Archive for January, 2009

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The snippets of Katie Couric’s interview with Li’l Wayne are quite interesting. I’m not sure what’s up with his teefis, but the fact that he calls her “Miss Katie” is almost endearing.

One day, I’ll hafta figure out where Wayne fits in the modern-day pantheon. I wouldn’t classify him as being anywhere near all-time, but I’d be a jive liar if I said he can’t spit. He’s even got some good concept songs. Witness Dr. Carter.

Northeast Wins Public League Wrestling Title

After years and years of being on the cusp, my high school has finally gotten over the hump and won the Public League championship. Now we’ll hafta see if they can beat the Catholic League champion and own PA District 12 outright.

Congrats, Vikes.

ESPN reflects on the Terrible Towel.

Among the things that has the Stillers trying so hard to take me from the Iggles is the Terrible Towel. There is simply nothing like it in sports. It’s all in the article, but I’m tellin you what I know first-hand. Steelers fans? Terrible Towels. You go to the bar to watch the game? Terrible Towels. I see people with those window flags, but I’m just waitin til somebody figures out how to make a Terrible Towel window flag. Or just flap a Terrible Towel out the window.

And yes, I have one. Or Three. Been had em.

(This is not a post about the politics of education, although politics plays a part. It’s not about how people’s poor habits hamper their educational aspirations, but that’s a part of it, too. This post is about the catch-22 many educators find themselves in as they try to serve the portion of the population that needs help most. While I understand how this intersects with most people’s political ideologies, I’m more interested in hearing about how the commenters (assuming there are any) would approach this from the perspective of the educator, not somebody pontificating from the sidelines.)

It’s a tough position to be in. The students who need the most help often lack the basic skills to be at the level where you’re supposed to be helping them. This is true at all educational levels, but one case in point is at the collegiate level. A former Norfolk State University professor was denied tenure because he failed too many students. According to the professor, many of the students could have failed on attendance alone.

Teaching is a weird profession because your performance is evaluated based on other people’s performances. The idea is that you’re supposed to be imparting knowledge, but the question is, how do you impart knowledge when the skills underlying the acquisition of that knowledge are not present? For instance, somebody could come up to me talkin about string theory all they want to, but unless I have the mathematical background to understand the theories undergirding ST, it’s all edutainment. So if I had a String Theory teacher and I couldn’t display proficiency in it, would that be because he can’t teach it or because I’m not prepared to learn it? How can you differentiate? In the case of high school and college students, particularly the younger ones, the some of the skills are academic, but even more important are the habits that help to engender success.

There are some folks who can regularly skip class then come in and write the papers and do well on the tests. Those folks are rare. They’re even more rare when you start scouring the ranks of the under-prepared and barely-prepared students who graduate high school. As the Journal of Blacks In Higher Education pointed out a couple years ago, a significant element in the attrition rate of Black students can be attributed to the fact that they’re forced to use their financial aid on remedial courses, which don’t matriculate.

High dropout rates appear to be primarily caused by inferior K-12 preparation and an absence of a family college tradition, conditions that apply to a very large percentage of today’s college-bound African Americans. But equally important considerations are family wealth and the availability of financial aid. According to a study by Nellie Mae, the largest nonprofit provider of federal and private education loan funds in this country, 69 percent of African Americans who enrolled in college but did not finish said that they left college because of high student loan debt as opposed to 43 percent of white students who cited the same reason.

[...]

This journal has always placed emphasis on financial pressures as a major agent in producing low black graduation rates. But, undoubtedly, cultural and family issues bear a huge responsibility. Invariably, the critical problem is that a very high number of young blacks are entering college with wholly inadequate academic credentials, ambition, and study habits.

Knowing, then, that we can’t necessarily go back and make sure every student has the financial backing to make sure they can stay in school until they get the college thing figured out, the question is what to do in the meantime.

I don’t think any educator gets into the field with the intent of maintaining the status quo. Teaching at any level is done because of the belief on the part of the educator that they can make a difference. The method of making a difference can vary. For some people, making a difference means giving a little more leeway here and there; it means letting some things slide for the sake of the bigger picture: “I’m going to help you succeed, even if we hafta bend a few rules to do it.” For some other educators, it means the exact opposite: it means toeing the line on every last detail. It means checking for every jot and tittle, because everybody else (read: white people) hafta have their I’s dotted and T’s crossed, so We have to too.

While I appreciate both perspectives, it’s something every person has to work out for themselves. And that’s before we include the external evaluations of administrators and politicians. You let somebody who’s not in the classroom all the time look at a roster with a high percentage of failures, and the attention is almost automatically going to go to the teacher. The politicians and laypeople are gonna look at the administration. But if the students aren’t passing because they don’t come to class, is it the teacher’s fault? Where’s the line between teacher responsibility and student responsibility?

