Well, that’s certainly very nice of you to say. Thank you.

Thanks for your questions. With regard to your first paragraph I would say this: I could see an argument for teaching Huck Finn at all levels of college courses.* I could not see a world in which I taught it at the high school level—it’s too much to ask students and teachers to grapple with given the constraints of…

In my area/experience, GetGo’s free air pumps are pretty finicky. They’re often broken and don’t get fixed for long stretches of time.

It is great, and I agree that it’s a shame. I have taught it a couple of times in upper-level (not survey) courses where I felt like it could be carefully sequenced and contextualized. But it’s always tricky and a lot of work to get there. The text uses the n-word roughly a dozen times over the course of 200ish pages,…

If you go back and look at my two lengthy posts about this topic closely, you’ll see that none of my arguments are based on avoiding the text to avoid traumatizing my students—that is an assumption that you’ve made about my reasoning. My argument is that the text itself has a chilling effect on the ability of the…

You’re very kind. Thanks. 

I don’t think of providing a safe classroom as coddling or as deferring to the students’ desire not to be challenged or to confront difficult things. I think of safety in the classroom as psychological safety: the kind of safety that makes it OK for you to take a risk with a particular argument. Or to step outside of…

Well, that’s very kind of you to say. Thank you. 

Yes, and I will defend that decision to the ground. It is a pedagogically sound decision. My role as a professor is to foster critical thinking and knowledge formation in all of my students. To do that, we need a classroom community where students feel free and safe. Too often, critiques like yours fail to truly take…

Yeah, I used to be a purist on this (ie: no alterations ever), but as a teacher I’ve come to see the utility of approaching texts with an eye to careful editing. My go-to example here is Huck Finn. It’s a classic and one of the great American novels. But would I teach it in one of my college courses? Not in its…

Yes, but what I’m saying is because she signed a prenup with such a small payout, she is now going really hard for a huge child support payout as a way to supplement her own income. It was always going to be a negotiation, but she’s asking for huge numbers (and having to make up dramatic justifications) for child…

Burrows is a legend, so it baffles me that this is his take because isn’t Emily supposed to be the straight man in her arc on the show? She wasn’t really there to be someone for Ross to “bounce off of” comedically. She was there to shine a light on how weird (and dysfunctional) the group dynamic was between the…

During those scenes, there would only be “three people in the room. Just the camera, and sometimes even sound wouldn’t be there,” he said.

What’s certainly clear is that she has enough money now and until forever to not really mind how she is coming across to the general public.

Same. I wish that we didn’t have to have “sanctuary” states. But I’m glad they’re there (and that more are coming) all the same.

I went to undergrad at a place that contracted cafeteria services out to Sodexo. A decade later, I went to grad school at a place that uses Sodexo. And now years after that, I work at a school that served Sodexo. I swear there are a high percentage of dishes being served in 2023 that were also on the menu in 2003.…

If you ever have the chance to attend a volleyball game at Nebraska, go. It is an incredible atmosphere. Volleyball is a religion in that state. Of course, if you find yourself in Lincoln, good luck finding a ticket. They’ve sold out every home match since 2001. But if you get the chance, it’s one of the best times…

I said in a comment a week or two ago, about some other Indiana abortion horror story, that the best that state can hope for right now is to become an anti-abortion hellscape surrounded by states with much freer access. That way women’s travel is minimized. Illinois appears to be doing its part, and Michigan passed…

I mean, I would never wish illness on anyone...but I would be interested to see how he handles a health situation that he can’t buy his way out of. 

I am really looking forward to the day when sports broadcasting/streaming gets to the point where they can offer viewers “simplified” and “data-rich” versions. Let the viewers pick what they want. Like you, I prefer simplified. I mostly watch baseball. All I really want is the small graphic in the corner that has the…