I got this message from a former student today. Just when I think about leaving teaching permanently, I get something like this that makes me want to return to the classroom immediately. Anyway, here is the email (identifying marks removed, of course):
Hi Ms. Broome. How are you? It is so strange, Elliot and I were just talking about you a couple of weeks ago before exams. We were discussing how great we felt that we had you as our teacher. He was saying how you and Mr. R. were the reason why he was a History major and I was stating that I find myself being my worst critic when it comes to correcting my own papers, proposals and briefs. I am so glad I found you. I hope that we keep in touch. My cell is [xxx-xxx-xxxx] maybe we can text sometime if you do that type of thing! LOL ;-) Anyways, I Love ya gotta go.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
...and while I'm complaining...
* I lost my NYU ID card and had to pay $15 for a new one today...
*The community college where I applied to teach remedial writing has yet to send me any word that they received my application...
*The community college where I applied to teach remedial writing has yet to send me any word that they received my application...
Reasons Why I Suck...
So, I am here in NYC for another (incredibly expensive) week of meeting with my committee. I had a red-eye flight from Ohio yesterday, followed by a 4 hour meeting with two of my committee members (I meet with the third tomorrow). I came away from the meeting feeling like a complete and utter failure. To be fair, that is not at all what my committee intended. In fact, they made a point of telling me I am still on schedule to submit the dissertation in January and schedule oral examinations in the spring. So why am I so upset? In brief...
1. Chapter 2 of the dissertation is titled, "Review of Theory and Research." My committee chair gently pointed out to me yesterday that I have neglected to include any research in the literature review- it's all just theory. I now need to go back and review 51 years of research (starting after the launch of Sputnik, which is a vital date in the development of gifted education in America), read the research, summarize it in notes for myself, and weave it into the chapter. This also means I have to re-familiarize myself with SPSS, ANOVA, regression analysis, etc., etc.
2. Also related to Chapter 2: I have to throw out the section I wrote on Bakhtin (which took me the better part of a year to research and write) and start over with another theoretical paradigm for my data analysis.
3. I included way too much raw data in Chapter 5 (I totally agree with this, my decision to do so is long and complicated and I am happy I can rewrite it), so I have to scrap about 70% of that chapter and replace it.
4. All of Chapter 6 is worthless. I was instructed to delete the entire thing and start from scratch. I agree with this as well, but I am not looking forward to rewriting it, especially since it was written at the explicit instruction of the third committee member (with whom I meet tomorrow and who will tell me something completely different re: revisions of this chapter).
5. My tone is completely wrong according to my advisers. I have to go back and radically alter my syntax. I estimate this will take about 30 hours (and that's without including time consulting the OED for guidance).
6. Worst of all...my writing has failed to adequately capture my participants' personalities and intentions. One of my committee members said my writing makes them sound "precious, egotistical, full of themselves ," and sound like they have a distinct "superiority complex." This is the comment that completely broke me. I can take all the criticism directed at me- I expect it and that is what editing is about, after all. However, the thought that my lack of skill and inability to write well caused these participants--whom I respect deeply--to appear as caricatures of mad scientists or evil geniuses is more upsetting that I can even describe. I feel like I should trash this entire project rather than libel my participants in this way. I cannot stand the thoughts of misrepresenting them, especially when there are so many pernicious stereotypes of gifted individuals that already exist.
I just want to pull up the file and hit "delete." I just want to not feel like I've betrayed the school or its teachers.
1. Chapter 2 of the dissertation is titled, "Review of Theory and Research." My committee chair gently pointed out to me yesterday that I have neglected to include any research in the literature review- it's all just theory. I now need to go back and review 51 years of research (starting after the launch of Sputnik, which is a vital date in the development of gifted education in America), read the research, summarize it in notes for myself, and weave it into the chapter. This also means I have to re-familiarize myself with SPSS, ANOVA, regression analysis, etc., etc.
