The sweetest two words to any teacher’s ears (well, other than “summer vacation” :)), and the only good reason to receive a phone call at 5 in the morning. 🙂
Category: teaching
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from 2003: Synchronicity, in memoriam Robert Hauter Myslik
[edited 2007 0130 to correct Rob’s middle name, which was Hauter and not Hunter.]
This piece dates from around 2003 February 10. I wrote it about three weeks after the death of a legendary colleague and true friend, Rob Myslik. Rob taught at Hun for nine years, including two while I was there, and then went off to pursue his dream of being an even-more-world-class writer. He went to Missoula, MT in the summer of 2001 with Susan Bogue, the love of his life; in summer 2002, they wed. Rob came back to the East Coast in 2003 January to catch up with his relations and friends. Then, on 2003 January 21, while heading out to the Sundance Festival, Rob was involved in a tragic car accident and killed. It was devastating to many people, and I count myself among them. I wrote a quick piece that day but it took three weeks before I could truly find my voice.
By the way, some people quibble with my opinion on the Pink Floyd connection. If you’re one, I hope you’ll keep reading anyway.
God keep you, Rob Myslik, wherever you are now.
-=-Bernard HP Gilroy
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Unintentionally ironic; unintentionally chilling
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The Library’s the Thing
OK, I’m admittedly behind the time on this whole “social networking” thing. Back in my day, you used computers to avoid interacting with people, gosh darn it! And you liked it!
But today I finally stumbled across one of these sites that might actually entice me into being (Internet) social: LibraryThing, a site where you can catalog the books you own (or read) and share them with millions of others. Then you can look for recommendations or anti-recommendations or just odd patterns. I’ve only entered a handful of books because I am fundamentally lazy. I think that, every time I start a new book, I’ll enter it plus one other. (Also, since I’m a sucker for USB gadgets, I ordered one of their CueCats. Allegedly it makes it really easy to scan-and-enter books.)
Anyway, as a lifelong bilbiophile, I’m excited. And the sharing aspect gives me a little extra push to finally catalog my books.
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The Holy Grail in Teaching
The Holy Grail, in teaching, would be the development of an assessment tool that has the following properties:
- It accurately reflects the actual learning that has occured.
- It cannot be spoofed by students who don’t learn/prepare/read etc.
- It is fair.
- It is easy to grade.
- It is, in like manner, easy to administer.
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Politics and Teaching
So, Election Day has come and gone. I took time to talk about it in each of my classes today — and yes, I know I teach physics; more on that later — and I thought I’d ruminate some here. Full disclaimer: I am a lifelong Democrat who had been reasonably certain they’d find a way to screw it up yet again. (Who knew they could make Kerry disappear?) And I am ecstatic over the triumph of the Democrats in both the House and the Senate. But this isn’t a victory lap. It’s about politics and teaching.
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*ping*
Just a stay-alive post to indicate that I’m still around, though unable to write about teaching because, ironically, I am too busy teaching.
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Running the Race (My speech given as Distinguished Faculty recipient)
I have had the honor of being named as the Hun School’s first recipient of a new Distinguished Faculty Endowed Chair. One of the prices is that, today, I had to give a speech at the first-ever Convocation. Since some people have asked, and since I have an ego the size of Montana, I decided to put it up on the Web — to wit, right here on Mongrel Dogs.
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And the Sky Swept Clear of Angels : 9/11, 5 Years, and Lost Worlds
Though exiled to the swamps of New Jersey, I am a native New Yorker; and so this date arrives every year like a punch in the gut. I no longer think of the attacks every day, but it took 18 months before that ceased. When I do think of them, I am immediately transported back to the moments the Towers fell, and I am nearly overcome again by shock and grief. The victims at the Pentagon and on Flight 93, and their families, deserve our respect and our sympathy; but for me, 9/11 was and is and will always be about an attack on my city — the most primal fear of the civilized human.
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