VISITING SCHOLARS

Our Back To School Issue

Salutations Scholars!
     Memory is a wonderful thing.  The best part is that it is so
selective.  Most of us have such fond memories of school that it
is a shock to discover the true records of your
less-than-studious days.  The psychology of this is the same as
for all the other "good-old-days" phenomena.  Fortunately, we can
usually suppress those memories of warm, slightly stale milk,
mystery meat for lunch and being smacked by those upper class
morons on the playground.  No wonder we spent so much of the
intervening decades forgetting.
     Politicians always seem to spend lots of time talking about
education.  These politicians are generally the same guys who, as
college fratboys managed to spend five or six years mastering the
art of binge drinking.  But those fellas sure do talk about
teaching as if they have answers.  I guess it's the talking part
that must be keeping them from doing something about it.  For all
of the multi-megabucks education plans that have been proposed
over the years to "fix our schools", teachers are still the worst
paid professionals in public service.  It is clear that they must
be pretty dedicated.  If they were just in it for the money, they
could make far more parking cars.  And, with tips, too.
     Thanks to all of our teachers and contributors, without
whom, none of these words would be grammatically sensible. 
Special Thanks to: Jerry Taff, Prof. Nnamdi Elleh, Prof. Eva Lu
Yu-Hwa, Junji Taniguchi, Fumiko S. David, Bernie & Donna Becwar,
R.J. Tully, Bruce Gonzo, Jan Michalski, Susan Will, Dan Butler,
Tim McChain, Chuck Maray, Carol J. Becwar, Yasmin Leischer,
Charles Beckman and Tomoko Naito & Mike Fagan.
     Also thanks to Sister Bertina of Holy Rosary Elementary
School, the fastest and most accurate eraser tosser ever.  You
really learned to pay attention when she was holding that chalk-
dust missile of higher education.
     Have A Well-Educated Week,


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YOU TAKE THE HIGH ROAD...
----------------------
     There are dozens of ethnic studies courses available these
days, but hardly any more unusual than one four-year program at
the Royal Scottish Academy of music in Glasgow.
     Successful candidates will graduate with a Bachelor of Arts
degree in Scottish Music - Piping.  That's piping as in bagpipes,
not plumbing, by the way.
     The course in Scotland's incredibly loud national instrument
is being run in conjunction with the Piping Center in Glasgow. 
Students will learn topics ranging from the physics behind the
distinctive drone of the Highland bagpipe to the intricacies of
crafting the instrument.  (Reuters)
          [ And to think, when I was in college, I was
          worried about my stereo disturbing other's
          studies... ]


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A FRATERNITY DREAM COME TRUE...
----------------------------
     There aren't many college courses as difficult as this one,
combining food sciences with microbiology, chemistry and cooking. 
But students still get teased by their friends.
     In a six-week-long course, students at Metropolitan State
College in Denver, Colorado are learning to brew their own beer - 
and earning college credit for it.  Students must be 21.
     "I get a lot of flak when I tell my friends I'm heading off
to beer class," said student Robert Reyes, an aspiring chef who's
also taking a wine class.
     "But it's a lot more difficult than I ever imagined," Reyes
said.  "I've realized how you can pair beer and food like you can
pair wine and food."
     "There's a lot of interest in beer," said professor Michael
Wray, who introduced the course.  "An important part of the
program is the ability to develop sensory evaluation skills."
     In other words, you don't just brew the beer, you taste it,
too.  The class, available to students in the hospitality and
restaurant administration program, is being underwritten by
Coors, which pays the $500 tuition.  (AP)
          [ Any professor who says so dryly about
          students that, "There's a lot of interest in
          beer" must have a sense of humor, too. ]


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LEGALLY INANE...
-------------
     A very blonde young lady was sitting in a history class when
the professor asked her if she knew what the Roe vs Wade decision
was.  She sat thinking for quite some time pondering this
profound question.
     Finally, she brightened and said: "I think that is the
decision George Washington made prior to crossing the Delaware."


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LITERARY RE-INTERPRETATION, KINDERGARTEN STYLE...
----------------------------------------------
     A first grader was sitting in class as the teacher was
reading the story of "The Three Little Pigs."
     The teacher came to the part of the story where the first
pig was trying to acquire building materials for his home.  She
read...  "And so the pig went up to the man with a wheelbarrow
full of straw and said, 'Pardon me sir, but might I have some of
that straw to build my house with?'"
     Then the teacher asked the class, "And what do you think
that man said?"
     My friend's son raised his hand and said, "I know!  I know! 
He said...  'Holy smokes!  A talking pig!'"


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THE INFLUENCE OF TELEVISION ON EDUCATION...
----------------------------------------
     A student at the National Spelling Bee was given a
particularly difficult word to spell.  Having some trouble
knowing how to start, the student asked if he could buy a vowel.


