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Borders, you are easily my favorite real live bookstore having been taken to you in West Des Moines since I was a wee-little child. But borders.com? Seriously? Amazon is constantly $10-$20 less item per item, with lower shipping costs!
What’s a geek like me to do?
I am proud that I went to a public university. I received a great education at the University of Iowa. But, state financial support for public unive
rsities MUST be removed from the boom and bust cycle of a state budget. Right now, Iowa is facing a 10% across the board budget cut on top of other cuts already made due to the recession. Tuition continues to go up, I received an e-mail from a professor saying he was wondering which of his colleagues was going to be laid off – this is no way to manage one of the country’s great public universities.
Public universities must be exempt from state budget cuts, and be placed on a stable financial foundation that allows them to adequately compete with private universities and expand their operations and their reach for all Iowans.
This boom and bust cycle hurts Iowans now, damages education and research, and has a lasting impact on generations to come.
I have never been a big football fan. I didn’t go to a single game when I was a student at the University of Iowa. Thanks to two former roommates I am only now moderately interested in only college football. Yet, since I’ve moved away from campus to Denver, I have become an ardent Hawkeyes fan. Is this an alumni complex? I am finding more than ever that supporting the football program when I’m not in Iowa, keeps me connected to Iowa City for what it is worth.
www.wetherobots.com
WE THE ROBOTS, seriously one of the best web-comics ever.
So far in class we have been reading All Quiet on the Western Front and discussing WWI. Today in a discussion about how gas was outlawed after the war for being “too violent” a weapon a student asked me:
“If they outlawed gas, why not nuclear weapons?”
Making connections folks. History informing the modern age, this is what it is all about. I wanted to jump up and down screaming Yes!! but I didn’t want to look crazy in front of an assistant principal.
I did however manage a “Mhmmm, that would make a good paper topic.”
I have student taught for one week so far at an expeditionary school out here in Colorado. My immediate thoughts:
1) Hey Kids! Your teachers (me) use Wikipedia too, but you’ll never know.
2) I amazed at the stamina at some of my fellow teachers, amazed and envious.
I need a bigger iPod.
Student teaching set:
Fall 2009
9th Grade Humanities
Mapleton Expeditionary School for the Arts (MESA)
Thornton, CO
now to not be homeless…
One of the first in what I’m sure will be a series of posts questioning my chronological age…
Does keeping my Microsoft Word zoomed in at 150% mean I’m going blind?
I wish I could just keep taking education classes, and taking education classes making really cool things with propaganda posters and newspaper clippings.
