Results of Ruminations

One of the things that surprised me was, when I finally got around to reading the entire Divine Comedy , I really enjoyed the concept of Purgatory. I'm not saying that I would personally  like to visit the place (having my eyes sewn shut like the Envious do doesn't appeal to me.) I'm saying the concept of Purgatory, as Dante defines it, is really neat. As a Mormon, I read with a Mormon lens as my default position. (I also try to make feminism my default lens, which can make for some....interesting connections.) One of the thorny questions that Dante--and, I think, many theologians--faces is the idea of what to do for those who had no idea about Jesus, baptism, or saving ordinances. If, for example, baptism is an essential action, then those without it are, unequivocally, damned. Dante tries to temper this a little by putting unbaptized, "virtuous pagans" and similar types in the first circle of Hell. It's not very deep, and, frankly, the place is pretty ...

In Dante's The Divine Comedy: Inferno,  within the second pocket of the seventh circle of Hell, Dante the Pilgrim encounters a gloomy wood. Different than the dark woods with which the poem starts, this forest is filled with trees made fo twisted trunks, rotten-looking leaves, and poisonous thorns. At his guide's insistence, Dante reaches out and snaps off a twig. Blood oozes from the break, accompanied by a human voice screaming, "Why are you rending me?" It soon becomes apparent that Dante and Virgil, his guide, are in the Forest of the Suicides. Those who "gave up" their bodies through the "unjust" decision of self-slaughter are cast down from the second circle of Hell where King Minos renders judgment. They fall through Hell until landing in this forest where, as a seed, they grow into these twisted saplings. After the resurrection, they will hang their resurrected, lifeless bodies from the thorns of their trees, turning this somber fores...

I feel like I used to be able to think better than I do. I know that I know more  than I used to--it's an outgrowth of my time as a teacher--but I don't think as well  as I used to. In some ways, this is probably what a college athlete feels: A sense of accomplishment with a lurking belief that she's peaked in her mid-twenties and nothing else she does the remainder of her life will be able to live up to that level of capacity. Maybe that's what a midlife crisis actually sounds like? All I know is that I used to be able to read something like this: simulacra of simulation, founded on information, the model, the cybernetic game--total operationality, hyperreality, aim of total control. (Baudrillard 121) and mark in my marginalia "YES!" (complete with exclamation mark) and enthusiastic arrows to some opaque point that meant a lot in 2009 but is a murkier now. There's a chance that, were I to review the entire  work of (in this case) Baudrillard's ...

The Utah State Board of Education, in tandem with the state legislature, have a new answer to the shortage of Utah teachers: a bachelor's degree and a test are sufficient qualifications for being a teacher. I have some thoughts about this recent decision, but it requires some context. Additionally, this is a very  long read, so I don't blame you if you don't finish it. Well....maybe a little. But not enough to hurt our friendship. Probably. ARLs and Endorsements Teaching is a tricky career, and not all teachers start out wanting to be in the classroom. Fortunately, there are alternatives for people to become licensed teachers who come from this camp. We have a handful of possibilities, but the two I want to focus on are ARLs (Alternative Routes to Licensure) and endorsements. Both already require the bachelor's degree as the minimum requirement, and since that doesn't change in the new law, we'll set that aside as a commonality. As additional context, h...

John Oliver did a bit recently about charter schools. You can watch it below. Since I'm an employee of a charter school--and have been for nearly a decade--I thought I might put out my perspective on it. I'm not disagreeing with Oliver's critique--it verifies a lot of what I've heard--but instead using it as a starting point to talk about my experience. The purpose of a charter school in its platonic form would be to provide variety of pedagogical approaches to education. Unlike private schools (the big one in my neck of the woods is Liahona Academy ), charter schools provide an alternative to what we call "district schools" at a fraction of the cost. (Liahona, for example, runs anywhere from $60,000 to $80,000 per year for tuition. Rowland Hall , another local private school, costs about $20,000 for a high school student, though their fees vary depending on what grade the student is in, how many days they attend, and more.) And by a "fraction of the...

