Never ask a Dylan fanatic anything relating to the work of the Bobster in any sense. Poor Paul was getting a lift from me today to a department function we needed to attend and innocently inquired what style of music was emanating from the speakers as I was treating him to a bit of Nashville Skyline. Twenty-five fun-filled minutes later I had to put an end to my answer to the question since we had arrived at our destination - and, of course, I still had plenty I needed to say. I'm not sure the poor guy felt he really needed to hear it though.
And if that weren't bad enough, I also treated my unfortunate passenger to my accompaniment to Lay Lady Lay as part of my thesis.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Coming To Life
Did a read-through of a piece by Kuo Pao Kun this afternoon with my drama guys. We're intending to stage it this year. And it's pretty demanding in various ways. So there's something a bit scary about this. Which I like.
One page in and I was loving every moment. The possibilities!
Scary. Something fragile being born, with no guarantee of really living. And wonderful.
One page in and I was loving every moment. The possibilities!
Scary. Something fragile being born, with no guarantee of really living. And wonderful.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Joy, Jumping For
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Not Exactly Heroic
Caught some of a documentary entitled Waiting For 'Superman' today, having watched quite a bit of the same film back in November with a degree of puzzlement. Basically it's about the state of the public schools in the USA and seems to be suggesting that the charter schools over there are the answer to that nation's educational woes. At least, I think that's what is being suggested. There's a rather dramatic intensity to the piece that's quite gripping but leads to a bit of a problem when you try to follow exactly what it's saying. A number of talking heads are wheeled out, seemingly to suggest they have the answers would we but listen to them, but there are moments also that seem to acknowledge the sheer complexity of what is being dealt with, inevitably pointing to the fact that there are probably few, if any, easy answers.
The problem I find with almost any treatment I've seen of education on film is the perplexing tendency of film-makers to valorise the 'good' teacher in ways that must ultimately prove counter-productive. Teaching is, like most work, ultimately fairly routine and mundane. Expecting people doing the job to go into work on a daily basis fired up to change the world is silly, especially when you really can't afford to pay them the kind of money that is necessary to attract heroes.
And kids, in my experience, are very much aware of this. They'll happily settle for clear directions for what they need to do and competence in getting there. In fact, they are often remarkably tolerant of less-than-competence, as long as it isn't likely to de-rail them from their ultimate goals.
The most interesting part of the documentary for me was the segment on the downright 'bad' teachers who get shunted from school to school and who are ultimately unsackable as the system there stands. My experience of teaching in two fairly different systems has not left me averse to the idea of sacking under-performing teachers, but it has left me profoundly sceptical with regard to ways of assessing teacher performance. This was glossed over in the documentary which gave the impression that such assessment was really quite straightforward, with a shot of the young lady responsible for the New York public schools, and who was extremely keen to sack non-performers, leaning over to a boy in a classroom to ask what he thought of his teacher. (He grunted, He's okay.)
Ultimately the inconvenient truth is that understanding of what goes on in schools is not furthered by any kind of treatment on camera. A proper consideration of the factors that need to be involved in a system to assess the performance of teachers with at least a basic degree of accuracy would in itself take several necessarily tedious and undramatic hours, possibly days, maybe weeks - not the stuff for the big or small screen.
The problem I find with almost any treatment I've seen of education on film is the perplexing tendency of film-makers to valorise the 'good' teacher in ways that must ultimately prove counter-productive. Teaching is, like most work, ultimately fairly routine and mundane. Expecting people doing the job to go into work on a daily basis fired up to change the world is silly, especially when you really can't afford to pay them the kind of money that is necessary to attract heroes.
And kids, in my experience, are very much aware of this. They'll happily settle for clear directions for what they need to do and competence in getting there. In fact, they are often remarkably tolerant of less-than-competence, as long as it isn't likely to de-rail them from their ultimate goals.
The most interesting part of the documentary for me was the segment on the downright 'bad' teachers who get shunted from school to school and who are ultimately unsackable as the system there stands. My experience of teaching in two fairly different systems has not left me averse to the idea of sacking under-performing teachers, but it has left me profoundly sceptical with regard to ways of assessing teacher performance. This was glossed over in the documentary which gave the impression that such assessment was really quite straightforward, with a shot of the young lady responsible for the New York public schools, and who was extremely keen to sack non-performers, leaning over to a boy in a classroom to ask what he thought of his teacher. (He grunted, He's okay.)
