Excerpt from Robert Pirsig's ZEN & THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE

"[I]mitation was a real evil that had to be broken before real rhetoric teaching could begin. This imitation seemed to be an external compulsion. Little children didn’t have it. It seemed to come later on, possibly as a result of school itself.

That sounded right, and the more he thought about it the more right it sounded. Schools teach you to imitate. If you don’t imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it was more sophisticated, of course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to convince the teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the instruction and going ahead with it on your own. That got you A’s. Originality on the other hand could get you anything...from A to F. The whole grading system cautioned against it."

My Favorite Passage in Kerouac's ON THE ROAD

By and by we came to a town, slowed down, and Montana Slim said, “Ah, pisscall,” but the Minnesotans didn’t stop and went right on through. “Damn, I gotta go,” said Slim.

“Go over the side,” said somebody.

“Well, I will” he said, and slowly, as we all watched, he inched to the back of the platform on his haunch, holding on as best he could, till his legs dangled over.  Somebody knocked on the window of the cab to bring this to the attention of the brothers.  Their great smiles broke as they turned.  And just as Slim was ready to proceed, precarious as it was already, they began zigzagging the truck at seventy miles an hour.  He fell back a moment; we saw a whale’s spout in the air; he struggled back to a sitting position.  They swung the truck.  Wham, over he went on his side, watering all over himself.  In the roar we could hear him faintly cursing, like the whine of a man far across the hills.  “Damn . . . damn . . .”  He never knew we were doing this deliberately; he just struggled, as grim as Job.  When he was finished, as such, he was wringing wet, and now he had to edge and shimmy his way back, and with a most woebegone look, and everybody laughing, except the sad blond boy, and the Minnesotans roaring in the cab. I handed him the bottle to make up for it. 

“What the hail,” he said, “was they doing that on purpose?”

“They sure were.”

“Well, damn me, I didn’t know that.  I know I tried it back in Nebraska and didn’t have half so much trouble.”

John Taylor Gatto: Against School

Gatto condenses his thesis to its essence in this piece.  As a fellow "education" insider going on thirty years in the business (and it is a business--not "first and foremost" but "only"), I can vouch for the accuracy of both his diagnosis and his remedies. 

So I do.  

John Taylor Gatto: "Against School"

Everything That Needs to Be Said About "Learning Disorders"

Scroll down a bit ....

2001 Interview with Dr. Dean Edell

More "Write" Stuff

"Handwriting-Challenged" Doctors to Take Penmanship Class

Doctors Bite the Bullet, Enroll in Course on Penmanship

More Evidence That "Education Theory" Is a Crock...

... especially the part about "learning styles."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?src=me&ref=general

The Generic-Masculine Pronoun Lives!

Kudos to John Eastman for not hobbling his prose with he-or-she's and him-and-hers. http://dailycaller.com/2010/08/20/linda-chavezs-misunderstanding-of-the-citizenship-clause/

All That Is Required of a Good Teacher

Knowing your subject well enough to love it; loving your subject well enough to know it; knowing it and loving it so well that teaching poorly is more difficult than teaching well.

Apparently, Me Can Write for PopEater Too

The following sentence appeared in the middle of a story that can be read in its entirety here: http://www.popeater.com/2010/07/22/michael-lohan-kate-major-charged/?icid=mainmaindl2link5http%3A%2F%2Fwww.popeater.com%2F2010%2F07%2F22%2Fmichael-lohan-kate-major-charged%2F)

"He told TMZ that there was a dispute between he and his fiancee, but Major 'invented' the domestic violence story because she needs money."

My, my. "[B]etween he"? Obviously, these guys have never heard the great April Wine song "Just Between You and Me," which correctly uses the objective form of a pronoun ("me") after the preposition "between." (When Eric Carmen sings about "the magic between you and I" on the Footloose soundtrack, he's simply showing why he's also the guy who sings "All by Myself.")

Hey, PopEater, me has been freelancing for over twenty years. If you need an experienced writer, let I know.

"Literally" (Again)

It's 3:28 P.M., Thursday, June 17, 2010, and Sean Hannity has just said on his radio show that "Bobby Jindal is literally pulling his hair out."

I don't think so.

The Foundation for a Bitter Life, Pt. I

Several years ago, Philip Anschutz's Foundation for a Better Life opened the Pandora's Box of non-sectarian positivity by launching a billboard campaign in the best (i.e., the worst) tradition of Norman Vincent Peale. Somehow, and no doubt inadvertently, most of the billboards were only mildly nauseating. (A few--no doubt even more inadvertently--were even educational [See http://www.values.com/inspirational-sayings-billboards].)

But some of them cried out to have their sentimental cheeriness spanked right out of them with a good, old-fashioned parody paddle, thus making necessary the establishment of the Foundation for a Bitter Life--and its own line of billboards.

