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The Teaching Front
We’re midway through the French-Indian War in my American History 120s, having blasted through Early Colonialism as rapidly as possible. There are important components which I will pick up later, namely triangular trade, mercantilism and the like when we approach the American Revolution. I didn’t waste any time on the Salem Witch Trials (I never do). On the other hand, I spent a significant amount of time laying down the foundation of slavery in America.
At our present pace, we should arrive at the first exam dates by the end of week five, start of week six. This is later than my peers, probably because I spend a lecture day or two talking about the nature of history in general. On the other hand, I’m further along on the timeline than many of them.
Not that it is a competition. Each teaches there own way. Fortunately for me, the majority of my peers recognize and respect this concept.
In American History 121 I’ve got a split between my two evening classes. One of them is about to fight the Spanish-American War after we spent time on the concept of Imperialism. Prior to that we used Andrew Carnegie as our focal point for the Second Industrial Revolution. And of course, we covered Reconstruction. In the other class we are just about to emerge from Reconstruction. Hopefully we’ll pick up speed over the next two weeks.
I’m building new exams for all classes this semester, generating new essay questions as we move along. I’ve been using the same essays for a couple of years now and it seems to be long past time to switch things up.
Once we clear the first exams I’ll proceed forward to the Pre-Revolutionary Era and Theodore Roosevelt respectively. I think I’ve got at least two to three good classes with the potential for a fourth if I can weed out the dead weight or get them to see the light. The first exam almost always serves as a wake up call for many of them. They’ll make a decision to double down or bail out based upon what happens in the next couple of weeks.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this period is that I provide ample warning for what is coming down the pike. It isn’t an ambush by any means, instead it is perhaps more akin to a carefully scripted training exercise. They are given metrics by which I will grade the exam in the form of commonly made mistakes. In many ways, it is another history lecture for the students, a history of their predecessors and how they tend to react to the first exams in my classes.
Sadly, they frequently ignore these warnings and advance to contact expecting to get through without too much trouble.
They are often sorely mistaken.
Lastly, I had a guest visit my classroom to see how I did business. She was there on the day we killed General Edward Braddock, a bastard in need of frequent killing if you ask me. Later when I talked with my guest, she said if she had more history instructors like me, she might have chosen a different discipline. She gave me high marks for getting my students to class on time, keeping their attention and moving forward at a brisk pace.
I’ve got to say, I always appreciate positive feedback concerning my teaching. Thanks!
The Writing Front
I was able to get fiction writing done on three separate instances this week. Next week, the plan is to increase that to four days a week, Monday through Friday, probably around the two pm time frame. That isn’t my strongest time creatively but it is open and the campus is relatively quiet.
I also transcribed some of the longhand material, tweaking and refining as I went. I’m pretty happy with the results so far.
The goal is to have a finished product ready by semester’s end. Perhaps I might sign up for the National Novel Writing Month competition. This is slated to become a novella sized project and I think the subject matter I’ll address warrants that much coverage.
It feels good to be back in the saddle again. This wouldn’t be possible without the support of the Woman I Love, Trinity, who got her vehicle back to operational status, freeing me from transport duties.
Thank you very much.
The Fitness Front
The transportation freedom mentioned above has given me the flexibility to focus on my efforts in the swimming pool. This week the goal was to complete 4000 yards by today. I fell short by a 1000 yards since I didn’t go today.
On the other hand, my weight is now down to 190.5 pounds, more than twenty pounds less than my January 2012 high of 212 pounds.
My energy levels are good on a relatively consistent basis. On the rare instance when I am late to class and I have to drop for push ups (I believe in paying for breaking my own syllabus rules, believe it or not) I can easily pump out more push ups than are actually required. In fact, I got applause in one class for pumping out twenty without too much effort.
Not bad, given that I had swam a thousand yards with a 25 push up warm up a mere thirty minutes earlier.
The only downside of the renewed fitness condition is that I often underestimate how much projection power I have.
I’ve become known as “The Loud One.”
Other Fronts
The new glasses came in to replace the pair I busted last week. Now all we need to do is just count the days down to the next two pay days on the 22nd and the 1st respectively. Those resources should, finally, after ten months of economic misery, lost sleep and bubbling anger, allow us to patch the last of the major holes in the budget. Barring anymore disasters, we can move forward with getting our fiscal house in order.
I continue to read Dario Cirello’s Aegean Dream, a memoir of the time Dario and his wife spent in Greece. It is strange to be reading this while I am taking Spanish. The commentary on language troubles matches my own efforts at trying to speak Spanish intelligently.
Finally, the new Kindle arrived to replaced the dead one. I’ll pick it up from the landlord’s office tomorrow before I head off to training with the Lifeguard Company I work for.
So it goes. Things are getting better by the day, barring an exception or two. May the upward climb continue.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Right now I’m in the middle of reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.
