Due to some major spam cleaning by our IT guys, I have lost all the comments left since mid-November, and though I’m sorry not to have the questions, the pushing, the insights of my blogging colleagues as part of the ongoing archive of bgblogging, I’ve resigned myself to the ephemeral quality of some of this work. My relaxed attitude also must have something to do with the fact that I am moving into a semester’s leave–I’ll be able to think more about this work, to write, to take pictures, to plan future courses, to give workshops and talks in the U.S., Sweden and England–and already I feel how important it is to move out, from time to time, of the repeated cycles of my teaching year. How lucky I am to have this opportunity!
I’m not sure yet how often I will post here until next September, but when I do, I’m thinking my range of subjects might well include more than my concerns as a classroom teacher. And for those of you who might want to read about some of my thinking on teaching this generation in the liberal arts classroom, Sarah Lohnes has captured a bit of my experience (and that of two remarkable teachers, Doug Davis from Haverford and John Schott from Carleton) in an excellent recent article, “What Do Net Gen Students Have To Teach Us? Stories from the Connected Classroom ” for the NITLE publication, Transformations.
To kick off my time away from the classroom, I am taking a couple of weeks of vacation with my family, time to explore the lights–both natural and surreal–associated with this time of year:
How strange that cars, bumper to bumper, night after night, snake around this display in Ipswich, Massachusetts, where my brother lives, and not a single person outside my family walked glorious Crane’s Beach at dawn on Christmas…how strange…
Filed under: Image Work |
(the new) bgblogging 
Awesome images. (And thanks for the link)
Nearly two months’ comments?! Arg. Some of those were mine, too. Any joy from browser caches?
Ah, Bryan, you clever, clever lad! I have indeed recovered some of the missing comments through caches–why it didn’t occur to me to hunt for them this way, I don’t know.
THANK YOU!
(I thought you might like those creepy-toned pix of Christmas figures…)
I noticed the purge and felt very sad. I enjoyed reading the back and forths that you have with your readers and learned a lot from how you engaged them in a parallel conversation. I also used them as a great teaching example for my students when thinking about how to best comment on a blog. Drat. Double drat.
Wishing you a peaceful (and a spam free) new year!
Barbara
Have a great Sabbatical. If you are anything like me, you’ll have your greatest thoughts when you are on Sabbatical. Also thanks for the pictures.
Andrew Pass
http://www.Pass-Ed.com/arts.html
Crane Beach is absolutely breathtaking!!!! I’ve heard a lot about the north-eastern coast of the US, and I hope I’ll be able to sail it one of these days 🙂
Barbara, people are too busy these days to see and explore the treasures that are residing outside their front door!! In the meantime enjoy the peace and tranquility that the beach gives you and your mind – people just don’t know what they’re missing, and life truly is too short to be spent inside crowded shopping malls and hyperventilating on busy highways- bumper to bumper….
Thanks, Barbara S, for the feedback on how my comment-conversations help you out in the classroom. I often show my students the different kinds of comments I receive and ask them to think about how they add to my thinking–and how they as bloggers might grow their own conversations.
Thanks, Andrew, for the link and the thoughts about sabbaticals–I indeed hope I do some of my best thinking during these next months!
Anonymous, I hope you do make your way up the northeast coast of the U.S.; and make sure you get to the Penobscot Bay if you’re in a sailboat: A lovely lovely place in spite of the sprawl of summer estates that threatens to blight its shores.
~Barbara
Whew – I’m glad of some recovery. Cheers for the new year!
A bit of a subject hijack here, but I just wanted to say: Happy New Year to you and yours. I wish you all the best for 2007.
Happy New Year and enjoy the semester leave!!