Clarissa's Blog

8 responses to “The Teaching Naked Book”

1. 

   Thoreau

   September 1, 2014

   I went to a presentation by him. At one point he pointed us to some website that will stream comments posted by cellphone from people in the audience. So we all posted comments. Most people posted comments on how wonderfully mind-blowing his experience was. Mine was “I can’t believe that educated people eat this shit up.”

   LikeLike

   Reply
   1. 

      Clarissa

      September 1, 2014

      He didn’t even try to research half of his claims. It’s lazy writing, lazy argument, lazy thinking. His claims about foreign language learning are ridiculous. His story of an educator living in Moscow and working as an adjunct in Chicago is just embarrassing.

      What have I gotten myself into?

      LikeLike

      Reply
2. 

   musteryou

   September 1, 2014

   There’s always someone trying to make a buck as a motivational speaker with extraordinary insights into things. I remember meeting one of my old Zimbabwe school acquaintances online and had a very short discussion with her about how understanding a complex idea is one thing but communicating it was quite something else. We talked for about two minutes by Facebook exchange. Afterwards she came up with the notion of “communicatve intelligence” and did a TED talk on that.

   LikeLike

   Reply
3. 

   Benoni

   September 1, 2014

   This is off topic, but I sent an email to your blog email address that I’d really like you to read.

   LikeLike

   Reply
4. 

   Dreidel

   September 2, 2014

   If the book is so lousy, why are you forcing yourself to continue reading it?

   LikeLike

   Reply
   1. 

      Clarissa

      September 2, 2014

      I have joined a book club dedicated to reading this book (as part of my service obligations.) It’s ok, I’m sure we will have very lively discussions because you know how I am with creating controversy.

      LikeLike

      Reply
5. 

   Stringer Bell

   September 2, 2014

   And on the other end of the spectrum, we have universities building $60 million libraries that don’t carry a single book.

   http://gizmodo.com/its-harder-to-persuade-hardcore-literary-academics-that-1629219921

   This comment needs to be posted in its entirety:

   “In part because of credible empirical research demonstrating advantages in comprehension and retention of paper books.

   The biggest question to ask about this facility, of course, is why build it at all? Absolutely all of its functionality could simply be made electronically accessible to students, at a fraction of the $60 million cost. The reason is that this isn’t some grand revolutionary scheme designed by noble minds to provide students with more resources for cheaper. Instead, it’s part of a) the crony capitalism between university higher administration and construction interests and b) the rampant, incredibly expensive expansion in higher administration itself, which has dwarfed faculty growth and salary increases in the higher education section and is the largest part of the insane growth of tuition rates. This library puts money into the pockets of architects and contractors, and houses a ton of new permanent administrators who are not integral to the academic experience, and all it costs them is, you know, the actual physical manifestation of knowledge and the centuries-old tradition on which the academy is based.

   But because people can say “this is the future!,” the tech press gobbles it up credulously and doesn’t ask difficult questions, like why build the $60 million building at all when you could do 100% of this remotely.”

   LikeLike

   Reply
   1. 

      Clarissa

      September 2, 2014

      As a hardcore literary academic, I can say that it’s a horrible trend promoted, as the brilliant comment says, by corrupt and stupid administrators. Mobilizing faculty members for a struggle with them is extremely hard. A more timid and authority-pleasing crowd of people could not be found.

      LikeLike

      Reply