Wednesday, January 28, 2015

"Namast-No." Sid From Santa Fe Checks In.

Here, at the worst run community college in America, some nutjob in the Dean's office has embraced zen practice in a big, big way.

We can't pay our part-timers enough for them to buy bus passes (true story), but we have money for a variety of seminars about getting in touch with whatever that thing is that has been beaten out of us by working at such a degree factory.

My latest favorite email came in today:


Mindfulness 101 –

This 90-minute workshop is geared for students, faculty, and staff who are
unfamiliar with mindfulness and would like more information about what it is and how mindfulness techniques can be integrated into daily life. We hope that faculty will encourage students to attend this workshop, providing “extra credit” points for those who do attend.


12 comments:

  1. Wow what a waste of money. No doubt that it should be paid to those part timers instead of holding seminars about zen.

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  2. I'm not mindful enough to read my email announcements, let alone attend a seminar on mindfulness.

    It's like having a radio advertisement for services for the deaf.

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  3. I'm not mindful enough to read my email announcements, let alone attend a seminar on mindfulness.

    It's like having a radio advertisement for services for the deaf.

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  4. What annoys me is the suggested extra credit thing. Leave my class alone!!!

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  5. Oh, come on. This has nothing to do with Zen practice. Some fool read some watered-down non-denominational article about "mindfulness" and ran with it. There's no need to blame an entire religious sect for this.

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  6. This isn't Zen: this is tomfoolery. It has about as much relation to Zen as mass-produced "Creamy Italian" salad dressing has to Italian food. What makes me MADDEST about it is how much MONEY these "consultants" can make.

    Also, some time ago Terry McGlynn had a post on his "Small Pond Science" blog on how "Extra credit is unfair to students.” I stopped giving extra credit years ago, one reason being that students were disrupting the events they’d been bribed with extra credit to attend. If students whine about no extra credit, I have a snappy comeback: “Oh, that’s for high school, not for college.”

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    Replies
    1. The link to "Extra credit is unfair to students" is:

      http://smallpondscience.com/2013/08/29/extra-credit-is-unfair-to-students/

      Delete
  7. This is a great cost-effective way to reduce health care costs, HR management salaries, and inter-personal conflict. Take away the health care plan, lay off half the administration, and then just off round the clock Namastes instead. BUDGET SOLVED.

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  8. we had one of those speakers last year. We learned that students today don't wear watches. huh. who knew... totally changed how I teach my class...

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    Replies
    1. Because I sometimes can't help myself, if I heard that from a speaker, I'd probably stand up and say, "Neither do I, but I still get my butt where I need to be on time."

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  9. The Koch brothers are really into "well-being." All of this interest in fostering positive mental states does, indeed, begin to seem like peddling new opiates to the masses (since the old one has been abandoned by many, and seems to spur others to protest), in hopes of keeping them/us quiescent. Unfortunately, the extra-credit suggestion is likely to get many a proffie's blood boiling.

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  10. My uni president seems to prefer the word "less" lately.
    As in "mindlessness".

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