Higher Education Observer

On a lark, I went to this website: http://howmuchdotattooscost.com/ Oh, my.  I had no idea tattoos were that expensive.  Am I the only one who wants to have this conversation? Student:  Mrs. Tucker, I don't have a textbook.  What book do we need. Me:  It's the fifth week of the semester.  It's on the syllabus.  How have you gotten this far into the semester without a book. Student:  I didn't have the money. Me:  How much did you pay for that tattoo? Student:  $700. Me:  And you can't afford textbooks? Granted, textbooks are expensive, often ridiculously.  But so are the tattoos. I learned a long time ago that for most people in this country, money and affording are a matter of priorities.  I had a coworker who complained about $80.00 for taking her child to the doctor and getting a prescription but had no problem with spending $1000 for fancy office furniture that she didn't need.  People on food stamp...

I have sat through several workshops--and read some of the main books, such as Jean Twenge's Generation Me --on Millennials.  These were enlightening and this post is by no means a criticism of them.  It is vital that we older profs realize that the students in our classes see the world quite differently from how we do. They see technology differently; work ethic differently; their free time differently; relationships differently; church and spirituality differently; formality differently; disciplines and knowledge acquisition differently; sexuality differently; politics and social justice differently; the purpose of their education differently; the professors' roles differently.  Well, they may see some of these, if not all, differently.  And let me add that not all millennials are created equally.  My son is smack dab in the middle of the millennial generation--born in 1988--and some of these are true of him and some not at all.   My point being ...

Last semester I participated, and to some extent helped to lead, an effort on our campus to redesign courses.  This was related to the Red Balloon project of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, which is about reimagining undergraduate education. Needless to say, reimagining undergraduate education, or redesigning it, either in part or in full, is an important, difficulty, and probably very needed endeavor.  It can get a little hopeless for your average college instructor/professor/lecturer to really tackle it, but each of us can look long and hard at what we do in the classroom, at whether it is really working, and whether there is a better way to do at least some of it. We had a speaker come in last week to sort of summarize a lot of what we have been doing.  She was very good (won't write the name here, but it was well worth attending).  For myself, I have somewhat redesigned my traditional section of COMM 1110 (but kept the hybrid sect...

All my materials are in for the doctoral program.  I tried to do this five years ago, had medical problems and panic attacks, and chickened out, and have beat myself up over it for years.  A colleague has been very encouraging about trying this executive style program at UGA.  I'm going to go for it, if I am accepted.  All my materials are in and I took the GRE again.  I am very proud of the fact that I scored in the 99 percentile in writing, 97 in verbal reasoning, and 53 in math.  Now the first two make sense since I have two M.A. degrees in verbal-oriented subjects, but the 53 in math is pretty cool since I haven't had a math class since 1971.  Yes, that's right, 40 years ago.  And the first time I took the GRE in 2004 I was in the 22 percentile! The secret:  Khan Academy videos.  Really.  They are awesome.  Second, a booklet on the web for studying the math needed for the GRE.  Here:  http://www.ets.org/Media/T...

This book, I believe published in 2011, and written by Michelle Dipietro et al, is fabulous.  New teachers and veteran teachers both must read it.  Unfortunately, it is expensive; I got mine through interlibrary loan. I am applying to an Ed.D. program at UGA.  I hope . . ..  .

I will be speaking on creative fiction writing and my own writing journey at the Catoosa County Library on Sunday, November 13, at 2:00.  I will also read from my work and sign books.

The article below is from Chuck Colson's organization, Breakpoint Ministry.  It is a totally different look at Millennials. I have sat through, and read, countless presentations on the Millennial generation, the good and bad.  Usually these presentations revolve around Millennials' use of (dependence on) technologies, their different views of knowledge and knowledge acquisition (learning), their different work ethic (not bad, just differently motivated), and other issues related to college classroom pedagogy.  It is important information, and I would encourage anyone unfamiliar with it to get cracking.   I have a Millennial at home, and some of what I hear is true of him, some of it is not, because he was raised by two old farts who didn't want him to be a product of his generation.  We didn't have cable till he was 17, and he was expected to work and pay his own bills, etc.  But what is below is true of him and his work situation, and it is causing h...