Everyday Life Narratives

I choose to write about the things that are most important to me in a narrative style that emphasizes story and everyday life. These topics include family, pedagogy, teaching, theology, communication, higher education, and medicine as well as their intersections.

-KRIS BYRD
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Of a sample of 180 undergraduate and graduate programs, only six programs were found to adequately prepare teachers-in-training to sufficiently collect, analyze, and use assessment data, according to the report by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). Only 12 percent of programs in the sample had class work or homework that involved analyzing data from student assessments. Even more alarming: In order for a program to be deemed “adequate” in this NCTQ analysis, it had to include just one objective or lecture addressing assessment data, when continued and repeated practice in this realm is certainly warranted. “The bar to earn a passing rating in this study was set low,” authors Julie Greenberg and Kate Walsh write. “But it also means that our margin of error is so substantial that there should be little doubt that a program designated as inadequate is in fact inadequate.
Why Educators Need to Learn to Use Data (via infoneer-pulse)

(via infoneer-pulse)

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gradschoolroundtwo: positive-press-daily: Ivy League school janitor graduates with honors For years, Gac Filipaj mopped floors, cleaned toilets and took out trash at Columbia University. A refugee from war-torn Yugoslavia, he eked out a living working for the Ivy League school. But Sunday was payback time: The 52-year-old janitor donned a cap and gown to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in classics. As a Columbia employee, he didn’t have to pay for the classes he took. His favorite subject was the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca, the janitor said during a break from his work at Lerner Hall, the student union building he cleans. “I love Seneca’s letters because they’re written in the spirit in which I was educated in my family — not to look for fame and fortune, but to have a simple, honest, honorable life,” he said. His graduation with honors capped a dozen years of studies, including readings in ancient Latin and Greek. (click-through for full story) Amazing. The real life Good Will Hunting.

gradschoolroundtwo:

positive-press-daily:

Ivy League school janitor graduates with honors

For years, Gac Filipaj mopped floors, cleaned toilets and took out trash at Columbia University.

A refugee from war-torn Yugoslavia, he eked out a living working for the Ivy League school. But Sunday was payback time: The 52-year-old janitor donned a cap and gown to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in classics.

As a Columbia employee, he didn’t have to pay for the classes he took. His favorite subject was the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca, the janitor said during a break from his work at Lerner Hall, the student union building he cleans.

“I love Seneca’s letters because they’re written in the spirit in which I was educated in my family — not to look for fame and fortune, but to have a simple, honest, honorable life,” he said.

His graduation with honors capped a dozen years of studies, including readings in ancient Latin and Greek.

(click-through for full story)

Amazing. The real life Good Will Hunting.

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The cure for anything is saltwater: sweat, tears, or the sea.
Isak Dinesen, author
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I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.
David Foster Wallace’s legendary This Is Water 2005 commencement address. (via explore-blog)

(via infoneer-pulse)

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Today’s faculty need to understand young people, how they learn, what they value. Only then can we convince them they should get up out of their seats and express themselves, argue their points and refine their intellects and consciences. It’s called academic rigor, and it’s more difficult that imparting information so they can pass a test.
The (college) kids are alright (via gjmueller)

(via infoneer-pulse)

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Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Teachers →
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Open Minds Service Learning VCU & Richmond Jail →

I’ve been giving serious consideration to developing a course for this program.

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Stigmatized Medicine and the Physician-Patient Relationship →

themedicalchronicles:

Click on the link to listen to the following program:

What does treating a patient with a stigmatized illness teach a physician about treating all illness? Dr. Abraham Verghese, professor for the theory and practice of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, joins host Dr. Martin Samuels to discuss the effects of stigmatized medicine on the physican-patient relationship, and other topics.

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Purple Queens and Orange Llamas: Doctors and Suicide (and why they're so concerned about medical students) →

purplequeens:

Back in February when we first started our clinical rotations, we had a session about mindfulness that was interesting enough but if I’m honest I haven’t thought about it since. Zoom forward to today when we have a public health session about the groups of people that are at increased risk of…

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  • Me: Do you want to watch this movie with me?
  • My husband: I don't know; tell me something about it.
  • Me: George Cloon-
  • My husband: No. Definitely no.
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