Listen, My Children...

Manmohan Singh at Cambridge

The PM gave a very good speech.  He defends globalization, adding that it should be done well.  This -- along with his still-standing record as the first subcontinent leader in 50 years to bemuse the media by being incorruptible --  is why I like him.

Wisdom on "Boutique Multiculturalism"

Jeff Goldstein discusses the difficulty people might have reconciling their commitment to tolerance with intolerable cultural practices.  Good stuff.

Teaching Time

Yes! "The best part of being a professor is that you get to work whatever 70 hours a week that you want." So true!

Odd definition of racism

Any of my old schoolmates who stop by here might be interested to read this post: Only Racists Think Ahead?.

I have been one whole year out of higher academia, but I hadn't been aware of temporal orientations as unacceptably culturally biased.  Is that really a common perception these days?

Tests

You know those emails, "things children say," where they put in bad test answers such as, "Noah's wife was Joan of Arc"?

I could compose one of those from exams I read yesterday.....

Smart homeschooleds = unrealistic?

TIME.com's review of "RV" hits a sour note at the end, where they say "the movie cheats a little" by depicting home-schooled children as smarter (or at least better educated) than standard-school fare.  I know it's the basic stereotype, that children who are homeschooled learn nothing except that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it, people who dance are possessed by the devil, and math is an invention of east cost libruls.  But does Time really have to display its (regular-school-provided) ignorance so openly?  Anyone with a bit of research, or with experience with homeschooled children who have outstripped their homeschool's knowledge and are sent to a standard high school and then far outperform their fellow students, could easily have set Time straight.  That homeschooled children are, in fact, capable of interacting with other people -- especially with adults, since the small class sizes tend to allow for more personal attention -- and have not spent their entire life without leaving the sanctified confines of their house, seems also to have escaped their notice.  Suppose the reporters didn't know anyone like that, though.

Plagiarizing Plagiarism

Gotta love the last line of this Guardian article on Yann Martel (Life of Pi)'s alleged plagiarism: 

Our report should have acknowledged the New York Times as the source of some of the quotes.

More on the Harvard Plagiarism

Anna over at SepiaMutiny has more, and she says what I said below, only better.

A woman's right to choose

Yet again, we get complaints that Harvard is not the place to raise a family:

many female professors say they are especially concerned about what they call Harvard’s lack of attention to gender equality when it comes to child-bearing.

All complaints phrased in suitable terms, of course.  Typical of Harvard, though, there are professors who think it would be unfair to provide benefits to Harvard faculty with children:

Dean for the Humanities Maria Tatar, who has two children currently enrolled at the College, says tuition cuts [for faculty children attending Harvard] might raise equity issues for professors without children.

You see, if you haven't got any children, you can't take advantage of the offer, and that's just not fair!  (Best to remove maternity/paternity leave as well, and also the option that permits spouses of grad students, but not random friends, to live in grad student housing.)

In 2005, Working Mother magazine ranked Harvard as one of the 100 best companies for working moms. Among other perks, the magazine cited “six university-sponsored on-site or near-site facilities” for child care.

But the magazine “seemed to miss the bigger picture,” says Martin, who is also senior adviser to the dean of FAS on diversity issues and FAS’s representative on the University-wide Faculty Development and Diversity Committee.

There are six Harvard-affiliated child care centers in Cambridge and Boston. But Martin says the centers’ waiting lists are so long that most professors’ children cannot gain admission.

[...]

According to Martin, Harvard’s provisions for the care of faculty members’ children do not compare favorably to those made by other schools.

So I've heard time and again.  All why I was strongly advised by so many Harvard faculty mothers to go elsewhere! 

(As for Harvard's other difficulty -- I'll grant her the possibility that she didn't have the book with her and open while writing her own.  There are several novels that I can quote from, from memory, and I do so regularly.  Probably I use the same turns of phrase fairly frequently.  So, I'll allow that her statement may be wholly accurate.  Yet, one would think that she'd had enough of the "cite every thought that comes to you, and, if you're not sure whether it's your own thought or not, look it up!" instruction in Expository Writing freshman year that she'd have had the sense to say, hmm, that sounds a bit familiar, let's see if I just made it up or, if not, where it's from.)

 

Remedial Courses

Interesting discussion over at Joanne Jacobs.

As for me, I'm tired, ill, and going out of town.  See you later.