Well, I’m some kind of professor anyway.
I’m still pondering whether “passable professor” means my teaching is marginally acceptable or that students can pass my classes.
James Hanley
James Hanley is a two-bit college professor who'd rather be canoeing.
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It just shows for me how durable this idea is, of some aristocracy of humans either naturally occurring or man-made.
Eugenics isn't just some idea that percolates up from data. It always starts out as a fantasy, like perpetual motion or synthesizing gold and then has science fitted to it.
Which also [...]
on Getting to Ten Times BetterIf that's true, then what's wrong with establishin…
on X-Wing Miniatures Isn’t Just a Game, Its a CommunityI've played this several times; it's one of those…
on Getting to Ten Times Better(Same Link) scientists Robert Arnott, William Bern…
on Saturday Spins Returns: YeehawIt's a fantastic album My favourite at them moment on Getting to Ten Times BetterThe importance of inheritance is overestimated bec… on Getting to Ten Times BetterAs for billionaires… well, they got lucky. Luck. G…
on X-Wing Miniatures Isn’t Just a Game, Its a CommunityI think X-Wing has done a lot for improving access…
on Video: Blagojevich Is A Naturalhttps://www.politics.theonion.com/rod-blagojevich-…
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Love it. Related: my favorite student evaluation ever was “She went and had a baby during the semester and her substitute sucked.” My husband just got one last semester that said it he was mean to people with disabilities.Report
@rose-woodhouse Some of my fathers (retired geneticist) reviews are floating around online. It truns out that his labs were awesome when stoned!Report
Your dad’s Walter Bishop? 😀
(If you’re not a Fringe fan, ignore this.)Report
Not being able to finish your homework on time is a disability, right?Report
Maybe passable means plausible?Report
But having tenure renders this a purely academic inquiry!Report
Well, it may be relevant that I was denied promotion to full professor last year on the basis of supposedly not being a good enough teacher.Report
Hm, I don’t know anything about your pedagogical style, in person or all, but having had plenty of conversations with you on the blog here I’d be hard pressed to imagine that you’re anything but more than a “good enough” teacher, James.Report
@patrick,
My best students mostly say good things about me, but there might be multiple ways to interpret that evidence.Report
Maybe they think the cost of taking one more class from you is worth the tuition they have to pay.Report
Do they no longer teach how to write legibly these days?Report
To be fair, it is a waist high horizontal surface, and I’m not sure American education has ever emphasized practicing writing in that kind of hunched over position.Report
Which is disrespectful to hunched over, waist-high writers, no?Report
incoming freshmen have enough issues with typing essays that handwriting should be right down there with teaching them how to send telegrams or ride mastodons.Report
@dhex
I believe the latter is actually a course of study at Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne.Report
huh. you really do learn something new every day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPFW_Mastodons#Mascot_and_Monikers
“By using the name Mastodons, IPFW is the only NCAA college to use an extinct organism as its mascot.”Report
The university of Illinois at Chicago uses a dragon, which while not extinct, hasn’t been seen in a while.Report
You’re a good, passable, above average blogger too.Report
@james-hanley
Have you ever been called a potable professor?Report
Since he’s not not a potted plan, I suppose he has to be potableReport
Well, I’m often potted.
More seriously, a student once saw me having a very small drink of bourbon in my office with a colleague, and later wrote on the evaluation that she went to my office once and I “was boozing it up!”
I do find the very religious students a challenge at times.Report
Thats like the time, Saul and I were on vacation as kids with our parents in Lancaster County. Our first night, we had dinner at this buffet place. My dad asked what beer they had. The waitress’ eyes grew wild and sharply told them they were a family restaurant and did not serve beer.Report
I wonder what that person thinks you are passing as? White? Straight? Nonlibertarian? 🙂Report
@scott-the-mediocre
As a professor. Professor Smith in English Literature comes off more like a loan officer at a bank than an expert on Romantic Poetry.Report
My favorite teaching evaluation, of all those that I received, said: “I think Dr. New is an excellent professor. I never fell asleep once in his class.”
At least I entertained them.Report