do no harm:


idit dobb-weinstein: "teaching is action and thinking at once. What I try to guard against most when I teach is not speaking as if my answer were conclusive, so as to avoid (to the extent possible) any kind of dogmatic appropriation. It is understandable why students might wish to imitate their teachers, but there are different modes of imitation. I try very hard to avoid the mimetic appropriation that is immediate, passive, and occludes thinking. One other reason is that if I made clear what my views were, and my views appeared as if they were final, it would preclude the possibility of first, students challenging me and second, learning from my students. The relation between the student and teacher is, to me, a dynamic relationship . . . Teaching and learning is a movement that occurs between. In other words, we are at once both agent and patient, both teacher and learner. If we are not very careful, we can do a great deal of harm. And that, too, I have learned from my teachers, Maimonides especially.

I believe my task is to provoke students to think and to engage them in genuine dialogue and questioning. To paraphrase a rabbinic saying, 'I have learned from my teachers, and I have learned from my peers, but I have learned most from my students.' And that is a continuous process of learning."

Saturday 8 May 2010

amazingly the socialist conference at LACC costs 7$/10$.

listening through the back door where some officious guy told me i had to go to the front to be counted and charged.

father's rules:
never say an unkind word.
no contention.
no bickering.
never raise your voice.
verbal abuse is worse than physical violence.

if only we could teach this to the ASO and our harassy profs and students.

i'm thinking that if i do come back to LACC, i will take lots of science and computer and business.

really impressed with vargas's 100% glowing reviews on ratemyprofessors.com.

we do have a lot to be proud of.
i really love the diversity here.
i love it.

i want to take arabic, wills and trusts, and a lot of computer classes.

just saw eckford leave through the back door.
he's a wikipedia celebrity for his african-american studies.
i want to take that class and chicano studies too, especially.
wating for fate to tell me what's next.
oh yeah my test.
back to the books.
eckford totally got why i don't dig gendered harassment.
i really appreciate that.

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