students look at the test
a contract with memory.
sunlight in windows
hans ostrom 2018
a contract with memory.
sunlight in windows
hans ostrom 2018
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Friday, May 4, 2018
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
College Test in May
students see the test:
a contract with memory.
sunlight in windows
hans ostrom 2018
a contract with memory.
sunlight in windows
hans ostrom 2018
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
This Fall, White Supremacy Blooms
The forests are ablaze, the sun is red,
and a light snow of ash falls. White
Supremacy blooms again, giving off
its acrid odor, its menacing stench.
More than a few White college
students fully feel the old power
their forebears wielded like a scythe.
In front of Black professors (where
there are any), they yawn, stretch,
roll eyes, pick matter from their hair,
their eyes, their ears. They savor
the insolence of re-authorization.
They get drunk and yell, "I am
the One Per Cent!" and offer
other triumphalist biscuits
to the air, which they own.
Not that they ever
were going to change, but
now any pressure to know or care,
to arise from racist sloth,
has dissipated like the particles
from scorched trees.
An old White bloated Hitler
knockoff at the American helm
massages the radioactive core
of the country and his Party,
Dixiecrats in drag. So White
students are as free as ever
to treat learning as a running
joke, to swagger, to luxuriate
in the shade of official hatred
behind the citadel walls. Its their
choice. It's always been their choice.
hans ostrom 2017
and a light snow of ash falls. White
Supremacy blooms again, giving off
its acrid odor, its menacing stench.
More than a few White college
students fully feel the old power
their forebears wielded like a scythe.
In front of Black professors (where
there are any), they yawn, stretch,
roll eyes, pick matter from their hair,
their eyes, their ears. They savor
the insolence of re-authorization.
They get drunk and yell, "I am
the One Per Cent!" and offer
other triumphalist biscuits
to the air, which they own.
Not that they ever
were going to change, but
now any pressure to know or care,
to arise from racist sloth,
has dissipated like the particles
from scorched trees.
An old White bloated Hitler
knockoff at the American helm
massages the radioactive core
of the country and his Party,
Dixiecrats in drag. So White
students are as free as ever
to treat learning as a running
joke, to swagger, to luxuriate
in the shade of official hatred
behind the citadel walls. Its their
choice. It's always been their choice.
hans ostrom 2017
Friday, March 10, 2017
The Revision
It's the end of the semester. The last essay is due
to me, professor. He, student, misses the final class
and struggles to my office afterwards. He stands
in the doorway, exhausted, and tells me his dream:
"Somehow you'd gotten hold of my essay
before I wanted to turn it in. You assigned
it a grade of the square-root of A. Your
only comment was Very suburban. Then I
stole back the essay before you had
recorded the grade. I put an A in
the online grading system, next to my name,
and then I watched as the essay
revised itself, prose metamorphosis."
"I'll be darned," I say. He gives me
the essay. I look at it. "Well," I say,
"you'd better put your name on it"
hans ostrom 2017
to me, professor. He, student, misses the final class
and struggles to my office afterwards. He stands
in the doorway, exhausted, and tells me his dream:
"Somehow you'd gotten hold of my essay
before I wanted to turn it in. You assigned
it a grade of the square-root of A. Your
only comment was Very suburban. Then I
stole back the essay before you had
recorded the grade. I put an A in
the online grading system, next to my name,
and then I watched as the essay
revised itself, prose metamorphosis."
"I'll be darned," I say. He gives me
the essay. I look at it. "Well," I say,
"you'd better put your name on it"
hans ostrom 2017
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Transformation: Professor
When I'm a professor, I pass by colleagues
who have plotted my death a time or two.
I like to keep my feelings hard and polished.
Other people follow me so they can ask me questions
aimed either at tripping me up (call it
the eternal dissertation-defense) or finding
out if I accept late work. I lose my keys.
Feeling around for them in a pocket
of a tweed coat, my hand touches
dead butterflies, paper clips, and
sawdust. I sit myself in the sun
like a house plant, for I just want
to know things, I am so very weary
of being responsible for knowing things.
But then. (O, Transition!) Then
I see students walking, talking
in the sun next to brick buildings
near green trees. Regardless
of who they are and where they
come from, I see in their affect
one thing I know for sure: a
knowledge-quest is the very best
of all human adventures, and to be
young amidst that quest is to feel
(oh, yes, I remember) as if your
mind can grasp all things.
hans ostrom 2016
who have plotted my death a time or two.
I like to keep my feelings hard and polished.
Other people follow me so they can ask me questions
aimed either at tripping me up (call it
the eternal dissertation-defense) or finding
out if I accept late work. I lose my keys.
