Monthly Shorts 12/21
Very short, this month
Above
MONETISATION, by Brian Bilston
The ad said
MONETISE YOUR FOLLOWERS
so he thought
he would respondby painting them
in the changing light,
like waterlilies
in a pond.
He has a whole series of poems based on written puns like this, but MONETISATION is my favorite. Very good, though admittedly not even my favorite poem about Monet, which would be Monet Refuses the Operation by Lisel Mueller.
Dorothy Parker’s Enough Rope has entered the public domain! To read her poetry, Poem Hunter has a nice collection, and this book organizes it nicely.
Who Wrote Caramelldansen is, for anyone who remembers it, or is interested in translations and remix culture, absolutely fascinating. My personal favorite moment is hearing a Japanese remake that converts the Swedish lyrics into semi-comprehensible Japanese (at least, according to the English translation of said Japanese). Also the copyright owners have gotten it taken off of youtube because it reflects pretty badly on them despite being obviously fair use, so I think that they deserve some Streisand.
Below
The tragedy of being an education reformer by inclination, and me, is that I’ve realized that most of my fellow travelers are interested in a very different sort of reform. In praise of homeschooling sarcastically says
Imagine believing that you ought to teach children “how to experiment” without learning chemistry.
I do believe this! If given the time to teach children only one, I would choose how to do genuine experiments in a heartbeat. Chemistry is, of the subjects we teach in school, one of the most absolutely useless and inapplicable for regular life. Latin and Calculus have more practical utility than chemistry!
The flip side, unfortunately, is that the people who agree with me that Calculus is overrated seem to mostly want to do away with rigorous math because it reveals that Black and Hispanic children aren’t well-served by our school system. Well, their view is that, because the only possible explanation of differences is discrimination, it must be the class that is at fault. It couldn’t be that some people have parents with stronger math backgrounds and more free time, and that this helps some students more than others. My view is that there is real inequality, it doesn’t start in the school, and you can’t fix it just by switching the curriculum to something that makes it less obvious where Black and brown children are falling behind.
And so I am left with my grand educational reform ideas. Radical proposals that start with claims like “it’s actually horrifying that it’s a common nightmare to be back in school, and we should immediately stop traumatizing children.” But no desire to sign on with any existing reform group.
Eight years ago, a Democratic senator from Maryland introduced a bill to thank naturopaths for their contributions. Never let anyone tell you that one party or another is anti-science. When science is convenient for them, political parties will claim to champion it, and when it is inconvenient and the parties notice, they will coordinate to provide cover. Other cases where this applies include free speech, federalism, and the constitution.
Here
Apologies for the short entries this month. There’s been a great deal of travel, on my end: Oakland and Costa Rica and Boston. More this month as well: I might write a travelogue supplement of sorts. For now, feel free to comment and ask me questions!