Again, my thing here is not to point fingers and say so-and-so needs to do such-and-such. For those who don’t really hafta think about it, it’s very easy with a quick, neat answer. For the people who actually work in there, the field can be a lot muddier.

The Facebook meme I liked so much I brought it to the blog (with some edits)

1. i think my preference for vinyl and mp3 is probably as accurate a metaphor for me as there could be.
2. i think my Meyers-Briggs type is ENTP but you could probably sub anything with -N-P, and it would be accurate.
3. i think i used to think e.e. cummings was stupid for not capitalizing his name. until i understood.
4. i think i’m much more sensitive to caffeine than i used to think
5. i think giving up pork chops was much easier than i thought it would be.
6. i think the only brand name i swear by is adidas.
7. i think 63% of my non socks-and-drawers wardrobe is from the thrift store.
8. i think i have two staggering data recovery projects that probably won’t get done because it’s too expensive.
9. i think i understand string theory better than i understand XXs.
10. i think i may wind up back in the classroom before it’s over.
11. i think i will never be inured to heartbreak by the Eagles.
12. i think it would be impossible for me to fully defect to another team, but the Stillers are tryin hard to get me. Black coach too?
13. i think i should be able to wear red by now.
14. i think i may wind up buying some expensive lotion this winter.
15. i think that as long as i hafta shoot up, 31 gauge 5/16 needles w/ the silicone coating are about as good as it gets.
16. i think i will not be shooting up forever.
17. i think i should stop fronting and really learn how to play this bass.
18. i think i don’t have enough faith in coincidence to be a materialist.
19. i think i should figure out why i haven’t slept well since Mike Tyson won the heavyweight belt.
20. i think i have too many books.
21. i think i really miss drinkin orange juice.
22. i think the adidas robe is inevitable.
23. i think i will never buy another gateway computer.
24. i think i will be attempting another century ride before the decade is over.
25. i think the Butterscotch scar still don’t tickle when it’s pressed.
25+1. i think i enjoy circumlocution and obfuscation far, far too much.

Orange Moon – Erykah Badu
Chameleon – Herbie Hancock
Bread and Butter – Beanie Sigel, f. Grand Puba
I’m Payin’ Taxes, What Am I Buyin’ – Fred Wesley & The J.B.’s
Jungle Jazz – Kool & The Gang
Funky Child – Lords of the Underground
Checkmate – Akinyele
Peace and Love – Movement V (beginning) – Mandrill
Watching You – Slave
Discotizer – BT Express
Cult of Personality – Living Colour
No Head, No Backstage Pass – Funkadelic

To get back to the whole idea of President Obama as the first of the political celebrities (well, he’s probably not the first, but I think that political celebrity is gonna take on a whole new level during his tenure in office), it doesn’t stop with him. Sasha and Malia dolls, though? For real?

As mad as I was about the Obama belts and the Obama oil that I saw being sold last week, I could understand it. (Obama oil, though? Was that a totally new fragrance, or was it one of the old ones brought out under a new name?) Something featuring the girls, though? Nah, b. That’s outta bounds.

So I went to the inauguration on Tuesday. It was cold. Not Chicago cold, but cold enough. Especially considering I was out there all day. It was a day made for long johns. Even though 27 ain’t 12, if you stay out in it long enough, you can get chilled to the bone in that too. At first I wasn’t gonna go, but after a while, I realized that there was just no excuse not to. Because of crowds? As much as I don’t mind being around lots of people? I had to go. So I went. Not mad about it at all. Unfortunately, I don’t have any good stories, though.

I’ve been watching a lot of All In The Family over the last week or so. Pound-for-pound, I don’t know too many shows that are fooling with it, both in terms of its own overall quality and the quality of the spinoffs it generated. I don’t even know if we could get a television show like that that on the air these days. Even with Archie Bunker being portrayed as the bigot that he was, there was still enough balance to see that he was a character with a good heart. Nowadays, he’d be a cardboard cutout of a caricature of a one-dimensional character. I think that’s what I really liked about AITF. You knew that deep down Archie was a good dude, he just had very strong, very wrong beliefs about the world.

I think my favorite character on AITF, after Archie, is Lionel Jefferson. Which brings me to one of the things I’ve always wanted to blog about but never quite remembered when I sat down. The “other” Lionel on The Jeffersons was probably the single worst character replacement of all time. Lionel as portrayed by Mike Evans was that dude. He seemed like the logical step after Sherman Hemsley’s George. Actually, the casting of the Jefferson family on AITF was near-perfect. The Damon Evans Lionel, on the other hand, was a stiff. I can hardly even watch the episodes when he’s on there. He was that corny. Matter’afact, I usually just refer to him as “Corny Lionel.” Like, with Real Lionel, you can see him being George’s son. Corny Lionel doesn’t even seem like he’s a cousin. They could’ve at least made Corny Lionel be a distant relative who came while Lionel was gone or something. Like when Bo and Luke left the Dukes of Hazzard, another set of cousins came to stay with Uncle Jesse, but we weren’t supposed to think they were Bo and Luke, they were just like them. (Not really – they were corny too, but you get the idea.)

