The Curmudgeon Speaks

It is fathers’ day 2012. I spent the day at the lake with my kids and grandkids. My youngest daughter gave me and the other fathers in our family a special gift – a basketball hoop. She was the best athlete in the family and I used to shoot with her on the small court we built in our backyard.

I stopped playing in 1997. Mostly because I gained too much weight after the flood and the game was starting to be hard on my joints. I am 63 now. Sixty year olds don’t play ball.

Still, it was fun to shoot in the driveway. I still like the way a jump shot feels leaving my hand. Not much elevation now. I guess there was not much elevation then either. Still feels good though – nothing but net.

There should be some truth in advertising requirement applied to political slogans. For example, what is “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs” supposed to mean? At face value it might seem that the slogan is about promoting a higher rate of employment. On closer examination, it seems the slogan is more about private sector employment and less public sector employment. If one happens to be employed in the public sector (I guess this apples to me), one might take offense at the probable misrepresentation. Evidently, one way to boost the general economy is to cut jobs in certain sectors. One of these sectors is public education.

It turns out that the mantra is more about employers than employees. Perhaps the politicians should chant “Profits, Profits, Profits” – this request might better reflect a  position that generates the campaign contributions.

This may seem more like a Labor Day than a Memorial Day post, but read through to the end.

Ever thought about the expression “I have to go to work.” What I mean is whether you understand this expression in a positive or negative way.

This morning, my wife and I cut up and stacked the wood from a fallen tree. It is Memorial Day and somehow the task reminded me of my dad. I had to help with this kind of work when I was a kid. My brothers and I would go into the grove with dad to “clean things up”. I regarded the task as work – not the kind that is fun. Mostly we had to haul the branches and chunks of wood dad cut to a central location. The only fun part I remember involved those situations in which we got to throw some fuel oil on the pile and light it.

Cutting the tree up this morning was fun. I got to run the saw and the tree fell on my land. When it dries, I may even get to burn the wood. Same task, very different experience. Perhaps it is the element of control or making the decision to perform a task that differentiates one type of work from the other.

There is a connection between the two tree cutting experiences. The land I own that allows me to cut up wood was bought with money from the land on which dad and the kids used to cut wood. I remember the connection.

The NY Times is running a series on college debt. I read one article and it depressed me (a related blog post). I hope I am not contributing to the problem.

It is true that tuition costs are increasing and states are paying less and less of the costs of public education. It is true that related costs such as book are increasing. It is true that our government cannot decide how to keep the interest on student loans low – roll back health care reform or tax the rich.

It appears that online education may be part of the solution. I am not certain that instruction is less expensive, but online experiences eliminate the costs of moving to a college to obtain an education.

I still wonder about online learning. Actually, it is not the learning part that concerns me. I think some of the value in an education is the social component. A social connection is one of the better predictors of whether students stay in college or drop out. The social component is a priority for many students according to the authors of Academically Adrift (not a good thing according to these authors). The social connections are part of what you pay for long term – connections with bright, well placed people. I think they call it networking in the world of business.

It was graduation time at UND this past weekend. Some of the Instructional Design and Technology graduate students made the trip to Grand Forks. Our online courses include fairly sophisticated capabilities, but we mostly hear the students. It is an interesting experience to meet students you have interacted with in several courses. I wonder about their long term connections with the program and with our institution. I know there are practical limitations, but perhaps some combination of FTF and online would be better.

Finals being on Monday. I was heading to the coffee shop this before to have a cup before heading to my office to grade papers. I passed by University Park. Looks like they moved in some new equipment for the weekend. I see that the students will also be preparing for the challenges of next week.

I have been employed in higher education most, but not all, of my working career. For a good part of this time, I have been a department administrator. As part of this job, I filed annual reports attempting to make the best case I could regarding the performance and needs of my department. I frequently used national data to comment on the salaries awarded to members of my department. I am used to making arguments based on numbers.

ND has enjoyed a good run relative to the general state of affairs in the nation. I attribute this to the foresight of the politicians of the state who had the wisdom to bring the rains, improve the value of the Canadian dollar, and position the state on top of vast oil reserves. I wish they would apply the same wisdom to supporting the higher education institutions of the state. The Governor has already announced that we in higher education should not expect as much from the state in the future. Since the oil is here for a while, I am guessing the politicians are anticipating a dry spell or a major disagreement with our neighbors to the North.