Why? Well, it is a favorite of mine and it has been a few years since I read it last. I like the flavor of the novel and the delivery of Lee’s message about Southern small towns, race and gender issues. I like the fact the novel does not preach at me or crack me upside the head with an ideological ball bat. Lee just slowly builds sympathy for the Finch clan and the whole host of characters which make up Maycomb County in the 1930s.
You know, the narrative goes on for quite some time before you get to the heart of the novel. We meet the protag, a bib overall wearing tomboy named Scout and her older brother Jem. We wonder about the Radleys down the road and who hasn’t had creepy neighbors which seemed to spawn a mythology all their own. There is Atticus Finch, town lawyer, widower, raising an unconventional family in trying times. For nine chapters or so the reader is hit with one challenge to the conventions of 1960 (the novel’s first publication date) after another.
Then Tom Robinson comes up. We don’t meet him immediately. Instead, we encounter him as the subject of a matter of honor between Scout and Cecil Jacobs.
It features the N-word.
There it is. I do not dare even type it but most of us know which word I am referring to. In the Year 2010 I can use any number of different words up to and including the once horrifying but somewhat weakened FUCK in most venues.
But as a writer and a historian, I do not dare use the N-word. In class, when it comes up, I refer to it as the N-word. I often couch saying “the N-word” by saying, “I am not committing academic suicide today by saying the N-word.”
So I can’t use it academically even though the word is deeply ingrained into the American Lexicon. It is a word that has shaped American History and yet I, a trained historian, can not use it.
As a writer I find that I can not use that word either.
At the end of the day, I suppose I can and have lived with that compromise. The N-word is, today, an insulting, demeaning slur designed specifically to remind African-Americans of their former position in this society.
Yet there it is in Harper Lee’s novel. Why not just cut that word out and replace it with something else?
Negro? Well, even that is a bit dangerous, isn’t it?
African-American? While hyphenation is all the rage today it would be factually inaccurate to put that phrase into Scout or anyone else’s mouth in the Depression Era South of the 1930s.
So what is the solution?
The Historian and the Writer in me have the same answer.
Leave the novel alone and accept it on its own terms. To remove the N-word from To Kill a Mockingbird diminishes the power of the novel and worse, waters down the message intended by the writer.
Our past in the United States of America is often a painful one. Lately I have wondered if maybe some folks dislike history due to that pain, the unpleasant facts of our past sins, and in trying to reconcile them with who we are today decide that it is not worth the time.
I find myself wondering how long we will have to wait until a well meaning but misguided editor pulls the N-word from To Kill a Mockingbird?
Hopefully they will not do it anytime soon. In the next year or so I plan on using Lee’s novel in my American History 121 classes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
For Christmas my client purchased an Amazon Kindle ereader for me. There was a bit of a conspiracy to keep this purchase a secret from me that involved the enlistment of the Woman I Love and my own mother. Needless to say, I was in the dark until Christmas Day when I opened the box to find it sitting there staring at me.
It is a strange thing, this relationship I have with John. Previously we traveled to New York City to meet him in person and do research for After America. New York City had not been high on my list of places to travel to but it meshed up with my schedule better than San Francisco did and since it was February, how could any warm blooded male resist the urge to give the Big Apple to the Woman they Love?
Turns out that New York City took most of my Midwestern notions and flushed them down the toilet. A friendly city, active, exciting and far different from the usual, mean spirited impression we are left with.
Staring at the Kindle, I wondered if I wasn’t on the verge of a similar eye opening experience. I was at best lukewarm to it. Reading off a computer screen has never been a favorite chore of mine. I tend to prefer passages shorter than 2000 words and I find I do not process the information in the same manner as text printed on paper.
So I charged the device, registered it and started to noodle around with it. No, like most men, I didn’t read the instructions. You don’t really need to. The Kindle seems to be an intuitive device for the most part, easily sorted out. It helps that we have wifi in the apartment now so I was able to purchase a couple of books for a test run.
For the record, I picked up Polybius and I picked up Thomas Fleming’s work on the intimate life of our Founding Fathers. Much of what I have read out of Fleming so far is material I was already aware of.
Truth to tell, however, I have not spent much time reading on it until this morning. I was in the mood for a newspaper while Trinity watched the new reality show Toddlers and Tiaras (who comes up with this crap?) and there was the Kindle on my desk.
“I’ll just download a paper,” I thought.
Yeah, but which one? There are a hundred and fifty plus available. I decided to go with something simple and started off with USA Today, the e copy of which is a quarter cheaper. The Kindle downloaded it in less than a second and I was off.
Couldn’t I read the USA Today on my laptop? Yeah, umm, it seems the laptop’s multimedia capability is a bit of a distraction. It is too easy to go check facebook or some such.
