Sure, but not quite with Andy’s flying colors:

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got either 9/10 or 10/10 correct!

I choked at the last minute trying to remember the difference between a whole number and an integer. I guessed wrong. Otherwise, take that, oh skeptics of the humanities! I’m at a robust 12-year-old level!

EDIT: I’m trying to discover the difference between a whole number and an integer. Is there a difference? If so, what is it? If not, then the makers of the test may have stumbled. Some sources say whole numbers must be positive. Others say that whole number and integer are synonymous. I tremble to see this kind of uncertainty.

FURTHER EDIT: Ah, I see that I really did get 10/10 on the math quiz. This Wikipedia entry, which I have checked against other sites such as Wolfram, etc., makes it clear that “whole number” can mean the same as “integer.” Apparently the term “whole number” has become so ambiguous–positive integers, nonnegative integers, all integers?–that its use is now discouraged by some (many?) mathematicians.

It’s probably bad luck to start a Monday morning blog with a complaint, but the stately, measured, academic superficiality of this Commentary essay on the Beatles’ music makes me wonder if I really did live through decades of intense, involving popular music only to land somewhere back in 1960 with Chuck Berry in jail, Elvis in the Army, and Fabian ruling the charts. It’s difficult to point to any one thing that’s particularly dissatisfying about Teachout’s piece. It’s all just 25 degrees off the azimuth. Hailing “Yesterday” as the Beatles’ lyrical breakthrough seems utterly wrongheaded to me. Comparing Lennon/McCartney to Irving Berlin is not too bad, but where’s the Brill Building connection? The staid parenthetical note that The Beatles is “popularly known as the ‘white album'” appears to have been written by Mel Brooks’ 10,000 year old man. The implication that the “classically trained” George Martin alone was responsible for their increasing sophistication in the studio betrays a writer who’s apparently never seen or read a single interview with Martin, who insists that while his training was of tremendous use to the Beatles, it was they who pushed him in the studio. Martin has also noted, as have all the Beatles, that the sheer theatricality of much of the music (one of the reasons it still sounds so fresh today, in my view) has as much to do with Martin’s Goon Show heritage as with anything he learned at the Royal Academy of Music.

In short, Teachout’s essay seems to have been written in a vacuum, aside from his obligatory self-referentiality:

As I have written elsewhere:

Such famous albums as Glenn Gould’s 1955 recording of the Bach Goldberg Variations, Frank Sinatra’s Only the Lonely, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, or the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band are not attempts to simulate live performances. They are, rather, unique experiences existing only on record, and the record itself, not the music or the performance, is the art object.8

If those words had been written in 1971, I’d have thought them competent but obvious (set aside for a moment the ontological slippage in making “the record itself” so discrete). That they were first published in 2002 is astonishing. For whom, exactly, is this news, or even an interesting observation? Commentary? The Yale University Press?

Now for the larger question: aside from the pain Teachout’s essay causes me as a longtime devotee, even a scholar of this music, why am I so bothered by it?

Because it’s yet another example of the disconnect between a thriving and important culture and the dessicated culture that mediates it to the industry of education. There is indeed a freeze-dried quality to Teachout’s analysis that, coupled with its gobsmacking superficiality, simply betrays the energy and value of its subject. Can this cycle be broken? Will Web 2.0 undergo a similar dessication once our colleges and universities have retooled themselves into engagement factories? Obviously the subject matter does not necessarily transform the approach. What’s especially ironic is that the true sophistication of the Beatles’ music proves elusive for the one-size-fits-all sophistication of a critic like Teachout.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think the answer is to dismantle the curriculum. Perhaps one answer is to cast a wider rhetorical net that will raise to visibility the rich world of analysis and persuasion that surrounds us, even if it doesn’t originate within the academy.

Or not? Perhaps I’m simply putting too much weight on this example. Monday, Monday. Can’t trust that day.

