Why I'm "Into the Biblecal Times"

Yesterday I posted a comment from a student who felt that the course material in my Intro to Biblical Studies course wasn't appropriate for her. She especially found that reading the textbook by Stephen Harris called Understanding the Bible to be a waste of time unless you were interested in the Bible. So yesterday I responded to her email by saying the following:

"Hi (student's name), sorry you are finding the textbook Understanding the Bible to be difficult. If you have specific questions about the material why don't you come see me during office hours. When you say that the course material is "just good to know and not anything that will help me in the future" I'm not really sure what you're talking about. I believe that no matter what your major/career paths is, that the material in this course will help make you a more educated critical thinker."

This morning she responded by saying "Well i meant that it seems like something that would be nice to read if you were into the Biblecal times but as far information it was not helpful."

This is a perfect illustration of my theory about how university education changing to a "bottom line this is a business" is creating a "what's in it for me?" type of student. A better teacher than me might see this student and the increasingly pervasive attitude that Biblical Studies is not relevant as a challenge. At this point I'm not sure how to approach it.

So I simply responded by saying: "I understand that you don't feel the textbook is appropriate for you, but are you asking me something?"

What I Teach Turns Out to be Meaningless

Last night I received an email from a student in my Intro to Biblical Studies course who wanted me to tell me her opinion about the course so far. She said that she could see why some people might find the course material interesting, but that it wasn't anything that was going to help her in the future. This might turn out to one long freaking semester.

Jazz Funeral for Democracy

On inauguration day, Thursday January 20th, there will be what looks to be an amazing event in New Orleans. It is a Jazz Funeral to protest the policies of the current US government. The event is called a Jazz Funeral for Democracy. I applaud whoever came up with the idea.

I'm encouraging my students to attend, and I posted the following notice on the course website:

A very important part of this class is the fact that biblical authors and many biblical prophets didn't just sit in their ivory towers and theorize. Instead they took action. I think there is a very important and educational event coming up in New Orleans on Thursday January 20th which fits in well with the course goal. The event is a Jazz Funeral for Democracy set to coincide with the inauguration of the president. I am not trying to preach to you my political views, but rather I feel the world is currently in a lot of trouble, and like a biblical author I want to voice my feelings and concerns for this country and the world. So I'll be attending this event and marching in this wake/second line in protest. I would encourage you to do the same if you feel so inclined. It looks very interesting, and is uniquely New Orleans. If you want to meet me there, I'll be in Congo Square (Armstrong Park) wearing a Xavier shirt. I might even make a sign. What this means is January 20th you'll still have to do the reading, but we will cover the discussion/lecture in class January 18th. The first Bible Mystery, then, will be pushed back to Tuesday January 23rd, with the second Bible Mystery staying the same, Thursday Jan 25th. If you have any questions email me or ask in class.

4.0

I just finished meeting with a former student who wants me to write a letter of recommendation for her. I honestly don't know her very well, but I do remember she was a pretty good student who had me for a teacher for one class a few semesters ago. It turns out that students who want to go to medical school have to get one person outside of the sciences to write a letter of rec, so I'm sure her two other letter writers know her better. I'm always curious if my letter really means that much, as if the decision to admit the student into med school comes down to my letter. So I always ask about scores on the MCAT and gpa. This student said that she was a junior with a gpa of 4. I asked do you mean like 4.8 and you're rounding it up? She said no, I mean 4.0. That really impressed me. I told her jokingly that there was a HUGE difference between students with a 4.0 and those with a 3.82. There were semesters in which I earned a 4.0, but overall my gpa was never that high. I wasn't too mature when I started college, and even if I were I'm not sure I would be capable of the discipline it would take to get a 4.0. I can always blame it on the fact that I always had to work 30-40 hours per week for money while taking classes, but the truth is that I didn't study as hard as it would take to get a perfect gpa. I also think there is something to be said for a 3.3 gpa. They probably go to more parties and have more time for friends and fun things, and still can get into medical school. Only then they need their theology teachers to write AMAZING letters of recommendation. My point is 4.0 students should get professors who had 3.3 gpa's to write them letters and students who have 3.3 gpa's should get professors who had 4.0 gpa's.

