called to stand here

I'm part of a task force that was asked to start a conversation at Minnesota State University, Mankato, about student learning outcomes. These are my notes and what I submitted. My notes: http://www.sjsu.edu/ugs/docs/GE/Area_A3.doc http://www.sjsu.edu/ugs/assessment/ge/materials/ The following Content Objectives are specific to Area A3 Reasoning about issues appropriate to the subject matter of the course shall also be presented, analyzed, evaluated, and constructed. All critical thinking classes should teach formal and informal methods for determining the validity of deductive reasoning and the strength of inductive reasoning, including a consideration of common fallacies in inductive and deductive reasoning. Courses shall require the use of qualitative reasoning skills orally and for written assignments. Substantial writing assignments are to be integrated with critical thinking instruction. Writing will lead to the production of argumentative essays, with a minimum of 3000 words...

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but two news article I ran across in the last couple of days make me think the time is getting right for big brother to emerge in our culture. The first one that got my attention was my discovery of a collaboration between Cisco and NASA : it's called Planetary Skin . To see what I mean, watch the video on this page , and notice the expectation that all will agree that pervasive information and control of systems by who knows who is a reasonable goal. Especially interesting is the appearance of the word TRUST near the end of the video; it's not connected to anything in the narration or the video images, it's just there as the last word. And it's being launched on Earth Day in San Francisco, according this this article in Fast Company>> That was sobering, but it took on special significance as I saw an article on cnet that discussed in some detail the similar IBM initiative that was launched earlier this week. Data and analytic...

Congratulations to the MSU women's basketball team for winning the NCAA Division II national championship last week. The media around here has been full of it. We all needed something positive to focus on in this bleak news era we're currently inhabiting--floods, economic meltdown, etc. One quote especially got my attention. In The Free Press, Mankato's newspaper, the coach Pam Gohl is quoted : "What a great game for the advancing of women's basketball," Mavericks coach Pam Gohl said. "We couldn't figure out how to stop them. Thank goodness, we scored more points than them." I was so amused by this last line that the Free Press used as a pull quote in its print edition on Saturday morning that I pointed it out to others around the breakfast table. But that same sound byte was rendered differently in The Reporter , MSU's student newspaper: "What a great game for the advancement of women's basketball," said MSU head coach Pam Gohl...

American Idol is based on the spectacle concept. Only those who have the stomach to be in the spotlight (no matter how bad their act is) are willing to go there. Maybe this is Madonna's and Andy Warhol's wisdom played out. (If I recall, it was Madonna who said, "All publicity is good publicity," and Warhol who made the famous " 15 minutes of fame " quote.) But the spectacle concept has ancient roots. It is one of the signs of a biblical prophet. From Noah's spectacular boat-building project to Jesus' death on the cross, these men of God followed his instructions in such a way that they made themselves spectacles in a world that heaped derision on them for their other-worldly priorities and defiance of the world's values. Noah's ark Abraham's circumcision Moses' plagues , the Exodus , and the wilderness wanderings David's dance (2 Sam. 6:14-22) and Bathsheba-related sins (2 Sam. 11, 12) Job's suffering Solomon's extravage...

Last week an essay was posted in Campus Technology , a journal I read regularly. It responded to an essay published last summer in The Atlantic Monthly by Nicholas Carr that received wide attention. Its title was pretty compelling:   Is Google Making Us Stupid? So I did what I often do when I run into a discussion in print that raises theoretical and neuroscientific issues, I sent an email to my sons who are in the business to take on such issues. And, as often happens when they respond, I get challenged to think more about this than I ever would have without being in such a dialogue. As a result I reread the Carr with a critical eye that its depth deserves, and found that I appreciated his concern that was the occasion for the essay, but saw that he, like many of us, starts running with his arguments when he gets in the groove, and logic can take a back seat. I know when I get enamoured to a concept, it can take on a life of its own... In his essay, Carr argues that Nietzsche transit...

It didn't take long; I was getting weary of my constant attention to the grief of Job. But all it took was spending some time with real people who are confronting the reality of unrelenting pain, and the meaning of the Job dilemma came back into sharp focus. Tonight is was Venita. Other days (and nights) it's been Margy. An old friend who inhabited a wheelchair once declared, "You're only temporarily able bodied." She called those of us who walk without assistance TABs. That's a hard thing to hear when it's starting to look like you're getting a chronic illness. The hope that health and freedom from pain is in your future starts fading into a fog. These joy-filled women who used to glow with life are starting to grow desperate with dread that this is a corner turned, and they might become one of those who limp and wince into their futures. The words of Elihu ring out: "Take care; do not turn to iniquity, for this you have chosen rather than afflic...

Overheard in the breakroom: "The police will sometimes come up right behind you at night, hoping to get you to speed so they can give you a ticket. I hate that; it's wrong!" This sounds similar (maybe not equivalent...) to a female police officer standing on a street corner in a red-light district soliciting sexual services. When she catches a john, he gets the same outcome as the car driver who went over the limit. There is a price to pay for yeilding to base urges. Our boundaries are a blend of internal and external forces. In our culture, the tendency is toward external forces. When the pressure from headlights behind me makes me break the speed law, I have demonstrated external weighting on my boundaries. If I maintain my speed and tolerate the tailgating (that is wrong!), or maybe just pull over and let the impatient driver pass, that's evidence of strong internal boundaries on my value of abiding by posted laws. I wish I responded this way every time. Unfortunat...