8 Questions from a New Teacher
1. What words of advice would you give a teacher who is struggling to incorporate reflective writing practices into his or her pedagogy?
Recognize that aesthetics is at the heart of teaching—strive for beauty and something pleasing and lovely in your work—and remember that the opposite of aesthetic is anesthetic. Anesthetics put us to sleep, but an educated person is always striving to open her eyes, to pay attention, to see more clearly from wider and different angles of regard. Wake up! Get moving! Nourish the imaginative and the weird and the queer! This is a call to ourselves no less than to our students. Art often hurts, is unruly and refuses to be domesticated, but art also urges voyages.
2. How would you direct your class to learn the fundamentals of writing while helping them better
O, Canada! From the Guardian/UK
Can Canada Really Be Scared of Free-Thinking?
It’s a question I have to ask after being denied entry again – this time, ironically, to give a paper on academics and public debate
William (‘Bill’) Ayers in Chicago’s Grant Park, in 2001. Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground, spent 10 years as a fugitive, a story he told in his book Fugitive Days. The former university professor has again been barred entry from Canada, where he had been invited to give a conference paper. (AP Photo/Ted S Warren)
In January this year, I was invited by the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) to address the Worldviews Conference on Media and Higher Education to be held on 16 June 2011 in Toronto. The