:Daniel’s Teaching Blogfolio

The majority of ESL work in the US is part-time or adjunct work, which is why I’m not interested in returning to the US as an ESL teacher. It turns out that adjunct work is becoming (or has become) normative for many other disciplines as well. At least that’s the claim of this article. 

As I read this report on a recent meeting of an organization called the Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor my thoughts turned toward a simple solution to the problems of these non-tenured teachers: change careers. Sure it’s overly simplistic but it is an option. That’s what makes Western democracies such wonderful places to live; the freedom to change one’s destiny. If universities are not offering you the kind of package you want, and there’s no reasonable expectation of the situation changing, move on to something more satisfying. 

One objection to this approach might be that it would lead to a shortage of teachers. After all, if every dissatisfied, adjunct teacher switched careers, what else could we expect? Well, we all know that not every adjunct teacher will move on, so that’s not really a consideration. However, if a large enough number of people dropped out of teaching in order to do something else, then it could lead to universities revising their packages for the better. After all, if they can’t attract qualified people with the non-tenured, low-paid, no-benefits packages which currently keep them steadily supplied with “academic labor”, universities will have to come up with something better. It seems to me that this is much more likely to produce the desired results than negotiating with unions and attempting to bring some sort of legislature pressure to bear on universities, as is suggested by some prominent members of this organization. 

Maybe it’s because I have a job in an institution that gives me a package that is so much more attractive than anything that I’ve found in the US (yet the job is certainly no more secure) that I lack sympathy for the aims of this organization. Or it might be because I’ve come to the conclusion that there are better ways to get what I want than complaining and bullying, which seems to be the approach of many teachers and their representative organizations.

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Charles poses this question, which I’ll paraphrase:

Which is better for learning: measured response (at a distance) in one’s own blog or direct comments on the post itself?

Ultimately what Charles (and most folks I think) is after are thoughtful responses. I think that the subtext to this question is: Which response is a more thoughtful-one: one that is reflected upon and written out in one’s own blog or one that is dashed off immediately through the comment function of the blog where the post is? When unpacked in this way, it’s easy to see what the answer ought to be.

I think that there is no real dichotomy here. The avenue by which a comment travels to its audience has no affect on the quality of the comment. A well thought-out comment can arrive either through a separate post on a different blog or the comments utility of the original blog. The same is true of a poorly-thought-out comment. That being said, it probably is observable that easy and immediate access to the comment function on the blog facilitates less-than-thoughtful responses to posts. So be it. That’s why we moderate. This probably is an issue for those bloggers who get many, many comments. It’s not an issue for my blogs…or for most bloggers I would venture to guess.

Charles also posts this question:

“What would the blogging community be like if the majority of bloggers moved to a “measured discourse” mode of commenting on the ideas in other blogs? Would we learn more? Would we become better, more thoughtful bloggers? Or not?”

By “measured discourse” Charles means two things. First, a thought-full discourse-meaning that the bloggers reflect upon what they’ve read and then write a response that meaningfully adds to the discourse. Second, a discourse that takes place in the context of individual posts at bloggers’ own blogs and NOT through the comment utility. I don’t have an answer.

Does anyone have any ideas?

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I’ve been in a sort of dialogue with Charles on the issue of having comments enabled or disabled on one’s blog. His post on the question makes for a good read. I approached it with the assumption that I should come away either convince or unconvinced, but now I see that I don’t have to be either.

While the blog medium was developed in order to facilitate a type of social interaction between reader and writer, that does not mean that people will and or must use it as such. There are plenty of hammers in the world and yet some of us will choose a can of yellow cling peaches, the heel of a shoe or a brick for the job if it is closer at hand.  People are relatively free to administer their blogs as they see fit. The only problem is when a blogger has a particular purpose for blogging and fails to achieve that purpose, and then the problem is really only his own.

What I’ve come to appreciate about Charles’ blog (as well as some others) is the clear purpose which appears to be behind it. He says that his blog is about his learning and it’s clear that the way he administers it without enabling comments serves his purpose in a satisfactory manner. I think that makes it (in some manner) a good blog. After having read his post on the matter, I’m not in agreement with all of his points nor do I have to be. And since Charles has kindly added my blogfolio to his blogroll AND comments are enabled here, we can have a type of social interaction if we want to.

