By Any Other Nerd

Estimated Reading Time: 15 minutes Tl/dr : I do a lot but seriously, I (mostly) know what I'm doing... To those that know me, it should serve as no surprise that on regular occasions, I have been accused of doing too much. Like way too much . It's a fair accusation to direct at me because from the outside, yes, it can look like I have 5,001 sticks in the fire and meanwhile, I'm also fishing with five poles, knitting two sweaters, oh and making coffee (because all of this runs on coffee). But in this post, I want to draw out something that I innately understand about what I'm doing. To do this, I hope to make a distinction between what has been commonly named "the hustle" and introduce my own approach, which I consider to be "the tapestry." ( It is, without a doubt, a false dichotomy and that's ok! ) The oracle of all words, Urban Dictionary gives us some good definitions that draw this out : Definition 1 : To have the courage,...

One of the biggest challenges I encounter in teaching is seeing students determined to believe that they are poor learners in general or within the particular field of study they are encountering (in my case: literature or history).  It's frustrating because as someone vested in their learning and learning in general, I know that it's not an innate inability to do the work but more often, their mindset that inhibits them.  In fact, too often I see students believing they are not good enough at a subject matter and abandon it without really knowing if they enjoy it or not (nevermind whether they are good at it--whatever that may mean).   http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_ Wizard_of_Oz_Garland_Lahr_Haley_Bolger_1939.jpg I teach college level students.  They run the gamut from being just released from the imprisoning and often detrimental high school to having been away from school for decades.  Either way, they enter the classroom with some trepidat...

I’ve been using Google Docs more and more with each semester.  I find it a great tool for organizing my work, files, and student work.  It’s pretty easy to set up, to organize, and to keep track of students and their work.  Since it is attached to the student’s school email and all done online, it avoids issues of compatibility and software issues.  The most software they’ll need is an updated web browser.  Any browser works well, but you can expect some wonkiness. For the rest of the article, click on through to the LETS Blog . Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and  check out some of my other posts! . You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by  signing up for them via email. This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License .

Volunteering has been a strong part of my life since I was young.  In high school, I volunteered for a summer as a junior counselor at a YMCA camp.  Granted at age 14 and in hindsight, it sounds more like free labor and a summer babysitter for my parents, but it was also giving back to the camp that I had gotten so much out of while growing up (and of course, caused so much trouble at too—which still leaves me to wonder why they thought it was a good idea for me to be a counselor).   In my senior year of high school, my favorite teacher (Mr. Metropolis!) required us to volunteer 20+ hours in his AP US History course.  In volunteering, he required us to keep a log to account for our volunteering and experiences.  Sure enough, while volunteering at one event (which brought me back to my elementary school), I chanced upon a conversation with a woman from a local under-funded pre-school.  My conversation with her led me to volunteer at the school for much the r...

Success is possible in the 21st century without post-high school training or education, but it’s increasingly unlikely.  (Success is hard to define; but in this context, I am largely thinking success in terms of employment and compensation; that is not the final say on success, there are many other ways of valuing and understanding success as the Happiness Index indicates .   With the context of employment and compensation, I then would say that success is being gainfully employed in a way that is not directly exploitative to one’s mental and physical health while simultaneously covering one’s needs and a reasonable amount of extra compensation for savings and basic upkeep of one’s life; it’s vague, but that’s largely because success will look different for everyone).  In the globalized interconnected world, more training is needed to fulfill the more complex jobs of that world and we are not giving people a good opportunity to fulfill those jobs (or their own potential f...

In the last post, I discussed the ways that college education is like a car .  In extending this analogy, I also want to talk about elements of the vehicle (degree) that again, not all students really consider.  Vehicles can indicate a great many things about a person.  Some of these things might be true and some may not; and often, the car-owner’s opportunity to explain choices comes when being asked.  The person driving a new Porsche might be perceived as financially stable and potentially successful while the one driving a beat-up shitbox be poor or a slob.  The person driving the hybrid might be understood as an environmentalist or an elitist.  Driving a big-truck and tailgating people could be understood as aggressive and anti-social behavior or someone in a rush.  The clichés and stereotypes are endless; we all know them.  A person’s degree (and the transcript, resume, etc) are going to be interpreted in many different ways, often well-b...

A college education is like a car.  We own and use cars for a variety of reasons including (but not limited to): Travelling more efficiently (essentially reclaiming time) Getting to new places (Not entirely the same as reclaiming time—and that will make sense below). It is a requirement of where we live/work (Living in certain suburbs, it does become a practical requirement and some jobs do require or provide a vehicle). Cruising about to enjoy the sights (That is, merely enjoying the act of driving and what it offers). Before any of that can happen though, one needs a license, first.  The license is a great achievement; it indicates some sense of competency in driving (This is the same with a high school diploma or GED certificate.).  It doesn’t imply you will automatically get a car or that you will be a masterful driver; but merely that the state has deemed you knowledgeable to drive a vehicle (The student has proven a certain level of competency but it doesn’t g...

Here is my most updated list of Recommended Readings. I’ve broken them down into general categories and listed them alphabetically by author’s last name.  Without a doubt, I’ve missed a few and I’m sure some are bound to raise an eyebrow. LITERATURE I'm Not Scared by Ammaniti, Niccolò Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury, Ray A Clockwork Orange by Burgess, Anthony The Awakening by Chopin, Kate The Good Earth by Buck, Pearl S. The Souls of Black Folk by DuBois, W.E.B. The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas, Alexandre The Three Musketeers by Dumas, Alexandre Invisible Man by Ellison, Ralph Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney Bartleby and Benito Cereno by Melville, Herman The Odyssey by Homer  The Iliad by Homer Brave New World by Huxley, Aldous The Metamorphosis by Kafka, Franz The Poisonwood Bible by Kingsolver, Barbara To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee, Harper Mary Reilly by Martin, Valerie Beloved by Morrison, Toni Lolita by Nabokov, Vladimir Animal Farm  by Orwell,...