June 2010
59 posts
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“It’s time to stop pretending that ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is some kind of timeless classic that ranks with the great works of American literature. Its bloodless liberal humanism is sadly dated, as pristinely preserved in its pages as the dinosaur DNA in ‘Jurassic Park.’”
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Allen Barra, arts and sports writer for the Wall Street Journal, argues that Harper Lee’s novel should be treated as what Flannery O’Connor called “a children’s book.” Why? Because it’s so simplistic.
(To be sure, the opinions expressed are Barra’s own. I only saw the film.)
— Via Ideas, from SF.
Do you speak habits of the mind?
The BBC World Service had a wonderful program about language last night. Two things impressed me:
Stanford social psychology professor Claude Steele spoke about how to minimize the effect of stereotypes. In an experiment, he told a group of female math majors about to take a math test that women are generally considered inferior to men at math. As a result, their performance suffered because they were forced to multi-task: solve the math problem and think about the stereotype. But, he said, thinking about women who do really well in math helped their performance.
Guy Deutscher, a linguist, talked about how gender in languages can create strong associations. In German, the word ‘bridge’ is feminine. When asked what words they associate with ‘bridge’, people with German as their mother tongue mentioned female attributes such as slender, elegant and beautiful. People whose mother tongue was Spanish, where ‘bridge’ is masculine, came up with male attributes like sturdy, strong and powerful.
— From London.
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“Telling a colleague “You’re wrong” shows more compassion and collegiality than remaining silent—or hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. We need to grow thicker critical skin. Why? Because critical behavior that always results in a chorus of affirmation is nothing more than conformity; because allowing views to persist that need to be challenged is nothing less than critical mediocrity; and because failure to tell our colleagues what we truly think about their work is simple dishonesty. A reshaped critical culture will help build a more robust, honest, and transparent academy.”
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Jeffrey R. Di Leo, of the University of Houston at Victoria, in his essay “In Praise of Tough Criticism.”
This echoes what professor Jon Smith of the University of Montevallo in Alabama told This American Life about being too mindful of students’ self-esteem. Simply put, it just doesn’t help.
— From SF.
“Teaching is pushing [children] away from you.”
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Al Cullum, teacher extraordinaire, in 2005 documentary A Touch of Greatness.
— From SF.
“More telling is Lowry’s dismissal of an extraordinarily important article as ‘anti-war.’ I look forward to the point at which National Review, which remains an exceedingly Catholic entity, realizes that the Pope is also ‘anti-war’ in this and most other contexts and thereby concludes that it would be shameful to continue to cast aspersions on others for holding views they tolerate in their beloved representative of God on Earth. I also look forward to being made Pope myself.”
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Barrett Brown rips into Rich Lowry of the National Review after the conservative editor lamented McChrystal’s poor judgement in granting wonder boy Michael Hastings access, thus permitting for the game-changing piece to be written and then run by Rolling Stone (“Rolling Stone???”). Deeelicious (and probably full of trans fats).
— In Vanity Fair, from SF.
Live map of London Underground trains →
traintimes.org.uk
Fantastic.
- Via morgenstern, from SF.
