Why reading novels in school isn’t a waste of time.

Posted on May 18, 2007May 18, 2007 by admin

Ann Althouse asks why schools should bother having kids read fiction:

And why does reading even need to be a separate subject from history in school? Give them history texts and teach reading from them. Science books too. Leave the storybooks for pleasure reading outside of school. They will be easier reading, and with well-developed reading skills, kids should feel pleasure curling up with a novel at home. But even if they don’t, why should any kind of a premium be placed on an interest in reading novels? It’s not tied to economic success in life and needn’t be inculcated any more than an interest in watching movies or listening to popular music. Leave kids alone to find out out what recreational activities enrich and satisfy them. Some may want to dance or play music or paint. Just because teachers tend to be the kind of people who love novels does not mean that this choice ought to be imposed on young people via compulsory education. Teach them about history, science, law, logic — something academic and substantive — and leave the fictional material for after hours.

Now, I have someplace to be in an hour (actually two places I’m supposed to be, but set that problem aside). However, seeing as how I taught “Philosophy and Literature” this term and I seem to have some pre-existing views on the stuff a good education can and should deliver, I’m going to shoot from the hip and see how many reasons I can enumerate for getting kids to read fiction in school:

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Any questions for Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education Margaret Spellings?

Posted on April 30, 2007April 30, 2007 by admin

This Friday, as part of my university’s sesquicentennial celebration, there’s going to be a two hour session on “The Future of Higher Education”. The keynote speaker will be Margaret Spellings, the U.S. Secrtetary of Education. There will also be a “panel discussion with national experts”, after which they will entertain questions from the audience.
So, what questions about the future of higher education would you like me to ask?
In case you’re stuck for ideas, here’s a potential prompt: Spellings’ Commission on the Future of Higher Education has been hailed as a way to bring No Child Left Behind-like reforms to colleges and universities. How does that idea sit with you?
Thanks in advance!
UPDATE: SInce the link to information on the Spellings commission is apparently a little pokey today, here’s a viewpoint piece about the commision. It’s a critical view, but may be useful in illuminating some of what the commission is asking for. Also, here’s a page with links to the extensive coverage of the commission at Inside Higher Ed.

Naked chicks in PETA ads: the ethics of getting your point across.

Posted on January 30, 2007January 30, 2007 by admin

There’s been some blogospheric blowout (see here, here, and here for just a taste) about a recent PETA ad that many viewers find gratuitously sexist. To me, the ad and the reaction to it are most interesting because they raise a larger issue about how we promote our values and how we choose our allies. From Michael Specter’s article on PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk in the April 14, 2003 issue of The New Yorker:

Newkirk seems openly to court the anger even of people who share her views. “I know feminists hate the naked displays,” she told me. “I lose members every time I do it. But my job isn’t to hold on to members, as much as I’d like to–it’s to get people who just don’t give a damn about this issue to look twice.” The truth is that extremism and outrage provide the fundamental fuel for many special-interest groups. Nobody ever stopped hunting because the National Rifle Association supports assault weapons; many of those who oppose abortion are appalled that people in their movement commit acts of violence, yet they are not appalled enough to support abortion. The same is true with peta, and Newkirk knows it; a vegan isn’t going to start eating meat or wearing fur simply because she disapproves of a naked calendar.

(Bold emphasis added.)

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Bush administration’s State Department thinks it’s A-OK for Libya to execute innocent health care providers.

Posted on December 16, 2006December 16, 2006 by admin

Only a few days out from the 19 December verdict in the Tripoli 6 case, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the Bush administration honestly couldn’t be bothered that Libya shows every sign of being ready to execute foreign healthcare workers who the scientific evidence indicates did not commit the crime with which they have been charged. Otherwise, you’d figure that the State Department spokesman, once questioned about the case, would bother to do his homework and figure out at least the bare facts of the situation. He did not.
So the lives of healthcare workers who went to Libya to help Libyans are dispensible? If saving them from an unjust sentence scores no political points, it’s not worth even considering? May I suggest, then, that the president’s draping himself in the mantle of the “culture of life” is so ironic that it may be raising the president’s risk of heart attack.
Absolutely appalling.
Revere has more.

Last push to help the Tripoli Six.

Posted on December 6, 2006December 6, 2006 by admin

You may remember the plight of the Tripoli Six (also known as the Benghazi Six), the physician and five nurses on trial in Libya for infecting 400 children in the hospital where they were working with HIV even though there is overwhelming evidence that the most likely route of infection was poor hospital hygeine, probably before any of these six health care workers even set foot in Libya. (Nature provides details of the scientific analysis of the evidence in this PDF.)
While the public outcry from the scientific community in support of the Tripoli Six has been great, those watching the trial still anticipate a guilty verdict — which could bring a death sentence — on December 19. So once again, I’m asking you to stand up and add your voice to the call for justice here:

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Murtha, ethics, and “real issues”.

Posted on November 16, 2006November 16, 2006 by admin

Apparently John Murtha lost his bid to be the new Majority Leader in the House of Representatives to Rep. Steny Hoyer. In the run up to this decision, Murtha was reported as saying the House ethics reforms being proposed by Nancy Pelosi were “total crap”.
As you can imagine, that got my attention.
Below the fold, a bit of the transcript of Murtha’s interview with Chris Matthews where Murtha tries to put his comment in context.

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