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YOU GOT QUESTIONS?  WE'VE GOT ANSWERS...
-------------------------------------
     In their daily applications of the Socratic method, Teachers
get an amazing number of really creative answers.  Here are a few
of the more interesting:


          "I was giving a student a one-on-one standardized
     test for special education, when we got to the Factual
     Knowledge portion of the test.  You can learn a lot
     about a student from some of the answers in this
     section, because the questions come from many areas;
     it's almost like playing Trivial Pursuit.
          "This student was zipping along quite well, when I
     got to the question, 'What do you call a male bee?'  He
     hesitated for just a moment, then he said, 'Mr. Bee?'


          "I had a student point to the class hamster and
     tell me the reason it slept all day was that the
     hamster was "nocturtle."  After that, I was going to
     submit my name as Social Studies teacher of the year.
          I asked on a test what our neighbors to the north
     and south were.  The tests came back, and one student
     had put Tristan and Tiffany - the names of the students
     located in those directions from his desk ...  I gave
     credit, and had a good laugh."


          "A young lady who was new to Canada and for whom
     English was a second language was in my grade 7 math
     class.  We were studying circumference.  One question
     asked students to find the circumference of a wheel
     given the radius and to illustrate how they obtained
     their answer.  This young lady was having obvious
     difficulty with the question, even after a few hints
     from me.
          "When I collected the test papers, I saw the
     reason for her confusion, as she was trying to
     determine the circumference of a WHALE.
          "I certainly got a laugh out of her illustration.
     She did get full marks!


          "One day I was quizzing students on vocabulary. 
     One of the words was 'taxidermist.'  'What does a
     taxidermist do?' I asked.  Scott answered, 'Stuff
     stuff.' 
          "I couldn't have said it better myself!"
                                      - Mrs. T 

          "My fourth grade class just finished studying the
     Virginia colony.  When asked on the test, 'What made
     the Virginia colony successful?' one student replied,
     'They changed real gold into tobacco.'"


          In California we teach California history in the
     fourth grade and the missions are a big part of the
     history.  After assigning my students the assignment of
     mission reports and models, one student asked me if
     anything interesting happened at his mission.  I asked
     him to tell me the name of the mission.  After a few
     seconds of hard thinking he replied...  'It's Mission
     San, San, San Juan Cappuccino.'"            - Anonymous


          "I was administering a standardized test to an 8th
     grade student who was being tested for special needs
     eligibility.  One of the questions I asked was 'What is
     the gross national product?'.  My student replied,
     'peas!'.  Ok, so it wasn't the correct answer, but I do
     give him credit - I dislike peas, too!"
                            - Kim Rodrigues


          "I asked on one of my Honors Geometry tests: 'As
     an angle increases, what happens to the cosine of the
     angle?  Explain.'  One student answered: 'The cosine
     decreases to make room for the sine.'"
                            - Anonymous


          "I am a college instructor who teaches mainly
     introductory classes in political science.  About 9:00
     in the evening, right before their first test I
     received a call at home.  A young lady was diligently
     studying for the test by reviewing the assigned
     chapters in the textbook.  She said she had read the
     chapter on the founding of this country, but was having
     a hard time understanding it. 
          "When I asked her what the problem was, she
     replied 'The main thing that I don't get is that the
     book keeps referring to farmers.  What do people who
     grow crops have to do with writing the Constitution?'
          I thought about it for a moment and finally
     realized that she had been misreading the word framers. 
     It turns out she received an 'A' on the test."
                            - Geoffrey E. Brewster 


          "On I test in 8th grade science, I asked the
     question, 'What adjustment should be made to a Bunsen
     burner if the flame continues to go out?'  My favorite
     answer which I received was, 'Put more charcoal on
     it.'"
                            - Goose Holler


     "You can listen to thunder after lightening and tell
     how close you came to getting hit.  If you don't hear
     it you got hit, so never mind."


     "South America has cold summers and hot winters, but
     somehow they still manage."


     "A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind
     which way it wants to go."


     "Genetics explain why you look like your father and if
     you don't why you should."


     "We say the cause of perfume disappearing is
     evaporation.  Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of
     things people forget to put the top on."


     "Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big
     enough to be called a drop, it does."


     "It is so hot in some places that the people there have
     to live in other places."


     "The wind is like the air, only pushier."


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A LESSON IN CLASSROOM DISCIPLINE...
--------------------------------
     A junior high school shop teacher injured his back during
the summer and had to wear a plaster cast around the upper part
of his body through the beginning of the school year.  It fit
under his shirt and was not very noticeable.
     On the first day of the new year, he found himself assigned
some the toughest and rowdiest students in the school.
     As he lectured at the front of the room on the first day of
the term, the students paid scant attention, and laughed
derisively as the teacher's tie blew over his shoulder twice in
quick succession from the strong breeze blowing in through the
classroom's open windows.
     The third time it happened, the teacher picked up a staple
gun and without a word tacked the tie to his stomach in three
places, then continued the lecture.
     He had no further trouble with discipline that year.


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