The screen on the kindle is just about the right size for reading. You can adjust the text size and at first I had it set for a larger size before I found I was toggling the page buttons too often. I settled for something closer to default, which gives me a block of text I can concentrate on for a few seconds before moving on. The page turn is not instantaneous so if you are impatient, you’ll need to clamp down on that. If you’ve been spoiled with touch screens on the iPod Touch, iPhone and the iPad, you are going to have to wait as well.
The screen is not backlit so you can read it in daylight. On the other hand, if you want to read it in a darkroom, you need to turn on a light.
My only real issues with the Kindle so far have to do with overall design as opposed to function. When I hold it in my hand, it feels a bit too slim. Part of this is due to the fact that my hands are shaped oddly and nothing ever really fits them right. I like the item I am reading to seat itself in the palm of my hand, right where the meat of the thumb meets your life line. The other issue is that the page tabs seem a bit too small.
Do I love the Kindle? I think the jury is still out on that. I definitely like my Kindle. I like the fact that I can carry a library of books with me in the palm of my hand and that I can access those books at will. I’ve lost track of the number of times I have loaded up bags full of books to use for research while out of the apartment. The Kindle solves that problem for me. I can see it serving as a useful research device in the future.
The Kindle can also be used to store documents of your own in PDF format. I had given some thought to purchasing a Kindle DX for use in my classes for lecture notes. This would get me away from the massive three ring binders I am in the habit of carrying around. I’m not sure I’ll be using this Kindle for that purpose. I may put my notes on there so I can review them prior to giving a lecture. However, more and more, I find that I lecture without any notes at all.
I know that I definitely enjoy reading on it far more than I do my iPod Touch. The Touch can be used for very short items and I think the finger flick method of moving the text around is better than the tabs. That said, the Touch screen is far too small for lengthy reading. I still can not figure out how folks read books through their cellphones. My eyes ache at the prospect.
Will this thing do away with print books? Hard to say, really.
I’ll have more thoughts on the Kindle reading as time progresses. In the meantime, a hearty and public thank you to John Birmingham for the Christmas present.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Sorry I’ve been away from the Tree for so long. There were tests to grade and record, students to see, bills to pay since April Fool’s was payday (irony be thy name), and sunny weather to enjoy with the Woman I Love. Needless to say, Reality has kept yours truly busy.
The April Fitness Plan
I’ve got until April 27th to get ready for Lifeguard Training. The good news is that I can push myself to reach 300 meters of swimming without break. The bad news is that it takes a great deal of effort and it only features the front crawl. I need to master the breast stroke and the turn required to effectively use the breast stroke. This has to be done in twenty days or less.
I ran into a bit of a snag with my revised swimming plan. Across from the Pod is North Kansas City Community Center (it is across the street from the burning Quik Trip in Birmingham’s Without Warning for those wondering). I went across the street to knock out the first of my morning swim sessions only to find a large swim team contingent there. Granted, they left me to my own lane but I found it oft putting. It prompted me to rethink my fitness plan.
Here it is.
Monday-Wednesday-Fridays
0530 hours: NKC-CC, Strength Training
I’m going to make a change to my strength training workout. I had been working on sheer muscle mass mainly as a way to burn off more calories. The more muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn. I also like the additional mass because it gives me a bit of an edge in the classroom (the mass adds just a bit to my command authority).
Instead, I’m going to aim for endurance instead. I’ll drop the level of weight I am using just a notch, say my bench press down to 165 lbs at 10 reps rather than 185 at 6 reps. I have a lot of raw power at my disposal but not as much endurance as I’d like.
And it is probably worth pointing out that the swimming is increasing my overall strength anyway. Yesterday when I worked on the Lat Flex machine for the first time in two months (the Campus Rec Center doesn’t have one I like) I noticed that I was pulling far more weight than I had in the past, up to 255 pounds. So I can probably modify my workout just a notch.
0930 hours: Campus Rec Center, Swim Training
The Campus Rec Center pool is pretty quiet at this time with lots of open lanes. For this week I am going to work at building up my form, breathing and endurance.
M: 100 meters x 5 for 500 meters.
W: 100 meters x 6 for 600 meters.
F: 200 meters x 3 for 600 meters.
1900 hours: Northtown Community Center, Additional Swim Training
I notice that I recover pretty fast between sets which leads me to believe I can probably push myself a bit more. In the evening I’ll hit the pool again. Each night with the exception of Monday night (I teach so I can’t swim) I’ll try to reach the 300 meters mark consistently.
Tuesday-Thursdays
I have a body building class on campus at 1230 hours. I think I need to get down to the campus rec center earlier rather than hanging around the adjunct farm eating junk food and generally goofing off. I also need to work in a cardio element into my plan.
