on a particular novel or short story and spend some time reading the entries.

So why shouldn’t I get paid for them instead of giving them away free? The students don’t seem to think it’s wrong:

XXX paid Essay Writers $100 to research and write a paper on the parables of Jesus Christ for his New Testament class. XXX, a senior at James Madison University majoring in philosophy and religion, defends the idea of paying someone else to do your academic work, comparing it to companies that outsource labor. “Like most people in college, you don’t have time to do research on some of these things,” he says. “I was hoping to find a guy to do some good quality writing.”

See? They’re busy. Just too busy to do it themselves. Busy getting an education so that they can enter the real world and continue faking their intelligence there. Well, I guess they are learning something; how to use the internet to achieve your goals. And hey, if it fulfills my goal of making a living then it’s pure symbiosis. And there appears to be a huge market:

Some customers of Essay Writers are college freshmen who, if their typo-laden, grammatically challenged order forms are any indication, struggle with even the most basic writing tasks. But along with the usual suspects, there is no shortage of seniors paying for theses and graduate students buying dissertations.

And, I speak and write the English Language pretty grammatically correct:

She was not happy with the paper Essay Writers provided. It seemed, she says, to have been written by a non-native English speaker. “I could tell they were Asian or something just by the grammar and stuff,” she says.

Heh-heh. Yeah, I’d be good at this; my own papers have never been less than an A grade and I’m good at proper MLA or whatever citation form is required (mostly because I found time to learn and do it myself in college.  As Willie sings it: “Old age and treachery, always overcome youth and skill.”

While I agree with the concept of the Chronicle’s point that universities should include a more globally caring image in areas of what is taught in “anthropology, cultural studies, economics, ethics and sociology,” it does make one look deeper into the problem.

Perhaps because I happened upon this article just a couple days after this one on India’s situation I am questioning the lack of national loyalty and responsibility in other countries where this type of assistance and planning is so desperately needed. I’m certainly no expert on world affairs, and know little about India’s economics, but I do know that education is highly prized and that universities are growing in this country. Students there, as well as those students who have left India and have been studying and gaining their degrees in European and American universities certainly produce engineers that should consider this a priority and design sewer systems that will bring the serious health hazard of open defecation to a halt, bring the outlying areas of the major cities into the modern day standards of hygiene and create jobs at the same time.

I’m sure there is a need for more caring on the part of Americans to expand their efforts and ambitions beyond our shores, but to point to it as “America’s Shame” is a bit harsh. There’s another factor at play here; America, supposedly the greatest and most diverse nation in the world, has its own share of rightful shame.  Look under any overpass in New York City, any alley in Chicago and Detroit.

From Steve Sailer’s perspective on a Louis Soares article:

But, here’s a reform for making some degree of “college attainment” more feasible, one that I’ve never seen suggested before:

Why shouldn’t four year colleges give out two year Associates of Arts degrees?

Though it’s true that many job requirements specify “some college,” it’s not clear what that means to them except perhaps a maturity to take on the prospect. But there’s a difference between “some college” as a dropout of a four-year institution and the attainment of an Associates Degree.  Or is there?

As another semester starts I sink back down into the comfort of my couch and sigh. Every semester I scan the local community college course offerings with an eye on the New Media, English Lit and Writing, and one that I really find calling to me named 3D Digital Animation. Unfortunately, it's been consistently canceled for lack of student interest.

I don't understand this. This is in a school that regularly has student artwork of exceptional quality on display in the halls and an outstanding art faculty. What are these students striving toward? A sidewalk spot on the Champs de Elysees? The same situation that always affected the artist affects the writers–and there are many in the multitude of English classes available–that of having the unlikelihood of your talent and desire of a one-man show at a New York gallery or a 3-book publishing contract ever come to being. More likely, like the photographer who does weddings to keep him in film for Sunday tramps through the woods, the artist and writer up to now had few choices to make a living with his artistic talent. Up to now.

On tonight's local news I happened to catch a story on Blue Sky, an animation company that moved from New York into Connecticut lured by tax breaks and which has become a growing company looking to hire more workers in the future.  They do movies, but I've always felt that the best time was now for both artists and writers to fulfill their dreams and to put their talent to work with the number and manner of animation films both on the big screen and produced for internet viewing together with the growing need for expanded narrative video gaming.

Right now, in a bad economy, it appears that a check of the job listing on the Blue Sky site indicates a need for 17 positions. Yet right here in a Connecticut college, where an opportunity awaits young artists to develop their talents in a growing and exciting field, classes are canceled for lack of interest.

This is our future? — "Companies Trading Cash For Admissions Essay"

And UConn's Usher says he's not concerned?