The Emerging Scholars Blog

What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.

1. New online journal for student research: The Chronicle reports on Student Pulse, a new online journal for student research. Some good points from the Chronicle’s commenters about copyright and usage issues, but still an interesting and inspiring idea for sharing early academic work.

2.  Abstract Thoughts? The Body Takes Them Literally (Natalie Angier, NY Times, February 1, 2010).  Leaning forward with anticipation regarding what we might learn from the immensely popular field called embodied cognition or reclining (even if only a little bit) and giving it a quizzical look?

3.   Educators Mull How to Motivate Professors to Improve Teaching (David Glenn, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 24, 2010). Any suggestions or encouraging case studies to share?

4.  Teaching Matters: Rethinking the Hybrid Course (Steve Fox, Chronicle of Higher Education, January 31, 2010).  What do you think of Fox’s suggestions regarding Hybrid courses?  Have you taken or taught any Hybrid courses?  What recommendations would you add, in particular with regard to the management of a classroom blog?  Any encouraging case studies to share?

Books

5. “The most important person in the world”: I (Mike) was not familiar with the HeLa cell line until I read Dwight Garner’s NYTimes review of the new book by Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Ms. Lacks, an uneducated, African American Virginia tobacco farmer who died of cervical cancer at the age of 31, contributed the famously immortal cells that have

helped with some of the most important advances in medicine: the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization,” Ms. Skloot writes. HeLa cells were used to learn how nuclear bombs affect humans, and to study herpes, leukemia, Parkinson’s disease and AIDS. They were sent up in the first space missions, to see what becomes of human cells in zero gravity.

The problem? Ms. Lacks never gave permission for her cells to be used for scientific experiments, and researchers continued to draw samples from her descendants without explaining why, one part of the tragic legacy of American medical treatment of African Americans. From Garner’s review:

As one of Mrs. Lacks’s sons says: “She’s the most important person in the world, and her family living in poverty. If our mother so important to science, why can’t we get health insurance?”

This looks like an important – and discussion-provoking – book.

Some of the Sesame Street cast members

In How We Got to Sesame Street; Art on Screen (The Chronicle of Higher Education. January 16, 2009), Evan R. Goldstein treats us to some of the history of Sesame Street, which celebrated 40 years on November 10.

In 1966 a group of friends gathered for a dinner party in Manhattan. As the evening was winding down, one of the guests, Lloyd N. Morrisett, a vice president at the Carnegie Corporation, turned to his host, a television executive named Joan Ganz Cooney, and asked a seemingly innocuous question: Can television educate young children? …

Almost four years after the Cooney dinner party, on November 10, 1969, Sesame Street showed up on public television across the country. The series was greeted with a torrent of gushing reviews. “The show moves, seduces, diverts, dazzles, amuses, and infects,” raved a writer at Variety. “Learning seems almost a byproduct of fun,” noted another critic. Children’s television would never be the same.”

It’s hard not to concede that education begins in the context of where one grows up and TV viewing is almost universal among the kids in our culture.  As such, would you credit Sesame Street or similar TV shows for your early childhood education (or at least some of it)?  Does Sesame Street Turns 40, But It Doesn’t Look a Day Over 25 resonate with you?

In the last 40 years, Sesame Street taught us to celebrate our differences, to bask in our own individuality and has continuously redefined “normal” to fit us all. Sesame Street taught us to read, to write, and yes, to count. It opened our eyes to cultures beyond our cul-de-sac and taught us global thinking. Sesame Street made us believe that we could be anything and that anything was possible. Sesame Street taught us to love music and laughter and learning.

A couple more questions to ponder/discuss:

Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street

1. How much emphasis should parents or the educational system as a whole place on educational TV for kids, youth, young adults, adults?
2. What has the educational experiment shown us about what kids can/do learn from TV?  Do they learn/absorb more than the basics, e.g., values, perspective on the real world?
3. Would you agree with the Robert Smith’s 40 Years Of Lessons On ‘Sesame Street’, which ran on NPR yesterday (11/10/2009)?  E.g., Children Are Adaptable. Keep It Simple.  The Children are always right (Note: Bonus on audio).
4. As one involved in higher education, do you have any recommendations for the next decade of Sesame Street as it seeks to educate kids across the spectrum or for parents as they seek to evaluate it’s role in the overall educational toolkit?  Note:  Sesame Street provides a peek of it’s future direction at It’s all new and better than ever as Sesame Street turns 40!

