The "Education" Thread

[Carpe Mortem]

That's a great point. Personally, I'm definitely one of those people with a smidgen of ADD though lol so I can hardly self teach. I can't focus unless I'm in a learning dedicated atmosphere. Most stimulation is difficult for me without some kind of structure, and that's why I have a mediocre grasp of like 100 different hobbies too. I'm super envious of people who can dedicate and master things on their own.

It kind of apes your point about our generation I think, because I know I have, and I'm sure you have, a lot of friends of a similar personality as myself what with the focus issues.

 

[Baroque]

To be real: Major in computer science if you can handle it. that's where the desk jobs and being part of the machine, working your ass off silently while making good money are at.

 

[Einherjar86]

This is more appropriately news, but relevant to education...

https://www.theguardian.com/science...lete-accepted-for-conference?CMP=share_btn_fb

A nonsensical academic paper on nuclear physics written only by iOSautocomplete has been accepted for a scientific conference.

Christoph Bartneck, an associate professor at the Human Interface Technology laboratory at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, received an email inviting him to submit a paper to the International Conference on Atomic and Nuclear Physics in the US in November.

“Since I have practically no knowledge of nuclear physics I resorted to iOS autocomplete function to help me writing the paper,” he wrote in a blog post on Thursday. “I started a sentence with ‘atomic’ or ‘nuclear’ and then randomly hit the autocomplete suggestions.

“The text really does not make any sense.”
“The atoms of a better universe will have the right for the same as you are the way we shall have to be a great place for a great time to enjoy the day you are a wonderful person to your great time to take the fun and take a great time and enjoy the great day you will be a wonderful time for your parents and kids,” is a sample sentence from the abstract.

It concludes: “Power is not a great place for a good time.”

 

[Einherjar86]

Hope everyone's studies are going well. My work has been piling up lately, but a lot of it has been good.

The dissertation is coming along, I have drafts of two chapters, and have begun revising the second. My class is more work than I'd like - grading undergraduate papers is always a bit of a struggle, but it's also rewarding, especially since I have a few really good students.

In other news, I was contacted recently by Gale Publishing. They asked me to submit a short essay, to a volume directed at undergrads, on posthumanism and speculative fiction since about 1970. This was pretty exciting, and it's been fun to write the piece. I've never written something aimed at undergrads before; it's more like general reference writing, not so much analytical/theoretical scholarly writing. But hopefully it will show breadth when I go on interviews a couple years from now.

 

[Einherjar86]

The 3D Additivist Cookbook is now available online! Crazy shit, probably not of interest to everyone; but a really cool mixture of speculative theory and interesting visuals. My contribution can be found under the title "The Perspective of Print."

Fair warning, it's a big-ass document, over 400 MB, and the page takes a minute to load (the glories of open source media). So, no offense taken if you don't want to download it. Just figured I'd share. Additivism is still a really new movement, a kind of leftist-accelerationist take on complex systems and post-industrial technologies. Anyway, enjoy.

http://additivism.org/cookbook

 

[Dak]

http://hyperallergic.com/275471/you...shin-allahyari-and-daniel-rourkes-additivism/

I don't have time for that unfortunately, so I found this. I like the header, but it really has nothing in common with the interview, and the interviewees are cognitively suicidal, nevermind addled.

I am often disappointed with us humans, which is why I am interested in imagining a world that is more than human, or other than human.

I deeply connect with a sentence in the Xenofeminism Manifesto — “If nature is unjust; change nature” — and Donna Haraway’s command to “Make Kin Not Babies!”

Nothing has changed nature towards "justice" like the industrial revolution. Nothing has made kin over babies like industrial revolution powered democracy. They are obviously rebelling against the patriarchically imposed way shit is supposed to flow in the digestive tract.

 

[Einherjar86]

Oh, they have no interests in cognitive... survival, I guess you would say?

Industry and culture have done plenty to enable us against brute "nature"; but that doesn't mean it can't take on a life of its own beyond humanity. That's where additivism comes in. It's primarily speculative, and certainly anti-humanist.

 

[Dak]

Oh, they have no interests in cognitive... survival, I guess you would say?

Industry and culture have done plenty to enable us against brute "nature"; but that doesn't mean it can't take on a life of its own beyond humanity. That's where additivism comes in. It's primarily speculative, and certainly anti-humanist.

If "the machine" or any other vague designator of the technological Other were to threaten humanity, humanity will have to regress towards a mode of operation where it has the longest history of surviving under: Brutishness. There's nothing even remotely approaching a feministic conception of justice in that realm. Feminism has emerged under situations under which it had already succeeded. It immediately went to work undermining that success.

 

[Einherjar86]

Oh, there's a feminism there. A dark feminism. Like the kind in Ex Machina - a feminism that puts pressure on traditional humanist hierarchies. But it bears little in common with the "feminine mystique" of 1960s and '70s counterculture.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

If "the machine" or any other vague designator of the technological Other were to threaten humanity, humanity will have to regress towards a mode of operation where it has the longest history of surviving under: Brutishness. There's nothing even remotely approaching a feministic conception of justice in that realm. Feminism has emerged under situations under which it had already succeeded. It immediately went to work undermining that success.

There you go with your doomsday stuff again. Imperialism is clearly the mode of operation with the greatest longevity in the history of civilization, and numerous empires (ancient Persian, Macedonian, British, etc.) have been largely non-brutish.

