Teaching from real books.

'Whom are you?' he asked, for he had attended business college.

George Ade, "The Steel Box", 1898
US dramatist & humorist (1866 - 1944)

I teach at a business college, but my students are not stupid or illiterate. They are open to new ideas. They want to buy real books. They read real books.
It is unfortunate that real book publishers have abdicated so much of the postsecondary market to textbooks.
It is unfortunate that so many professors have abdicated their teaching to textbooks.
Most academics can't write jargon free prose. Few students want to waste their time reading anything that has to be translated from academic jargon to English.
The most important course I took at university while en route to an honours history degree was the History of Economic Thought. In that course I learned to translate economic jargon into English. I learned how language disguises manipulation. I didn't learn this from an economics text, but from a treasure of a book by Joan Robinson on the history of (English) free trade.
In later years, I earned a living translating business writing into trade book language: Strategic Planning, Tax Planning, Investment Strategies. I soon learned that 5 year strategic plans are inherently dysfunctional for any business involving anything except widgets. Colleges do not have to change editions of books every five years or less. We don't have to update our WebCT because business does. The Business Model does not work in education. Instead of partnerships with business, colleges and universities should partner with real book publishers and any cultural "industry" that is not really an industry, but is stuck with that label.
(to be continued)

Educational Fast Food

The new buzz is how schools need to get with the technology. Dreck, shit, here we go again. Educational administrators are either naive or dukes of deception. If we adopt the models the computer consultants are proposing, we are condemning generations of students to educational junk food. Textbooks are bad enough, with their ready made convenience. Now we are buying the idea that everything you need to read can be read online. Because so much of our culture is transmitted orally, through stories, songs, radio, we are in danger of destroying live education. One of my students told me that her generation is so tv and computer based that they don't even think of listening to radio. Now I realize that I need to "teach" radio listening.

Illusions of Freedom

Reading about the tribute to Pete Seeger, I am full of schadenfreude. Of course his life and work should be celebrated, and the energy from the concert may energize us to carry on the struggle. Or will it seduce us into a premature illusion of freedom and victory that will excuse us from the fight? We who believe in freedom cannot rest. Only 15,000 people could afford the fare to the concert. I hope they all consider that their call to ensure that the next concert should be bigger and freer than Woodstock.