This post is a collection of some of my favorite cartoons about academic life, which all come from the Jorge Chan website PHDComics.com. Enjoy.
Month: November 2021
Two Cheers for School Bureaucracy
This post is a piece I wrote for Kappan, published in the March 2020 edition. Here’s a link to the PDF. Bureaucracies are often perceived as inflexible, impersonal, hierarchical, and too devoted to rules and red tape. But here I make a case for these characteristics being a positive in the world of public education. U.S. schools are … Continue reading Two Cheers for School Bureaucracy
Johan Huizinga on the Centrality of Play
This post is a reflection on Dutch philosopher Johann Huizinga's classic 1955 work, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. In this stunning book, Huizinga argues that play is central to civilization, that in fact it precedes and forms the basis for human culture. At the start, of course, he needs to define … Continue reading Johan Huizinga on the Centrality of Play
The Lust for Academic Fame
This post is an essay of mine that was just published in a book -- Production, Presentation, and Acceleration of Educational Research: Could Less Be More? -- edited by Paul Smeyers and Marc Depaepe. An earlier version appeared in Aeon in 2018. Here's a PDF of the chapter. Here's the setup for the argument: The … Continue reading The Lust for Academic Fame
The Exceptionalism of American Higher Education
This post is an op-ed I published on my birthday (May 17) in 2018 on the online international opinion site, Project Syndicate. The original is hidden behind a paywall; here are PDFs in English, Spanish, and Arabic. It’s a brief essay on what is distinctive about the American system of higher education, drawn from my book, A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely … Continue reading The Exceptionalism of American Higher Education
Anne Lamott — Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
This post is three selections from Anne Lamott's book, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Here's a PDF of a version that appeared in a Miami University coursepack I discovered online. f found her advice on writing very useful in my class on Academic Writing for Clarity and Grace. As you would … Continue reading Anne Lamott — Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Peculiar Problems of Preparing Educational Researchers
This post is a chapter from my 2004 book, The Trouble with Ed Schools. Here's a link to an earlier version that was published in 2003 in Educational Researcher. I wrote this in response to my experience teaching doctoral students in the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. Nearly all of the students … Continue reading Peculiar Problems of Preparing Educational Researchers
Nobel Prizes Are Great, But Football Is Why American Universities Dominate the Globe
This post is a reprint of a piece I published in Quartz in 2017. Here’s a link to the original. It’s an effort to explore the distinctively populist character of American higher education. The idea is that a key to understanding the strong public support that US colleges and universities have managed to generate is their ability to reach beyond … Continue reading Nobel Prizes Are Great, But Football Is Why American Universities Dominate the Globe
Steven Mintz — Helping Students Become Better Writers
This post is an essay by history professor Steven Mintz about how to help students improve their writing. It was published recently in Inside Higher Ed. Here's a link to the original. He gives some very good advice here, which builds on the advice of some authors on writing whom I've used with my own … Continue reading Steven Mintz — Helping Students Become Better Writers
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 