Feeling around for them in a pocket
of a tweed coat, my hand touches
dead butterflies, paper clips, and
sawdust. I sit myself in the sun
like a house plant, for I just want
to know things, I am so very weary
of being responsible for knowing things.
But then. (O, Transition!) Then
I see students walking, talking
in the sun next to brick buildings
near green trees. Regardless
of who they are and where they
come from, I see in their affect
one thing I know for sure: a
knowledge-quest is the very best
of all human adventures, and to be
young amidst that quest is to feel
(oh, yes, I remember) as if your
mind can grasp all things.
hans ostrom 2016
Monday, November 10, 2014
"Big Ol' Teeth," by Hans Ostrom
Several decades old, he finds it hard to believe
that a dentist proposes braces for his teeth,
to make money, of course, but technically
to close up those gaps, the ones that apparently
terrify strangers (but not children or animals)
when he smiles, laughs, or snarls. For fun,
he attributes his big, relaxed teeth
and the enormous smile (quite vulgar, actually)
to a Viking heritage. He wonders if it's
a berserker's grin. Important detail:
he hadn't asked the dentist about braces,
and the teeth are in good shape. Typical.
He has always received unbidden advice
about his teeth and everything else.
(The general heading for filing
such advice is, What the fuck
is wrong with people?)
One of his aunts had teeth
behind her wisdom teeth.
He suspects something atavistic
lurks in his DNA. Sabre-tooth
cat? Hyena? Shark?
War, famine, poverty, racism, etc.
go on, so he's not about to spend
excess thought on his teeth, which
work fine, fantastic omnivore-tools.
"Do you floss with rope?" a pretty girl
once asked him at a college party.
Not a bad joke. Apparently his big ol'
teeth transfixed her, for she stared.
Her teeth were suburban straight and white,
as all Americans are supposed to be, right?
He provided deep background. "My parents
asked the dentist when I was ten if I should
have braces. But the dentist said my tongue
is too big and would just push the teeth
out again, and the gaps would come back."
"Really?" she said, attempting to look
inside his mouth, as if he were about
to run in the Derby. She was thinking
about his tongue. He was, too,
in a roundabout way.
hans ostrom 2014
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
The WSJ Is Unamused by Bowdoin College
The Wall Street Journal (April 6, 2013) has offered yet another critique of “liberal” colleges and their interest in diversity, among other things. Believe it or not, the complicated tale hinges on a golf-outing that the president of Bowdoin College experienced with “philanthropist and investor Thomas Klingenstein.”
During the outing, Klingenstein apparently told Mills, “I would never support Bowdoin—you are a ridiculous liberal school that brings all the wrong students to campus for all the wrong reasons” [and you have] “misplaced and misguided diversity efforts.” This is Mills’ version. Klingenstein later weighed in: “I explained my disapproval of ‘diversity’ as it generally has been implemented on college campuses: too much celebration of racial and ethnic difference,” coupled with “not enough celebration of our common American identity.” What that common American identity might be, he apparently did not say.
Klingenstein had also funded a study of Bowdoin by the National Association of Scholars. He apparently got what he paid for as the study discovered, at least according to the WSJ, that “[t]he school’s ideological pillars would likely be familiar to anyone who has paid attention to American higher education lately. There’s the obsession with race, class, gender and sexuality as the essential forces of history and markers of political identity. There’s the dedication to ‘sustainability,’ or saving the planet from its imminent destruction by the forces of capitalism. And there are the paeans to ‘global citizenship, or loving all countries except one’s own.”
What a lovely rhetorical moment has unfurled here. First, note the scene and the actors: A white male president of an exclusive college has his back-swing interrupted by a wealthy man who doesn’t like newfangled ideas. Hilarious. Nobody knows the trouble these two have seen. What next–a double-bogey on the 18th? One hopes the round of golf occurred at an exclusive country club because Klingenstein apparently complained that the school brings in “all the wrong students for all the wrong reasons.” Note that neither the WSJ nor the aggrieved wealthy golfer explain what makes “the wrong students” the wrong students. By the way, the online source Peterson’s [guide to colleges] says the student body at Bowdoin is 65% White or “Caucasian.”
Then, the WSJ plays the equivocation-game. The small liberal arts college has “ideological pillars.” It has courses that concern race, class, gender and sexuality; therefore, it is “obsessed” with these. Not that evidence matters, but if you look at the areas of study Bowdoin offers, you will find such subjects as math, physics, neuroscience, chemistry, biochemistry, music, philosophy, Classics, economics, art history, and a variety of “foreign” languages. Wow, what a radical bunch these Bowdoin folks must be!
