The thing about working at the public library is that I have small spurts of free time but not enough to engage a serious project. So once more I’ve monkeyed with the site’s template, and I’m rather pleased. This one looks more Internettish, less like I’m trying to be a newspaper man. And it’s got [...]
If you hadn’t noticed, there is a new permanent link above the banner image. I’m teaching a series on angels in Sunday school during Advent, and I’m going to give the folks in the class a link to that page in case they lose their handouts or want to read some of the texts to [...]
At least that’s how I feel now that I’ve compiled grades for the semester’s last paper.? Very high average.? I do think that this group is talented, but the scores still seem high.? Ah, well.? I’m not going to be doing freshman comp at UGA for much longer if I don’t irk the wrong people, [...]
Today was about the worst kind of day to have someone come into my classroom, but it went well nonetheless.? (My colleague Aaron visited to fulfill a course requirement for a pedagogy class, so the fact that I was helping him out lessened the pressure.)? We did our normal Gilmour-class work day, the students digging [...]
Something started happening this semester that hadn’t before: I started seeing in students’ papers citations of popular press theology books that I’d only heard about on The Ooze before.? Earlier this semester a student used Rob Bell’s Sex God as a source, and I just graded a paper that used Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz.? [...]
I’m down to the letter S in my freshman comp papers. Now that does not account for those students whose papers I skipped on the way down, either because they turned the papers in late or because they expressed no will to use paper four in their final portfolios. But nonetheless, an afternoon of hard [...]
Whenever I miss a class as a teacher, some things go wrong.? When I miss a class this close to the end of the semester, my students look positively betrayed.? I maintain a pretty well-oiled web presence simultaneously with every class, and I left probably a thousand words of instructions, but to no avail.? My [...]
Can Biology Do Better than Faith? I love when, in the same brief piece of prose,? an author accuses his intellectual opponents of narrow-mindedness and asserts with dogmatic triumphalism that his own position has overcome all others.? Normally one has to read partisan political prose to find such things, but as more and more lab [...]
I taught the second lesson in my series on angels this morning, at the request of Jan, our regular Sunday school teacher.? I’m usually one to teach through a book rather than do topical lessons, but this series has been fun so far.? I wrap up on December 16, and after having done a historical [...]
A Different President, a Different Debate I know some folks don’t care much for Tom’s cartoons, but? this one, once more, hits some nails right on the head.? I’ve written a couple posts now on the horrifying torture debate that’s migrated north from Santiago, Chile to Washington D.C. in the last twenty years, and as [...]
Some pictures of Micah’s visit with Grandma and Pap-pap Burd to the Bear Hollow Wilderness Park. And a legendary meringue. A Thanksgiving Visit
If this study is right, at any rate, he ought to do pretty well in the K-12 rat race. Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline in Time Spent Reading Apparently kids whose parents had high school degrees but owned 100 books did better than did kids whose parents had college degrees but [...]
Actually, nothing profound to say.? Just an update that we did go to Micah’s doctor’s office today, and he’s on the Barry juice until Friday.? We have learned to live a bit with them; keeping Micah’s hands active takes some of the edge off of the rage, and sleep dep does nobody any favors. It’s [...]
No, not another post on Barry Bonds. Because middle school substitute teachers are nigh-impossible to find right before a national holiday, I was in charge of watching Micah through his bronchiole inflammations and the steroids that his pediatrician prescribed to treat them. A few thoughts come to mind: A two-year-old on steroids is intelligibly worse [...]
I took Micah to the pediatrician’s office today, and it appears that he’s got a bronchial infection.? So after begging me to cancel a class all semester, my freshmen get their wish tomorrow. Now I’ve got to take some time to write up a good online lesson on their semester reflective essay.? I usually make [...]
I’m going to be spending my blogging time over the next couple days on CRM engaging with Horowitz’s new book and with J. Wizzle.? Check us out over there for some good old fashioned verbal rasslin’.
I admit that, although I’m not going to miss much about the grad student life (no money, no respect, too much work, not enough time), I do dig sitting in coffee shops drafting term papers.? When I land at a college somewhere, I hope it has a coffee shop.? Faculty offices are good for what [...]
My presentation went well today, so well that Dr. Medine suggested that I write up my findings and submit it for presentation at next year’s American Academy of Religion meeting. She said today that nobody has really done much scholarly-wise connecting the accreditation of Bible colleges, the pulpit-university tensions of the last quarter of the [...]
Admittedly, I’m carrying over more than 400 from the old blogspot site, but it’s notable at least. I might well write a bit this afternoon about my religion class? presentation today.? That happens at 9:30, and my topic is actually the phenomenon of Christian message boards.? I’m doing a combination historical/sociological/autobiographical take on them.? If [...]
A Soldier’s Journey from Iraq to Grad School I heard this on my way to work this morning, and I enjoyed it.? Network news (around here, anyway) and AM radio sometimes slip into the error of casting the Iraq debate as if it didn’t extend into the ranks of veterans and soldiers themselves. ? It’s [...]
