Made in America

In the midst of the usual morning madness to get us both out the door and to our respective destinations on time, my teenager asks "Is WD-40 an American company?" Since the non sequitur is a common occurrence in our conversations, I offer "I'm not really sure; why don't you Google it?" without missing a beat.  And, since focused pursuit of the information in question is also a common occurrence, it takes only a few minutes to hear "I thought so.  It had to be, because Toby Keith sings about it."  And it's a perfect moment.

What's perfect about this moment is the combination of natural curiosity (hers), testing a hypothesis (also hers), and the tracking of seemingly separate thought processes (ours).  My daughter had been listening carefully to the lyrics of Toby Keith's Made in America:

My old man's that old man
Spent his life livin' off the land
Spend a little more in the store for a tag
In the back that says "USA"
He won't buy nothin' that he can't fix
With WD-40 and a Craftsman wrench
He ain't prejudiced, he's just
Made in America

Made in America.  It's a song title, a television series (quite a good one, in fact), a news worthy topic, and a union rallying cry.  Google it and you'll find "about 953,000,000 results."  We talk about it, we write about, we read about it, we debate about it...and we are, as a nation, still fairly clueless about it.

To have products that are made in America--or products made in any country, as it's not just about the country where I happen to live--requires facilities and skilled workers.  And that--the skilled workers--is what's on my mind as a citizen, an educator and a parent.

I can't express it any better than the interview provocatively titled "John Ratzenberger on Why We're Becoming a Third World Country":

The view of most guidance counselors is that if you don't go to college you're a failure.  And it's just not true.  The manual arts have always taken precedence over the fine arts.  There's no exception to that rule.  Michelangelo couldn't have gone to work until someone built that ceiling.

We continue to measure success by the color of our collar. That, too, is made in America.

I know his name now

Recently Chris, a former student of mine, posted this on his Facebook page (which I quote here with his permission):

When Steve Jobs passed away everyone was bawling because a billionaire died. A man who evaded taxes, denied fathering his daughter, cheated others out of organ transplants, basically sued for or stole most of his ideas and did very little philanthropically with his mountains of cash. He was a beloved crook and marketing talent who swindled communities into some feverish orgy of brand loyalty.

Meanwhile, every last person who has ever touched a computer in basically any form owe their livelihoods, entertainment, ability to communicate, hell even their lives to Dennis Ritchie. He was a Titan to the IT world who truly crafted a thing of infinite genius, and everyone, everyone has been standing on his shoulders since. Here is someone to write articles about and ponder their impact on us all, and no one knows his name.

Given the time I've spent with Chris, I know his opinions are thoughtful and based upon considerable research.  And, since I was one of the people who did not know Dennis Ritchie's name, I began to read. 
 
In Greek mythology, the Titans were the gods who ruled before being overthrown by the younger Olympians. First generation Titans include Uranus, Oceanus, Cronus, Phoebe, and Mnemosyne (one of my favorites); their off-spring include Atlas and Prometheus.  Before being overthrown, they were powerful rulers during the Golden Age.  The 12 Olympians (including Zeus, Hera, Apollo, and Poseidon) who replaced the Titans are arguably better known to purveyors of comic books, superheros, and popular movies.  

Dennis Ritchie "helped shape the digital era."  Oddly or, perhaps, poetically, he died just 12 days after Steve Jobs and is rightly described as a Titan:

Ritchie was the principal designer of the C programming language and co-inventor of the operating system Unix, two inventions that revolutionized modern technology.

The C programming language was widely considered simple and elegant compared to the more cryptic and inaccessible B language that preceded it, and is now widely used. Based on C, Ritchie and Kenneth L. Thompson invented Unix, which is the foundation of today’s predominant operating systems.

Not a flashy man, Ritchie worked for one company (Bell Labs) his entire career and did not seek the spotlight. He was well liked, well respected, and paved the way for the younger Olympians who stood on his shoulders...and who are far better known.

I'm left with the same question Chris raised.  But now I know Dennis Ritchie's name.  Thank you, Chris.

Some days are like living in a blender

Yesterday, it was Frank Deford on NPR, quoting former University of California, Berkeley chancellor Clark Kerr:

The three purposes of the University?  To provide sex for the students, sports for the alumni, and parking for the faculty.

Today, it was finding a forgotten electronic bookmark to Max Ehrmann's Desiderata and wondering how, in my youth, I missed this:

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.  Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.  But do not distress yourself with imaginings.  Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Two months ago, it was a faculty retreat on excellence in teaching, where a colleague pondered how to engage students who do not wish to be engaged.  And for the past several weeks, it's been my walks across campus, observing the masses of students, reminding myself that each and every one of them is loved by someone (whether parent, sibling, or friend) and that very few of them are on our campus because they love learning.

And if that weren't enough to keep my mind occupied for a while, I've also been remembering a Mark Helprin quote from Winter's Tale:

(T)ime was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given - so we track it, in linear fashion piece by piece.  Time however can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once.