Ultimately the inconvenient truth is that understanding of what goes on in schools is not furthered by any kind of treatment on camera. A proper consideration of the factors that need to be involved in a system to assess the performance of teachers with at least a basic degree of accuracy would in itself take several necessarily tedious and undramatic hours, possibly days, maybe weeks - not the stuff for the big or small screen.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Time To Party
Friday, January 25, 2013
The Richness Of It All
Just finished an excellent three pages in The New York Review Of Books - from an actual copy of the mag purchased at Holland Village; I don't think you can get the article in question, Birds: The Inner Life, on-line. All sorts of fascinating nuggets. For example, it seems our avian chums actually have feelings in their beaks which contain an elaborate sensory system encompassing touch and taste. Oh, and amateur ornithologists have had quite a spikey relationship over time with the professionals in their field yet made contributions of real substance in their studies. And that excellent hunter of birds, and even better illustrator, James Audubon, just didn't see any conflict between these two modes of his capturing them.
Who said life was boring, eh?
Who said life was boring, eh?
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Empty Sophistry
It was when I was talking to Siew Mei last Saturday that she mentioned to me she'd been reading attacks on Barack Obama as a hypocritical elitist for having armed guards to protect his children whilst wishing to deny this privilege to others. It took me possibly less than a second to process the utter feebleness of this argument in logical terms and it's my guess the same would be true for you, Gentle Reader. Just in case you struggle a bit on this one, Mike LaBossiere, who generally posts first rate stuff at Talking Philosophy, has a painstaking piece on this topic which scrupulously covers all the bases.
But what I find fascinating about all this, and sort of frightening, is this thought: I just don't believe that there aren't people at the NRA intelligent enough to be aware that this little argument is fundamentally barmy - so why do they let it out into the public domain? My guess is that they figure a fair percentage of those hearing it will be too lazy or too foolish to think it through, and will, therefore, buy into the argument, even though those propounding it know it to be without substance. Or, on an even more sinister level, they figure that, like themselves, those who are basically against gun control will grab hold of any superficially attractive sounding denigration of any of their opponents and use it to rubbish them with a kind of malicious delight in simply having the seeming power to do so.
I'm reminded of the first time I read 1984, when I was a young teenager, and felt the horror of a world in which those in power simply decide what the truth is with a kind of perverse glee at being able to make one and one make three. (A lot worse than those rather silly rats, I always thought.) And I'm further darkly reminded of the National Socialist Party's understanding of the power of the Big Lie.
The problem is, though, that we are so eager to reward those with the ability to influence public opinion, whether that influence is for good or evil.
But what I find fascinating about all this, and sort of frightening, is this thought: I just don't believe that there aren't people at the NRA intelligent enough to be aware that this little argument is fundamentally barmy - so why do they let it out into the public domain? My guess is that they figure a fair percentage of those hearing it will be too lazy or too foolish to think it through, and will, therefore, buy into the argument, even though those propounding it know it to be without substance. Or, on an even more sinister level, they figure that, like themselves, those who are basically against gun control will grab hold of any superficially attractive sounding denigration of any of their opponents and use it to rubbish them with a kind of malicious delight in simply having the seeming power to do so.
I'm reminded of the first time I read 1984, when I was a young teenager, and felt the horror of a world in which those in power simply decide what the truth is with a kind of perverse glee at being able to make one and one make three. (A lot worse than those rather silly rats, I always thought.) And I'm further darkly reminded of the National Socialist Party's understanding of the power of the Big Lie.
The problem is, though, that we are so eager to reward those with the ability to influence public opinion, whether that influence is for good or evil.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Fallen
Conversational fragment of the day:
Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind, but it means we're on the same number of points as Liverpool.
Speaker 2: Now that's really worrying, when you've actually got Liverpool overtaking you.
How are the mighty fallen, eh?
Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind, but it means we're on the same number of points as Liverpool.
Speaker 2: Now that's really worrying, when you've actually got Liverpool overtaking you.
How are the mighty fallen, eh?
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Typologies
There are two types of people: people who claim there are two types of people, and people who don't.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Confessional
Pleased to see an article on poet Boey Kim Cheng, an interview in fact, placed reasonably prominently in The Straits Times, almost as if poetry actually matters. He's now based in Australia but is at the moment in this Far Place promoting his most recent collection Clear Brightness, which I read with a sense of both profit and enjoyment recently - ironically for the most part when I was in Australia.