P.S.  Street Gang:  The Complete History of Sesame Street (Michael Davis. Viking. 2008) looks like a good read.  I found an excerpt posted here.

Here’s the top five articles, books, websites, etc., that we’ve been reading or thinking about the past week. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them.  In addition, if you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.

1.  Duncan Urges ‘Revolutionary Change’ in Nation’s Teacher-Training Programs (Kelly Field, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 21, 2009):  Do you agree with the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who recently called attention to the nation’s colleges of education for

doing a “mediocre job” of preparing teachers for “the realities of the 21st-century classroom” and need “revolutionary change—not evolutionary tinkering” … [and being]  the “neglected stepchild” of higher education.

2. Beam Me to the Faculty Senate:  Videoconferencing proves useful on campuses (Jeffrey R. Young, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 18, 2009).  So we’re moving in the direction of less and less real presence, not just in the classroom (where increasing numbers of large lectures can be downloaded at some non-virtual campuses) but also among those who lead educational institutions.  Tom has observed a lot of road time from  campuses in the Penn State University educational system to State College.  Yes, he’s wondered about the necessities of these trips.  But what happens when people only get to know one-another or receive training/supervision through videoconferencing, even if it is virtual face-to-face?  Of course, it’s better than no communication or only older forms of communication such as written or teleconferencing, isn’t it?

3.  For Decades, Puzzling People With Mathematics (John Tierney, NY Times, October 19, 2009): How many of you have enjoyed the recreational mathematics of Martin Gardner, who turned 95 on October 21?  Did you know that in 1956, when Gardner at the age of 42 started a monthly column on recreational mathematics for Scientific American, he had never taken a math course beyond high school and that he’s made his trade by researching/re-publishing puzzles developed by others?

According to Ronald Graham, a mathematician at the University of California, San Diego,“Many have tried to emulate him; no one has succeeded. … Martin has turned thousands of children into mathematicians, and thousands of mathematicians into children.”

Where does Gardner believe the pleasure of recreational mathematics come from?  “Evolution has developed the brain’s ability to solve puzzles, and at the same time has produced in our brain a pleasure of solving problems.”

4.  Remember the tossing around of mild dementia in relationship to Francis Collins? For those interested in learning more about dementia, take some to read/consider Treating Dementia, but Overlooking Its Physical Toll (Tara Parker-Pope, NY Times, October 20, 2009). The article begins:

Dementia is often viewed as a disease of the mind, an illness that erases treasured memories but leaves the body intact.

But dementia is a physical illness, too — a progressive, terminal disease that shuts down the body as it attacks the brain. Although the early stages can last for years, the life expectancy of a patient with advanced dementia is similar to that of a patient with advanced cancer. …

5.  On Wednesday night, I [Tom] started reading Anne Rice’s Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008).  I have desired to learn about Rice’s spiritual journal, so the numerous comments regarding education come as an unexpected bonus feature.  Below’s an excerpt of Rice’s reflections on elementary education and learning how to read.  More of her comments on education in another post.  Anyone have a similar experience or fear of education?

"Called Out of Darkness" Cover

When I went to school and began to read, I lost an immense world of image, color, and intricate connections, but undoubtedly I retained more than I lost.I gained in school a poor understanding of things through written text.  School was when excruciating boredom and anger and frustration really began for me.  The mystery and calm of the early years were destroyed by school.  School was torture.  School was like being in jail.  It was captivity and torment and failure.

But what remained forever, what continued, was the sense of God and His Presence, of His embracing awareness of all we said and did and wanted and failed to do, and of His love.  School couldn’t destroy that faith.  And alongside it, I retained the sense that the world was an interesting creative place, especially if one could get out of school (p.30).

Since 2003, I’ve volunteered as a teacher at my church. I’m currently teaching two series for adults – an introduction to the Bible (its nature, history, and content, the process of canonization and translation, basics of inductive Bible study) and a course on Christian “rituals and traditions” (the Lord’s Supper, baptism, Easter, Christmas, and Advent practices). My experience with teaching has always been positive, and my students (usually adults age 30 to 70) are genuinely curious about the Bible, Christianity, and the Gospel, but often don’t know where to start or how to find reliable sources of information. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of shady information about religion on the Internet.

