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Another Bad Week

Dusty Leave a comment
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This was a gift I just got, and I love it — and if you listen to UNFTR, you will understand why. Thanks, Jasmine!

I did it again: had a full and difficult weekend, mainly because this week is the end of the semester and grades are due; but still found a way to put up a meaningful post for the blog — and then failed to actually do it until two days too late.

So once again, my apologies. Though as I say to my students when they apologize, again, for talking while I’m teaching or for not turning in work, again: “I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to be better.” I will be better. For one thing, the semester is almost over, and I’ll have time and space to breathe, and think, and write.

This week, however, I’m deep in the weeds. So here: my favorite podcast, the brilliant and engaging Unfucking the Republic, has just finished a three-part series on education in America. As you might expect, the series is ambitious, but doesn’t come close to covering everything there is to talk about in education: but hey, that’s what this blog is for. What this series does do is give an amazing, detailed picture of the history of education and education policy in this country (Do you know why education is not a fundamental, Constitutional right? You’re about to.), and dissect some of the most serious issues in education, particularly the inequality across racial lines, and the current push to privatize the whole shebang — in order to shut it down. UNFTR is unparalleled in their ability to distill enormous amounts of carefully researched information into about 45 minutes per episode (Each episode also has Show Notes at the end, which are more casual; anything over about 45 minutes is that. Nice, but not required listening.), and in addition, the website has sources and links, and also the full script in essay form, if you like reading more than listening.

So give this a listen, and if you like it, listen to the other two episodes. And then keep coming back here in future weeks: and I’ll fill in the rest of the picture, over time.

Here, for simplicity’s sake, are Parts II and III — though I really do recommend going to the website. There’s a lot to see.

See you next week.

I promise.

This Second Day

Dusty 2 Comments

(By the way, did anyone notice that my last post was my 400th on this blog? Me neither.)

I’m still not ready to share my sad post. Here’s this, instead.

I started a podcast. 

I know this is now a joke, a cliché; I read a whole post about how people should NOT take this time in quarantine to start a podcast. But this is not supposed to be an ego trip, or a special way to share my hot takes or expand my brand: my intent here was to create content that homeschoolers and distance-learning teachers could utilize. I do also want to share my love for literature, of course; and inasmuch as that’s my brand, and these interpretations of these pieces are my hot takes, I suppose this is exactly the cliché podcast.

I don’t care.

I am very proud of this. I have gotten compliments from people ranging from seventh-graders to septuagenarians; from complete strangers, to my wife, who was genuinely impressed at how good I am at literary analysis, and how well I read and speak about literature. And any compliment that comes from my wife makes me inordinately proud.

So this is my positive post for the day: I made a podcast. If you haven’t listened to it, check it out: this is today’s brand new episode — on what is not, sadly, a happy story; but it is an utterly perfect story.

The Story of an Hour

(If you want positive literature to listen to, go for “since feeling is first” or “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”)