2. Also related to Chapter 2: I have to throw out the section I wrote on Bakhtin (which took me the better part of a year to research and write) and start over with another theoretical paradigm for my data analysis.
3. I included way too much raw data in Chapter 5 (I totally agree with this, my decision to do so is long and complicated and I am happy I can rewrite it), so I have to scrap about 70% of that chapter and replace it.
4. All of Chapter 6 is worthless. I was instructed to delete the entire thing and start from scratch. I agree with this as well, but I am not looking forward to rewriting it, especially since it was written at the explicit instruction of the third committee member (with whom I meet tomorrow and who will tell me something completely different re: revisions of this chapter).
5. My tone is completely wrong according to my advisers. I have to go back and radically alter my syntax. I estimate this will take about 30 hours (and that's without including time consulting the OED for guidance).
6. Worst of all...my writing has failed to adequately capture my participants' personalities and intentions. One of my committee members said my writing makes them sound "precious, egotistical, full of themselves ," and sound like they have a distinct "superiority complex." This is the comment that completely broke me. I can take all the criticism directed at me- I expect it and that is what editing is about, after all. However, the thought that my lack of skill and inability to write well caused these participants--whom I respect deeply--to appear as caricatures of mad scientists or evil geniuses is more upsetting that I can even describe. I feel like I should trash this entire project rather than libel my participants in this way. I cannot stand the thoughts of misrepresenting them, especially when there are so many pernicious stereotypes of gifted individuals that already exist.
I just want to pull up the file and hit "delete." I just want to not feel like I've betrayed the school or its teachers.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Stupid Bald Headed Technologist Be Insane!
I cannot believe it.
Or rather, I can believe it but I am so disgusted that I have to negate my willingness to believe. The object of my inchoate rage? Burger King's new advertising campaign (http://www.whoppervirgins.com/). They have ostensibly traveled to remote regions of the world to find populations that do not consume the fecal-laced flesh of industrially slaughtered cattle on the dollar menu. They then ask these people to taste their burger and compare it to a competitor's.
So what's so wrong with this? Everything. McDonaldization, global hegemony, an an attitude towards cultural anthropology that dates to the days when the sun never set on the British Empire. Not to mention the implied superiority of American viewers (i.e., "Oh, look at those silly natives who don't even have a word in their language for burger. How uncivilized and backwards they must be!") AAAAARGH!
I am not the only one who is angry about this neo-colonialist advertisement. A routine Google search of "whopper virgins offensive" turns up plenty of coverage, most of it overseas. (Why don't more Americans read European newspapers and news websites?) Two I thought were particularly interesting are:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3546969/Burger-King-under-fire-for-Whopper-Virgins-taste-test-challenge.html
http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/12/crispin-brings-bk-food-to-the-unenlightened-.html
Or rather, I can believe it but I am so disgusted that I have to negate my willingness to believe. The object of my inchoate rage? Burger King's new advertising campaign (http://www.whoppervirgins.com/). They have ostensibly traveled to remote regions of the world to find populations that do not consume the fecal-laced flesh of industrially slaughtered cattle on the dollar menu. They then ask these people to taste their burger and compare it to a competitor's.
So what's so wrong with this? Everything. McDonaldization, global hegemony, an an attitude towards cultural anthropology that dates to the days when the sun never set on the British Empire. Not to mention the implied superiority of American viewers (i.e., "Oh, look at those silly natives who don't even have a word in their language for burger. How uncivilized and backwards they must be!") AAAAARGH!
I am not the only one who is angry about this neo-colonialist advertisement. A routine Google search of "whopper virgins offensive" turns up plenty of coverage, most of it overseas. (Why don't more Americans read European newspapers and news websites?) Two I thought were particularly interesting are:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3546969/Burger-King-under-fire-for-Whopper-Virgins-taste-test-challenge.html
http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/12/crispin-brings-bk-food-to-the-unenlightened-.html
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