Why we study. (in part)

In 1 week up north i met more blacks than I'd met my entire life (and talked and joked with them) including Africans, more Hispanics, a Palestinian girl who when she said she was "from Israel" i stupidly assumed "Jewish" (yeah, eye prescription needs checking), "Lenny the Happy Hebe" was 1 of my dorm neighbors (when i stopped by groggily at 2am they thought i wanted the music turned down - i wanted it up more, hard to hear thru the walls - great collection), my roommate was a Catholic whose mother wanted him to be a priest (might have happened, really tender & devout guy), all the diverse girls who'd come through from the neighboring hall... half of everyone about as naive as me just feeling things out. Then there were the old timers, some nuts, some interesting, and the hall leads or whatever called, who were partly paid to be the elder statesmen & adults in the dorm (stern warning: no snorting coke with doors open, you idiot....), And then the TAs who were usually more interesting than the perfessers... But it only takes 1 to really make it all worth it - which may happen easier at a small school than big, hard to say (Malcolm Gladwell has a lot of nice stuff on why going to your "top school" might be your worst choice - for competition, for chances of getting published, just for feeling comfortable and not too pressured and actually enjoying what you're studying, or time to meet other people. I remember a TA complaining about this goofy gung-ho kid (i.e. 18) writing 10 pages for a simple assignment cuz he was pre-med max...

Anyway, this tweet made me think - a field is never consider, but i met lots of people in fields I'd never consider...

Updated history still not enough

(i liked the idea of correcting the vast mistakes around Shakespeare, plus his time in the gulag - what's that about - but not to be)

Save those old books - they'll be valuable.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/16/whos-missing-top-author-st...

States object to CRT because they don't want students to learn the true details about slavery

 

Every morning, schoolchildren in Texas recite an oath to their state that includes the words, “I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God.”

Now, a flurry of proposed measures that could soon become law would promote even greater loyalty to Texas in the state’s classrooms and public spaces, as Republican lawmakers try to reframe Texas history lessons and play down references to slavery and anti-Mexican discrimination that are part of the state’s founding.

The proposals in Texas, a state that influences school curriculums around the country through its huge textbook market, amount to some of the most aggressive efforts to control the teaching of American history. And they come as nearly a dozen other Republican-led states seek to ban or limit how the role of slavery and pervasive effects of racism can be taught.

Idaho was the first state to sign into law a measure that would withhold funding from schools that teach such lessons. And lawmakers in Louisiana, New Hampshire and Tennessee have introduced bills that would ban teaching about the enduring legacies of slavery and segregationist laws, or that any state or the country is inherently racist or sexist.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/us/texas-history-1836-project.html