Those are Jim Groom’s words, and I quote them (with implied ellipses that don’t fit well in a blog title) from his latest blog entry at bavatuesdays. Jim’s an Instructional Technology Specialist here at the University of Mary Washington and, along with five other ITSs and myself, a member of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies (the “DTLT” of “DTLT Blogs” on my blogroll at the right).

I quote Jim as a shout-out to a staffer who’s doing fascinating and important work, yes, but also because that quotation is the ethos I try to encourage as a manager and leader. It’s also the ethos I try to encourage as a professor. And it’s the ethos every one of the UMW ITSs lives every day.

For our task is herculean, and sometimes those proportions seem crushing. Often it seems as if we’ve blundered into the role of Atlas, a (I won’t say the) world upon our shoulders, and Atlas on an extended vacation. But of course Atlas had to stand still and take the weight on an immobile torso. He must have had a great view up there on that mountain, but it was the only view he’d ever have, unless he could lure another Hercules into range.

By contrast, we in DTLT are pretty much constantly on the move. We’re constantly finding new horizons, some of them right in front of us. That makes the weight of our tasks feel different, I think, and it makes our work, if not light, certainly joyous and, yes, exciting. At least sometimes. Sometimes, most of the time.

And as is evident from Jim’s post, from Martha’s moving account of the latest developments in the Theatre class project, from Andy’s constantly evolving expertise in multimedia presentation on the Web (he reminds me of the electronics expert in Mission, Impossible–or Q in the James Bond series–), from Jerry’s innovations in podcasting, Flickr, and wikis (and his scrupulous assessment of all the shiny toys), from Patrick’s guidance with all those codes (XML, XSL, RSS, Atom, URI, RDF) and the metadata they can contain, and from Lisa’s work with the College of Graduate and Professional Studies and its ongoing investigation of Web 2.0 tools and strategies, these folks are carrying a lot on their shoulders. They’re also working at some of the other herculean tasks: I seem to remember problems with a Hydra, and plenty of stable-cleaning to go around. But it’s hard to imagine a more rewarding mission: supporting, extending, and augmenting the academic excellence of this University. That excellence is the potential every one of our students and faculty sense, demonstrate, and help to create each day.

It’s a privilege to be part of these exciting herculean tasks. I won’t say we’re unique in facing them. In many respects, the academic enterprise is devoted to scaling those tasks ever upward for the entire community. But look at the strength it can bring us, when we work together.

Interesting conversation over at Steve’s Pedablogy site on what enables risk, and why teaching is such a walled garden even inside the university.

Rodney Brooks likes to take assumptions and negate them, so in that spirit and to play devil’s advocate, what if the problem is not that people aren’t thinking well about their teaching? What if the problem is that people aren’t thinking well about their professional work? Working on narrow topics and publishing things of interest to only a few could be a succinct definition of much of the blogosphere. What’s the difference? Why blog anyway? How do we get a “blogosphere” out of all the “b” blogs?

I’d submit that the difference is the way in which it’s obvious that one-to-few or few-to-few communications over the Internet are still parts of the conversation. It’s obvious that the work we little bloggers are doing is part of something much larger. The apparatus of higher education has managed to obscure that truth about the professional work we do. We can’t even find that “something much larger” on our own campuses, or reflect it in our curriculum, or foster it in our interaction with colleagues, much less find a way to demonstrate it to the world.

Unless we can find a way to demonstrate that “something much larger” to the public, why should we expect the public to offer support for our specialized expertise and labor? And why should we expect students to understand the point of their contact with us? It may be heresy to say this, but I worry that too much emphasis on pedagogy per se addresses a symptom instead of the real illness(es).

I apologize for the duplication of content from the distributed conversation regarding iTunes U, but I thought it might be interesting to post my five “what would it take for me to be satisfied with iTunes U?” items here and invite comment, additions, deletions, etc. to the list. With apologies to Martin Luther, then, here are my five theses.

I will be grudgingly satisfied:

1. if Apple makes it easy to copy URLs from iTunes to other podcatchers.

