Tag Archives: education

Patriotic Ramblings

May 2, 2011 D.A. Adams 3 Comments

Dear Mr. Bin Laden:

I’m not sure how much time Satan will give you for Internet surfing during your stay in hell, but on the off-chance that you get the opportunity to read this, I thought I’d drop you a note to express my sentiments as an ordinary American.

We’re not a perfect nation; yes, we have our issues. We sometimes bicker about trivial issues while major problems fester. To outsiders, we may seem immoral and unruly because of the opportunity to self-govern, which does at times manifest itself in peculiar fashions. Yes, we sometimes overvalue materialism and come across as crass and unsophisticated. Few of us would deny that we are still a work in progress.

But Mr. Bin Laden, you underestimated us as a collective. While we may bicker amongst ourselves, sometimes viciously, when our way of life is threatened, we will rally together and defend each other to the death. We are not Democrats and Republicans; we are Americans. When someone attacks us, we will protect ourselves, and we will pursue our enemies as far as we have to go. We are not a weak collaboration of backwards tribes cobbled together to resemble a country. We are the United States of America, the nation that gave birth to democracy for the world, the nation that turned the tide of WWII, and the nation that stared down the Soviet Union without blinking. We are the nation of nations, the Great Experiment.

On Sept. 11, 2001, you thought we would fear that a coup was occurring and that pandemonium would erupt across the country, but that’s not how we do things here. We vote. We decide who leads us, and if those leaders don’t meet our expectations, we kick them out, not with bloodshed and violence, but with the democratic process. On 9-11, despite the fear and chaos, we didn’t panic and rip apart at the seams. We came together, rallied around our flag, and vowed to get you.

Yesterday, we made good on that vow. Despite a political change at the presidency and two shifts of leadership in the House and a plethora of issues dogging our country, we maintained our resolve, just as we told you we would. Despite our many flaws, we are still the greatest nation this world has ever known, and I still believe that we, the American people, have the ability to solve all of our problems because of our diversity, our self-governance, our determination, and our spirit that comes from the liberties we share. To some, those words may seem hollow and empty, but for the vast majority of us in this nation, they have real meaning.

We are the land of the free. We are the beacon of liberty in this world. You underestimated us, Mr. Bin Laden, but yesterday, you came face to face with the best we have to offer. Now, enjoy your time in hell.

Sincerely,

D. A. Adams

General Posts

Saturday Afternoon Ramblings

April 30, 2011 D.A. Adams Leave a comment

Once I got to the farm yesterday, I saw these trees fallen across the springhouse. The biggest one was at least 75 feet tall and when it fell, it took at least two others with it. The roof of the building is destroyed, but I couldn’t get close enough to see if the walls were damaged. They didn’t seem to be, but the trees were so big, I couldn’t see much of the building. While this is disappointing, it isn’t too much of a setback for the farm because we weren’t planning to use the springhouse for a couple of years, at least. It’ll take a lot of work to clear those trees, but there’s no huge rush to do it. All things considered, that’s not too much damage considering the severity of the storms.

We’re taking this weekend off from the farm to work around the house and go to my niece’s 10th birthday party. I’ve already gotten most of the mowing done, but there’s still a lot of weed-eating to finish, and I’ve got a mountain of grading to do.

Once I make it through finals, hopefully I can write more, but for now, I’m just trying to get through the next week.

General Posts

Wednesday Afternoon Ramblings

April 27, 2011 D.A. Adams

To quote the late Myron Cope, “Oi and double oi.” This has been a long semester. Thank all that’s good and decent that it’s almost over because I’m so burnt out I can barely stand myself. There’s simply not much fuel left in my teaching tank, and if not for the hope of the farm and a new life, I don’t think I could stand the thought of one more year.

I’ve written many times about missing the passion I once had for this profession. I miss looking forward to the work day, looking forward to the day-to-day tasks that I have to perform. Once upon a time, I got to design my own course my own way and deliver the material to the students in a manner that I found to be effective. The underlying pedagogy was that someone who had earned a Master’s degree in their subject should know that subject well enough to design a course around the material. Obviously, not everyone is a good teacher, but typically, those people weed themselves out fairly quickly. In general, the people who gravitate toward teaching are people who have a deeply rooted desire to share their love of their particular discipline, so those people typically take the profession seriously and strive to do a good job.

Then, several years back, the pedagogy began to change, and this new change is really a symptom of the larger issue in this country. For some reason, individual instructors can no longer be trusted to design their own courses. Self-sufficiency is frowned upon. Instructors must conform to standardized course designs that are developed by committees in bureaucratic offices far removed from the front lines. As with most things in our society today, the individual is being stripped of autonomy. This removal of self-sufficiency handcuffs those of us who believe that there are many ways to arrive at the proper destination and that one way is not necessarily better than another. In short, we must conform to an approach that may not necessarily mirror our individual strengths as educators.

Personally, I think that’s become the most prevalent issue of our time. Each and every day, we as individual citizens are stripped of more and more of our autonomy, and that is not confined to one party. It’s as if the underpinning of our democratic republic, that each person should have the right to govern themselves, is no longer relevant and that the liberties we grew up believing were ours no longer pertain to the vast majority of us, especially those of us who work for a living. Forget about Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal; the real battle in this nation is over whether democracy will survive or if neo-feudalism will supplant it.