The WSJ also claims that “[i]n the History Department, no course is devoted to American political, military, diplomatic or intellectual history—the only ones available are organized around some aspect of race, class, gender or sexuality.” But in the Spring term alone, you will find courses on “Colonial America and the Atlantic World, 1607–1763,” which surely includes military, diplomatic, and intellectual concerns, and a course on “Place in American History,” which “Investigates place as a set of physical and biological characteristics, as a product of the interaction between humans and the environment, and as a social and cultural construct. Also attends to the challenge of writing history with place as a central character” (Bowdoin online catalogue).
But the WSJ doesn’t like even a whiff of environmental issues: “There’s the dedication to ‘sustainability,’ or saving the planet from its imminent destruction by the forces of capitalism. And there are the paeans to ‘global citizenship,’ or loving all countries except one’s own.” Again with the equivocation. If you perceive the world to be highly connected—here we are, by the way, on the Internet—you don’t love your country. If you reasonably deduce that “we” are running out of water, facing the consequences of global warming, and encountering all sorts of problems with pollution, then of course you must be anti-capitalism—as opposed to being, you know, realistic and practical. And how dare Bowdoin offer opportunities for students to think about how to reverse the harm done to the planet.
The WSJ and the poor (read: wealthy), victimized Klingnstein have fielded an entire team of straw men in their arguments. Therefore, one must agree with them. Bowdoin should offer an old-fashioned course on rhetoric and invite them to take the course—online, in person, or on the golf course.
During the outing, Klingenstein apparently told Mills, “I would never support Bowdoin—you are a ridiculous liberal school that brings all the wrong students to campus for all the wrong reasons” [and you have] “misplaced and misguided diversity efforts.” This is Mills’ version. Klingenstein later weighed in: “I explained my disapproval of ‘diversity’ as it generally has been implemented on college campuses: too much celebration of racial and ethnic difference,” coupled with “not enough celebration of our common American identity.” What that common American identity might be, he apparently did not say.
Klingenstein had also funded a study of Bowdoin by the National Association of Scholars. He apparently got what he paid for as the study discovered, at least according to the WSJ, that “[t]he school’s ideological pillars would likely be familiar to anyone who has paid attention to American higher education lately. There’s the obsession with race, class, gender and sexuality as the essential forces of history and markers of political identity. There’s the dedication to ‘sustainability,’ or saving the planet from its imminent destruction by the forces of capitalism. And there are the paeans to ‘global citizenship, or loving all countries except one’s own.”
What a lovely rhetorical moment has unfurled here. First, note the scene and the actors: A white male president of an exclusive college has his back-swing interrupted by a wealthy man who doesn’t like newfangled ideas. Hilarious. Nobody knows the trouble these two have seen. What next–a double-bogey on the 18th? One hopes the round of golf occurred at an exclusive country club because Klingenstein apparently complained that the school brings in “all the wrong students for all the wrong reasons.” Note that neither the WSJ nor the aggrieved wealthy golfer explain what makes “the wrong students” the wrong students. By the way, the online source Peterson’s [guide to colleges] says the student body at Bowdoin is 65% White or “Caucasian.”
Then, the WSJ plays the equivocation-game. The small liberal arts college has “ideological pillars.” It has courses that concern race, class, gender and sexuality; therefore, it is “obsessed” with these. Not that evidence matters, but if you look at the areas of study Bowdoin offers, you will find such subjects as math, physics, neuroscience, chemistry, biochemistry, music, philosophy, Classics, economics, art history, and a variety of “foreign” languages. Wow, what a radical bunch these Bowdoin folks must be!
The WSJ also claims that “[i]n the History Department, no course is devoted to American political, military, diplomatic or intellectual history—the only ones available are organized around some aspect of race, class, gender or sexuality.” But in the Spring term alone, you will find courses on “Colonial America and the Atlantic World, 1607–1763,” which surely includes military, diplomatic, and intellectual concerns, and a course on “Place in American History,” which “Investigates place as a set of physical and biological characteristics, as a product of the interaction between humans and the environment, and as a social and cultural construct. Also attends to the challenge of writing history with place as a central character” (Bowdoin online catalogue).
But the WSJ doesn’t like even a whiff of environmental issues: “There’s the dedication to ‘sustainability,’ or saving the planet from its imminent destruction by the forces of capitalism. And there are the paeans to ‘global citizenship,’ or loving all countries except one’s own.” Again with the equivocation. If you perceive the world to be highly connected—here we are, by the way, on the Internet—you don’t love your country. If you reasonably deduce that “we” are running out of water, facing the consequences of global warming, and encountering all sorts of problems with pollution, then of course you must be anti-capitalism—as opposed to being, you know, realistic and practical. And how dare Bowdoin offer opportunities for students to think about how to reverse the harm done to the planet.
