Miscellaneous Musings of a High School / College English Teacher
Advice from the Old Guy…
Short Version
Andrews blathering on to his beloved
recently-graduated students
who are going out into the wild world
with the hope that you can do a better job
than our present leaders are doing
at the moment.
“If you don’t know
what you don’t know,
you won’t know
what you’ll need to know
to be the best...
...the best...
not just ‘average,’
as so many are
satisfied with being.”
After nearly a half-century of teaching,
the old guy has learned a few lessons that
might help his beloved kids to be informed
as they enter the present unraveling world:
As Mark Twain put it,
“When I was a boy of 14,
my father was so ignorant
I could hardly stand to have
the old man around.
But when I got to be 21,
I was astonished at how much
the old man had learned in seven years.”
1. Old World / New World
From the relatively uncomplicated world
of a few years ago,
a new world has sprouted, with
the buzzards of poorly-directed change
circling above our heads.
Wars, starvation, disease epidemics,
and other international turmoil
seem to be warming up
nicely in the background,
with perhaps an earthquake,
a volcano,
global climate something-or-other,
or another Lindsay Lohan breakdown
in the offing.
Good Luck!
2. The New You Review!
Going off to College:
The best time for a New Start!
If you’re off to college or regular life,
now’s the time to become the person
you’ve always wanted to become.
As you leave the old folks behind,
shy people can become brave,
talkative people can become studious,
and you can get a whole bunch of new friends
who will see you as you want to be seen.
Take advantage of it!
3. The Smartest to the Samest:
If you’ve been considered the smartest at SHS,
you might be a little surprised that colleges are
full of the smartest kids from everywhere else.
No more coasting!
Here comes the real competition!
However, as you have survived Andrews
interminable compositions,
writing should be a lot easier.
Let me know....
www.jimteach.org
4. The 50/50 Split:
The Short or the Long College Experience.
Without Mom and Dad to keep you straight,
you might think that the opportunities for
endless parties, late nights and late rising are
just like heaven.
Just remember that fewer than half of the kids
going to Va. Tech, for example, are there a bit
later, as the $28,000 party year often ends with
a more-disappointing new start
after a long trip home.
Parties don’t help to pay the huge college loans
you’re now taking on.
Use your time as if it will affect
the rest of your life.
It will...
5. Major in something
that has a job connected to it,
not something that’s easy
(allowing you to spend more time partying),
or that “interests me.”
There aren’t too many jobs for folks majoring
in 9th-Century Slobbovian Frog Art.
Make sure that your major matches your skills.
Andrews would make a pretty horrible
mathematician. You’re unlikely to become a
professional photographer if you’ve only taken
pictures with your cell phone. If you’re going to
become a “writer,” make sure that you major in
something that will keep you from starving until
your Great American Novel gets discovered.
6. Barf Heaven?
Contrary to public opinion, it’s just as much fun
to talk and go places with clear-headed friends
as it is to have bleary conversations with
bombed-out loud, smelly, and sometimes angry
acquaintances who want you to know how
much fun they had throwing up last weekend.
Just because a significant number of friends
think that ethyl alcohol imbibery (English
teachers have a right to make up new words!) is
the path to happiness doesn’t mean that folks
who enjoy interacting with people with clear
minds can’t choose a better path.
Andrews prefers chilled and stylishly decanted
Welch’s Grape Juice…although some like
Kumquat-cucumber cocktails.
7. The Glorious Gal Window –
4 years of freedom:
While guys can remain little boys for their
whole lives, girls shortly end up taking care of
the kids and the cooking and the houses and the
clothes and the trips to school, soccer,
swimming, hockey, baseball, dancing, and other
places, in addition to a full-time job or two,
while the guys are off working or fishing.
Girls! Right Now is your 4-year window
to go to the places and do the things that
you’ll never have the freedom to do again
in the same way.
No Babies! No Boy Baggage!
Girl Friends are the Best Friends!
Get a bunch of girl friends together and go
places and see things in this country or abroad
– like a year of college in Europe,
just having a good time…
without the pressure, the jealousy,
and the substances
of the standard social situations.
8. Gals #2: Reverse Liberation?
Free to be Used?
“Build yourself a levee deep inside.
Build yourself a levee girl
when the waters run high.”
-Natalie Merchant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvsRs9FRqNQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCVIHB7zyYU
If you’re being used,
or if he’s jealous or controlling,
dump him and wait 30 days,
no matter how much it hurts.
And then you’ll be OK.
There are plenty more in plenty more time.
9. “Ripeness is All” - Shakespeare
in King Lear
“If you’ve done it all,
you’ve done it all,
if you’ve reached the end
while you’re still at the beginning.
The joys of discovery
aren’t as much fun
if you’re bored from
having done too much
too soon too often
...before you’re ready.” ja
10. The un-bright leading the new:
Leadership Lessons.