Student Evaluations Reduce Blog Wordcount

The most dominant theme of my evaluations for last semester was that 2000 words per week on the blog was too much. So I decided to reduce this number to 1000. Also I'm going to experiment with an oral examination instead of my standard comprehensive tests in an effort to go completely into paperless teaching.

The Bottom Line and Did Anarchy Sell Out?

Lately I've noticed the increased use of the phrase "The Bottom Line Is This is a Business." This especially bothers me when it is applied to altruistic things such as education. Teaching in the Theology Department, it would seem that we need to recruit more and more majors to avoid having our department cut. We need to prove to the administration that we are cost effective, and that we bring money into this institution. We want lower class sizes because we can be better teachers, the administration wants much larger class sizes because it would cost them less. This country's newest federal budget is increasing defense and homeland security spending and cutting funding for education across the board. Now when the president of our university tries to raise funds, more and more the people loaning the money want to know what exactly is in it for them. I believe that all aspects of education are vitally important to this country and the world. Increasingly when I ask Freshmen why they are here at a university they say they want to be a doctor or a Pharmacist so they can get rich. People often ask students majoring in the humanities "what are you going to do with a degree in that?" I believe that being an educated critical thinker has merit no matter what vocation someone might choose.

Then last night I was watching the FedEx Orange Bowl, which featured Aflek Trivia questions, air shots from the Goodyear Blimp, the ADT Championship trophy, and during the Pontiac High Performance Halftime show I watched some terrible band sing (I think it was lyp syncing Ashlee Simpson) with an anarchy A in the background. That seemed to me to represent that anarchy has sold out and went corporate. Will we soon see the trademark or copyright logo next to the anarchy A, and will Donald Trump soon be wearing Sex Pistols buttons? This society's role models seem to be chosen by wealth and greed. Could somebody please let me know when the revolution is coming? I want to rescue anarchy from the Pontiac High Performance Halftime show.

4 New Student Movies

My students made four new Quicktime movies which can be seen here. I recommend Rashomon Resurrection and 8 Cubit, though all are pretty good. The students had a great time making these movies, at least they preferred this activity to hearing my voice lecture. I also gave each section an exam to test their knowledge on this material, that is to say I wanted to document that they were learning something while they prepared for and made these movies. The results were excellent, and reaffirmed my belief that this is a great way to get the students to learn something, especially at the end of the semester when everyone is drained.

Improving the World Blog Now On Video

Last semester I had my Theology 1120 students pick a project to improve the world and post 2000 words per week about it to a blog, at the end of the semester I filmed the students summarizing their projects. This quicktime movie can be seen here. I'm pretty proud of the work that my students did last semester.

Back in 2000

Therese and I have been going through boxes of old photos. We came across this one taken just after I defended my dissertation at UCSD. Pictured from left to right are Bill Propp (co-director of my dissertation), Thomas Levy (co-director), Shawna Dolansky (kneeling), yours truly, Kat (kneeling), Adolfo in background (probably wearing cowboy boots), David Noel Freedman (committee member), Kim Catsup, Richard Friedman (committee member), Sarah Malena (sort of kneeling) and David Goodblatt (committee member).

The Very Sad Conclusion to the Walmart Fiasco

I’d been losing sleep over this whole Walmart gift card situation. We boycott Walmart, but my father gave my two children each a $25 gift certificate to the Satan of retail chains. The best comment on my earlier posting to this blog suggested that we buy 50 dollars worth of non-perishable food products and then give them to the local foodbank. I was sold. Great idea, at least the best way out of this dilemma. But I decided (on the advice of Therese) to present the options to our children, as after all technically the gift cards were for them. It didn’t take too long for the kids to decide that they would rather buy toys for themselves than food for hungry people, even though we’ve seen several homeless people sleeping lately on the sidewalks and my 9-year-old daughter has commented on how tragic that whole situation is. But anyway, we went to Walmart, and after two hours of hell they bought a video game and many action figures. There was still $17 dollars left over of the original 50, and I hoped they would choose to spend this on the foodbank, but they decided to get one last toy. In the end we had 23 cents left on the gift cards, which we threw away, and I am so glad to finally be over with the whole Christmas/Walmart situation. I didn’t like the end result, but I am so thankful that it is over. This mirrors (sort of) how I feel about the presidential election of 2004.