Hey all…I’m back from San Francisco and getting ready for next week’s Composition Conference for Student Writers.  And now…the latest vlog:

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The article “Backers of ’21st Century Skills’ Take Flak,” in this week’s Education Week, reports on some of the critics of the call for “21st Century Skills”–that is, “information, media, and technology skills.”  The article begins:

The phrase “21st-century skills” is everywhere in education policy discussions these days, from faculty lounges to the highest echelons of the U.S. education system.

Broadly speaking, it refers to a push for schools to teach critical-thinking, analytical, and technology skills, in addition to the “soft skills” of creativity, collaboration, and communication that some experts argue will be in high demand as the world increasingly shifts to a global, entrepreneurial, and service-based workplace.

But now a group of researchers, historians, and policymakers from across the political spectrum are raising a red flag about the agenda as embodied by the Tucson, Ariz.-based Partnership for 21st Century Skills, or P21, the leading advocacy group for 21st-century skills.

Unless states that sign on to the movement ensure that all students are also taught a body of explicit, well-sequenced content, a focus on skills will not help students develop higher-order critical-thinking abilities, they said at a panel discussion here in the nation’s capital last week.

Check out the full article here.

OK…so, I wrote a book review for Blue Angel: A Novel (P.S.) for my “visual bookshelf” on facebook (didya follow dat).  And that review has got me thinking about a whole range of issues…including proposing a paper for the Feminisms and Rhetorics conference @ Michigan State in October (deadline is coming up, so I’ve got to decide quickly whether or not to propose a paper…hence this entry).  In addition to the issues I raise in the review, there are a whole range of issues having to deal with creative non-fiction and it’s role in truth-telling.I’m not going to try and tackle all of that in this post, but to give you an idea what I mean by that I have been thinking a lot about Don Delillo’s Libra.  Libra is a historical novel that focuses on the Kennedy assasination (I am being reductive, yes).  When I read that text for a class back in grad school, I considered it the best history and explanation of the Kennedy assassination that I had ever read.  A lot of that had to do with the ways in which narrative allows for multiple agencies and threads…even truthS.  So, that’s on my mind.Also on my mind are several essays I read recently arguing for rethinking the faculty-student relationship prohibition.  I remember the first one being by Laura Kipnis in The Thomson Reader, which I was considering for a class (that essay was one of the reasons I chose not to adopt the text).  Anyway, to put it bluntly…I find the arguments raised in these essays infuriating.  And yet, they all seem to follow a similar logic–be they written by cultural critic or legal scholar. So, that’s what I’ve got to work with…and will be working with over the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime, here’s the review I wrote (for those of you who are not stalking my Visual Bookshelf on facebook :

Review of Blue Angel: A Novel, by Francine Prose

OK…Some context. For the past couple of years I have been going full-throttle at work (Kutztown University). We’ve rebuilt our union, organized for a strike, held a vote of no confidence against our university’s president (and were successful in getting some major agreements once the administration finally sat down with us). This past summer I moved and this fall my wife and I had a baby. In short, I was pooped and looking forward recharging and just getting some down time.

 The past couple of semesters have also been fraught with some “scandals” on our campus (academics, surprise, surprise). In one case, it was one of those faculty-student-behind-closed-doors kind of things. That one really pushed me over the edge. You see, there is no greater sin–yes, I’ll use the word sin–than for a faculty member to violate what I see as a “sacred” trust. In short, you don’t sleep with your students. You especially don’t sleep with students who are currently enrolled in your class. When such a case was brought to my (and many other faculty members’) attention by students it cut deep. You see, in my book, once a faculty member does that, they shouldn’t be teaching. At the very least, they should not be allowed to continue on where they are currently teaching. Harsh? Perhaps. But, that’s how I am wired as a professional. The power relationships between teachers and students, the psychology of pedagogy, and the consequences of carrying on a sexual relationship with a student were issues that my fellow graduate students and I at Syracuse and Miami were thoroughly briefed and instructed on when we took on our first teaching assignments. These issues are so second nature to me by now that they feel hard-wired. In any case, I’ve had this pit in my stomach this past semester because of the issue of a particular faculty member’s transgressions. I had hoped that once the issue was reported (as it was) that the process would work. That all the evidence would lead to a necessary conclusion. Good bye. But it didn’t. The process failed. And I had to get my mind (and stomach) away from that garbage for a while.

 So, what does all this have to do with Francine Prose’s novel Blue Angel? Way too much as it turns out. You see my wife’s family and I do a polyanna for Christmas (you know, “secret santa”). I put a range of “academic novels” on my list as a way to get some perspective on academic trials and tribulations. If you’ve read Richard Russo’s Straight Man or Jane Smiley’s Moo, you know that there are some great academic satires out there–most of them written about English departments since that’s where most creative writers are housed. That kind of satire was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to read over break. So, I searched for other “academic novels” that I hadn’t read or even heard of. I didn’t spend a lot of time reading reviews or anything–back covers were enough for me; I wanted to be surprised.