As the present world political and financial
leaders don’t seem to be the brightest
we have ever had,
(though they are possibly the greediest):
A. Follow your brains instead of your leaders!
B. Gather the evidence.
C. Examine both sides of the evidence.
D. Don’t listen to those
who only look at one side.
E. Think about the evidence.
F. Confidently give your opinion about
how things should be done.
You’re just as smart as many of the “experts.”
If they’re so smart,
why is the world is so messed up?
You have a chance to make it better
when you take over!
11. Political Correctness =
intolerant tolerance;
separationist togetherness;
insensitive sensitivity;
discriminatory anti-discrimination;
doing good that results in evil;
straining at gnats
and
swallowing camels.
Encouraging breaking us up into
mutually-exclusive little groups
results in endless strife,
as most of the world well-illustrates.
Most of the more than 200 million killed
during the 20th Century were killed for
someone’s idea of “good,” which involved
killing off the “other” groups who resisted
their path to a perfect society.
http://necrometrics.com/all20c.htm
“Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
12. The Four Lusts...
Lust = wanting something so much that
you’ll do anything to get it.
A. Power
B. Money
C. Food
D. Bodies
Be most suspicious of those who love power,
and do everything you can to limit them.
The best example of distrust of power in the history of the world is,
believe it or not,
the U.S. Constitution,
where the Founding Fellows and Gals
looked at the Incredibly Stupid Kings, Nobles,
and Greedy B*******s of 5000 years of
history and tried to create a government that
would keep them under control.
Study us and them from that point of view,
and you’ll see why the U.S. is so
unique in history.
“Power tends to corrupt and
absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
-Lord Acton
The only leaders who can be trusted are those
who are hemmed in by checks and balances
which are enforced by informed citizens who
have in turn been informed by a press which
reports objectively and accurately the
leadership failings of those they like
as well as those they don’t like.
Thomas Jefferson:
“The basis of our governments being the
opinion of the people... were it left to me to
decide whether we should have government
without newspapers or newspapers without
government, I should not hesitate a moment
to prefer the latter.
http://famguardian.org/subjects/politics/thomasjefferson/jeff6.htm
Remember Shakespeare on Lust:
If we think our lives will be made perfect
if we get the things that we want too much,
our disappointments will likely
match our hunger.
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/129.html
13. History is a great teacher.
Become generally familiar with
the history of civilization.
It’s only about 5000 years,
as Neanderthals didn’t write much...
“What happened when they tried this before?”
“Why are we doing it again?”
“Is this right?”
“What works?”
14. What Doesn’t Work:
Geography Survey
Do you really want to live there
or be like that?
Google major and minor countries
using words like:
Violence [Country Name];
Treatment of Women [Country Name];
Freedom of Press [Country Name];
Persecution of Jews / Christians
[Country Name];
FGM [Country Name];
Terrorism [Country Name].
Do your leaders condone these behaviors?
Dump them!
More than 50 million people are now
displaced refugees because of the stupidity...
and silence... of present world leaders.
https://www.bbvaresearch.com/en/publicaciones/the-refugee-crisis-challenges-for-europe/
More than 800 million people face starvation every day, mostly because of stupid leaders.
http://ghi.ifpri.org/
Andrews’ too-long Grad Speech
from 2001 on Stupid Leaders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vBHntTiOcE
The Duck Test:
“If it looks like a duck,
waddles like a duck,
and quacks like a duck,
it’s probably a duck.”
If someone tries to tell you that you can’t
believe your eyes...or your mind,
they are probably the ones
who need glasses.
If they tell you that they want to kill you,
believe them...or they will...
15. “Somewhere over the Rainbow...”:
Belief in the Easy Button:
Be suspicious of leaders or prospective leaders
who promise schemes that will end war,
poverty, disease, or economic problems if you
just give them your vote and trust them .
You’ve been snookered!
...as the somewhat pessimistic
King Solomon said,
“There is no new thing under the sun...”
http://www.bible.ca/ef/expository-ecclesiastes-1-4-11.htm
16. Having Brains is not enough:
Brains + GRIT = Success
TED Video from Angela Duckworth
http://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_the_key_t o_success_grit#
To be a Great Musician:
Brains + 10,000 hours of practice.
To be a Good Musician:
Brains + 8,000 hours of practice.
To be an above-average musician:
Brains + 4,000 hours of practice.
Brains + No Practice =
Just a gray, gooey mass accomplishing nothing.
http://www.musicthinktank.com/mtt-open/10000-hours-of-practice-makes-perfect.html
17. The Healing Power of Doing Good:
If you find that you are miserable and depressed and lacking in purpose, even though you have met many of your goals, go out and find someone whom you can personally help, whether it be for an organization or in your own environment - personally. ...and you’ll find yourself being healed...
http://www.melbabenson.com/articles_files/Healing%20Power%20of%20Doing%20Good.pdf
18. The Old Guy:
A Noiseless Patient Spider –Whitman
Andrews teaching philosophy:
Why the old guy is still around
after 48 years.
