Archive of entries posted on 23rd February 2024
And Reading’s Become a Chore, Too, Apparently
The Loss of Things I Took for Granted — Ten years into my college teaching career, students stopped being able to read effectively
slate | 2/11/24…
I have been teaching in small liberal arts colleges for over 15 years now, and in the past five years, it’s as though someone flipped a switch.
For most of my career, I assigned around 30 pages of reading per class meeting as a baseline expectation—sometimes scaling up for purely expository readings or pulling back for more difficult texts.
Now students are intimidated by anything over 10 pages and seem to walk away from readings of as little as 20 pages with no real understanding.
When I was learning to read, my dad taught me something that helped me throughout my life. He would have me read a page or paragraph and then he would take away the book and say “now tell me what you read”. I would start to repeat something and he would say “no, don’t tell me the words you memorized, tell me what it said”.
What’s Walrus Building?
The Colosseum project is progressing and I am on the last bag of bricks so should be done soon. Well, soonish. I have an order in for the Ferdinand anti-tank vehicle which should be in a day or so.
Current Build
The base.
The village
The Colosseum
This was really tough as the parts had a nasty habit of not staying together. You push to attach something here and something there comes off. Very frustrating and I was forced to glue them together which extended the time on this part, but I got it done. Now I am working on the stands and last part of the build so next week you should be able to see the finished build.
Previous Builds
Sopwith Camel F.1
The Sopwith Camel is a British First World War-era single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the best known fighter aircraft of the Great War.
The Camel was powered by a single rotary engine and was armed with twin synchronized Vickers machine guns. Though difficult to handle, it was highly manoeuvrable in the hands of an experienced pilot, a vital attribute in the relatively low-speed, low-altitude dogfights of the era. In total, Camel pilots have been credited with downing 1,294 enemy aircraft, more than any other Allied fighter of the conflict. Towards the end of the First World War, the type also saw use as a ground-attack aircraft, partly because the capabilities of fighter aircraft on both sides had advanced rapidly and left the Camel somewhat outclassed.
The main variant of the Camel was designated as the F.1. Other variants included the 2F.1 Ship’s Camel, which operated from aircraft carriers; the Comic night fighter variant; and the T.F.1, a “trench fighter” armoured for attacks on heavily defended ground targets. A two-seat variant served as a trainer. The last Camels were withdrawn from RAF service in January 1920.
This Guy’s Right — Watching TV Became a Chore
How Watching Television Became a Chore
WFB| 2/11/24… there are more than 600 scripted television series currently on the constellation of streaming services competing for your credit card number, so if you don’t go on a dedicated search for that specific title, you’ll probably miss it. …
Watching TV has never been so baffling. You don’t just walk in the house and flop down in front of the TV and start flipping around anymore. Watching television in 2024 requires what psychologists and self-help gurus call intentionality. You have to know what you’re looking for and exactly where to find it, which means the entire process usually starts with a Google search.