2. if Apple drops the specious talk of liberation. I’ve too much Orwell in me to think that the words don’t matter. 🙂 I don’t think that the fact we’re all sophisticated enough to recognize their jive for what it is furnishes a good justification for overlooking their appropriation of this language. I resent seeing all the passionate appeals for educational transformation that many tireless and unrewarded visionaries have crafted over many years become nothing more than ad copy. (But hey, I also resent Pete Townshend’s selling “Bargain,” a song he elsewhere calls a prayer, for use in car ads.)

3. if Apple doesn’t allow colleges or universities to configure iTunes for closed, “secure” access to content.

4. if Apple explicitly disavows any responsibility for copyright enforcement for school-generated content.

5. if Apple drops branding services/opportunities to make iTunes U look like “your college or university but act like iTunes.”

EDIT: 6. if Apple makes the Music Store link an “opt-in” item rather than a default link on the standard iTunes U menu. This item is probably the most quixotic of all, probably impossible from a technical point of view, but if I knew the primary interface didn’t promote a store in this way, I’d feel better. I don’t want to deliver teaching and learning materials inside a store, just as I wouldn’t want my reading of a novel to be interrupted on every thirtieth page with an ad. If you tell me that the ads would make the novels cheaper, that they’d help to put quality literature into the hands of more people at a lower cost, that I can just skip the darn things by turning the page, I’d respond that the price for these savings is just too high. When I read, I don’t want the merchants at my elbow. That’s why I paid for the book: to get some time with another human being, not to be targeted by commerce over and over.

Why grudgingly and not completely? Because I don’t want to create a de facto iPod campus, and iTunes U reaches maximum effectiveness as the campus gets closer to being iPod only. That prospect bothers me. Maybe it shouldn’t. There are plenty of campuses that support only one computing platform for students, and for very good economic reasons. (Ironically, that single platform is usually Windows, not Mac.) So far, though, the argument for diversity seems more persuasive to me. It’s important to note that for all its “think different” talk, Apple isn’t thinking different. It’s trying to leverage market dominance into a near-monopoly, just the way “evil” Microsoft is. I’d be less outraged, though no less troubled, if Apple hadn’t dressed itself in robes of righteousness for so long.

One more thought: Alan and Chris and others (I imagine) don’t take the verbiage on the iTunes U page too seriously. Alan writes, “The ad material Gardner finds offensive (and i just find dull and glazing) seems to be totally written by marketing people, not the people behind the program.” But that’s exactly what I’m alarmed by: the marketing people are the people behind the program. The program is, at heart, a marketing program. Thus there’s no distinction between “the marketing people” and “the people behind the program.” But it’s telling that Apple’s marketing tactics are aimed at helping us forget that fact. When I read all the technorati links to blogs saying “yippee, Apple to the rescue!” I see a reality distortion field that’s effective. Worryingly so.

Yes, ma, if D’Arcy and Chris and James and Alex jumped off a tall building, I guess I would too.

Those who know me will have to weigh in on whether I was able to craft anything like a Simpsons’ version of me. At least the locale is right….

As a prelude to the next podcast series on Gardner Writes, here’s a reading I did a couple of weeks ago of poetry by Andrew Marvell. The reading was part of our UMW “Thursday Poems” series, a marvelous tradition begun by now-professor-emeritus Bill Kemp. The idea is to congregate at 5 p.m. on Thursday afternoons to hear someone read poetry for thirty minutes. No lectures, little explanatory material, just a time to share compelling poetry with each other. I recorded several of these “Thursday Poems” readings over the last couple of years and will be podcasting them by and by.

Marvell’s a fascinating poet whose lyrics are often cited as models of ambiguity, philosophical complexity, and stubborn elusiveness (perhaps to the point of evasion). I begin with his commendatory poem on Milton’s Paradise Lost. (Marvell was a friend of Milton, and legend has it he helped spring Milton from prison at the Restoration, when Charles II put to death many supporters of his father’s execution.) I end with Marvell’s most famous poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” a poem that’s at once beautiful and savage.

