The Gruntled Center will take a break for Christmas week.
I am grateful for the early Christmas present of Senate passage of the health care bill.
See you in the new year.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Pitching In is Another Centre Virtue
Each year I join other members of the Centre College faculty and staff, as well as the student Orientation Committee, in helping first-year students move in. We get to meet the new students, and their parents are wonderfully grateful.
When I took my eldest to Swarthmore, my alma mater, there was also an Orientation Committee. They saw us pull up with a van full of stuff. They did not move to help. We later learned that the tee shirts they were wearing said "I am not your mother or your father."
Moving daughter in to her dorm sophomore year, I saw a young man sitting in the dorm lobby, reading. I pointed out to him, in a friendly spirit, that there were young ladies who could use his assistance moving their heavy things in. He gave me an odd look, picked up his book, and left the building.
This reaction would be unthinkable at Centre. The Centre ethos is to pitch in, especially if someone asks for help. Centre students are overwhelmingly involved in service. The Greek organizations, to which most students belong, sell themselves to the world not on their academics, or parties, or friendliness, though they do all those things well, but on their distinctive service projects.
In the big world, Centre alumni are famous, sometimes national leaders, in how many of them pitch in to help Centre itself. In projects great and small, you can count on old Colonels the help.
Service is a Centre virtue.
When I took my eldest to Swarthmore, my alma mater, there was also an Orientation Committee. They saw us pull up with a van full of stuff. They did not move to help. We later learned that the tee shirts they were wearing said "I am not your mother or your father."
Moving daughter in to her dorm sophomore year, I saw a young man sitting in the dorm lobby, reading. I pointed out to him, in a friendly spirit, that there were young ladies who could use his assistance moving their heavy things in. He gave me an odd look, picked up his book, and left the building.
This reaction would be unthinkable at Centre. The Centre ethos is to pitch in, especially if someone asks for help. Centre students are overwhelmingly involved in service. The Greek organizations, to which most students belong, sell themselves to the world not on their academics, or parties, or friendliness, though they do all those things well, but on their distinctive service projects.
In the big world, Centre alumni are famous, sometimes national leaders, in how many of them pitch in to help Centre itself. In projects great and small, you can count on old Colonels the help.
Service is a Centre virtue.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Centre's Institutional Builders
The Auditor of Public Accounts of the Commonwealth of Kentucky is Crit Luallen, a Centre graduate. She has been an excellent auditor, an exemplar of clean government. Prior to this elected office she held a number of high-level appointed positions in state government. All of her work has been involved in building up institutions and making sure they run well.
Ed Hatchett was Crit Luallen's predecessor as Auditor. He is also a Centre gradute and a fine exemplar of clean government. His work has also been devoted to making institutions run well.
One of the important audits that Crit Luallen has performed lately has been of the Kentucky Association of Counties. Their officers spent association money wildly and inappropriately. The old officers were forced out. Today it was announced that a new head has been appointed to clean up the Kentucky Association of Counties: Ed Hatchett.
Centre College does well at training young people to build up institutions and make them run well. This is not what every college does. It is good that we have a great ecology of educational paths and higher education institutions to train all kinds of people for our great and varied nation. But this skill - building up institutions and making sure they run well - is a clearly a valuable contribution to the whole. Go Colonels at your real work.
Ed Hatchett was Crit Luallen's predecessor as Auditor. He is also a Centre gradute and a fine exemplar of clean government. His work has also been devoted to making institutions run well.
One of the important audits that Crit Luallen has performed lately has been of the Kentucky Association of Counties. Their officers spent association money wildly and inappropriately. The old officers were forced out. Today it was announced that a new head has been appointed to clean up the Kentucky Association of Counties: Ed Hatchett.
Centre College does well at training young people to build up institutions and make them run well. This is not what every college does. It is good that we have a great ecology of educational paths and higher education institutions to train all kinds of people for our great and varied nation. But this skill - building up institutions and making sure they run well - is a clearly a valuable contribution to the whole. Go Colonels at your real work.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Explaining How to Be Original
"How to be original in our quizzes in order to make a higher grade would have been helpful."
This comment stood out on my course evaluations for this term.
My standard for a good grade - a B - is that students tell me back what I told them. I think this is often the high-school standard for an A.
My standard for an excellent grade - an A - is that students tell me back what I (and the course readings) told them, in detail, and that they add something original.
Some students find adding something original to be the easy part. They think about what we are studying and make connections with other things they have studied all the time. The hard part for them is demonstrating mastery of the official curriculum.
Other students, though, like the one above, have a different reaction, that is somewhat surprising to me. Most Centre students are very good at rising to expectations. This kind of student poses a kind of paradoxical problem: how to explain that I expect the unexpected?
This comment stood out on my course evaluations for this term.
My standard for a good grade - a B - is that students tell me back what I told them. I think this is often the high-school standard for an A.
My standard for an excellent grade - an A - is that students tell me back what I (and the course readings) told them, in detail, and that they add something original.