On the other hand, if your full-time job involves classroom teaching and research, you might like something different on the weekend – something like, I don’t know, seeing your family or doing something more active. I’ve noticed very few elementary school teachers volunteering in our children’s wing.

Do you teach at your church? If yes, what has been your experience? If not, can you share your reasons and how they’ve been received? Do you feel free to make that choice at your church, or do you feel pressured one way or the other (either to teach or not to teach)?

Norman Borlaug’s Nobel Prize Lecture – The death of Borlaug, one of the founders of the Green Revolution, sparked numerous tributes (NY Times, WSJ, Guardian). Gregg Easterbrook in the WSJ estimates that Borlaug’s agricultural work has saved more than 1 billion lives and counting. Leave it to GetReligion, however, to highlight the link between his Lutheran roots and his agricultural work. In his 1970 Nobel Prize lecture, Borlaug cites Genesis 41, Isaiah 8 and Isa. 35, Joel 1, and Amos 4 as justification for both his work and his hope in its success. [It reminds me of Walter Bradley's work that won the Bosscher-Hammond Prize at Following Christ. ~ Mike]

The Game of Ghost Writing – Doug Lederman at Inside Higher Ed reviews a couple of new studies that examine the practice of scientific “ghost writing”: journal articles written by pharmaceutical companies or other corporate interests but published under the names of academics who had little to nothing to do with the research. (Mike’s note: I agree with the commenter who observes that “ghost writing” is hardly the term for this practice.)

Maimonides on Trustworthy Sources (Harper’s) – Reader David O’Hara sent us this great quote from Jewish medieval philosopher Maimonides.

More on the challenge of humility.  What does it mean “to serve” and “put the interest of others” ahead of one’s own in the context of higher education?  Bearing the Burden reviews some recent posts on how

the service burdens are unfairly distributed, falling mainly on academic do-gooders, “who work hardest for the institution” yet “reap the fewest material benefits because they publish at a slower pace.” … academic do-gooders need to learn to just say no. … “those of us who overwork are covering up for and enabling those who under perform. Most universities have no mechanism for forcing tenured people teach better, teach more, show up at office hours, give students responsible advice about their program of study, or do the committee work they have been assigned” – Gabriela Montell, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/18/2009.

Lots of provoking material in Academic Bait-and-Switch, Part 2 (Henry Adams, Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/15/2009).

1. Freshman disinterested in reading, mastering the basics of writing sentences, and earning their grades as the “interesting distinctions between the worldviews of freshmen and graduate students at Elite National U.”
2. A summary of the graduate student’s encounter with a parent over the “F” he had awarded their son.
3. The final sentence of the essay reads, “If the Blunts didn’t want their son taught by a TA, I wondered why they sent him to Elite National U, but I thought it wise to keep that to myself.”

James Lang's Life on the Tenure Track

I have a terrible confession to make: I’ve been giving away copies of a book that I had never read. For the past two summers, we’ve surveyed ESN members about their past year, and members who had made a recent career transition – earned a degree, started a new job, received tenure – have been offered the free book of their selection. I included among our offerings a book, James Lang’s Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year, based on the high recommendations of others, and I promptly (18 months ago) ordered my own copy. I’ve even been known to carry extra copies in my bag to give away spontaneously, yet it’s been sitting on my own “to read” shelf for well over a year.

But my shame has been lifted. This afternoon, I finished reading the final chapter. Even better: I’m glad that I’ve been giving it out.

