Hello, friends. Many of you know me but don't know me. For more than 3 years I ran the Rate Your Students blog, and I exchanged hundreds upon hundreds of emails with many of you who are now livening up the academy at this new academic water cooler.
Last week an article I wrote for the Chronicle started an avalanche of email that has come my way. Many writers identified themselves as old RYSers and new CMers. It brought me much pleasure to catch up with so many of you with whom I've lost touch with since closing down the old site.What was most exciting, though - and the reason I'm asking Leslie K to share this note with you - was the number of folks who wrote me to say: "I had no idea RYS did what it did. I thought you just rated students!" Changing perceptions of what it means to vent one's spleen and still love one's job has become a bit of a mission for me. I think the work that RYS did was valid, useful, and freeing. While clearly the most profane and "lively" posts are probably what gets noticed the most (both at RYS and CM), there is much important discussion going on in these blogs.
I'm grateful CM exists, and that Fab Sun (along with many others) got it going in June, and that so many of you seem to be enjoying the more open forum of this new site.
Good luck to you all. Keep fighting. Keep working. Find the love of the classroom and your own work. Bitch about the snowflakes when you have to, but keep your heads in the game. I burned out after a protracted immersion at the RYS compound, but I believe I'm a better teacher for it. I know I'm more excited than ever about not letting the bullshit of the academy stop me, my students, or their progress. All of us have chosen careers where we get to help young people become smarter, better, more creative, and more ready for the challenges of this world. There's nothing that I know of that is more satisfying. (Except for, perhaps, a perfectly struck 7 iron, or an endless shrimp buffet.)
Best,
WT
Thanks for all your hard work in running RYS, it sure was fun!
ReplyDeleteI'm with Froderick. And please join our happy club here, too!
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your work over at RYS. I wish there could have been a way that my various RYS entries could have counted as peer reviewed publications. :-)
ReplyDeleteNow this endless shrimp buffet of which you speak, that sounds really good right about now!
Thought I recognized that tone in the Chronicle (and even commented on some of the ridiculous comments from the 'saints' who never vent). So miss your blog!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks as well to you, for what became nothing less than a landmark effort in academic reform!
ReplyDeleteYes! A shoutout to all of the women and men who worked in the Compound...I remember Chronos and Cricket and Carl and ... CAL!
ReplyDeleteWell done. 5 years is a long time and you all did a brilliant job. I had never seen a blog like it, and I miss it madly.
What are we going to do to make THIS site last? Is there a grand plan, a scheme? Are their architects somewhere?
ReplyDeleteCan we harness Beaker Ben, Stella, Froderick, Yaro, and others and make sure this remains a going venture?
I'd like to think we're all in at the start of something useful and cool.
As long as snowflakes fall in our classrooms,
ReplyDeleteAs long as silver hair grows on the backs of our elders,
As long as our newly hired assistant professor unicorns shit gumdrops,
There will always be College Misery.
Bravo! The "bullshit of the academy" is everywhere. It's like a cow pie party where I teach.
ReplyDeleteBut having CM here makes it a little easier. Keep telling the tales everyone.
I understand "keep fighting," but why does it have to be a goddamn fight at all!??!?
ReplyDeleteBecause in human history, it only counts if it's a fight. Copernican model of the solar system beating out Ptolemean geocentic theory? A fight. Pasturization of milk? A fight. Giving women the vote in Britain and the US? A fight. Getting anybody in the US to believe the Wright Brothers after they flew? A fight, weirdly enough. The present battle between Wikileaks and the fumbling, bullying, American power structure? A struggle as important as the Russian Revolution and the wild attempts by the Euro-American powers to crush Bolshevism in its cradle.
ReplyDeleteMay Wikileaks win.