Category Archives: teaching

Screw You, Emptor

politics, rhetoric, teaching 2019.12.16 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

House Democrats Grill Betsy DeVos Over Denying Student Borrower Relief (NPR) Today is the start of Finals Week here, and as has been the case throughout my teaching career, I wound up spending most of the past week trying to coach my students, most of whom are in their first semester of college, through the challenges of this difficult time. Even as someone who enjoyed the academic side of my college experience more than most, I remember all too well the unique stresses that those…

Bouquet: B, O …

personal, politics, teaching 2019.12.09 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

The Rough Draft Diaries with Haley Taylor: “Violins Under the Bed” (wgte.org) There was a popular tweet a few weeks ago about how school spelling bees are traumatic because so many of us can remember when, and how, we got eliminated from them even decades after they happened. I shared my own story from a fifth grade spelling bee almost thirty-five years earlier, when the word I got was “bouquet,” I had the letters lined up in my head the way they should have been,…

Beyond All Repair

politics, rhetoric, teaching 2019.11.04 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

What Betsy DeVos got wrong about Detroit schools (Detroit Free Press)Education Secretary Betsy DeVos held in civil contempt for violating judge’s order on student loan collection (USA Today) I don’t read that many novels about war — I haven’t been reading many novels at all lately, since I’m chin-deep in research for my next non-fiction book — but I’ve read the same scene in more than a couple of novels, and it’s kind of stuck in my head since I realized how frequently I’ve seen…

Pay Street

teaching, television 2019.10.07 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

HBO Max locks down exclusive access to new Sesame Street episodes (The Verge) The first iPhone was released a little over twelve years ago. This means that students who entered college this year were about six years old when the iPhone came out, and although I certainly have memories of my life from before I turned six, I don’t have that many. If we aren’t yet at a point where new college students can’t remember a world without smartphones, we will be in the next…

Big Bladder is Being Watched

politics, teaching 2019.09.30 Sean Shannon Leave a comment

[The following blog contains mentions of child abuse.] “I was beginning to think Foucault’s writings on the ‘disciplinary society’ were becoming irrelevant …” (Tweet from Josh Seim)‘I think my bladder changed’: Former teacher describes years without bathroom breaks (Yahoo!) At one of my first adjunct teaching jobs after I got my graduate degree, there was another instructor who was often in the teachers’ lounge at the same time I was, and we did not get along with each other at all. I had a number…