The For a Better Life original that got it all started . . .

And its tongue-out-of-cheek For a Bitter Life parody . . .

(The in-high-school-Einstein-was-no-Einstein story, by the way, is an urban legend; other than being a bit slow to start speaking, Einstein was precociously brilliant.)

Admittedly, the parody of this For a Better Life billboard . . .

. . . might disturb the lactose intolerant, but still . . .

Now, for a hard swerve into tastelessness, here's another For a Better Life original . . .

. . . and its For a Bitter Life doppelganger:

And second-to-last but not second-to-least, a little fun at the expense of our sixteenth white president: For a Better Life . . .

For a Bitter Life . . .

This last pairing requires some explaining. Apparently, the comedienne Whoopi Goldberg suffers from dyslexia, hence the misspelling of overcame in the following For a Better Life poster . . .

We here at the For a Bitter Life foundation, however, noticed that the point of Goldberg's billboard could be driven home more unambiguously by rearranging the letters of dyslexia instead . . .

For Part II: http://teacherinamerica2.blogspot.com/2010/05/foundation-for-bitter-life-saw-best-in.html

Foundation for a Bitter Life, Pt. II: "Saw the Best in Us"

Several years ago, Philip Anschutz's Foundation for a Better Life opened the Pandora's Box of non-sectarian positivity by launching a billboard campaign in the best (i.e., the worst) tradition of Norman Vincent Peale. Somehow, and no doubt inadvertently, most of the billboards were only mildly nauseating. (A few--no doubt even more inadvertently--were even educational [See http://www.values.com/inspirational-sayings-billboards].)

But some of them cried out to have their sentimental cheeriness spanked out of them with a good, old-fashioned parody paddle, thus making necessary the establishment of the Foundation for a Bitter Life--and its own line of billboards.

The For a Better Life original:

The For a Bitter Life Versions:

Common Writing Errors: Literally!

The following is an excerpt from a May 18, 2010, AP news article by Larry Neumeister headlined "Ex-Obama pastor: 'Obama threw me under the bus.'" (The entire article is available here: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100518/D9FP4JRG0.html.)

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's controversial former pastor, said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press that he is "toxic" to the Obama administration and that the president "threw me under the bus."

In his strongest language to date about the administration's two-year-old rift with the Chicago pastor, Wright told a group raising money for African relief that his pleas to release frozen funds for use in earthquake-ravaged Haiti would likely be ignored. [...] "I am 'radioactive,' Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!' he wrote. 'Any advice that I offer is going to be taken as something to be avoided. Please understand that!'

Obviously, Barack Obama did not literally throw the Reverend Jeremiah Wright under a bus. First, unless then-Senator Obama had access to a private bus depot, such an act would most likely have taken place in public and would therefore have drawn the attention of passersby (some of whom would surely have been Republicans or supporters of Hillary Clinton and therefore unwilling to hush the incident up) and maybe the attention of the police. Second, Rev. Wright is a rather solidly built man; it is unlikely that anyone as wiry as (and whose lungs are as polluted with tar as those of) Barack Obama could literally throw him anywhere.

What Rev. Wright means is that Obama figuratively threw him under the bus. And, as figuratively is the opposite of literally, Wright actually meant the opposite of what he wrote.

One wonders whether saying the opposite of what he means is a pattern with Rev. Wright, a kind of verbal tic as it were.

Maybe he has wanted God to bless America all along.

SLEEPING ON THE WING Assignment No. 6: Ezra Pound

Read the poetry available at the hyperlinks below. Then, after reading the directions that follow, write your own poem.

http://plagiarist.com/poetry/6649/

http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3884/

http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3880/

http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3883/

http://plagiarist.com/poetry/3869/

“Write a poem which, like ‘The River-Merchant’s Wife,’ is a letter. The person you write it to doesn’t actually have to be far away. Write it, perhaps, to a good friend, or to someone you know very little but have thought about, or to someone you imagine, or … to someone that you don’t know whether you’ll ever see again. It can even be to someone who is dead. You might try organizing the poem in somewhat the way this one is; that is, in each stanza you could talk about a different time in your life, a different age. It might be helpful to think of a certain day you remember very strongly when you were that age. Where exactly were you? And what were you doing, what did you wear, what was your hair like then? Was the person you are writing the letter to there? Instead of talking about your emotions, see whether you can suggest them by talking about what you said or saw or did. In the last part of the poem, talk about what is happening to you now. Again, talk more about the weather, and the way everything looks, and what you are doing than about what you feel. Maybe the last stanza could, as in Ezra Pound’s poem, contain a wish. This poem doesn’t begin with ‘Dear’ or end with ‘Love,’ but you may begin and end your poem that way if you like. Or you can show that it’s a letter only by its title.”

SLEEPING ON THE WING Assignment No. 5: Wallace Stevens

Read the poetry available at the hyperlinks below. Then, after reading the directions that follow, write your own poem.