1130 hours: Strength and Cardio Training
It is easier to work back at Northtown so I’ll work chest at the Campus Rec Center.
I will also work in a 20 minute session on the elliptical trainer. This will probably happen during the actual class as my fellow students tie up most of the weights.
If I feel like it, I may hit the pool for some swimming. I think I’ll restrict myself to 100 meter sets.
Saturday and Sunday
With the Northtown Community Center back on line, I can work in some weekend workouts. These will probably be either easy going days or make up days. Usually Wednesday ends up being my paperwork catch up day so I suspect I’ll be running with a variation of the MWF workout.
Consumption
I need to tweak my eating habits. One probably is that fresh fruit is a bit thin on the ground. The apples around here have been pretty crappy and it is still just a notch early for strawberries. I also need to watch the binging.
So it goes. My goal is still the same. Qualify for lifeguard training. Secondary goals include fat loss and increased muscle mass.
The Teaching Front
I handed exams back this week in three of my four classes. It was a mixed bag. Overall there were marginal improvements in all three day classes. The marginal improvement can be traced to some basic facts.
1. Some students have dropped or simply didn’t take the test.
2. Some students took my advice and prepared.
The additional prep work, outlines and note cards, helped most of my students who used them. However there is always a couple of people for whom these tactics do not work. I don’t quite know why this is and it bothers me to hand out a solution to a problem and see it fail for a few students. I don’t think there is any one solution to the problem. Some students aren’t ready for college. Some students aren’t quite getting what I am trying to teach them. Some students have issues outside of the classroom which are beyond my control. Some students simply do not have time.
A few students, I think many students, approach the work the wrong way. They do the prep to get it done, much the same way a fast food cook or an assembly worker does work. Do Task A, go to Task B, connect to Task C, complete task order, set aside and move to next task order. They do it much the same way I used to fill out my DA-2404s when we were on maintenance in the motor pool. You find the same problems with the vehicle that the Army hasn’t fixed, you list them, turn it in, call it good, go get a soda.
They see the material as little bits of data to be memorized. This is not a new observation, James Loewen makes this point in his Lies my Teacher Told Me book (probably one of the only decent points he makes, overall I find the book questionable). So they memorize a little bit of data, hope they see something that matches it on the test, throw it against the wall and hope it sticks. And the more they dislike a given topic, the more likely a student is going to respond in this fashion.
Lately I’ve taken to telling my classes these things.
1. History is not about memorizing useless bits of data. If that were the case then I tell you that I can get a classroom full of parrots to earn As on the test if you give me enough time and crackers to train them.
2. History is about motivations, causes and consequences. A student needs at least that level of comprehension if they are going to understand what is going on. This is different from “intellectual history” which is what some say I should be teaching. But I can’t have a discussion about trends and historiography if they don’t have the slightest idea of the basic facts.
3. 99% of History is about this question, “Who got screwed and why?”
The response I sometimes get is this.
1. I just need my history credit.
2. Just tell me what you want me to put on the essay.
3. I am never going to use this information, why am I in this class anyway? It has no purpose.
I have some sympathy with the later one. The question which drives so many people, my father is a classic case in point is, “Will this put food on the table, pay the bills, make me happier?”
In the immediate sense? No, it won’t. For me it is only lately that my skills as a historian has helped pay the bills, put food on the table and make me happier. But even before I started teaching, my skills as a historian had use in my life. As a security officer it helped me to write a more effective report, which is a first draft of history. Most of my students are moving on to Vocational training in fields where I know they will be writing reports. Mechanics, techs, medical, law enforcement, teaching, so on and so forth, they’ll be expected to write reports, fill out forms, diagnose problems. The skills taught in an history class helps with that, even if they can’t see that we are trying to teach them a way of thinking.
For others there is only ONE right answer. The subjective nature of history drives some black and white thinkers nuts and generates the “Just tell me what you want” statement. Some items are certainly locked in stone, such as dates, who signed what document and why, where places are, where events took place, and who was there.
No one except a nutjob is going to argue that the Declaration of Independence doesn’t exist. It does. We have sufficient documentation to tell us when it was written, by who, how it was revised and why, and the reason for the creation of such a document. Those are facts.
What is subjective is the effects the document had on follow on events or what the people who helped write the document were thinking at the time. If a student thinks there is just one right answer to any question, then this will drive them mad. It will be worse if they are simply trying to get the work done and out of the way.
Anyway, these are the issues I face in the classroom on a general level. Next time I might ponder some about student attitudes toward the essay questions I issue with each exam.
Payday Activities
Well, the first of the month is payday from the teaching gig so it was off to pay bills and whatnot. We’ve restocked the larder, laid in enough to hopefully get us through the month. Perishables are a bit of a problem but we’ll do what we can.
