My teaching career spans only twenty-years. I have not “heard it all” nor have I “seen it all.” Judging by writing samples which continue to cross my desk I will never achieve either. Interestingly enough, my mentors, with perhaps a decade or so more teaching experience than I, have also not exhausted anecdotes on the…
I’ve been meaning to get this essay out for weeks as part of my contribution to Black History Month. I may make my self-imposed deadline of February 28th, but only by a few hours. During the month I ran across two comments which bothered me. One comment was from a white person. One comment was…
I’ve been debating about creating a new blog entitled, “The Weakly Writing News.” Several years ago, a fun paper, “The Weekly World News,” could be found right beside People, Us, and the beef jerky at your local grocery store. The paper ran crazy, fun, bizarre stories, e.g. “I Gave Birth to Bigfoot’s Baby,” or “Elvis…
At times, I think my Announcements for my classes take on the tone of a blog post. My online students do not have the luxury of the 5-10 minutes I spend each class period harping on attitude, perseverance, discipline, and poor defense and shot-blocking in mid-major NCAA basketball conferences. I have to make up for…
One of my favorite weather resource web sites is Unisys Weather (weather.unisys.com). I’ll explain why. First, below is a current weather map for North America. If you examine the color bar at the bottom, you’ll notice a color gradient from black (-100dBZ) to light blue (250dBZ). The color is based on the energy returned to…
I’ve taken flack for proselytizing too much on my syllabi. Over the decade-and-a-half or so of being in the classroom, I have taken to being more vocal about the problems I see in students attitudes toward their commitment towards their education. I want things to be congruent. If someone says “my grade is very important…
The notion “reading is studying” needs to be removed from everyone’s brain. Reading alone is not “studying.” Reading is part of the Process of Learning and Study. When a student tells me “I read the chapter” I say, “that’s a good start. Now go back and re-read it 2 more times, and this time, pay…
Warning: my diatribe below consists of mostly rant, with excerpts of real-world writing samples from previous students. I will also indict most of Kindergarten through High School Education. I say most as the factors with the least blame, in my opinion, are the teachers themselves. However, my attitude towards K-12 teachers is changing, too. I…
This has been a week from Stupidville. Let’s see if I can describe the situation. I’ll need to describe events and motivations leading up to the recent controversy, and the immediate results and subsequent modifications I have had to make in order to make one of the institutions I am employed by happy. As always,…
My musing are not going to cover any ideas concerning a U.S. citizen traveling abroad to gain a degree, or to work towards a degree. No, my musings have to do with foreign students who come to the United States with a degree already in hand from their home country. Degrees conferred by Western European…
Constant Geography 
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