When explaining the cases that might warrant the use of the formal “you” (usted) in Spanish, I made the mistake of saying, “Or when you meet people who command respect because of their job, like the President of the United States.”

I must be getting old to step into this kind of mess in a Spanish 101 class. It took a while to settle the students down to a discussion of the gender of Spanish nouns after this. I should have chosen somebody who has been dead for at least a couple of centuries to illustrate my point.

OK, I understand that students can’t get over the temptation to address me with the high school “Miiiiieeeeeess!” but doesn’t it feel just a little counter-intuitive to use this appellation on a person with a humongously pregnant belly?

“It is juvenile of Harris-Perry to claim that Snowden should come home and face the music. He would be silenced and imprisoned for years if he did that, as would Assange.  Who in their right mind would court such a fate?  So, years later, he could emerge from prison a broken man to be adulated, like Nelson Mandela or something?” I agree completely. It is really wrong to demand this kind of heroism from people when you are completely safe from any harm.

Should people stop writing? A publisher’s point of view. I think the publisher who wrote this is a snooty jerk but I do agree with the main point he is making: graphomania is on the rise.

OK, I feel bad about linking to such an unintelligent blog but I find it unbelievable that the majority of colleges would assign this piece of tripe as “common reading” for 2012-2013. First we condescend to students by offering them crap to read, and the we complain that students are not smart enough. Why not just give them the 50 Shades trilogy and be done with the whole higher education project?

Assange will not rest until he discredits the very concept of whistle-blowing completely.

Americans get scandalized about every tiny little thing that smells of sex but remain completely oblivious to outrageous and embarrassing racism right in front of them. I saw this video and was horrified by how racist it was. Other people saw it and got traumatized by its parody of vaguely sexual gestures.

A brainless jerkwad who has the gall to call all Muslims stupid is so idiotic that he doesn’t even know the difference between ethnicity and religion. This is as blatant a case of projection as I have ever seen. And I’m sorry for linking to yet another idiot but the world has got to know its bigots.

Do you need reasons to hate Canada’s Prime Minister Harper? If so, then I have to ask where it is that you have been hiding this entire time. Still, here is a good explanation of why he is horrible.

A homophobic pastor publicly shares his fantasies about gay sex.

“Women who use ‘pull out’ birth control method at greater risk of unintended pregnancy.” OK, I don’t get this at all. What is it that women pull out of when they use this method? Or are we talking about a method that is only used by men and that gives women zero control over whether they get pregnant or not? Note that this piece of complete cluelessness as to gender issues is brought to us courtesy of the most tolerable feminist blog in existence. The rest is worse.

Last semester I had to evaluate the teaching of a new instructor. When I saw how she organized her class, it became clear that I was supposed to give her a very bad evaluation. The instructor was doing the exact opposite of what we all do and what the official teaching method adopted by our department mandates: her class was completely teacher-centered, she sat facing the class the entire time, there were no group activities, a lot of translation was used, etc.

Still, I gave her a stellar evaluation for one simple reason: whatever she was doing really worked. The students obviously loved her, loved the class, and were wildly enthusiastic about learning Spanish. We should all be so lucky as to summon this level of student engagement as effortlessly as this instructor did.

A teacher’s main tool is that teacher’s personality. We teach not so much with what we know but with who we are. I can forget to bring a textbook, my handouts or my lecture notes (if I had them which I never do), but as long as I bring myself and my way of being within Hispanic language and culture, the students will learn.

This is precisely why teaching methods are not transferable. Activities that work for my colleague are useless to me and vice versa. We can share experience and give suggestions to each other but, more often than not, these suggestions don’t work. For instance, a colleague at my penultimate university was shocked to see that my students never just barged into my office and, instead, formed a neat, quiet line outside of my office even though I never asked them to do that. Somehow, the students knew that this was the correct way to relate to me. And the same thing happened when I was teaching at-risk kids many of whom had a history of arrests and gang affiliations. Their school teacher complained that she could barely manage to keep them from turning every class hour into a huge brawl. I, on the other hand, got them to listen and talk about the Spanish Baroque without feeling like I was making an effort. Of course, I come from a long line of female teachers who taught much more problematic students effortlessly and successfully.

I now have to go teach but when I come back I will offer a list of personal characteristics that help one be a good teacher.