A NOISELESS, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory,
it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant,
vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament,
out of itself;
Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly
speeding them.
And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded,
in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,
—seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d
—till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling,
catch somewhere, O my Soul.
19. Enjoy Our Wonderful World:
“Glory…for dappled things,
…for skies of couple-colour
…for finches wings…
…landscape plotted and folded…
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
whose beauty is past change…
http://www.bartleby.com/122/13.html
...and for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness
deep down things...
…with Ah! Bright Wings… “
http://www.bartleby.com/122/7.html
-Gerard Manley Hopkins
Have a great future!
Love ya much!
Keep in touch!
-Jim Andrews:
jimteacher1@gmail.com
Andrews’ Short Reading List: How to get to know what you don’t know:
Stuff Andrews has on his Sansa Clip+ as MP3s, on his Kindle, and maybe even in an actual book!
Don’t listen to what anyone says about these books until you’ve read them for yourself.
Use your brain!
The Politically Correct only think what they’re told to think!
If you have suggestions to make the list more “balanced,” let me know.
1. Arnold Toynbee
A Study of History
(1000-page version) - a little outdated, but makes good universal points.
“We all fall down...”
2. Hans Zinsser
Rats, Lice, and History
One of my favorites that I listen to often.
“Nature Wins...”
3. E. D. Hirsh of U.Va
Cultural Literacy
“How the educated communicate with images and stories.”
4. E.D. Hirsh
The Making of Americans
“How to fix the schools.”
5. Daniel Pink
Drive
“How to love your work:
Intrinsic motivation.”
6. Malcolm Gladwell
Blink
“Gut feelings are often right!”
7. Hickey and Roberts
Ascorbate:
The Science of Vitamin C
“Why the Old Guy doesn’t take any medicine...”
8. Thomas Sowell
Ethnic America
“How we all got here...”
9. A. Hamilton, J. Madison, J. Jay
The Federalist Papers
“Arguments that made us...Librivox MP3 version”
10. Nina Munk
The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs...
“What happens when you think you can erase world poverty in 5 years...”
11. Richard Rhodes
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
“Awesome picture of the personalities who gave us our last Pandora’s Box:
the cloud in our future.”
12. Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point
“Little things can have big effects.”
13. Theodore Dodge
Alexander: etc
“How to take over the world...”
Jodi Picoult
19 Minutes
“School massacre through
the eyes of a novelist.”
Dave Cullen
Columbine
“The real thing...”
14. Robert Brow
Religion: Origin and Ideas
“...from Western view, but a good short summary of them all...can get free online.”
15. Bush and McIlhaney
Hooked: ...Science on Casual Sex
“Oxytocin, bonding, and the mind.”
16. Miriam Grossman
Unprotected
“Ivy League Psychiatrist about what they don’t tell you about ‘love’ and relationships...first published as “anonymous”
17. Erik Larsen
In the Garden of the Beasts
“How the upper classes missed the clues about Hitler...just like today...”
Ken Follett’s books show this as well: Fall of Giants and Winter of the World.
18. Ralph Ellison
The Invisible Man
“One of the best of the best for African-Americans and anyone. Those that will get you... your own people...”
19. Many Many More...on all sides of the spectrum, as you can’t think for yourself without the data needed to make choices as to what works...
just a quick list of stuff, though I love detective novels like from Patricia Cornwell, Grisham, Patterson, etc.
1776: Year of Illusion
Sun-Tzu at Gettysburg
The Help
Metro 2033 and Metro 2034 “After the bombs in Moscow subways...” Youtube free
The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
Hirsh - The Schools We Need
Religion:
C. S. Lewis - The Problem of Pain and Mere Christianity
Robert Spencer’s books on the Middle East culture
G.K. Chesterton’s religious books from early 20th century - Everlasting Man, etc
What’s so Great about Christianity?
More Fiction
Glass Castle
I Am Charlotte Simmons - Tom Wolfe on UNC Chapel Hill sort of...
Josephus Wars of the Jews - Librivox MP3 - murderous wars in the 1st Century
Wall of Memories
Stuff that may appear on this site is Stuff that caught my fancy, either because I agree with it, or because I disagree with it, or, like a good teacher, I think it will make my students - or in this case, my audience - think a little bit harder, as we especially do when something gets us riled up.
So, as is said in other venues, "The following remarks may not reflect the views of the management."
Feel free to react negatively or positively to the things you may find - though please do so with dignity and respect for our common humanity, even though we may not always agree..
Welcome to My Web Site
The Old Guy
Theme-writing site: www.jimteach.org
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Writing Skill-Building - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1nhzi7whqo&t=5s
Research Writing - Whole Process - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCVAKsUDYq4
Two Powerpoints: Click to Access
File: Advice to Graduates.docx
Imagination
is
more important
than knowledge.
-Albert Einstein