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5297/

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5343/

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5308/

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5296/

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5315/

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5294/

http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/5303/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdote_of_the_Prince_of_Peacocks

http://guccipiggy.objectis.net/poetry/stevens/braveman

http://www.repeatafterus.com/title.php?i=1026


“Write a poem like ‘Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock.” Try starting with the ordinary way things actually are--say what things people are wearing, for instance, or doing or building or carrying or saying. But make most of the poem about the way things are not. You can make the poem about the world in general or about a particular place or group of people--your school, your home, your block, your city, your state; teachers, parents, bus drivers, doctors, politicians. Write what people are not going to wear, what they’re not going to think of or talk about or dream of, what the buildings do not look like, what colors or shapes things do not have. Make this “not” part of the poem very sensuous and particular and extravagant: balloons and banners, for example, are not in the windows, policemen are not dressed in golden armor and directing traffic with bugles and gongs, classrooms are not in the shapes of stars or of hearts, houses are not being built in the clouds. Try using very beautiful or very strange-sounding words, words you’ve never used before. You might go through a dictionary and find some. Or make up some sounds like rou-cou-cou. You can use alliteration too and internal rhyme--whatever makes the sound of the poem rich and interesting.

“Another kind of poem to write is one like ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.’ In each stanza of this poem, the blackbird is different because of a different way of seeing it--it has a different place in the world, a different place in Stevens’s imagination. In the first stanza Stevens sees the blackbird as if in a black-and-white movie, with everything around it white and still--only its eye is moving. In the second stanza he sees the blackbird as part of a comparison: his three contrasting opinions are like three blackbirds. The third stanza has the blackbird whirling in the wind as if it were part of a theatrical performance, a pantomime show. In the fourth stanza it is part of a philosophical proposition; in the fifth, the subject of speculation about music; in the sixth, part of a frightening story; in the seventh, like something in the Prophets part of the Bible; in the eighth, part of a statement about psychology; in the ninth, like something in mathematics. The tenth stanza talks about the kind of music the sight of blackbirds would inspire. The eleventh stanza sounds like something from an old novel--here blackbirds are only inside someone’s feelings as part of a fear. The twelfth stanza is like nature lore, something a farmer would know. The last stanza is, again, like a black-and-white movie, but different from the first time: here the blackbird is completely still, and it is the white snow that moves.

“Write this poem about something rather ordinary--an orange, a window, clouds, fir trees, a cat, a lake, whatever. Your poem can be in three parts or five or six or ten or thirteen or fifty. Begin again with each new part, thinking about the subject in a new way--the way it is in summer, in winter, in your thoughts, in your dreams, up close, far away, in the rain, in the dark, in your memories, in China, in the desert, in outer space, moving or very still. Think of it too, perhaps, as part of some other subject you know about--maybe music or chemistry or physics. Or think of it as it would appear in a newspaper article, a story, an autobiography, a history book, an essay. Each time, imagine everything very clearly and particularly. Some parts can be shorter, some parts longer. Don’t try to make the parts go together in some way or another or try to come to some conclusion at the end. Thirteen ways of imagining a subject should be a little like having thirteen different subjects.”

--from the Wallace Stevens chapter of Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell’s Sleeping on the Wing (Vintage, 1981).

Shakespeare in American Communities, Pt. I

The introductory installment of Dana Gioia's audio, teachers-only supplement to the NEA's "Shakespeare in American Communities" project (2003).

Shakespeare in American Communities, Pt. II

The second installment of Dana Gioia's audio, teachers-only supplement to the NEA's "Shakespeare in American Communities" project (2003).

Shakespeare in American Communities, Pt. III

The third installment of Dana Gioia's audio, teachers-only supplement to the NEA's "Shakespeare in American Communities" project (2003).

Shakespeare in American Communities, Pt. IV

The fourth installment of Dana Gioia's audio, teachers-only supplement to the NEA's "Shakespeare in American Communities" project (2003).

Shakespeare in American Communities, Part V

The fifth installment of Dana Gioia's audio, teachers-only supplement to the NEA's "Shakespeare in American Communities" project (2003).

Shakespeare in American Communities, Pt. VI

The sixth installment of Dana Gioia's audio, teachers-only supplement to the NEA's "Shakespeare in American Communities" project (2003).

Shakespeare in American Communities, Pt. VII

The seventh installment of Dana Gioia's audio, teachers-only supplement to the NEA's "Shakespeare in American Communities" project (2003).

Shakespeare in American Communities, Pt. VIII

The penultimate installment of Dana Gioia's audio, teachers-only supplement to the NEA's "Shakespeare in American Communities" project (2003).

Shakespeare in American Communities, Pt. IX

The final installment of Dana Gioia's audio, teachers-only supplement to the NEA's "Shakespeare in American Communities" project (2003).