But now it's time for a bit of a confession. Clear Brightness wasn't my first exposure to this fine writer. Back in the 90s I bought what I think was his third collection, Days of No Name, being very much aware at the time that he was regarded pretty highly here. That book won the Singapore Literature Prize 1995 Merit award, a fact that I am given to understand may have precipitated his departure from these shores. I guess that anyone winning such a clumsily, and patronisingly, named award might be likely to clear off in embarrassment, but there were voices raised at the time suggesting he really should have won the big award (not sure what they called it, but it went beyond 'merit') and duly miffed he cleared off. Doesn't sound terribly likely, but I suppose it could have been a contributory factor in his migration. But I haven't got to the confession bit yet; mine I mean.
When I read the Days book, which I did sort of fitfully, for some reason I wasn't terribly impressed, to the extent that there were a couple of other 'local' poetry books I bought simultaneously that I much preferred. So Days of No Name languished on my bookshelves until it suddenly occurred to me that after enjoying Clear Brightness so much I really should give it another go. (This was two days ago.) And now I'm wondering what on earth I was thinking a decade and more ago. Am I really that bad a reader? (Well, yes, sometimes. Which is why I do my best to heed the advice I dole out regularly to my students: Don't be in too much of a hurry to make your mind up regarding your response to a work - sometimes the deficiency lies in you.)
The first poem in the collection, almost the title poem, Day of No Name, just blazed off the page for me. What years ago had seemed to me clumsy, meandering and a touch self-regardingly precious, has now become a beautifully modulated exploration of feelings and intimations that lie too deep for words. (That sounds pretentious in a way the poem isn't, by the way.) Just the naming of the poet's companions, which originally struck me as gratingly awkward, now reads as entirely natural with a genuine friendliness that, casual as it is, is essential to the central themes.
I'm also now somewhat painfully aware, as a result of the interview in the paper, that Boey published a collection between the two I own which I completely disregarded, and this despite the fact it's on the 'A' level syllabus for Lit as undertaken in some of the colleges here.
So that's it, all told. My thoughtful judgments, finely honed after years of reading, can turn out to be more than a bit short-sighted. A cautionary tale indeed.
But now it's time for a bit of a confession. Clear Brightness wasn't my first exposure to this fine writer. Back in the 90s I bought what I think was his third collection, Days of No Name, being very much aware at the time that he was regarded pretty highly here. That book won the Singapore Literature Prize 1995 Merit award, a fact that I am given to understand may have precipitated his departure from these shores. I guess that anyone winning such a clumsily, and patronisingly, named award might be likely to clear off in embarrassment, but there were voices raised at the time suggesting he really should have won the big award (not sure what they called it, but it went beyond 'merit') and duly miffed he cleared off. Doesn't sound terribly likely, but I suppose it could have been a contributory factor in his migration. But I haven't got to the confession bit yet; mine I mean.
When I read the Days book, which I did sort of fitfully, for some reason I wasn't terribly impressed, to the extent that there were a couple of other 'local' poetry books I bought simultaneously that I much preferred. So Days of No Name languished on my bookshelves until it suddenly occurred to me that after enjoying Clear Brightness so much I really should give it another go. (This was two days ago.) And now I'm wondering what on earth I was thinking a decade and more ago. Am I really that bad a reader? (Well, yes, sometimes. Which is why I do my best to heed the advice I dole out regularly to my students: Don't be in too much of a hurry to make your mind up regarding your response to a work - sometimes the deficiency lies in you.)
The first poem in the collection, almost the title poem, Day of No Name, just blazed off the page for me. What years ago had seemed to me clumsy, meandering and a touch self-regardingly precious, has now become a beautifully modulated exploration of feelings and intimations that lie too deep for words. (That sounds pretentious in a way the poem isn't, by the way.) Just the naming of the poet's companions, which originally struck me as gratingly awkward, now reads as entirely natural with a genuine friendliness that, casual as it is, is essential to the central themes.
I'm also now somewhat painfully aware, as a result of the interview in the paper, that Boey published a collection between the two I own which I completely disregarded, and this despite the fact it's on the 'A' level syllabus for Lit as undertaken in some of the colleges here.
So that's it, all told. My thoughtful judgments, finely honed after years of reading, can turn out to be more than a bit short-sighted. A cautionary tale indeed.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)