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."

Monday, 2 August 2010

anthropology club president reaches out for a little facebook hate

i had the extreme misfortune of my "friend" eric hamilton exposing me to this creepy facebook thread in which LACC anthropology club president olivia clemens calls me "stark raving mad" and other creepy people say unrepeatable sexist sexual things.

so i guess LACC is not big enough for all the LACC haters so they have to get on facebook late at night to hate on other people.

which in a sense i see that there is a progressive effect of people becoming more confident etc.
but i think they should get a blog or something more literate than a wall for a few derogatory words.

since olivia is the most civilized of the haters, and someone who i kind of like, even though she was mad i stood up for her getting walked on every time she said anything in class---i wrote her this:


i am sorry you engage in so much hatred on facebook

i normally stay away from it as it is a cesspit of illiteracy but eric had to show me 

scott was really mean to my friend sheila who defended a girl who had been sexually harassed by the ASO president

i thought it was racist and sexist the way he ridiculed sheila

i wish you a lot of peace

i don't know if that is really how you should present yourself

i am sorry i defended you regarding bartelt's rudeness every time you talked.

i thought you had a lot of good things to say and that he was rude to you frequently.

i am much happier now around more civilized people

eric hamilton is a nice person but i don't get why he would show me all this facebook trash 

you can always write me or if you really wanted to go public with hating on me you could choose a better publicity arena than facebook.

bc facebook is kind of a closed thing for your private "friends" & facebook addicts
i was so lucky to have an intelligent respectful family and high school and college experience.

so going to LACC was like going to gutter school with a bunch of dimwit trashmouths.

it is really sad that poor people are faced with this kind of lack of quality.

even though you find it necessary to be mean on facebook i wish you a lot of joy etc.
well----the ghost of LACC is more than enough bad energy for an evening.  but thankfully i will not be cavorting with the facebook haters on the fantasy world called facebook.

so isn't it nice to know that standing up for women's right to get an education in an harassment-free atmosphere guarantees infinities of trash talk from LACC student leaders on facebook.

take that, women!

and then have some ugly creepy guy commenting on scott clapson's wall with insanely crude misogynistic anatomical references to me.

yes to me.

as in "no one's going to bang her clam."

doesn't that just make you want to throw up?

as in these are your student leaders and your "friends", people i wouldn't ever like to be in the same room with with such trashy mouths!  LACC is a half-step up from that portapotty where you smoke crack if you ask me.

i wouldn't let these people anywhere near my children if i had any.

more than ever i feel like LACC was some kind of karmic doom/purgatory i had to suffer through from some misguided desire for paralegal training.

good luck to the rest of you if you are still there!  i'm so sorry!  i wish i could do more!  

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