Language is an indispensable tool for learning and, lest we dig our own academic graves by failing to utilize language to our best advantage, a brief survey of the technology of words as tools is in order. We know that crows and anteaters use tools, and that rock-dwelling mammals like marmots have specific warning calls… Read more »
Q: What do you call a fish without an eye? (Pause, wait for tension to build.) A: A fssshhh! That joke would have elicited more eye rolls had it been pronounced aloud, am I right? Words are the barter of banter, but they form different landscapes depending on their mode of expression. Our learning at… Read more »
Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream (1893) is paradigmatic of the sudden piercing realization that something is askew in one’s life. Maybe we feel like we don’t belong where we are or that the world is all wrong. Perhaps the painting represents a visual answer to Hamlet’s famous line: “the time is out of joint” (Shakespeare). … Read more »
It’s a dark and stormy night and you’re cowering under layers of distraction. Your motivation quivers and clings to life as your coursework sits undone. Fearful that the academic gods will punish you for lack of effort, you hide yourself away until the horror of procrastination passes. But wait! A deeper fear grips you; what… Read more »
Tick tock. Hear that? It’s the mounting clamour of approaching deadlines. Time slips inexorably past, and with dire consequences, when we are trying to study. It’s unsettling, to say the least. Sometimes the best thing to do in the face of worry is to relax and loosen our grip on time. While I’ll be the… Read more »
Especially in September, when the somber weight of fall falls on our hearts, it helps to position ourselves rationally when we think about the forging forth in our studies. At AU we are bettering our ephemeral essences, but we are also aiding our ambitious drive for a better income and a more stable economic life. … Read more »
The production of enlightened wisdom is not a matter of putting our names to a simple sign up sheet. The methods we choose yield results proper to their context. The devils we dance with, and classes we register in, make us who we are. To face the unknown and the danger it entails is part… Read more »
The mere mention of Charles Darwin brings to mind fishy bumper stickers (imploring us all to evolve), bespectacled chimpanzees on t-shirts (proclaiming our 98% DNA match with monkeys) and flustered debates about human nature (where everyone goes home a little bit hurt and disgruntled). Happily, there’s more to the man’s work than a series of… Read more »
Elementary school class photos are as ubiquitous as report cards and leave a lot to be desired when answering that timeless question: how is school going? From kindergarten on through graduation, these wallet-sized mementos tell only a fragment of the story of our schooling. For instance, many hijinks are left out of the picture. Nowhere… Read more »
In his award-winning book, Big Lonely Doug, Rustad gives eloquent descriptions of the nature of untrammelled forests, never staying far from his central message that the majestic giants of the Pacific coast deserve preserving. Likewise, to explain our studies to others is usually about justifying them in the big picture of our life narrative and… Read more »