 

[Dak]

There you go with your doomsday stuff again. Imperialism is clearly the mode of operation with the greatest longevity in the history of civilization, and numerous empires (ancient Persian, Macedonian, British, etc.) have been largely non-brutish.

Humans predate instantiations of empire, and most if not all historical empires would - by modern standards - be considered brutish anyway.

 

[Einherjar86]

Kicking in it Philly for the MLA conference.

Flew in from Boston a couple days ago - met a few other attendees on the plane, including a rep for the U of Mississippi Press (good connections...). We talked about Asian science fiction and David Foster Wallace. It was fun.

I spent last night in a burger and beers joint with a bunch of Beckett scholars (how's that for alliteration?). My third dissertation chapter is on Beckett, so that's time well-spent. I shared my Beckett + Science fiction theory and earned their approval, one of them proceeding to say "Patrick, I am with you all the fucking way" (she also had an Irish accent, which made this even lovelier). Dinner later tonight with friends, then more panels tomorrow.

I present on Sunday. It's the last time slot, but I'm really looking forward to meeting the other scholars on my panel. One of them has published a good amount on race and science fiction, so I'm hoping to share a little bit of my project with him. A good weekend so far.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

How satisfying would you guys say teaching is, standing on its own? I'm one of those idiots who's still not sure what to do with their lives. As I'm working through my undergraduate studies with a focus in mathematics, I've found that I really excel at putting complicated things into layman's terms and have helped classmates understand the material because of it. Maybe it's a birth order/oldest child thing. I've toyed with the idea of at least part time math tutoring once I have the qualifications.

What's the hardest part? What's the easiest? What's the best and worst aspects of a position as an educator?

 

[Dak]

I find teaching rewarding in that slim margin of experience where both you and the student are passionate about the subject. Not worth it for that rare moment to get a career teaching generally to mostly uninterested fuckoffs.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Speaking as someone that's a complete failure, I find teaching rewarding even helping people that don't really seem to care that much because at least it's an opportunity for human contact all the while providing clear social barriers enforcing the limits of said contact in a way that an autist like me can easily comprehend.

Worst part is grading, monotonous and boring, but if you're going to be a self-employed tutor then that's not as applicable.

 

[Einherjar86]

How satisfying would you guys say teaching is, standing on its own? I'm one of those idiots who's still not sure what to do with their lives. As I'm working through my undergraduate studies with a focus in mathematics, I've found that I really excel at putting complicated things into layman's terms and have helped classmates understand the material because of it. Maybe it's a birth order/oldest child thing. I've toyed with the idea of at least part time math tutoring once I have the qualifications.

What's the hardest part? What's the easiest? What's the best and worst aspects of a position as an educator?

I love teaching, but like any job it has its ups and downs. The hardest part (not necessarily the least enjoyable part) for me is trying to create a congenial and stable classroom environment in which everybody feels they can participate. You'll never get a group of students who are all at the same level or have the same amount of exposure to the material, but you have to resist gravitating toward the advanced students at the cost of making the less advanced feel inadequate; and you have to be sure not to spend so much time in class on the less advanced students that the advanced ones get bored. Office hours are necessary.

Of course, that only applies if you're working in the classroom. Tutoring is different.

The best part is when your class strikes the perfect harmony and your students start having discussions among themselves, and you can just sit back and smile, and mediate when necessary (for what it's worth, this does not happen often).

Worst part is grading, monotonous and boring, but if you're going to be a self-employed tutor then that's not as applicable.

Ha, yeah... grading fucking sucks.

It also really sucks when you get a student who complains about his or her grade. Nobody wants a C. Work harder champ.

It's also really annoying when a student from a previous semester contests his or her grade. That's always fun, going back through that student's files and backing up the grade you assigned.

In short, grading is probably the worst part of being a teacher. Unfortunately, it's also ultimately what most students are in it for.

 

[Dak]

Tutoring is different.

Absolutely. Much preferred tutoring.

Nobody wants a C. Work harder champ.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I don't really mind the students complaining. If anything I like it because then I don't have to feel bad about giving a nice student that seemingly puts in effort a bad grade. I have to contain my laughter when they start pouting or look visibly angry over a bad grade. I've received exactly one negative instructor review from a student and it was immediately obvious that it was the guy that did nothing in lab, showed up routinely late, and bombed his midterms. Although that's teaching undergrads; with actual children, there's more legal bullshit and parents that might get involved and such, and I could never be a teacher being forced to pass a child just because their parents hired a lawyer on some bullshit case.

The thing I hate about tutoring is when you get those kind of pre-med/nursing kids that exist only to memorize shit and seemingly just want you to give them answers. I had one that literally wanted me to do fucking flash cards with him, like what the fuck are you 5 years old man?

 

[Carpe Mortem]

You always hear the argument about students being prepped for the tests/grades rather than a true education, and a lot of people having issue with that. While I understand that a genuine thirst for knowledge is preferred and healthier in the long run, surely you guys appreciate that for most of your students education is an expensive means to an end (job)?

I have that same issue with my current pre-calc professor. Like bless his heart but the dude tries to get into theory that's 5 chapters ahead and we're still struggling with some basics. Or when something is discussed that won't even be on the exam, which is the quantifiable job-getting stone that motivates seeking an education in the first place. It makes things confusing. On a university level, it makes more sense to push the boundaries.

 

[Carpe Mortem]

Also I would totally just do flashcards for someone. I've seen the per hour pay for tutors around here. Whatever you want buddy, I'll dance in a chicken outfit if you think it helps.