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."

Sunday, 18 July 2010

response to an anonymous "shhhh!"

(regarding lawyers . . .)

oh thanks, i appreciate your support and reading of this blog.
all i paid was the thirty dollars cab fare to rush to west LA.
i found that keith fink was extremely kind to work pro-bono for a principle, and he was also extremely flattering of my intelligence.
he was also extremely more cogent and aware than my really out-to-lunch teachers over at LACC, so in comparison, he makes off like a hero in my book.
i just like hanging out with brilliant people.  and that he is.
i mean really, after such a bad experience at LACC i needed therapy, which law can be a funny kind of therapy.
now for your own case, contact the bar, and file a report.  or sue malpx if you want.  or make an awesome blog out of it.  your perspective would surely be fascinating.
i have no shame about being an impoverished LACC student looking for a way out of a crisis style situation of ethical lapse. for the record i am still scheduled to speak to Dr Burnett, Passman's boss, and pursue a grade grievance, etc.  pushing around more paper so far as i can see.

i get a lot more satisfaction personally and intellectually from blogging about it as a case history.

not that i will do everything the way other people would, but by blogging it i am creating an ethical transparency that was largely absent most situations in the past.
i am fully aware that smear campaigns were conducted by the dov charney universe against fink.  that doesn't frighten me.  actually i admire one who could take on the goebbels of sexploitation in advertising and suffer the media consequences.  to me it is heroic, and completely worthwhile.  as to the particulars of your case, i am quite intrigued.
and as for employability, or reputation, the world should answer to me, not i it.
and in that regard, that is what blogging, writing, critique are all about.  retaking power and demanding more, even if one has limited means.

plus paradise is around the corner . . . you don't have to be treated like swine, by professors or anyone else . . . .
hit the road . . .
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