Friday Fragments: August 27th
Friday Fragments: August 27th
What "developmental" means, or should mean; COVID and more COVID; the life of a department chair.
What I’m reading…
6 Ways to Make Higher Education More Developmental Steven Mintz is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin
When applied to education, the word “developmental” carries profoundly negative undertones. It’s a synonym for remediation, and implies that a particular student is unprepared, deficit-riven, and at-risk. But shouldn’t all education be developmental? Shouldn’t every educators’ goal be to promote students’ growth across every dimension, cognitive, to be sure, but also emotional, social, and ethical?
In news that will surprise no one, Incoming Freshmen Are Mentally Exhausted, with large numbers of new students reporting mental health concerns such as exhaustion and trouble concentrating and sleeping.
Also unsurprising to read reports that faculty and staff are exhausted, too, with longer-standing issues around pay, work-life balance, and governance exacerbated by institutions’ handling of the pandemic:
The Chronicle interviewed nearly 60 current and former higher-education professionals this summer about how the pandemic and the approaching fall term have affected their attitudes about work. They expressed a desire for long-established dynamics that have governed the relationship between colleges and their employees to change in ways big and small.
If you want to see a calculator of COVID risk, here’s one that is interesting: “This calculator lets you estimate COVID risk and find effective safety measures for customizable situations. Examples: how risky is a trip to my grocery store? What's the safest way to see a friend? How much would it help to wear a better mask at my workplace?”
In my geographic area - with vaccination rates over 70% - if I were teaching a 75-minute class to 20 masked students I would be at “very high risk.” Swapping out my usual cloth mask for a surgical mask, interestingly, bumps that down to just “high risk.”
Finally, something a bit lighter: If you’re enjoying Netflix’s The Chair, you might enjoy this thread on research about the actual job of being a department chair.
Happy Reading!