I've been "studying" the Bible a lot lately, but that probably means something different to most people than what it really was. That's why I put it in quotation marks. My study isn't of the Bible, but about  the Bible. It's also "studying" because I'm listening to audiobooks, which means I'm usually doing other things (driving, mowing the lawn, playing videogames) while I'm listening. As a result, I'm not fully focused on the books while I'm going through them. The two books are The Bible Doesn't Say That  and Whose Bible Is It?   While the first one is about mistranslations, mistakes, and flawed interpretations, the second one is more of a history, looking closely at what's known about the creation of the Tanakh, all the way up to the modern usages of the Bible. Both of the books cover similar ground, and both have been really enlightening. As a Mormon, my relationship with the Bible is less comfortable than other so...

As an English teacher/major and long time bibliophile, it might be strange to hear that I think reading is hard. (So is writing. That's a post for a different day.) But, yeah, I do. There's a reason why books aren't the engine of pop-culture entertainment the way it was in some old-timey good ole days. By reducing the amount of time we have to spend on necessities, we open up that time for improving our pursuits of recreation. Diversification of entertainment and technological changes has pushed aside older modes of diversion. In other words, there's too much cool stuff to do and not enough time to do it. But books are hard to read, even if they are--pound for pound--one of the cheapest forms of paid entertainment around. I mean, how much does a movie ticket cost? Here in Utah, it's $12 or so. That's about $6 an hour for the story you're enjoying--passively, at a controlled, non-interactive speed. A book might cost you $7 and last for over twenty hours--...

This is the last year of the single digits for me. After this, I'll be a decade into my profession. I don't feel that I've changed too much, unless I think back to what I was like when I first started at Karl G. Maeser Preparatory Academy. Aside from being more tired (a lot  more tired), I now know that I really have grown an immense amount. This is beyond content knowledge, which I know I have improved upon immensely since I started. It's also beyond pedagogy, which I have likewise improved upon since my first day. What really has me thinking, though, is how  one would step into a Socratic Seminar class and tackle such a thorny course. There's a new teacher in my school (new to the school, not teaching; she has 17 years' experience), and she seems really overwhelmed. I can't say that I blame her. I think about what I do on my first day, how I got to this "tradition", and whether or not it's effective. I've spent a lot of time conside...

Frodo Baggins and his loyal friend, Samwise Gamgee, are unintentional role models for how we ought to consider our place in the world. There's an important speech by the Gaffer's boy, which I think is illustrative in a lot of ways. (This is looking at the film's speech, in part because it is more compact, and because it works well here. Sam's book speech (pgs 712-713) work in many similar ways. Additionally, the reading of the film as text is the intention with this interpretation.) Sam: It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, th...

This tweet made me think. Okay, actually, it was the full thread, but this was one of the main points. It's an interesting comment, especially since the tweeter (?) is an avowed and happy progressive socialist (though how far left he leans I'm not fully sure). Anyway, his critiques of capitalism are always thought provoking, and it interested me. Echoes of Debord and Baudrillard came to the fore when he said that, particularly Debord's critique of the society of the spectacle. He wrote: The whole life of those societies in which modern conditions of production prevail presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. All that one was directly lived has become mere representation. (1) The emphasis is in the original, and it is fascinating within gamer theory as much as our post-capitalist capitalist society. Debord wrote this in the late '60s, along with a lot of other French philosophers and literary theorists, and I can't help but feel there's a ...

I suffer from depression. It took me a long time to self-diagnose that fact, but a lot of what I've read about what other people suffer is there, sitting inside of me. Hamlet's speech "...I have of late, but wherefore I know not..." is one of the greatest descriptions of what it's like to deal with depression that I've ever seen, and is likely one of the reasons that I have long held Hamlet  in my heart. When considering the possibility of treatment--whether it be therapy or medication--I've always been reluctant to commit to anything. Part of it is pride: I want to be able to deal with my difficulties myself. Part of it is ignorance: I don't know what it entails, I don't know if my insurance covers anything (probably not), I don't know how I'll fit fixing me into my schedule. Part of it is fear: I don't know if I can call myself me  if I change a piece of me that I dislike. But isn't that the whole point of personal improveme...