The WSJ and the poor (read: wealthy), victimized Klingnstein have fielded an entire team of straw men in their arguments. Therefore, one must agree with them. Bowdoin should offer an old-fashioned course on rhetoric and invite them to take the course—online, in person, or on the golf course.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Poem: "Professors of Literature"
--Intentionally painting with a broad brush here. There have been and still are splendid professors of literature. I studied with a couple of them.
Professors of Literature
They don't love books so much
as covet them, jealous of students
who want casual affairs with novels
or poems. They imagine themselves
to be dead authors' agents, lawyers,
conjurers, explainers, personal friends,
stunt-doubles: "indispensable." They
behave like security-officers prowling
canons and eras.
They tend to hate themselves, each
other, and simple questions. They
dislike students except for the ones
they collect like figurines. They
make stuff up about books and
poems but aren't imaginative.
They hate to teach rhetoric, which
is a real education, as those Greeks
and Romans knew. They excrete
things to quibble about and catch
arrogance like the flu. They love
to speak in codes of theory about
theories of codes, but they always
forget to bring evidence along.
They hate writers.
Too many are small, nasty packages
of wasted thought. A fair percentage
are bullies, also lunatics obsessed
by light-bulbs they mistake for the moon.
Their parties are no fun, are a kind of
humorless hell, though cackling can
be heard, as is the case with hazing.
They treat secretaries and
waitresses like shit. The
truth is, universities wouldn't miss
them much if they were to run off
like rabid dogs, the circuits of
their narcissism finally fried.
Creative Commons License Hans Ostrom
Professors of Literature
They don't love books so much
as covet them, jealous of students
who want casual affairs with novels
or poems. They imagine themselves
to be dead authors' agents, lawyers,
conjurers, explainers, personal friends,
stunt-doubles: "indispensable." They
behave like security-officers prowling
canons and eras.
They tend to hate themselves, each
other, and simple questions. They
dislike students except for the ones
they collect like figurines. They
make stuff up about books and
poems but aren't imaginative.
They hate to teach rhetoric, which
is a real education, as those Greeks
and Romans knew. They excrete
things to quibble about and catch
arrogance like the flu. They love
to speak in codes of theory about
theories of codes, but they always
forget to bring evidence along.
They hate writers.
Too many are small, nasty packages
of wasted thought. A fair percentage
are bullies, also lunatics obsessed
by light-bulbs they mistake for the moon.
Their parties are no fun, are a kind of
humorless hell, though cackling can
be heard, as is the case with hazing.
They treat secretaries and
waitresses like shit. The
truth is, universities wouldn't miss
them much if they were to run off
like rabid dogs, the circuits of
their narcissism finally fried.
Creative Commons License Hans Ostrom
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Move-In Weekend For Freshmen
I'm on campus for a bit of official business, and the campus is populated chiefly people who look about 18 years old and people who look roughly 53 years old. The latter group looks a little worse for wear; members of the former group occasionally look like they can't wait for members of the latter group to leave, and to leave them to their first week of college. Alas, this is move-in weekend for first-year students at our particular venue of higher education.
When I moved into the dormitory at the college I first attended, the scheme was pretty simple. My parents dropped me off with 1 or 2 suitcases and a large trunk. I think they got out of the truck to help remove the luggage out, but then they said goodbye and drove away. I dragged the luggage into the dorm, found room and room-mate, and we had lift-off. There was no orientation program.
I was just trying to recall what the first legitimate or "serious" poem was that I wrote in college. I think it may have been one called "John Muir's Ghost," a short poem that dutifully followed through on the title and depicted Muir's ghost having a great time roaming freely in the Sierra Nevada. I think the first line was "John Muir's ghost gallops, glides, and slips." I still like the play of language in that line--the g's and p's and s's.
No sign of John Muir's ghost on move-in day, so I assume the ghost is still down in California.
When I moved into the dormitory at the college I first attended, the scheme was pretty simple. My parents dropped me off with 1 or 2 suitcases and a large trunk. I think they got out of the truck to help remove the luggage out, but then they said goodbye and drove away. I dragged the luggage into the dorm, found room and room-mate, and we had lift-off. There was no orientation program.
I was just trying to recall what the first legitimate or "serious" poem was that I wrote in college. I think it may have been one called "John Muir's Ghost," a short poem that dutifully followed through on the title and depicted Muir's ghost having a great time roaming freely in the Sierra Nevada. I think the first line was "John Muir's ghost gallops, glides, and slips." I still like the play of language in that line--the g's and p's and s's.
No sign of John Muir's ghost on move-in day, so I assume the ghost is still down in California.
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