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Actually, I mean to say that someone is reading the CELT…sort of. Thanks to Technorati (I guess) Charles Nelson found his way to Midway 7 of the CELT and saw my editorial comment about how bloggers with blogs (like his) which do not enable readers to post comments seem to be missing the whole point of the medium. Here is the comment that he left at the CELT homepage:

“This is the blogger ”who seem[s] to be missing the point.” I’m not against comments; it’s just that I don’t have time to respond to them, and somehow, I would feel obligated to, at least to some extent. But I would be interested in your writing more at length on the necessity, or at least the value, of allowing comments directly on the blog, and perhaps why responding to other blogs “at a distance” on our own blogs (especially with the capability of RSS) is not satisfactory. Cordially, Charles”

So, the invitation is to write about:

a) the necessity and/or the value of enabling comments on the blog itself and b) why responding on one’s own blog is not satisfactory

A) Enabling readers to comment on the blog itself is NOT necessary. I didn’t mean to imply that it is. Neither is it valuable to a given blogger if the blogger doesn’t think that it is. I don’t say that to be evasive. A blog is a personal space and if the blogger doesn’t see a value in allowing readers to comment directly upon his own blog, I don’t feel any compulsion to convince him otherwise.

HOWEVER, the very design of blogs indicates that direct reader commentary is desirable at some level to some segment of the blog writing/reading populace. (Personally, my experience has been that this is the majority of the blogging community, but I accept that my experiences are limited.) Conventional web pages did a perfectly good job of publishing text. With the advent of HTML writing/editing software, updating a web page became much easier than it was during the days of writing code and using FTP to upload the documents. Yet, at some point netizens not only wanted an easier way to publish/update web pages, but also more interaction with their readers than conventional web pages were delivering, hence the blog was born. It’s my opinion that people who blog want people to read their writing. I base this opinion on their choice to use the medium which, as I’ve said already, is designed for reader commentary. So if one of the major purposes of the blog format is to provide more interaction between reader and author and a blogger disables the function of the blog which allows for this interaction, then it appears to me that the blogger is missing the point of the medium.

That being said, Charles obviously isn’t opposed to contact with his readers. If he were, then 1) he would not provide a legitimate e-mail address on his blog and 2) he wouldn’t have written the aforementioned comment. Also, I can see how some bloggers might want to put up a sort gate to ward off what might be seen as a waste of time. (I’m not suggesting that this is Charles’ position at all.) Think about it: not everyone who comments says something of interest or value. If a reader were required to go through the (miniscule) extra step of composing an actual e-mail instead of spewing his nonsense immediately at the end of the post, then the reader may not bother. Consequently, the blogger is spared reading and moderating that comment.

B) Responding to reader commentary (however it reaches the blogger) by way of one’s own blog can be satisfactory. I suppose that determination has to be made by the blogger and the commenter. I’m satisfied by responding to comments with a post (obviously). I’m not sure that I’m always satisfied to have my comments responded to in this manner since I don’t have an RSS aggregator. Then again, if I’m genuinely interested in someone’s response to my comments, I will check back from time to time or subscribe to an e-mail alert associated with that post.

So that’s my attempt at responding to Charles‘ comment, which was originally submitted through the comment feature of the CELT home URL, by way of a post on my blogfolio.

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Last night I was hosting a committee meeting for a family weekend retreat with the church. The committee is made up of members from South Africa, Australia, the US and India. In talking about some changes to the dates of our retreat, the man from India suggested that we “prepone” the date. At first, I assumed that he had merely misspoken. I figured that he had made an attempt to say “postpone” and had simply gotten his prefix wrong. When I “corrected” him, he insisted that he did in fact intend to say “prepone” which is a word that means to move an event forward. Easily deciphered so long as one isn’t an English language teacher whose grammar filter is nearly always on. As we discussed it a little further, I surmised that the word is probably in use in India and considered to be genuine English. This was confirmed this morning when I typed “prepone” into www.onelook.com. Take a look at Encarta’s definition and note the word’s origin.

Interesting? Do you think that you’ll take it on as part of your vocabulary?

