Category: personal

  • Happy New Year 2007

    Yeah, it’s lame to post just a “Happy New Year” message. But it’s after midnight and I don’t feel like writing much more, so there. 🙂

  • 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…

  • Beyond the poundy drums

    I’m a fan of the new, “re-imagined” Battlestar Galactica on the Sci Fi channel. (Shamefaced confession: I am also a fan of the original schlocky BSG from 1978 — in fact I was one of those loudly decrying the new one as yet another unholy exploitation of the greats of my childhood. Oopsie.) I like…

  • The Constitution, the Flag, and Fire

    OK, nominally this blog is supposedly about education. But school’s out, I don’t have any urgent education-think to lay out there, and there are other issues that speak to me. Today it’s about the so-called “flag burning amendment”. For those who object to political content bleeding into “neutral” areas, I’ll quarantine it behind a “Read…

  • Why “Mongrel Dogs”?

    First of all, as noted on the About page, the title of this blog comes from a Dylan song, “My Back Pages”, specifically In a soldier’s stance I aim my hands At the mongrel dogs who teach Fearing not I become my enemy In the moment that I preach I like the euphony of the…

  • Shameless self-promotion

    Who am I, what gives me the gumption to write this, and why should you care what I say about education? Fair questions all. Let’s start with the last one first. Why should you care? I could offer up genealogies or testimonials or credentials (see below) — heck, this being education, I probably should offer…

  • Hello world!

    Welcome to The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach, my little experiment in blogging. This will be updated approximately every “whenever I feel like it” and will likely be about as erratic as I am. If you’re interested, the experiment is, “Can I run a blog on education and not get myself fired post-haste?” That’s about it…