I’ve been making Trinity’s car payment for the last few months. I’m a bit worried about what will happen once summer arrives. There will be no money for the car then. Hopefully we’ll both pick up part time jobs and maybe her summer student financial aid will help with that. Still, I’m looking forward to having the car paid off. Once we get that cleared, we can see about upgrades to the office and living room areas.
And I can start restocking my personal library.
Speaking of books, lately I’ve been looking for books on economic history. I found a couple of good surveys of US Economic History, one set in the Gilded Age, the other a comprehensive examination form 1600 to about the mid 1980s (when the book was published). I was driven down this road for a couple of reasons. One is that I would like to reach a point where I could discuss economic history more effectively in the classroom. The other is tied to Research Project Number – 05, which I think is as much about economic power as it is about military and political power. When I read these books, I’ll post reviews on them.
Niall Ferguson also has what looks like a pretty good book called The Ascent of Money. I’m going to try and snag a copy of that.
Hopefully at some point over the summer I can sit down with a revised understanding of economic history and rebuild my lectures for both American History classes.
Clash of the Titans
I struggled mightily to get out of seeing this movie but Trinity wanted to see it. So off we went, yours truly not very happy about it but I did my best to suck it up.
The film sucks ass. No character development, no reason to give a shit about what happens, it is just awful. Only Liam Neeson’s little moments make it bearable and then just barely so.
That said, there is this.
It is better than the original.
But then, how could it not be?
Other Stuff
Yesterday was a mad day of spring cleaning at the Pod. We scrubbed the shit out of that place and it needed it.
And finally, we’ve been invited out to Sunset Bed and Breakfast for Easter Sunday doings so I’ll be dropping back off the net.
Tomorrow will be another day.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Local
We have snow again. Sigh.
If you are a fan of John Birmingham’s work then chances are probable that you have read Without Warning. If you haven’t, go to the bookstore or library, buy a copy, read it and come back to see me. I’ll wait.
Back already?
There is a passage in the novel where a GlobalHawk drone is flying recon over the now deserted United States of America, notably the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. Unlike many major metro areas, Kansas City did not erupt in a firestorm of failed power nets, running appliances and the like due to the weather in March 2003 per the alternate timeline. The reason is due to the “schizophrenic weather” of the region.
Which is what we are experiencing now. Technically today is supposed to be the first day of spring. Yesterday before three in the afternoon it was shirt sleeve warm and sunny, enough so that Trinity and I went for a walk around North Kansas City (you’ll notice a QuikTrip burning in the novel which is a stone’s throw from where we live today). By time we made it back home, the clouds had moved in and the temperature had fallen through the floor.
So another blanket of the white stuff for us. Just great.
The Writing Front: Projected Plans
I looked over two stories yesterday and I plan on getting moving on a third in the next day or so. If I play my cards right and get enough writing time in, I think I can have two of my stories ready for market in addition to the Joint Writing Project.
So my goal is pretty simple.
I want three new stories ready for market by May 18th of this year. In addition, I’ll pull Maternal Soldier out and send that story out to market again. That will make four stories with my name on it and a fifth as part of a dual header if you count JWP-02.
I had been working on a project in the second person. I don’t like this approach but I still like the story. So I’ll start over on that one.
Reading: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
I’m almost through with The Remains of the Day which follows the reflections of Mr. Stevens, a British Butler to the late Lord Darlington. Told entirely from the first person point of view, Ishiguro effectively establishes characterization and conflict within two pages of his introduction. It is the first book in years that I felt compelled to sit and read to completion in one sitting. Unfortunately my life is such that extended stretches of reading do not seem to be possible anymore.
I’ve already seen bits of the film and read reviews and summaries of the novel so I have already had it spoiled. Mr. Stevens is someone who is deeply invested in the concept of maintaining one’s dignity as one carries out their duties as a butler. In the pursuit of this dignity, an ever fleeting sense of total perfection which is unobtainable, he loses a bit of his humanity it seems. And he also misses his chance at true love with one of his peers, the housekeeper Miss Kenton, who eventually leaves the Household in search of happiness with another man.
Deluded, a bit defensive and certainly a little snobbish, Mr. Stevens is a quirky man who strives never to give overt offense. Unfortunately, he is so wedded to the avoidance of offense that sometimes he misses the point, which is what makes him human in spite of the fact that he has lost some of his own humanity. I found him to be refreshing to read, to explore his mind, though I suspect I would not care to have a drink with him.
I think I’ll check up on more of Ishiguro’s work to see what I can learn.
They say that writers read, especially the good ones. I agree, unfortunately, I am an incredibly picky reader. My patience for most of what passes as literature these days is slim at best. I dislike political novels intensely and style monkey stunts do not interest me either. What we have in The Remains of the Day is a solid, interesting and novel character study.
It would be nice to find more such work out there.