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Here in the host country, it can be rather easy to make the mistake in thinking that what is touted as new here is also new in the West. This is because there is a Western veneer that comes with the machinery of modernization which is currently running at full-tilt. So, I will try not to speak of “value education” as something which is innovative in every place. That being said, value education is certainly being treated as a sort of new celebrity on the education scene here in the host country. At least that’s the impression that I got from a tabloid I saw today. 

Value education is…defined in the article as “a way to achieve the holistic development of an individual”. Not terribly helpful is it? Then again, wouldn’t you guess that the term means teaching people a worldview? After all, isn’t that what “values” express-an individual’s view of what is important/worthy/valuable in the world as well as what is not? So, the assumption under-lying the article is that Education has failed in the past and/or is failing in the present to impart (the desired) values to its pupils, therefore a concentrated effort has to be made to remedy this neglect. 

Nonesense. 

Here’s a quote that I have in the signature file of my institutional e-mails: 

“The notion of value-free education is a myth: every choice of teaching materials, every mode of instruction and every action by the teacher carries a set of values.” Angus M. Gunn 

Since values are implicit in education, the idea that someone(s) should say that it isn’t and ought to be is delusional in its conception and redundant in its expression. It’s like saying that the sky is not high, but it should be and then enlisting a group of engineers to come up with a way of making it so. 

Another presupposition of this short piece of writing is that Education and Business are leading the way towards the rectification of this situation. One life-long educationist is quoted to say, “If we can create teachers who actually understand value education and impart it to children it will bode well for the future.”  

The implications here are: 

A) teachers don’t understand  “value education” or to be more pointed-teachers don’t understand that Education is a tool for imparting a particular worldview/set of values 

B) teachers ought to be the ones educating children in terms of the values they should hold 

C) a good future is dependent upon teachers imparting values to their pupils. 

Have you gotten around to asking yourself which values should be promoted by teachers? (Don’t forget; there is no such thing as a value-free education, therefore the real question is “Which values are being promoted?”) A general manager for a regional company “and a distinguished Toastmaster” (I’ll spare you the obvious joke), says 

“…we should also be creating people who empathise and relate to others…”. 

Okay. I’ll imagine that no one opposes promoting empathy and move on to the rest of his statement. 

“We can lay the foundation for it in school and college.” 

Too late! Perhaps we can argue that school-agers are still in process, but college is far too late to do anything foundational regarding individual values…short of tearing out the foundation and starting over which is commonly referred to by psychologists as “brainwashing”! 

Now that we’ve heard from Education and Business, where are the parents? Remember them? The article affirms that they have a part to fulfill in value education. Take a look at the list provided by a parent training consultant: 

“Educators, parents, institutions, corporates, media, business, government and policy makers have a role to play in integrating values into the education system.” 

Personally, I don’t think it’s an accident that parents are mentioned after educators. Rather I think it’s an unconscious indicator of a tacit belief: Education (and its associates) is the proper arbiter of the worldview of a society and its members. This is in itself a value and it is one that I personally do not hold and have no intention of passing on to my children or my students.

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Taking a quick look at two bits of news coverage regarding the Senate’s promoting some kind of “official” status for the English language in the US, I can’t help but feel that there’s no story here.

Apparently the terms in question are “national” versus “common/unifying” with regards to the English langauge. I’m curious as to why any statement has to be made about it at all. Is it because that the “path to citizenship” provided by this legislation has a language requirement? That’s not made clear in either article.

Look, it’s not such a complicated issue: there is no need for an official status given to any language. All the business of citizenship should continue to be conducted in English until such a time that the population of non-English speaking people is too great for this to be done. In other words, we should let “market forces” come into play here. If people wish to become citizens, then they’ll learn the language needed to do so. No government is obligated to accomodate non-citizens by providing native language support in the applicant’s quest for citizenshhip.

I once tutored an elderly couple from Ukraine for their citizenship test. They had the questions transliterated into Ukrainian and memorized. I don’t know if they ever got their citizenship, but I wouldn’t begrudge them if they did. They did what they could to do what it took to do things legally and I hope they were rewarded for it.

