Category: Uncategorized
-
Toast and Tea
Returning to plain old 2021 after visiting the Beatles’ 1969 is bringing me down with a pretty hard bump this week. For one, I leave Peter Jackson’s eight-hour Thanksgiving weekend Disney+ juggernaut The Beatles: Get Back with an overwhelming desire to consume tea with milk, toast, and marmalade. Even as I type this. Because the […]
-
A Friendly Emptiness
Lots of people are writing good remembrances of Charlie Watts. (Here’s one I really like.) But none of them are drummers, that I have found so far, and so none of them seems to get what matters most about what he did with his art. I am a drummer, and I do. And here it […]
-
Didn’t Feel The Need
Today I use my small megaphone to amplify Nikole Hannah-Jones’ decision not to join the faculty of my doctoral alma mater, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is a shameful day to be a Tar Heel. Carolina’s loss is Howard’s gain. I hope for change in my state, and its flagship university […]
-
the good doctor
The condemnation this weekend of a vile editorial about whether Dr. Jill Biden should retain her academic title when she becomes First Lady was gratifyingly swift, and its defense has been predictably toothless. It is not the first attack Dr. Biden has endured for her education commitments, and it certainly won’t be the last. Maybe […]
-
no better than its places
“Old Bob” was a horse that belonged to Blanford Barnard (“B.B.”) Dougherty, one of the founders of the school that became Appalachian State University, and its distinguished first president. This is “Old Bob” in 1920, led by John Adams, who “worked for the Dougherty family.” The accuracy of this photo is disputed, though. I am […]
-
Skating Well
The semester started three weeks ago, the calendar tells me. Like so many, I am only teaching online, for the foreseeable future. Last March, when we didn’t bring the students back from spring break, finishing the semester meant continuing to develop our already-existing relationships by other means. But now class is little squares on a […]
-
the shock and the sacred
All over the country right now, teachers are being asked to work double and triple-hard. In response to widespread shuttering of schools — for weeks, maybe longer — thousands of districts are asking their staffs to create, sometimes out of nothing, credible and productive work that can be done by students from their homes or […]
-
the presence of social distancing
I am probably taking my undergrads online starting Monday, as they return from spring break. This isn’t university policy yet, but it’s not NOT policy either. Most recent guidance states that “faculty may choose to take classes online as they determine best meets the needs of their classes,” and I so determine. It is time […]
-
the fullness of emptying out
I love summer vacation. One of the most precious parts of a life in schools is the implacability of the schedule. In September, as sure as gravity, I teach. And right now, in the middle of the summer — unless I make a deliberate choice to do otherwise — I do not. But I get […]
-
This Syllabus is Not a Contract
It has become quite fashionable for educators and educational institutions to describe their offerings as contracts with their students. This is completely inaccurate, and misleading. I think I know why it is happening, though. I believe there is evidence that the value of education generally, and higher education specifically, is being gradually rendered suspect by […]
Chris Osmond PhD 