So it goes. It has my recommendation.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
The Writing Front: Reborn for Glory
WC: 1479
Well, the good news is that I figured out what this story is about. I’m pretty happy with that, though I wonder if it doesn’t use a well worn cliche. We’ll see. In any case, I got some writing done.
I don’t know if this story will need 5,000 words to tell it. I think I can get the story cleared off the decks in less than 3000.
The E-Light Reader Corps
I’m giving some thought to reforming the E-Light Reader Corps. This was a group of people who helped out with various stories by reading them and telling me what worked, what didn’t. I’ve already got one person on board for this (I think).
In any case, I’m considering expanding this group. I want more than just fellow writers. I’d like readers/fans to participate. I also want to keep the numbers small, maybe no more than six people at first.
Interested parties can e-mail me at tearingdowntuesday(at no spam)yahooDOTcoDOTuk or leave a comment here.
If you are a fellow writer I will try my best to give a crit for every crit I get. I’ve been a lot better about this lately.
The Teaching Front
My evening class has their test tonight. I think I’ll test them, show a bit of John Adams and let them go. Next week we’ll start on the Revolution. Hopefully they’ll do better than my morning students. While they are testing, I’ll move forward with grading.
One new rule I imposed on myself is that I no longer take the tests home with me. I grade them there on campus or while I am giving another test. Grading is such a frustrating experience because frankly, these students should be doing better than they are. And every student I have met who moves onto the four year schools constantly report the same thing.
“It is awfully fucking hard here at the four year level.”
I figure the harder I can make my class, the better I can prepare those who are moving on and perhaps convince others that it won’t be a cake walk. Weeding them out is not my personal goal per se, I don’t see myself as a gatekeeper unlike some in the field, but if I can show them that it isn’t a joke and they move onto something else, then that can’t hurt.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Aboard the Battlestar Steven Francis Murphy, BSG-71
Location: Combat Information Center
Mission: Prepping for the Semester’s First Engagement
The Teaching Front
Today we covered more of the Pre-Revolutionary Era which runs from 1763 to 1775. It is, to be certain, a hash of mythology, entangled narratives and a lot of confusing policy wonk stuff.
On the upside, most students have had these lines hammered into their heads.
“No Taxation without Representation.” That is good. But ask them what that means?
“I don’t know.”
So you have to explain the British Parliamentary System. You also, while you are at it, probably better get into the English Civil War (briefly, a little dab will do ya). You might want to mention that the mantra, “No taxation without representation” was not an original notion. Parliamentarians argued about that back in the 1600s.
Then after you line all of that out, you have to explain to them that the Colonials do not have representatives in Parliament. If you want to confuse them, tell them it wouldn’t have done any good to have them there anyway due to the Tyranny of Distance and the time lag in communications.
Next, you have to hammer home the taxes. You should have spent some time explaining the fact that the colonies were allowed to run their own affairs, more or less, up to the 1750s. They are not happy with meddlers and micromanagers. They definitely are not happy with getting the bill for the French-Indian War or making installment payments for the greatly expanded British Empire.
From there you go from taxes and representation to enforcement. That leads to the Vice Admiralty Courts and British efforts to pull away two basic liberties provided for by the common law.
Right to a jury trial and that one is innocent until proven guilty.
So it goes.
Ideally what should happen, if they have been paying attention (and I’m getting better responsiveness out of some classes, probably because they saw the rant in the previous entry) is that they could use the Declaration of Independence as a study guide.
Right now it feels mushy. Sometimes I think what I should do is throw out the current lecture and build a new one based entirely on the Declaration of Independence. Then I can simply go down the list that Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin and John Adams hammered out to make their case in 1775. Here is the various tax acts. There is the effort to block the right to assembly. Over here is that bit about the King’s agents and so on.
In fact, the longer I think on it, the more I like that idea. Hell, it can’t hurt.
Sadly, I won’t be able to truly test it out until the next semester.
We are about to hit the start of the Revolutionary War. They’ll test next Thursday and then we’ll see what we get.
The Fitness Front
Made it to the gym twice this week. If I can get a session in tomorrow and Saturday after class then that will make four.
The Writing Front
I posted elements of my three short story challenge projects at Terri Lowry’s Creative Writing class. They are up a bit early and I suspect it will be a bit before they receive any crits. Of course part of the problem is that sometimes you get a crit that isn’t very helpful. The other part is that I need to crit the work of other students in order to get some likewise response.
Still, they are up and I am ahead.
The more I think on it, the more I think that the key to greater productivity in yours truly is to write the beginning and the end first. Then figure out how we get to the end of the story. The Middle is where I usually have trouble, get lost, lose interest.
