One of the reasons we frequently focus on educational issues in this space is because the Raven attends university and has a front-row seat on the process of higher learning. School today is a bewildering array of legislation, politics, culture, and information that have combined into a tightrope for students, teachers, and administrators to traverse.

During my scan of headlines this morning, I ran across this item at ABC News:

Professors Troubled by Angry Parents

What's interesting here are a couple of things. First, the reasons for the parents intervening. The article notes that parents:

• "Have a hard time letting go."
  
• Are footing an enormous financial burden.
  
• If authoritarian, are used to running kid's life.
  
• May have concerns about the curriculum.
  

Of course, I was skeptical, and was fully prepared for this to be some kind of Limbaughian whine-pit of Republican adolescent angst—"Oh woe is me, the teacher espoused Marxism," that kind of stuff. The view here is that college students should be exposed to all points of view, whether radical or reactionary, and they ought to keep open minds. The No Indoctrination site, it turns out, gathers instances of professorial behavior way beyond what should be permissable, and most of the students' feedback seems reasonable.

From the Website's introduction:

NoIndoctrination.org provides a forum for college students to report courses and programs that in their opinion contain severe bias or amount to indoctrination.

Comments: Dr. Moon openly expresses an opinion that White, Northern European, Heterosexual Males are the root of the majority of all intercultural problems in the United States. She claims that White male attitudes are the dominant attitudes found throughout our society and that these are wrong thinking attitudes needing to be suppressed, rejected and changed.

Out With the Old

Wrapping up today's educational spotlight is this article at the New York Post titled "City Teachers Will Be Mostly Newbies Next School Year." Looks like lower pay rates and retirement opportunities have caused a majority of the Big Apple's teachers to "opt-out" of teaching. Some are just moving out to other states, and some are flat-out quitting due to atrocious conditions. The result, though, is that 60 percent of New York's public school teachers will have "five years or less" experience in the classroom.

At first, you think to yourself, "Oh, how awful, all those green recruits in there," but at the end of the story is an interesting observation:

Former Schools Chancellor Ramon Cortines said the new teachers, if properly handled, could reinvigorate the schools.

"I was at my best as a teacher in my first five years. There's a lot of enthusiasm. The job is not as predictable. After five years, most teachers become rote," he said.

7:33:19 PM       

While there are a number of weblogs I've seen that purport to be about sex, very few actually embrace the subject with clothes-strewing abandon. I've been wondering why this is, and I have to reject outright the notion that Puritanism and neo-Victorian reserve cast a pall over the subject. Yet some factors must be at work to produce such reticence on the part of our writers and these are worth a quick look:

Tarnished Goods. The highbrow is loath to associate his or her work too closely to the red-lit sector of the Web. The virtual bawdy-house is rarely in good taste and almost always tawdry and vulgar, in addition to being utterly ubiquitous.

Sublimation. Our keen senses are honed to anticipate and respond best when obliquely stimulated. The most frightening movies keep the monster just off-screen where our imaginations can run full force, and so too with sex—it's better to hint than to show. Subjects like food, music, and anything that plays to the sensual tend to act as stand-ins for the star of the show.

Bright Wrappings. People have been selling sex since time immemorial. At its heart, the surge of hormones and release of tension is a fairly simple process and except for the sable and certain large felines that can go at it all day, it's usually pretty quick. Thus early on we learned to package the stuff up like Matreshka dolls, as with the Japanese kimono, because the longer you can keep someone fumbling around the better.

An Uneaten Feast. Anais Nin remarked that her best work was written whilst she was between relationships. Erotica works that way because food is an interesting subject to everyone who is hungry. Feed the diners, however, and you lose the audience. Sex is something you want to keep "just around the corner," much as pornography addicts through the promise of an ultimate—but never delivered—revelation.

Blurred Focus. Sometimes the road is more important than the destination. "No, it's not sex, it's the relationship." In other words, are we really talking about intercourse, orgasms, and kinkiness, or are we intent on forming the connections that might eventually wind up there? Yes to both, which puts our target into motion and keeps it elusive.

Remember Salon's Heaven and Hell dating series? You could see nearly all of the above points addressed in some way or another. It was interesting reading because how those relationships worked out was a lot more interesting than whether the couples consumated their concupiscence.

Bait and Switch

Speaking of Internet dating, people have been romancing each other with mail ever since some poor Mesopotamian slave was sent out to cross the Tigris with a clay tablet strapped to his back. The Net just speeds up the process. One of the big dogs on this block is the Yahoo! Personals area. Let's take a look.

Your Mama Would Approve
But believe me, Mama's approval won't be the kiss of death this time! I was brought up by a Southern Lady to be one. I've been told I'm quite good-looking. I believe I can turn your head and keep it turned. But maybe we should just have coffee first, huh?

Hmm. Would my head be kept turned because it was in an iron headlock? (It's times like this that I'm glad to have my dating days behind me.) Yahoo allows you to select on a range of criteria to weed-out the unwanted. Traditionally, though, the challenge of writing a good personals ad is to embed the kinds of messages that speak between the lines. The real masters of this craft advertise their lonely hearts in the back section of the New York Review of Books:

A Younger, Dark-Haired more radiant Jane Fonda. Thin, smart, stunning, 40-something. Stands out in a crowd. Graceful, gracious DJF. Long, beautiful, wavy hair, sensual smile. Interesting and interested quick study. Art consultant, curator. Nature-lover but can do black tie at the drop of a hat. Interests: music, philanthropy, contemporary art, wine, hiking, film. Pilates. Runs daily. Loves laughter, surprises, giving small dinner parties, but not golf. Seeks NS, very bright man, medium-large build, 40s-50s, passionate about something in his life.

10:01:21 AM