Chapter five comment

Whether or not I believe Bauerlein's total portrayal of the typical American youth, I will tell you I am the proud "owner" of a twixter. I have been frustrated for several years at my son's inability or nonexistant desire to get the teaching job he has worked so hard for- or move beyond his social life which involves writing groups (yah) and gaming (huh?). He is 29 and fits the description to a tee. (This is my personal issue- I know, but I present it to say that I can verify that twixters exist.)

I do happen to believe that we have fallen into the "rub your tummy and make you feel good" syndrome and what, by all imaginable, would make an individual want to change-if they have always been told, that they are GREAT just as they are??

I am interested in what Bauerlein says about studies showing NO advantages of collaborative learning (p. 187) over lecture. I question how he would propose advancing our teaching methods if everything we try fails by his standards.

I do believe there is value to "connecting to the ancients" as Matthew Arnold says (p.191) but the problem is that life moves on and there are "new" Arnold's (so to speak) out there who have something valid to offer us. We need to find them- we need to hear what they have to say and have the chance to integrate that into our collective consciousness, too.

bookdumbest

This image, "Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid." Illustration for Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies in charcoal, water, and oil, which I found through google images.com (public domain), appeals to me as a potential cover for our book because technology, like Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, is overwhelming and feeding our youngest generations. Since I haven't read beyong the introduction I don't know if what is being fed to us is beneficial or not, but the old addage,  "Too much of anything..." would seem to apply. Notice that we can't see her eyes but may only see our own reflections in the glasses she wears. She appears benevolent and yet, she is overpowering in size and strange in appearance.  These feelings are mine when I attempt my first wiki, blog, d2l class and I anticipate they will remain for the next 12 weeks or so while swimming through the waters of the web.

Alternative Book Cover

This image, "Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid." Illustration for Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies in charcoal, water, and oil, which I found through google images.com (public domain), appeals to me as a potential cover for our book because technology, like Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, is overwhelming and feeding our youngest generations. Since I haven't read beyong the introduction I don't know if what is being fed to us is beneficial or not, but the old addage,  "Too much of anything..." would seem to apply. Notice that we can't see her eyes but may only see our own reflections in the glasses she wears. She appears benevolent and yet, she is overpowering in size and strange in appearance.  These feelings are mine when I attempt my first wiki, blog, d2l class and I anticipate they will remain for the next 12 weeks or so while swimming through the waters of the web.