Lang’s book is not meant to replace the myriad other advice books that are available to young and aspiring faculty. While Lang has studied the art and science of teaching, his book is primarily a memoir of his first year as an assistant professor of English at Assumption College, a Catholic liberal arts college in Worcester, Mass. The book takes the reader through the entire first year, with each month matched up with a dominant theme of academic life from that time period: teaching, grading, writing, and so on. While Lang includes general advice to new professor, he mostly focuses on his own experiences of learning how to teach a full schedule while trying to fulfill service and writing commitments, balancing his work with the needs of his young family, navigating relationships with faculty colleagues, and learning his way around a small college in an unfamiliar city. Read the rest of this entry »

Would you agree with my idealistic enthusiasm for My Freshman Year:  What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student, the story of a professor of anthropology at a large state university who realized that she no longer understood the behavior and attitudes of her students and returned to the classroom?  And my uneasiness when reading that some Online Professors Pose as Students to Encourage Real Learning (Chronicle of Higher Education, 5/29/09), in the class which they’re teaching?  Can you offer testimonies, tips, or sources regarding what it takes to stimulate an on-line learning community?  We would love to have specific suggestions regarding how to direct the conversation of the ESN Book Club: Your Mind Matters.

Note:  If you don’t have a copy of John Stott’s Your Mind Matters, I’d encourage you to borrow/purchase so you’re ready to go on Tuesday.  If you’d like a head start on reading but don’t have a copy of the book, visit InterVarsity Press’ website for PDFs of the Foreward and Chapter 1.

This is our weekly post of links, resources, and articles that would be helpful to ESN members. If you’d like to contribute something, please suggest it in the comments, or send it directly to either Tom or Mike.

Update on the ESN Book Club: We’ve moved the dates back for our discussions to give you more time to order and start reading John Stott’s Your Mind Matters. The discussions will now start June 9. Read all the details here.

From Tom

Psychology Grad Students Get Counseled on How to Teach:  Below are a few suggestions, do they apply to all fields?  Are there key truths missing? Read the rest of this entry »

[Editor's note: This is a new weekly feature from your blog contributors. Each week, we'll be posting articles, books, news, etc., that Tom, Mike, and the ESN community have been pondering. If you have a book or article you'd like us to add to next week's Review, add it in the comments or send it to either Mike or Tom. Thanks!]

The Harvard disadvantage – The Boston Globe takes a very personal look at students from poor backgrounds at Harvard and their struggles to fit in with the children of privilege.

In the Chronicle, Audrey Williams June provides two looks at the changing world of tenure: a report on the rapid decrease of tenure-track instructors (73% of instructors, including graduate assistants, are now off the tenure track) and a profile of St. John’s 2008 decision to move 20 contingent writing instructors to tenure-track positions.

A few weeks ago, Inside Higher Ed published this advice on managing large writing projects from John Gastil. I (Mike) am working on a large writing project myself at the moment, and plan to take Gastil’s advice about outlining, scheduling, and setting deadlines.

A fine tuned universe? At Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed blog, RJS (a science professor) reviews some high profile opinions on the Anthropic Principle.

From the community

Dave Snoke submitted this very interesting article from the UK, about an Oxford researcher, Justin Barrett, who claims that belief in God (or at least, a god) is ” built into the natural development of children’s minds,” not something learned from the culture around them.

Books

N.T. Wright’s Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision (InterVarsity Press, 2009). Here’s a quote to ponder:

“Knowing God for oneself, as opposed to knowing or thinking about him, is at the heart of Christian living. Discovering that God is gracious, rather than a distant bureaucrat or a dangerous tyrant, is the good news that constantly surprises and refreshes us. But we are not the center of the universe. God is not circling around us. We are circling around him. It may look, from our view, as though “me and my salvation” are the be-all and end-all of Christianity. Sadly, many people — many devout Christians! — have preached that way and lived that way. This problem is not peculiar to the churches of the Reformation. It goes back to the high Middle Ages in the Western church, and infects and affects Catholic and Protestant, liberal and conservative, high and low church alike. But a full reading of Scripture itself tells a different story. God made humans for a purpose: not simply for themselves, not simply so that they could be in relationship with him, but so that through them, as his image-bearers, he could bring his wise, glad, fruitful order to the world.” — pp.23-24.

Insider Higher Ed reports on a meeting of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, in which assessing student outcomes was discussed. I’ll let you read the article yourself, but one of their conclusions was:

It might be possible, and could be valuable, for humanists to reach broad agreement on the skills, abilities, and knowledge they might seek to instill in their students, and that agreement on those goals might be a starting point for identifying effective ways to measure how well students have mastered those outcomes.

Notice the words “might” and “possible,” which express considerable reservations.

So, how should student outcomes in the humanities be assessed? Or can they be assessed? And what sorts of outcomes should be sought in the first place?