Some students find adding something original to be the easy part. They think about what we are studying and make connections with other things they have studied all the time. The hard part for them is demonstrating mastery of the official curriculum.
Other students, though, like the one above, have a different reaction, that is somewhat surprising to me. Most Centre students are very good at rising to expectations. This kind of student poses a kind of paradoxical problem: how to explain that I expect the unexpected?
Saturday, December 19, 2009
"Away We Go" is Lovely
The Gruntled family watched "Away We Go" last night, and enjoyed the whole thing. We saw it as a moral tale of two people who are deeply in love realizing that they need to get their lives in grownup order before their baby comes. He makes ridiculous jokes, she is indulgent and moves the family forward. He is delighted about the coming baby, and is sure they can work everything out. She worries in a perfectly plausible expectant-mother way. The core story seemed, to us, very familiar.
The shape of the movie is a road trip to see where they might want to live and to bring up their child. With both sets of parents out of the picture, and with flexible jobs, they can move anywhere. All the friends and relatives they spend time with are, of course, quirky (this is an indie movie). Each family has a different frailty of family life that is instructive to the central couple. The Gruntleds found the send-up of the New Age faculty family especially hilarious.
In the end, they come round right.
I then read the extensive comments on the IMDB message boards. I was surprised at the strong negative reactions of a whole strand of commentators. There are threads of sociology, too, as some people try to figure out what kind of people liked the movie, and what kind hated it. The main theory seemed to be that young hipsters would like it and others would not. I don't qualify as young or hip.
I think "Away We Go" appeals to people who like the moral quest to transform themselves to do right by a baby. The real appeal to me is that the central couple have a just sense of proportion about how big a challenge raising a baby is, and how wonderful.
The shape of the movie is a road trip to see where they might want to live and to bring up their child. With both sets of parents out of the picture, and with flexible jobs, they can move anywhere. All the friends and relatives they spend time with are, of course, quirky (this is an indie movie). Each family has a different frailty of family life that is instructive to the central couple. The Gruntleds found the send-up of the New Age faculty family especially hilarious.
In the end, they come round right.
I then read the extensive comments on the IMDB message boards. I was surprised at the strong negative reactions of a whole strand of commentators. There are threads of sociology, too, as some people try to figure out what kind of people liked the movie, and what kind hated it. The main theory seemed to be that young hipsters would like it and others would not. I don't qualify as young or hip.
I think "Away We Go" appeals to people who like the moral quest to transform themselves to do right by a baby. The real appeal to me is that the central couple have a just sense of proportion about how big a challenge raising a baby is, and how wonderful.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Teens Choose Marriage, Tolerate Unmarried Childbearing
One of my central contentions as a centrist is that we can and should make a distinction between the good and the tolerable. Many people want to follow the common, traditional, normal path for themselves, but tolerate other paths for other people.
One encouraging piece of evidence for this contention comes from the views of teenagers reported in The State of Our Unions 2009. When asked if they thought that most people will have fuller and happier lives if they choose legal marriage rather than staying single or just living with someone, almost forty percent of girls and a third of boys said yes. This proportion has been rising.
At the same time, when these teens were asked whether having a child out of wedlock is "experimenting with a worthwhile lifestyle or not affecting anyone else," just over half of girls and boys said yes. These proportions have also been rising.
Now, I think the majority of teens are wrong in thinking that having a child out of wedlock doesn't affect anyone else. And I would strongly counsel anyone not to experiment with that lifestyle.
My point is that most teens are willing to accept experiments with unusual family practices, even as they themselves increasingly think that most people would be happier making families the traditional way. We do not have to make all ethical decisions based on what we ourselves do or want. We can choose for ourselves the way that we thinks works best for most people, while tolerating other practices in society.
One encouraging piece of evidence for this contention comes from the views of teenagers reported in The State of Our Unions 2009. When asked if they thought that most people will have fuller and happier lives if they choose legal marriage rather than staying single or just living with someone, almost forty percent of girls and a third of boys said yes. This proportion has been rising.
At the same time, when these teens were asked whether having a child out of wedlock is "experimenting with a worthwhile lifestyle or not affecting anyone else," just over half of girls and boys said yes. These proportions have also been rising.
Now, I think the majority of teens are wrong in thinking that having a child out of wedlock doesn't affect anyone else. And I would strongly counsel anyone not to experiment with that lifestyle.
My point is that most teens are willing to accept experiments with unusual family practices, even as they themselves increasingly think that most people would be happier making families the traditional way. We do not have to make all ethical decisions based on what we ourselves do or want. We can choose for ourselves the way that we thinks works best for most people, while tolerating other practices in society.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
The Race Gap is a Marriage Gap: Child Poverty
I believe that most of the gap between African Americans and other Americans is due to the very low black married parent rate. Support for this view comes from a study by Adam Thomas and Isabel Sawhill, cited in The State of Our Unions 2009:
If family structure had not changed between 1960 and 1998, the Black child poverty rate in 1998 would have been 28.4 percent rather than 45.6 percent.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