Reading
I’m continuing to read Ronald Takaki’s book A Different Mirror. Today I started the chapter covering slavery in American History. Some of this is material I know already. I have to know it if I am going to teach American History 120 effectively since it will lead to the American Civil War. I am not learning anything new per se but I am getting neat little tidbits and details that I greatly enjoy hearing about.
Why wasn’t I exposed to this book? Readers know that I am no fan of political correctness run amok (and there has been plenty of that, especially here lately in the SF field). On the other hand, I can’t see deleting known history out of the narrative. If nothing else, I want to provide a complete survey, or at least as close as possible in the sixteen weeks I have. My students, all of them, regardless of their ethnicity, gender or orientation, deserve no less.
Instead of this book I was exposed to a lot of bloviation and preaching by my instructors at Park College. Instead of this book I encountered a revisionist book called Arming America, which tried to argue that gun ownership prior to the Civil War was a myth. It was the worst sort of book, pseudohistory with falsified, fictional research serving a political agenda (gun control). It won the Bancroft Award and for a long time was held up as the standard by which other historians should orient their efforts.
Turns out the book is pure bunk. Yet you can still purchase it even though most of the book’s assertions have been shown to be false.
Then there is Joseph Ellis and his work. I have trouble taking the man seriously because he lied about his military service. If he lied about that then how I can take his scholarship seriously? He especially caters to the Jefferson/Hemmings narrative which many simply accept at face value.
Myself? I’m skeptical but mainly because there seems to be some room for debate on the matter. I am not skeptical because I’m deeply wedded to the notion of protecting Thomas Jefferson. To me he is just a human being, a smart one, conflicted, and not someone who is above scrutiny.
I wonder, frankly, if I wouldn’t have turned out differently in terms of intellectual and historical development if I had encountered this book sooner.
Full report when I get done with it.
Other Fronts
Completed my Federal Aid Form today. It seems to think that my parents will contribute $80K a year to my education. I nearly fell out of the chair laughing about that. Yes, my parents help a great deal, but they do not have that kind of money. Not even now.
So I suspect I should have filled out that section on the parents after all. I’ll get a chance to change it later.
The objective, right now, is to reenter grad school this Fall. Originally I was thinking about a PhD but it turns out that the C I got fucked with in my last semester at UMKC dropped my GPA just low enough to disqualify my entry into the program.
The gift that keeps on giving. If readers think I am angry at the current editor of Asimov’s, then you have no idea how angry I am at the instructor who fucked me with the C (subjective grading standards, no rubric, and I should have appealed and sued). My anger with the editor at Asimov’s is a mere spark compared to the nuclear inferno I feel about this C.
Which is fine. I know why I was given the C and this sort of bullshit happens in academia. I was given the C to impair my efforts at getting additional graduate hours or a higher degree. There are ways to outflank that and I’ll be making use of it.
Needless to say, at some point, before I depart the planet, I will be getting some measure of revenge (legal revenge).
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Don’t take too long to think about it. Use completely your “top of mind” awareness faculties here. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I’m interested in seeing what books my friends chose. Look you’re all tagged. Open invitation.
1. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
2. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Remarque
3. Starship Troopers, Robert Heinlein
4. Chasm City, Alastair Reynolds
5. The Things they Carried, Tim O’Brien
6. Beggars in Spain, Nancy Kress
7. Probability Space, Nancy Kress
8. Singularity Sky, Charles Stross
9. Strangers, Gardner Dozois
10. Without Warning, John Birmingham
11. The Stand, Stephen King
12. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
13. Shiloh, Shelby Foote
14. He Died with a Felafel in his Hand, John Birmingham
15. The Civil War, Shelby Foote
Technically seventeen books if you take into consideration that Foote’s Civil War is a three volume set.
There you go.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
Research Project Number – 04
Today I have with me in my Swiss Army Brand Rucksack the printed out hardcopy of my client’s work up to around Chapter 34. Granted, there are some gaps in chapters, but I have most of it. The plan for today is to read over the material, scribbling notes, suggesting changes and that sort of thing.
The other thing I am to do at some point is work up some more tactical material. For this I brought in my copy of the U.S. Army Ranger Handbook, among other things.
I also have some additional details to research. Namely I need a flooded river and a city on or near that river. It is proving to be a bit difficult.
The Reading Front
My summer reading effort is bearing fruit, oddly enough. The first book I completed was <i.The Perils of Peace by Thomas Flemming. It details the events between the Colonial Victory at Yorktown in 1781 and the final signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 which ended the Revolutionary War.
This is not often discussed in history classes and in reading my new textbook for the fall, it isn’t mentioned in there at all. I found the issues of state’s rights versus federalism combined with the ongoing money trouble to be as fascinating as the larger than life egos which nearly destroyed the country on the eve of her creation. The book seems awfully hard on John Adams and a bit too glossy on George Washington. That said, I do not have much to contrast those depictions against.