How, then, do teachers rise to the challenge of engaging hearts and minds, knowing full well the lessons needed, understanding the youthful resistance to learning, and realizing much we offer will not be embraced for many years (if at all)--all without giving in or giving up?  I wonder if each one of us who teaches (regardless of where or what) must struggle to find our own place to stand, one that provides enough distance to see it all at once and enough proximity to remain engaged.

Some days I get it in an instant; others, not so much.

First things first

My reading lately includes ethics texts (for a January course), daily thoughts on gratitude, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Facebook (with some Celia Rivenbark for balance).  In the midst of this (and other) reading, there have been recurring references to Anna Quindlen's writing and life.  The most recent example is a Quindlen quote from this morning:  

The ultimate act of bravery doesn't usually take place on a battlefield.  It takes place in your heart when you have the courage to honor your character, your intellect, your inclination, and your soul by listening to its clean, clear voice of direction instead of following the muddied messages of a timid world.

Being immersed as I am in reading and musing, the intersection of the topics, the quote, and the timing prompted me to wonder about some things...such as where we learn to listen to that clear voice of direction...why we accept the voices of others...and what happens when we stop being curious, thinking for ourselves, and digging deeper into a subject for the sheer joy of it all.

So, I took the time to read a bit more about Anna Quindlen, a woman who transitioned seamlessly from writing Newseek columns to writing novels in order to honor her own inclination to be home with her children and to write fiction.  And in the process of reading about Quindlen, I wondered about the source of the quote, as the punctuation in the version I saw seemed...well, wrong, especially for a writer of Quindlen's caliber.  So, honoring the voice of one of my own beloved muses, I searched for the primary text, found the source of the quote, and the punctuation I would have expected.

I don't always take the time to put first things first, to find the source and read it for myself, to grapple with my own understanding (or lack thereof).  When I do, though, for the sheer joy of satisfying intellectual curiosity, there are few things more satisfying.  If I can find a way to bring a small part of this into the classroom...

Women who work

It's called synchronicity.  My choice to read women authors is followed by a link from a former student (who took my strategy class) to research into what makes teams smarter. According to research from Carnegie Mellon University and the MIT Sloan School of Management, women are an important part of successful teams:  

It's a preliminary finding--and not a conventional one.  The standard argument is that diversity is good and you should have both men and women in a group.  But so far, the data show, the more women, the better.  

And why might that be the case?

Many studies have shown that women tend to score higher on tests of social sensitivity than men do. So what is really important is to have people who are high in social sensitivity, whether they are men or women.

Given the amount of teamwork we require of our students (that same strategy class) and the quest to understand why some students perform better than others, I shared the link with my colleagues.  By return email, I received this from a male colleague (might this be a good place to insert that all my colleagues who teach this particular course are male?):

I have found (from my practical experience) that this is true.  The managers in my research group at Walmart were 70% female and the hardest (working)/ most productive members. Before that, in civil engineering, I found the female design engineers and project managers to be the brightest, most productive team engineers.

As a woman, I find this both affirming and frustrating.  

Trash talk

New trash cans today!

Though this may not reflect well on the academy, it is our reality today.  We have new trash cans in our offices.  They're small.  And they are small for a reason.  The goal is to get us to think before we trash. 

And if we needed an example of how easily we can miss the important for the, shall we say, less important, this is the day.  From an email sent by a staff member in the associate dean's office:

I have received so many emails about the new trashcans, and they are all thought provoking.  Many people have strong feelings for and against the cans. The question I am hearing more than any other is: “WHY are they SO small?” 

The email provides a link  to a recent New York Times article about trash cans (at another academic institution) that are even smaller than our new ones.  The ones in the article are only 6" tall and it seems they're all the rage on that campus.   By contrast, our new ones are quite a bit larger.  

This leaves me wondering... how is it we miss the irony of having time and energy to engage in email eloquence regarding the size of our trash cans?

Women who write

In my high school and college years, I spent a great deal of time arguing the similarities between men and women, going so far as to attribute the vast majority of gender differences to nurture.  The nature versus nurture discussion continues and what we know for sure is that we don't really know.  The most sweeping conclusion that can be drawn is "humans are not hard-wired."

I've learned some things, experienced a bit more of the world, and taken on more roles since my teens and early twenties.  I have a deeper appreciation of the rich and varied interplay between gender and milieu, as well as the role of, well, roles.  And regardless of all the science, the known, the unknown, the questioned, and the hypothesized, I am quite certain that, as a group, women who write do not write in the same way as men who write.  Perhaps it has less to do with nature than with life experiences and those pesky roles than tend, more often than not, to define by way of limiting.

As I think about the courses I will be teaching next semester and the changes I will be making in both content and approach, I am thinking about why I read what I read.  And, during September, I've decided to read only women authors, not for any particular subject matter expertise, but to experience the difference in voice.  Today, it's Molly Ivins.  Waiting in the wings are Annie Dillard, Maya Angelou, Merlin Stone, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, and a host of others.  Though I'll miss my favorite men who write, I'm looking forward to some time with the girls.