The reading:
“On Mr. Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost'”
“An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland”
“The Garden”
“The Mower Against Gardens”
“Damon The Mower”
“To His Coy Mistress”

I’m also posting the reading at our UMW “profcast” site, www.profcast.org. There’ll be more readings and lectures there as time goes on. The first UMW Profcast features Claudia Emerson reading from her own poetry. Mine is a poor companion to Claudia’s, but the idea here is to keep the ball rolling, so that we’ll do.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (16.9MB)

Chris over at Ruminate offers a closely-reasoned assessment of the iTunes U issues. At a couple of points, though, I’m just not following the logic. Rather than leave yet another comment, here’s a response:

Chris,

You don’t see Apple posing as anything. I do. That’s where we differ. The difference matters, to me anyway, because Apple is using a vocabulary of liberation and altruism that’s modeled on the vocabulary the academy itself uses to define its mission. Looked at one way, that’s smart marketing. Looked at another way, it’s galling, and a lie. I don’t mind being offered a chance to buy something. I do mind being told I’m being set free in the process. To my mind, Apple’s rhetoric neatly matches Virginia Slims’ attempt to cash in on the discourse of women’s liberation in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

I’m obviously not being clear about what I mean by “ads.” What I mean is that iTunes is always already a music store, not just a content management system. The “ad” is on the menu on the left hand side of the window. And I imagine we’ll see more blatant ads placed directly on the page in the near future. Yes, many services are supported by ads. My point is that the principal content delivery media in education are not, and should not be. The analogy would be billboards in classrooms and sponsors’ commercials shown before and after every guest speaker, every concert, every public forum. I think that academic content, as much as possible, should not be accompanied by, or wrapped in, the noise and distraction of sales pitches. Like churches, schools should offer sanctuary for some thoughtful time outside the cries of the merchants to “come buy! come buy!”

I think the iPod is a wonderful device. I chose it for lots of compelling reasons. That’s why I don’t think Apple has to pursue this strategy of enticing institutions into iTunes U. Let the marketplace decide. Don’t force the issue by trying to craft a single-source environment–and yet that’s exactly what I think they’re trying to do.

UPDATE: Over at Ruminate, Chris responds to this post and offers a thought-experiment-challenge, one that strikes me as entirely fair and in fact helps sharpen my thinking a little more about what’s bothering me about iTunes U. Chris and I will probably never agree on the damage caused by Apple’s robes-of-righteousness marketing approach, but even with that out of the picture there are still useful points to discuss. I’ve taken up Chris’s challenge in a comment on his post. You can see the response for awhile on the cocomment feed on the top of the sidebar (right), at least until more comments take it off the sidebar.

From i six nonlectures (1953):

Let me cordially warn you, at the opening of these socalled lectures, that I haven’t the remotest intention of posing as a lecturer. Lecturing is presumably a form of teaching; and presumably a teacher is somebody who knows. I never did, and still don’t, know. What has always fascinated me is not teaching, but learning; and I assure you that if the acceptance of a Charles Eliot Norton professorship hadn’t rapidly entangled itself with the expectation of learning a very great deal, I should now be somewhere else. Let me also assure you that I feel extremely glad to be here; and that I heartily hope you won’t feel extremely sorry.

Podcasts a part of the read/write Web? You bet they are. But that’s an argument for another post.

Right now I want to share a snippet of an inspiring podcast I found via The University Channel. Dr. David Orr, Professor and Chair of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College, spoke on “The End of Education” at the University of British Columbia on January 13, 2006, as part of UBC’s “Global Citizenship Seminar Series.” I found Dr. Orr’s remarks both provocative and large-hearted, and I was especially struck by one little anecdote he told in response to a student’s question about how she could help make UBC a better place.

Orr knows about real school, all right, and he just reminded me of something important that I can easily forget in the press of business: we must not run a deficit of joy.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (1.2MB)