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I was reading an article in one of professional publications (I can’t remember which one and I’m not up to walking over to the library to find out) and this is the question I came up with: Am I teaching students or am I providing a service to clients? The author was casting EFL in the mold of a service provided to clients and invoking some TESOL document as a guide. The article itself is not as important as trying to come to some kind of answer to my question. 

At first I balked at the idea that I’m a service provider to a client. It felt wrong. However the more I thought about it I came to the conclusion that this is a legitimate paradigm for some learners. For example, EFL students who are trying to get an IELTS score required by their employer could come under a professional-client paradigm. Workers at Samsung who get English lessons from the company would also fall into this group. EFL learners in a bridge-program for an institution of higher learning that uses English as the language of instruction would not come under the professional-client model. 

The difference between these situations is that the client-learner has immediate professional goals and requirements driving their language learning, while the student-learner has immediate educational/academic goals driving their language learning. Client-learners are looking at immediate compensation (hiring, retention, promotion, compliance with employer requirements) for their language learning whereas student-learners are looking at a long-term pay off for their efforts which will come when they’ve attained the education they seek and follow the career path they choose.

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How can you be an educator and not be drawn to an article with a title like that?

The whole thing appears on MSN where you can read it. I’ll only be reproducing bits of it here in order to share some specific, if incoherent, thoughts. Let’s begin:

The concern over quality education in the college sector has grown, due to the popular notion that a two-year degree is the new equivalent of a high school diploma.

That is, if you want greater job opportunities and earning potential, plan on getting a four-year degree or better

. Add to that the continuing trend of outsourcing high-tech jobs from the United States to other countries and the issue is immediately compounded.

I think this is the point where folks like Dave Ramsey and Dan Miller (gurus and life coaches) would step in an attempt to debunk the myth that a college degree equals earning potential. I’ll simply raise and eyebrow and question this popular misconception quietly.

After declaring that the research indicates that US graduates in the field of engineering are under qualified and over-valued, the writer tells us that one expert believes the US continues to lead the world in teaching innovation. How does that jive with this?

Perhaps the most prominent and vocal critic of U.S. universities is Derek Bok, former and returning president of Harvard. He followed up the 2005 publication of his book Our Underachieving Colleges with an article published in the Boston Globe that charts the gaps in American higher learning. Bok’s main point: Faculties tend to ignore research on how much students are learning in college, and how the instructors might help them learn more.

What we have here is a difference of opinion. After all, what are those innovating teachers doing if they’re not atttempting to assess what students are learning and trying to help them learn?

Now look at this:

So what are U.S. colleges doing right? According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the United States still spends more money on education than any other country.

…and apparently getting less bang for our buck, right? What drives me nuts about this statement is that spending is equated with good. As the article points out, the Chinese and the Indians are producing more qualified graduates than the US in certain fields yet they’re doing it at a lower cost. Sure it’s nice that we spend so much on our students but I think it’s a bit of unmerited optimism to say that we’re doing something right in this.

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I was just visiting Standford’s Center for Teaching and Learning, skimming their back issues of a quarterly newsletter called Speaking of Teaching and found this article from 1996. It’s about teaching portfolios…not blogfolios mind you. Anyway, something that jumped out at me was a box that listed “The Products of Good Teaching”.

Listed in the box are:

student test scores, lab workbooks, creative work and fieldwork reports
records of students who go on to major, do honors work, or do graduate work in the field
documentary evidence of the effects of teaching on students’ career choices

Let’s look at these a minute. Are the items of the first list truly reflective of my work as the teacher or of their work as the student? I suppose that the answer is a bit of both, but I would personally want to point at these things and talk about how they reflect the students’ hard work, diligence and self-discipline.

The next list doesn’t quite apply to ES/FL I think. It’s hard to imagine that there will be many students over the course of career who choose to become English language teachers regardless of my positive influence. That being said, it would be possible to point to students who completed their engineering studies (in English) with distinction, but again how much of their success can I take credit for?

The last list again doesn’t quite apply. I suppose a close corollary would be testimonials of students about the nature of my teaching style and classroom environment. To that end, I have in my possession a letter of recommendation written by a student who was also a sort of superintendent for my host country’s ministry of education. I think having such a letter written by an educator is particularly gratifying because the positive comments mean potentially more than “I like Daniel. He’s a nice person.” which is what so many student evaluations tend to say at their core.

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