Now, in a way, I can only be so mad about Mike Evans leaving The Jeffersons, because he was busy creating Good Times with Eric Monte. But they should’ve gotten somebody else to play Lionel — or to play Cousin So-and-so living-with-George-and-Weezie-while-Lionel-was-gone. Cuz Corny Lionel was the worst.

This clip from AITF when George first met Jenny’s family typifies what I liked about the show.

I went for Obama. Let’s get that out of the way first. Secondly, let’s establish that I am going downtown for the festivities. No question about it. But in the midst of all that, let me just say that I’m thoroughly dismayed by what’s going on. I mean, I understand why he wants an open inauguration, and I actually appreciate it on his end. Bearing that in mind, it’s really not possible to point to the incoming administration like what’s going on is in any way their fault. But what I saw downtown (and uptown) yesterday is actually kinda disturbing.

While I understand that people are excited about the election and the pending inauguration of our first Black president, I’m not at all enthused about the commercialization and iconization that’s taking place. The way people are hawking things with his image, you’d think this was the biggest concert of all time, instead of an inauguration. In my little time out, I saw people selling the following items with Obama’s likeness:

- t-shirts
- buttons
- neckties
- hats
- belts (belts?!)

There’s some more in there I can’t remember, but I do remember thinking that the only thing I didn’t hear somebody hawking was draws. But I bet if I had asked, I probably could’ve found a pair or three of those too.

Now understand, I’m not really knocking anybody’s hustle. If there are people who will buy it, I guess it’s okay to sell it. But at the same time, I’m not sure this is an appropriate response to a political figure. Now maybe I’m just being a curmudgeon, but this all seems unhealthy. It just seems to be more appropriate for a celebrity than an actual leader. Now I can’t rule out the idea that we’re about to enter the age of the celebrity-leader, but even if we are, I hafta say that it’s an uncomfortable transition for me. Here’s why:

If this were a concert and Obama was everybody’s favorite artist, he’s be big as long as he sang songs the people liked. As soon as he stopped, he’d either fall off or he’d revert to having a niche audience. Thing is, he’s not a musical artist. As President, he’s not disposable like that. So the question I’m asking is what’s gonna happen when he makes a decision that all these people who are out there buying t-shirts and hats and buttons and whatnot are displeased with? I’m imagining that some of these are the same people who were having fits because he invited Rick Warren to do the invocation. What happens when he does something really unpopular, when his decision is more substantial than just somebody’s appearance in a program?

I realize that the election of the first Black president is a historical event. Being very honest about it, it’s something I never really expected to see in my lifetime. While I thought it was in the realm of possibility, I never thought it was very likely. But here we are. So I understand that people wanna celebrate and commemorate. I also understand that the era we’re in means that celebration and commemoration go hand-in-hand with iconography and commercialization. But that doesn’t mean I hafta participate, and it sure doesn’t mean I hafta like it.

Sooo the Eagles came up short. Again. Again. Again. Again. These are the times that try a fan’s allegiance. Having liked them when they weren’t contenders, or when making the playoffs was a surprise, I can say with some confidence that it’s easier to like a team that you don’t have expectations for than it is to love one that consistently lets you down in the biggest of games. Consistently. In every way possible.

I’m not gonna break down yesterday’s game too much, because it was what it was. There were a lot of if-then plays, a lot of almost plays, all that. In fact, there were just enough plays and just enough near-misses to make management think that status quo is the way to go. But it’s not. Not by a long way.

If anything, the reascendance of Kurt Warner kinda goes to show what the McNabb apologists have been saying all along. Kurt Warner had a dream season a few years ago. Then he fell off. Hard. Know what happened to him? He had average players at the skill position. Actually, when he first fell off in St Louis, he didn’t quite have average players around him, but they had slipped to just being very good. As good as Warner is, being more accurate than Donovan and having a quicker release, the difference between them is the talent around them. In fact, Donovan does more with less talent than just about anybody in the League. But here’s the rub: for everything he is, Donovan is not a two-minute quarterback. He just ain’t. In that respect, he’s Elway-lite.

No question about it, Larry Fitzgerald is a beast. Right now, there’s no receiver in the playoffs coming close. I was joking with one of my friends that with that receiving corps, I could probably get 200 yards and a touchdown. Kurt Warner’s greatness is entirely dependent on having team that’s stocked to the gills at the skill positions. Same thing with Dono. He’s not quite as dependent, but he is dependent. Donovan’s trouble is that his coach is his GM. Which means that the GM has totally bought into the coach’s philosophy that name-brand players at the skill positions aren’t necessary. So he won’t get any. Which means that the Eagles are, as long as Dono’s there, gonna be on the cusp, but never quite getting in that circle.