 My list included David Lodge’s A Small Place, James Hynes’s A Lecturer’s Tale, and Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe. And it also included Francine Prose’s Blue Angel. [I also suggested these books to my ENG 502 students as some good "break" reading] My polyanna couldn’t find the first three in the bookstore. He did, however, find Blue Angel. So, that’s where I would begin. On the day after Christmas I dug in and looked forward to my little literary vacation. As fate would have it, Blue Angel was not going to be a vacation. It was going to take me right back, smack dab in the middle of the faculty-student-behind-closed-doors all over again. Another chance to revisit the issue. Yes, Blue Angel is about a English department faculty member who “falls in love” with one of his students. Theodore Swenson is not only the faculty member in question, he is the narrator. So, we get to inside the head of this man as he “falls in love with,” or “is seduced by,” or “is manipulated by” (all incarnations included in the novel) a young, gothic-esque student with facial piercings (believe me, you hear about them a lot in the novel). Yes, it’s a story of a fall from “grace” (although given the pathetic nature of Swenson, it’s not a very far fall). Unlike the real world, however, Swenson DOES fall. The Administration at his college DOES pursue charges against him and fires him. The system worked (despite Swenson’s repeated chastising of the Women’s Alliance and political correctness). Unlike the real world, the system worked. There was clear wrong-doing and the university fired the faculty member, his wife left him, and his daughter (the same age as the student he sleeps with) is outraged. Again, this is fiction.

The thing is, I had no sympathy for this character. None. I found his internal dramas pathetic. His indecision annoying. His lack of critical consciousness shameful. And his willingness to paint himself as a victim embarrassing. Perhaps some of those faculty members who have chosen to sleep with their students might have insight into Prose’s portrayal of her adulterer narrator. I’ll leave it to them to make that case. I, however, found it infuriating–a kind of anti-feminist, pro-old boys story about their Paradise Lost. The student in question, Angela Argo, is also positioned not only as the instigator (that little temptress) but as a cunning manipulator who crafted Swenson’s downfall. We even get Eve imagery…like the Garden of Eden and the Apple…not exactly a soft touch here.

In short, there is so much I want to say about this novel (I’ll add more), not so much for its literary achievement, as for allowing me to revisit the real in a fictional form.

 For now, I’ve got to log off. More to come!

It’s been quite a day! The final panels are now in session. We have at least 154 people registered (I say at least because I think there is another list floating around in the conference rooms). Not only have the panels been well-attended, the registration room has been alive with discussion, laughter, and story-telling all day. We’ve even begun talking about next year’s conference. Not to mention the weather is absolutely beautiful–the first real spring day of the year–and students and faculty are still coming to see panels. A good day.

OK, this is a quick one…a little discursive bit harvested from a facebook site “Kutztown University Needs to Change.” This site was created by a couple of students who decided it was better to organize than just sit around and complain.  A noble idea, no?  One might even call it active citizenship.  As of this post, that facebook group has 1,118 members.  Not bad for a week old…ahh, digital activism.

Anyway, a couple of days ago a Kutztown University administrator joined the group and has been responding pretty regularly to the students…mostly in the form of “you need to understand how the university works.”  One of his posts from earlier today is my nugget for today:

Just some suggestions. Before you go asking for changes on your main points, you need to make sure that you understand where the University is now, that you are being reasonable and rational in your approach, and that you aren’t asking for wants and desires rather than just needs. Wants and desires are the things you’d like to have if possible, needs are those things that are required out of necessity. For example, I want and desire a new Harley, but I don’t need it to get to work (and my wife won’t let me have one anyway). So, if I base my whole outlook on getting that Harley, I will be disappointed, even though I can still get to work. It is similar with this University. We aren’t Harvard or Yale. We don’t have a gigantic endowment. Our tuition and fees are low compared to Penn Sate and surrounding State public schools. Therefore, sometimes we are only going to be able to give what is needed, not what is wanted or desired.

“We are only going to be able to give what is needed, not what is wanted or desired.”  Nice move.  Notice the movement in this argument…the movement suggests that the space of needs is narrow.   And, I would argue, the administration is best positioned to determine what are needs and what are desires.  KU is positioned next to Harvard and Yale to frame “endowments” and to Penn State and “surrounding state public schools” to frame “tuition.”  Interesting.  One could wonder, justly I think, what can actually be changed?  That is, we are both NOT privileged ivy league schools.  And, “we” are GENEROUS with our tuition.

I am too tired at the moment to really work this though…but this is another piece to the argument that is being worked out locally.  One of the little pieces I am working on right now is called “Shut up and Teach!”  Perhaps, the nugget above is a piece of reasonable neoliberal discipline?  Echoes of the World Bank at moments.  More, so much more to write.