I believe one of the Edmund Morris books on Theodore Roosevelt is next on tap. Either that or American Gunfight, the near assassination of Harry S. Truman by Puerto Rican nationalists.
Other Fronts
Tomorrow is grocery day for the Pod, so we’ll be out engaging in resupply.
And I believe Trinity is taking me out on a date. 
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
George Tiller, an abortion provider in Wichita, Kansas, was murdered while he served as an usher in his church Sunday morning. This much you can get from the news. He provides late term abortions and has been the subject of numerous investigations into his medical practices.
It is worth pointing out that Tiller was cleared of any wrong doing in all of these cases.
I have a bit of a personal connection to Tiller. A peer in the science fiction community (we’ve had a falling out so I won’t say “friend” per se) used to work for Dr. Tiller. I remember getting phone calls during the Uniguard Era from my peer as we struggled to become writers. They would lament the rampant nuttiness of the Pro-Life crowd as they picketed the clinic, followed them around Wichita, and posted pictures of their homes and personal lives on the Operation Rescue website. Having been to the website myself, I tend to believe it is purposely designed to provide someone like the 51 year old nutter who shot Tiller with an intelligence brief to attack anyone who works at that clinic.
Thus on this morning, I find the alligator tears of the Pro-Life movement to be a bit hypocritical. I really doubt they are sorry.
And such a cowardly way to strike as well. To go into a House of God and shoot this man down, a place of sanctuary for all.
I do not particularly have a dog in the abortion debate per se. I am a man, unlikely to get pregnant unless some miracle transpires. Nor am I in a relationship with someone who is likely to have children. I will say that I am often uncomfortable with the use of abortion as an after the fact birth control method.
On the other hand, I do understand the need and desire to control what happens within one’s own body. I know that I would deeply resent someone citing a Bible verse and telling me that I could not have a medical procedure done that would prolong or improve my life. If you draw the argument down to the absurdist level, when I have parts of my body removed or cut on, cells do die, the act of curing can be an act of killing if taken to the extreme end of the scale.
Thus I have to admit that I would prefer a world where abortion was legal, obtainable and provided in a safe, secure environment free of harassment and terrorism. A world where abortion was used rarely, if ever.
We do not live in such a world, which is unfortunate.
My writing peer hasn’t worked for Dr. Tiller for quite sometime. And drawing upon the previous entry, their fiction often draws upon their personal experiences in the Tiller clinic for inspiration. If one googles up Bearing Witness by Marguerite Reed, you’ll see another, different example, of how personal experience informs and shapes fiction.
And I think, given the subject matter in her story, it is pertinent to the discussion of rape in fiction as well.
In any case, a sad day.
Research Project Number – 04
Three more chapters in the hopper for review. I’ll probably work on those today while waiting on Trinity to finish with her day job. She’s working until noon today, which brings me down to campus on the first day of summer classes. I won’t be teaching but that is neither here nor there.
The Writing Front: The Shine Anthology Project
Jetse de Vries, formerly part of the Interzone editorial staff, is putting together an anthology of positive science fiction which will be called Shine. He is taking submissions until the end of June.
Optimistic fiction is not my forte per se and when he first aired his concerns about the lack of such material in science fiction, I think my respone was less than positive. Still, I’m willing to give it a shot. I need a short story project to work on and more to the point, I need to learn to write faster. Four months is not acceptable production time at all for a short project.
So I’ve got a project rolling as of yesterday morning. I’ve also got another project in mothballs that could be resurrected. I should spend some time, either today or tomorrow, plotting out the projects and giving them some thought.
Normally I do not blog about market targets, for a lot of reasons. Still, I think Jetse’s project is worth mentioning in case there are other writers who are dropping by looking for markets. And perhaps I mention it because Jetse is responsible for pulling Tearing Down Tuesday from the slush pile at Interzone.
Other Fronts
Trinity and I have been getting our pool time in, trying to get some sun. I find these days that I get more reading done at the pool than anywhere else. My current reading project is The Perils of Peace: America’s Struggle for Survival after Yorktown by Thomas Flemming.
The book details the political struggle in Britain, France and the United States in the aftermath of the US Victory at Yorktown. Independence was hardly assured after Yorktown, something which is not often discussed in history classes. More to the point, no one discusses the dire fiscal straits the US found herself in during and after the Revolutionary War. I have a poor understanding of the finances myself and would like to improve upon it for future use in lectures AND in my writing endeavors.
I predict a good summer. Time at the pool is time well spent. Trinity and I usually pack a light meal to take with us to ease the burden on our pocketbook. My only lament is that they do not allow us to bring alcohol to the pool, but perhaps that is for the best.
So it goes.
Respects,
Steven Francis Murphy
Author of The Limb Knitter and Tearing Down Tuesday
North Kansas City, Missouri
Those that done said stuff