Category Archives: education

At the University of Dallas, 3/28/10

I’m trying to get the “vibe” of campus, and am trying to get to know as many people as possible. It does feel like things are more conservative here than when I started 7 years ago, but by “more conservative” I don’t mean people are busy putting up angry posters about liberals and health care …

March 27, 2010 – 4:17 pm | By ashok | Posted in academia, education, personal, politics | Comments (0)

So, Um, What’s the Value of a Liberal Arts Education Again?

From John Lingan’s “They’re All Zombies,” about a new craze sweeping colleges nationwide: Now that the game has been embraced by students at a dozen-odd other colleges, we can see its proponents for what they really are: kids who view college as a four-year playground. These students exists at any school—hence the popularity of H …

March 4, 2010 – 6:08 pm | By ashok | Posted in academia, education | Comments (3)

Briefly Noted: Kevin Carey, “That Old College Lie”

Kevin Carey, “That Old College Lie” The article is excellent and should be read by as many as possible as soon as possible. The primary call is for information: American colleges grant more than 300,000 bachelor’s degrees in business every year. Whose graduates are most successful in business? There are anecdotes, but no available, comparable …

December 17, 2009 – 3:05 pm | By ashok | Posted in academia, education | Comments (3)

MTV’s Jersey Shore, or the Impossibility of Enlightenment

The last two or three days I’ve been writing drafts for blog posts on the topic of academic cheating. I wanted to address how it seems to me our very culture encourages people to cheat, how valuing a piece of paper more than actual knowledge has become the default way we value anything. Of course …

December 12, 2009 – 11:47 am | By ashok | Posted in education, media | Comments (6)

Maybe we’re looking at education wrong. Maybe it’s student-athletes that are the model for any given student

From Michael Lewis’ “The Ballad of Big Mike,” in The New York Times: His senior year he made all A’s and B’s. It nearly killed him, but he did it. The Briarcrest academic marathon, in which Michael started out a distant last and had instantly fallen farther behind, came to a surprising end: in a …

November 29, 2009 – 10:23 pm | By ashok | Posted in education | Comments (1)

What does success on the Internet look like?

Still thinking about how all this adds up, if it does. I’m aware there are gaps in the reasoning. 1. Been saying to people recently stuff like “look at the top bloggers, look at Kos, who basically transformed the Democratic party into his vision – no one knows who these people are, yet you can …

September 30, 2009 – 5:44 pm | By ashok | Posted in academia, blogging, education | Comments (3)

Remarks delivered at the University of Dallas Due Santi Campus, 1/4/09

for Marilyn Walker and the Collegium Cantorum The University of Dallas isn’t really a place, but a spirit. Some want to say the spirit is that of critical inquiry, or that it stems from a vision of the one true Church. The truth might be simpler than that: it could be just wanting to share, …

January 6, 2009 – 10:57 am | By ashok | Posted in christianity, education | Tagged | Comments (0)

Political Literacy: What do you need to know about the classics that’s relevant today?

Too much blather, not enough specifics. Memo to all conservative writers and bloggers: until you treat people like they’re intelligent, we’re doomed. Here’s what you need to get started if you’re interested in what the Founders and those who influenced them knew. I’m sticking to contrasts, because I want you to see how different this …

December 17, 2008 – 3:20 pm | By ashok | Posted in education | Tagged | Comments (4)

Quiz Time! How diligent a reader of Rethink are you?

Before you yell at me for being more arrogant than usual, let me just say that I was asked to do this, and that even I couldn’t get all these questions exactly right unless I looked up the answers. This is for fun, to see how much I remember throughout the years, and obviously I’m …

December 13, 2008 – 5:00 pm | By ashok | Posted in blogging, education | Tagged | Comments (3)

Is Teaching like Quarterbacking? On Malcolm Gladwell’s “Most Likely To Succeed”

Malcolm Gladwell’s “Most Likely To Succeed” is probably a very important essay. He argues that good teachers are like good NFL quarterbacks – it isn’t clear how what is done in college will translate into the classroom or field, and he states rather flatly at one point that “no one knows what a person with …

December 13, 2008 – 9:35 am | By ashok | Posted in education | Comments (7)