Anyway, I thought some pictures might be a concrete way to examine the state of the state relative to the state of the nation.

According to State Master, citizens of North Dakota rank near the middle of the country in average income and are in the bottom five (a good thing) when it comes to unemployment.

These data are less impressive than information summarizing the state’s recovery from the nation’s recent economic downturn (Bureau of Economic Analysis). If you look at the numbers, it appears that ND has grown more than any other state (at least 7.1 was the largest value I could find).

You may not follow the Chronicle of Higher Education. I am with you on this lack of interest, but the organization can be a good source for data on the national scene in higher education. The Chronicle offered a recent summary of faculty pay so I thought I would check out how UND was doing. I mean good times here, poor times elsewhere – perhaps UND was gaining some ground relative to what I remember from the days in which I charted this type of thing.

Hmm – far below the median. I guess this is the North Dakota Way the politicians are constantly touting.

I enjoy coffee shops a great deal. I like coffee and for some reason I like the kind of people who like to hang out in coffee shops.

We heard the story of a barista as told to a couple of film students (typical coffee shop people) in the Everything Cafe. After making this latte, the barista described his interest in all things coffee and indicated that he was leaving this shop in a couple of days. He had this idea for a new business related to coffee. I read a lot about young folks who are involved in business startups, but I can’t say I have really met such folks. Both the barista and the film students were into such opportuntiies.

The barista was going to start a coffee roasting startup patterned after a similar venture in San Francisco. Evidently, some businesses like to offer coffee to their employees as a perk (get it) and there is an opportunity for a roaster who will provide coffee beans each morning. I can understand this – I have a fine coffee maker at home and if this machine was in a business and available to employees it would be a nice benefit for some.

The barista said that all things coffee were his passion. I respect that. I do not know enough people who seem to have “a passion”. For too many, the interest seems to be self focused and involves little beyond self promotion. I think I value those individuals who do something well and do not depend on others to recognize this accomplishment.

So, I hope you begin your day with a fine cup of coffee and I hope you are then off to work that you find to be meaningful even if no one else notices.

I have an idea for a project, but I still need to decide which direction to take it. I generate ideas for curriculum-based projects intended to be used in K-12 classrooms. It always helps if I can provide an example of what a finished project would look like. Since I don’t have access to middle or high school students I must create these examples myself.

Anyway, I am thinking of an idea based on the use of old photographs in combination with the interview of an older relative. I will be conducting an interview of myself.

Here is the scanned photograph.

So, here is the dilemma. What skill area should be the focus of this example. I could turn this into a history project – what can we learn from photos as primary source documents. For example, do you view any evidence of gender bias in this image.

I am leaning toward creative writing – historical fiction with a humorous bent. I don’t have to make up Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon. I lived on a nearby farm. Maybe I should model my effort after “A league of their own”. I think that will be it – the semi-true story of the Iowa Lutheran Winter Dartball League.

More on dartball – We are all part of history

This is a kind of a confession. I have done something twice in the past month that I have not done in the rest of my life. I find it somewhat disturbing. Perhaps talking about it will be helpful.

I left and locked my house early this morning and then started my truck and scraped the wind shield. Somewhere in this process, I cannot figure out where, I also locked my truck. I was standing in sub-zero weather locked out of my running truck and locked out of my house. The first time I did this my wife was driving down the street. She eventually came home. This time she is in Minneapolis and eventually will take a while longer.

I had such a great day planned. I was up early. I was headed to a coffee shop to write. My wife was not around which meant I could go to the coffee shop early and not deal with our different opinions regarding rising early on the weekend.

My office is within walking distance (my gloves are in the car) and I must carry two sets of keys which means I have a key to my office so I am now stuck in my office until my wife gets home this evening.

I wonder if this is an aging thing. If it is, it is going to become very inconvenient. Knowing something about the biological decline of aging I am trying to figure this out. Older people think more slowly. The one advantage we have is experience. Some people call this wisdom.

I know that locking yourself out of the house and car does not sound that wise. However, here is how I am going to spin it. Older people have an advantage when situations are complex and they can use past experience to match new situations. There is this kind of pattern recognition that allows us to act in what others perceive as an intelligent fashion. We don’t really figure things out based on our depth of understanding, we just remember what we did when we encountered a similar situation before. However, there appears to be a slight flaw in my pattern – I seem to be locking the door before I get in the vehicle and not afterwards.