Elaboration (7):

Thesis: A professor should not distribute a hard copy of the syllabus the first day of class.

I’m tempted to "punt" here and list thirty-nine much more profitable uses of time on the first day of a class, but I’ll spare you.

So let me say this instead. This thesis was a cheap way to provoke responses and comments. It worked. I especially like Kelly’s comment; her request for elaboration assumes a story. And I think, in general, our strong opinions are formed much more by our stories than by the endless pontification and qualification of so-called “logical” argumentation. I also think that this is as it should be.

But back to my initial claim about this thesis being a cheap way to provoke comments. Is this tactic cheap? Maybe Brent is right. Maybe this is simply one tactic the teacher (or the blogger) has at her disposal as a means of provoking thought and interaction. Or perhaps it only makes one appear moronic.

Is it a cheap trick? Is it a cheap trick when I make the claim, as I frequently have in classes, that “any time two characters in a story or a film share a meal, it’s ‘communion?’” Or when I say, “To read a story is to re-write it for yourself.” Or how about, “If they go somewhere, it’s a quest narrative.”

This tactic—using a statement of “normative absoluteness”—can be pretty effective (if not used too often, and especially if spoken in a tone that hints at comedic self-mockery) as a discussion stimulator.

Of course I don’t think all teachers or professors everywhere should never distribute hard copies of the syllabus the first day of class. In fact, selfishly speaking, I kind of hope most of them will continue the practice. I’m inclined to think their practice makes the kinds of things some of us do instead refreshingly novel for students grown over-accustomed to (at worst) being scolded in syllabus-ese the first day of class.


See also: http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-fa07/le_fa07_myview.cfm

p.s. I haven't yet put into practice the collaborative construction of the syllabus by the community of learners, but I'm both convicted and tempted by this guy's ideas.

thirty-nine theses (8-10)

Strong Opinions #8-10:

8. If you want comments and requests for elaboration on your blog series called “thirty-nine theses,” make your claims as pompously pithy as possible.

9. If Tim Tebow can’t be a quarterback in the NFL, the problem is with the NFL.

10. A book must be an ax for the frozen sea inside us. (Kafka)

thirty-nine theses (7)

Strong Opinion #7:

A professor should not pass out a hard copy of the syllabus the first day of class.

thirty-nine theses (1-6)

Strong opinions, the first six:

1. My harmonica playing does not hurt my dog's ears. He's not whining; he's singing along.
2. If it comes to a choice between watching major league baseball or NFL football, only a vulgarian would choose the latter.
3. There's a fine line between the genius of postmodern pastiche and plagiarism.
4. There are no stories that are not true.
5. Double negatives can be an effective rhetorical device.
6. I don't want to know what I or anyone else ranks on an empathy scale, and I really, really don't want to know why some unimaginative nitwit decided we needed numbers to assess our empathy level.

strong opinions?

Well, now that I got those thirty-nine memories out there, now what? I had this conversation with Jeanie the other day. Once my series ended, what was I going to write about. I said:

How about "thirty-nine strong opinions"?

I didn't really like the idea. I don't think I even have 39 strong opinions. But she liked the idea. Maybe I should call them, as Martin Luther would have, "theses."

Well, whether you want to think of them as opinions or theses, that's what you're gonna get. Thirty-nine of them. They'll be brief--they'll be theses. And a thesis, my little lovers of composition terminology, is a simple, brief claim--typically a sentence or two.

You'll have to give me feedback if you want them developed in greater detail or supported with an argument. Here's one.

thirty-nine theses (example): School Uniforms

Bethel professors should wear uniforms.

thirty-nine memories (39)

Memory #39: She's Got a Way

39 things I like about my wife:

1. Her eyes
2. Her relentlessness
3. Her tenderness
4. Her roasted chicken and rice cooked in chicken broth (with gravy)
5. Her mind
6. Her heart and soul (that's two things, I know)
7. The look she gives me when I say something off the wall or mildly offensive
8. The scrapbooks she keeps (she has one dedicated entirely to Morgan!)
9. The noise her yawns make
10. Her lips
11. Her hips
12. Her quirks
13. Her wiffleball skills
14. The way she looks when she's running
15. Her walk
16. That her favorite movie is "The Cutting Edge" because when she was a little girl she dreamed of being a famous ice skater
17. Her singing
18. Her compassion for the weak, for the downtrodden, for the lonely
19. The way she scolds me
20. Her cry
21. The many voices she conjures when reading to Sydney
22. That she is a morning person
23. Her dancing
24. Her sarcasm
25. The way she drives like a Jamaican, though we now live in America
26. Her "can do" attitude
27. Her artistic sense
28. Her artistic ability
29. Her appreciation for good food
30. Her passion for teaching 2nd graders
31. The way she shoots a basketball
32. Her love of the outdoors and walks in the woods
33. The satisfied look she gets on her face when she closes her eyes to the sun on a lonely stretch of beach in Ludington
34. Her ears
35. Her putting up with me
36. The way she smells
37. Did I mention that she's relentless? That you cannot stop her once she puts her mind to something (I love that!!)
38. Her laughter
39. That I have no idea how she will respond to all that I have written in this blog entry, but that I know it will be priceless

None of those are memories, precisely, so here's one.

When I was in a kind of shooting slump my senior year in college, getting frustrated over not playing very well for a stretch during the first semester, she asked me something that I've never forgotten.

"Are you looking at the rim?"

This might seem silly and I did laugh when she asked it. But I also thought about it. And I still do. Sometimes, because I have taken umpteen gazillion shots in my life, I just sort of look in the general direction of the basket and rely on muscle memory to help my (and I don't mean to brag here) picture perfect jumpshot to find its mark.

But you really ought to look at the rim. Zone in on the particular. If you aim at nothing, you'll probably hit it.

So I try to remember, when I'm shooting hoops, to look at the rim. Make your own metaphorical connection here, gentle reader. Seriously.

So you can see why I love this person. I didn't write this song, but it might as well have been written from me to her. After all these years, she's still got a way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw-_zLkGn5s

thirty-nine memories (38)

Memory #38: Top Five Basketball Memories

5. The summer I was seventeen, playing by myself, in my driveway, every day of that summer for hours on end. I improved more in those three months than at any other time in my life.

4. I don't mean to brag, but playing with (arguably) the best starting five in Bethel history my sophomore year: Jody Martinez, Dave Troyer, Bob Knebel, and Pat Adkins.

3. I don't mean to brag, but the night (with that team above) when I didn't miss a shot--12 for 12 FGs and 5 for 5 FTs for 33 points. When you play with two all-american post players, you get some good looks at the basket.

2. Scoring 46 points against Jimtown my senior year in high school. I don't mean to brag, but I think I had a stretch where I made nine shots in a row. It was my mom's birthday, 1988.

1. NCCAA National Champions, 1992. I don't mean to brag, but we broke the ice with the first basketball national championship, and the 1990s came later to be known as a "decade of dominance."

thirty-nine memories (37)

Memory #37: Birthdays

When your birthday falls less than two weeks after Christmas, one of two things can happen. One, you can get screwed in the presents department by people who write "Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday" on some card. Or, two, you can have a mom like mine who made sure that your birthday was always a big deal.

When I was a kid, the entire extended family always came to my house on or near my birthday to celebrate me. That was a lot of people. My mom did that. She made sure that I knew I was important and loved. On your thirty-ninth birthday you care a lot less about this sort of thing. But when you,re eight or twelve, this stuff matters. My mom knew.

thirty-nine memories (36)

Memory #36: Moonwalk

For younger readers of my world famous blog series, "thirty-nine memories," I offer this visual aid to help them make sense of "Memory #35." This, my youthful readers, is a record album.

My first record album, a few years after the giant record barbecue in the parking lot of my church, was Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

I am so old that I can remember when Michael Jackson looked like this. And I also remember that I worked very hard to learn how to moonwalk.

I am still a stellar (ha ha) moonwalker. Ask Jeanie.