Pat’s Polemics

I guess you might call me the great synthesizer. All these things seem connected in my brain. It makes me think of the movie A (Continue Reading)

Recently posted: We’ve all seen many articles about the value of attending expensive schools. This one also looks at whether it is the school that (Continue Reading)

Just to keep you on your toes…….. On our way out of town Thursday we stopped at a country-western themed restaurant. Our waitress was very (Continue Reading)

In the NYT magazine today there’s a short, wonderful article titled The Attention-Span Myth. It recalls for me the recent articles concerning the massive overuse (Continue Reading)

The point in the discussion has not been the uniqueness of the Columbian exchange in terms of either bad or good things. The discussion’s point (Continue Reading)

I overheard a couple of custodians talking today. They’re older White guys, pretty nice and very accomodating. We were all in the lounge and looking (Continue Reading)

I felt sadness and recognition when I read the article on Glenn Beck in the NYT magazine (Oct. 3). When I was a kid, 1959 (Continue Reading)

A book by that title starts with a story much like that of the doctor who gets button-holed at parties with questions about vague aches and (Continue Reading)

Remember some years ago, those of you on flteach, how two guys got into it with us on the list about alcohol being available on (Continue Reading)

Some years back a very nice man posted frequently to a listserv I was on. He and I disagree greatly about how to teach languages (Continue Reading)

This is a reply to a thread on the blog Fireside Roundup where education is discussed. A number of posts to the thread used a (Continue Reading)

Just today a gentleman was on Book TV talking about the origins of the terms left and right, liberal and conservative, progressive, etc. Let me (Continue Reading)

Recently a pretty far right conservative tried to convince me that the Republican Party had done more for the civil rights of ethnic minorities and (Continue Reading)

What a good many people seem to miss when they say that your learning style needs to fit the instructor’s teaching style is that they (Continue Reading)

This thread fascinates me (a thread on a Latin listserv). I think back on my 20 years of keeping both a Latin and a Russian (Continue Reading)

Much is made of the obstacle presented by American attitudes toward fl. It is said that if Americans were more like Europeans, learning a fl (Continue Reading)

So often I think I know about something and then get jerked around and realize I had missed something. Often, this has to do with (Continue Reading)

This may not really be part of a worldview but since some of the posts in this category match what I want to write, I’ll (Continue Reading)

From Joy Pat: First off, a quick (re) introduction. I’ve been a lurker for many years but I seldom post because I think I come (Continue Reading)

We’ve had some inflamed discussions over Che, Cuba, and left-wing activities in Latin-Am in general. To me, it’s a matter of perspective; I’ve talked to (Continue Reading)

A very nice man and excellent teacher has dropped off one of the listservs after being a participant for many years. I suspect he lurks. (Continue Reading)

The real argument here is over the meaning of the word “structure”. I have tons of structure in my classroom but because I don’t have (Continue Reading)

Now that I’ve given a bit of a biographical background so you know “where I’m coming from” (a phrase unknown to me growing up), I (Continue Reading)