I am outraged and disgusted by my alma mater English Department's decision to deny tenure and reappointment to one of the best professors under whom I've had the good fortune of studying. I count Dr. Nagesh Rao's classes among the finest, most transformative learning experiences I've ever had. He has been and continues to be an invaluable mentor to me and so many others--someone who guides generously, with little regard for the amount of his own personal time that slips away in the midst of aiding his students. To quote a fellow student, Nagesh has always been "just as interested in listening as he was speaking: a quality so few professors can say of themselves."
Nagesh, without a doubt in my mind, has made me a better educator through his example of what it means to be one--the duties and the commitment, the patience and enthusiasm, the love for learning and for helping others learn. For this I am so grateful.
The institution of higher learning that wishes to no longer count Dr. Rao among its ranks is truly doing itself--and its students--a monumental disservice. The caliber of the department gravely suffers in the event that the college allows a denial of tenure and reappointment to stick. In utmost solidarity with this cause, I ask that if you happen to be reading this, and happen to be a student, alumnus, or staff/faculty member, please sign the petition to defend Dr. Nagesh Rao's tenure.
"To speak a true word is to transform the world." Paulo Freire
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"If the angel deigns to come, it will be because you have convinced her, not by your tears, but by your humble resolve to be always beginning." Rainer Maria Rilke
tutto di me
- teach people not books
- Second year educator; social justice minded; sworn enemy of teacher shoes everywhere; figuring out how to do what I do as best as I possibly can, without losing myself in the process.
sagacity
"Our lives begin to end the day that we become silent about things that matter."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Choice is illusory to the degree it represents the expectations of others. While all transition involves change, not all change results in transition."
Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness
"'Curiosity never killed this cat.' That's what I'd like as my epitaph."
Studs Terkel
"Whenever I am asked to do a good thing, I say yes right away."
Maya Angelou
"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."
James Madison
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing / than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."
e.e. cummings
"As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole lives. It is never isolated, or simply added as treasure to our stock. When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before."
Henry David Thoreau, "Winter"
"As long as we continue to mindlessly defer to institutions that have themselves begun to cynically drop any pretence of being moral, just, or respectable - why should the government listen? it's doing just fine."
Arundhati Roy
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality."
Dante Alighieri
" But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife. / You are still the bread and the knife. / You will always be the bread and the knife, / not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow-- the wine."
Billy Collins
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
Albert Einstein
"The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. . . Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measure of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform."
Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
"'Well, how can you talk without a brain?'
'I don't know, but some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?'"
Dorothy & Scarecrow,
The Wizard of Oz
"Poetry (and now my voice is rising) / is not all love, love, love, / and I'm sorry the dog died. / Poetry (here I hear myself the loudest) / is the human voice, / and are we not of interest to each other?"
Elizabeth Alexander
"But plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn't be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate response to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure. "
Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
"Seed hope. Flower peace."
Daniel Berrigan
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Choice is illusory to the degree it represents the expectations of others. While all transition involves change, not all change results in transition."
Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness
"'Curiosity never killed this cat.' That's what I'd like as my epitaph."
Studs Terkel
"Whenever I am asked to do a good thing, I say yes right away."
Maya Angelou
"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."
James Madison
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing / than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."
e.e. cummings
"As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole lives. It is never isolated, or simply added as treasure to our stock. When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before."
Henry David Thoreau, "Winter"
"As long as we continue to mindlessly defer to institutions that have themselves begun to cynically drop any pretence of being moral, just, or respectable - why should the government listen? it's doing just fine."
Arundhati Roy
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality."
Dante Alighieri
" But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife. / You are still the bread and the knife. / You will always be the bread and the knife, / not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow-- the wine."
Billy Collins
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
Albert Einstein
"The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. . . Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measure of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform."
Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
"'Well, how can you talk without a brain?'
'I don't know, but some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?'"
Dorothy & Scarecrow,
The Wizard of Oz
"Poetry (and now my voice is rising) / is not all love, love, love, / and I'm sorry the dog died. / Poetry (here I hear myself the loudest) / is the human voice, / and are we not of interest to each other?"
Elizabeth Alexander
"But plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn't be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate response to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure. "
Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
"Seed hope. Flower peace."
Daniel Berrigan
provocation
stimuli
labels
- body politic (18)
- d-r-e-a-m-y (1)
- for art's sake (19)
- g.w. is a d.b. (4)
- grown-up books (8)
- methods resources (2)
- not teacher chic (1)
- poetry (25)
- ramblings of a first year teacher (47)
- recognition (4)
- science (1)
- teacher chic (12)
- travelogue (1)
- unapologetic consumerism (2)
- writing workshop talk (3)
- y.a. books (10)
1 comment:
Maybe someone's threatened by somebody's talent ? Universities are full of this kind of B.S. One of my Ed.profs got ousted by a new regime in the same situation. They were all behaviorist chip counters and bean flippers and he had a Freudian approach that they couldn't measure with a piece of graph paper and a clicker so out he went. The English Dept at my undergrad was even worse in the way they treated each other. Sorry to hear things are the same all over...
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