Why Rural Matters

The Rural School and Community Trust has issued its report on rural school in the United States. My state, Missouri, did not fare so well. It received a priority rank of 14 (meaning 13 other states fared worse) and was listed as a state in urgent need of improvement.

The report is here.

An Unbeliever Takes on Dawkins

The curious thing about these books is that the authors often appear to think that they are saying something new and brave. They imagine themselves to be like the intrepid explorer Sir Richard Burton, who in 1853 disguised himself as a Muslim merchant, went to Mecca, and then wrote a book about his unprecedented feat. The public appears to agree, for the neo-atheist books have sold by the hundred thousand. Yet with the possible exception of Dennett’s, they advance no argument that I, the village atheist, could not have made by the age of 14 (Saint Anselm’s ontological argument for God’s existence gave me the greatest difficulty, but I had taken Hume to heart on the weakness of the argument from design).

Read it

It may be true

It is unfashionable to speak of national characteristics. Queasy types think it is akin to racism. But the truth is that nations are definably different. Most importantly, they differ in what they do best. No nation has produced better essayists than France, none has produced better composers that the Germans, better painters than the Italians, nor better novelists than the Russians. America invented jazz and still masters the form and, though some may dissent, her record in film is unsurpassed. And the English? The English do poetry.

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Saturday Shakespeare

Abhorred villain, unnatural, detested, brutish villain; worse than brutish!
King Lear 1.2.75-76

Take that, Shaw

In truth, Shaw did have a vigorous prose style, but as I subsequently learned, it was more suited to meretricious argumentation and paradox-mongering than to serious exploration of reality. As such, it was bound to appeal to the adolescent mind, to all those who thought that the provocation of their elders was the beginning, and pretty well the end, of wisdom. The biographer Michael Holroyd draws attention to Shaw’s lifelong clowning, but I think naughtiness is more the word. Shaw was like a precocious child, brought from the nursery to shock and delight the assembled grown-ups. Unfortunately, he was often mistaken for a serious man.

Read the article.

Saturday Shakespeare

Jay, wall-eyed slave, whither wouldst thou convey
this growing image of thy fiend-like face?
Titus Andronicus 5.1.44-45

How did Poe go?

I came across this article in the New York Observer and was captivated. Could Poe have perished from a brain tumor? Matthew Pearl may have evidence to support the theory.

Read it.

You know you want to.

Well I could use a nap

Overstimulated, overscheduled kids are getting at least an hour’s less sleep than they need, a deficiency that, new research reveals, has the power to set their cognitive abilities back years.

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Nobel for literature

Congratulations to Dorris Lessing. I would not have expected it, but I'm glad that she won.

Story

Can't escape

After a week of working on the new state assessment, I was less than enthused to spend yesterday at a meeting of several school districts discussing this year's state assessment. School was closed and everything. Teachers from about eight districts met all day to share strategies to improve test performance.

I'm about sick of it.

Saturday Shakespeare

Why thou globe of sinful continents...

The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth 2.4.266

More tidbits from last week

So anyway, Tuesday morning I slithered sideways out of my allegedly king sized bed (perhaps the dwarf king from The Lord of the Rings) and chugged to a nondescript location in an industrial park. There I and my fellow test writers were trained and put to work. It was tedious, frustrating work, and I was thrilled to be done that afternoon. Still, I was very impressed with the people who worked for the publishing company that is creating the test and with my fellow test writers. As for the people from the state department of education, well... it was a lovely nondescript facility.

That evening, though, I had dinner with an former student who has become a family friend. We caught up on events in our lives, talked a lot about school and literature, and fought like wet cats over who got to leave the tip. Alas, I lost. Now I feel like a lout. Still, it was a fun evening.

Catching up

I've not been paying attention to the blogging world for a couple of weeks because I've been terribly busy. In fact, I'm only just now catching up from spending last week in a city near the center of my state helping to rewrite the state assessment test.

Oh the joy.

Actually, it was an encouraging and interesting event, and I have high hopes for next year's test. Nonetheless, the job was taxing.

Last Monday, after teaching all day, I rushed home, grabbed a suitcase that I borrowed from The Woman, and kissed the family goodbye. Off I drove into a fading day. I was pretty faded too by the time I got to the hotel (about 9:30), so faded that I managed to lock myself out of my room by 10:00. Fortunately, the desk clerk was a patient, professional young man. Unfortunately, mere microseconds after I flopped myself into my room's "king sized" bed, I realized that said bed was only about four and a half feet long. On a second glance, I realized that the bed was noticeably wider than it was long. I did adapt, though, by sleeping sideways.