On the power of pedagogy..


This post is based on the OpEd found at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/23/space-traders-critical-race-theory-teaching/

Professor Jungkunz's oped stirred a memory of how pedagogy can have a significant impact on students....

I took my first political science course as a freshman in 1964 in the midst of the civil rights debate. There was one African-American student in the class, somewhat older than the rest of us -- what we once called a "non-traditional" student. At some point he and the instructor got into a heated discussion about some mundane issue -- so heated, in fact, that the instructor demanded he leave the classroom. The very tone of the exchange implied that the instructor was reflecting racial animus toward the student. The student left the class, and we all sat stunned at what took place.

Of course it was a staged performance. The student (yes, he was actually a student in the class) and the instructor then made their points in the discussion that followed his return to class. While I always had an interest in politics, this proved to be a pivotal event in my decisions to go "all in".



PS: The student involved -- Lafayette Walker -- was a postal worker in his thirties who decided to try out college. He would eventually earn his MPA and PhD in political science at the University of Colorado and hold government positions in the Department of Commerce and the civil rights office in Education....


[More on Lafayette Walker:
That is how I met Lafayette. He had recently won the first anti-discrimination case in the Pueblo Colorado area and decided to go back to school. He worked the night shift at the post office through most of undergrad school; got to CU a year before I did. (He literally shepherded me through first months in Boulder.) Spent many hours around his kitchen table drinking coffee and (in those days) smoking. Often baby sat his three boys while he and Barbara went out.

He died in 1990 at age 53, but by then had retired from government work (he already had 10-15 years at post office when he went to work at National Bureau of Standards and Office of Civil Rights at Education) and then made a small fortune in private sector.

We kept in touch during the 1970s -- even published an article together. Unfortunately I lost track of him in the 1980s….]

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The "Discard" Imperative

A pattern has emerged in my baking. Early on I would select a "project" (e.g., bagels, milk and honey bread) and give it a go. But now what I bake is based increasingly on the "discard logic" applied in maintaining sourdough starter.

It's actually more an imperative than a logic. You end up with "discard" each time you dutifully feed those hungry bacterial thingies that keep the starter going. With sourdough, the need to feed my starter is constantly popping up on my calendar, but I typically ignore or forget to do the deed in time, and so I end up with more "discard" to deal with than the freshly fed stuff many of the best bread recipes call for.

Obviously I could toss the discard (after all, that is its function -- to be discarded), but given the problems with disposing of the gooey mess, it is way easier to find some recipe that calls for unfed/discard starter. These are mostly muffins, pancake and waffle batter, chocolate cake (a favorite), pizza crust and calzones, buns of all sorts, and even bagels and bialys. And so my sourdough baking repertoire expands.

Now I find myself applying the discard logic to other ingredients as well. This morning, for example, after preparing some sourdough pizza crust, I noticed the remains of some buttermilk in the fridge, right beside a half brick or sharp cheddar cheese. A little google search at the King Arthur's site, and voila, a recipe to "Cabot cheese soda bread" that would save me from discarding the buttermilk and make good use of a good portion of the cheese. It was quick an easy to make (in time for Randi's breakfast), and came out well enough to become a "keeper" in my slowly expanding recipe collection.



The learning continues....


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Frances Horowitz -- "power walker"

There are many stories I can share about Frances Horowitz during the my time at KU. One characteristic was her disciplined approach to life.

Example: Every so often in the mid-1980s I'd get on a fitness kick and make an effort to get up at some ungodly hour and go to "workout" at the indoor track facilities in the new
Anschutz Pavilion. I'd show up at about 6AM -- at times even earlier -- and with very few exceptions I'd see Frances doing her methodical laps around the track. More a steady and vigorous "power walk" than anything approaching a run, she would keep up a solid pace staring straight ahead and seemingly indifferent to all the activity going on around her even at that hour.

Over three years of my intermittent efforts to establish an exercise regimen, I never interrupted her workout. It was clear she was not there to socialize or engage in administrative business.

During that period I became more involved in faculty governance and aware of the pressures and issues she faced as a long-serving vice chancellor. I avoided bringing any of this up at Friday evening services or other occasions when we saw each other at the Lawrence Jewish Community Center, but there were times to chat during breaks in university committee meetings. I finally asked her about her almost daily routine at Anschutz. I told her I had a problem concentrating and sustaining the workout and asked how she did it. Her answer: she spent the entire time doing laps thinking about how to deal with the issues and problems she was facing that day. In a sense, the morning laps -- her workout -- were just part of her workday. The steely straight-ahead gaze on the track was Frances at work solving problems while getting the benefits of those laps.

I went to work at Baruch/CUNY in 1988 as chair of the public administration department (at the time located in the business school), a position I held until my move to Rutgers in 1992. Among the administrators I worked with was Matthew Goldstein, then president of Baruch who would eventually become chancellor of the CUNY system.

As it happens, Goldstein was chairing the search committee to select the next president of the CUNY Graduate Center. One day he called me to ask about one of the candidates for the Grad Center position -- Frances Horowitz. My comments in response were, of course, glowing -- and I was quick to note that were it not for the glass ceiling imposed on women academics by the Kansas Board of Regents, she would have been AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN appointed the KU chancellor years earlier. That part of the conversation completed, Goldstein then raised an issue that surprised me: her age.

I had never given any thought to Frances' age -- in fact, until reading the NYT obit yesterday I had no idea she was 14 years my senior. She was certainly my "senior" in terms of intellect and experience in the academic trenches, but I cannot recall even thinking of her in "ageist" terms. But obviously it was an issue for the search committee. She was 60 years old when being considered for the CUNY position, and by my calculation eight or nine years older than Goldstein (and probably other CUNY presidents).

I don't recall my specific response about her age to Goldstein that day, but I think it included (among other things) reference to her daily power walks in Anschutz.

I am happy to take a bit of credit for whatever minor role my comments played in the decision to hire Frances at CUNY. Her accomplishments during her 15 year tenure in the position are described in the
NYT obituary, and they are notable. On the downside, CUNY's gain was KU's loss.
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March 3, 2020: My last day in the classroom

Under normal circumstances teaching can be a risky profession at certain times of the year when students return to campus with colds or some variant of the flu spreads through the dorms. You get use to hearing coughing and sneezing as students wander into class, and over the years you get accustomed to the idea that "catching a cold" is just part of the job. Nothing to be concerned about unless you are a germaphobic hypochondriac.

But it was different on the morning of March 3, 2020. Listening to the news on my usual 60+ minute commute to campus, it was hard not pay attention to growing concerns about Covid-19 and warnings about the vulnerability of folks 65 and older, especially those who have health issues (what we now call "co-morbidities"). Being 73, a type 2 diabetic with a history of cardiovascular issues who is obese, I paid particular attention to those messages that morning.

Over the past two or three class sessions I had noticed that students were increasingly "under the weather" -- displaying the usual signs of coughing and sneezing fits. But on this day, as I made my way to the classroom through the crowded corridor (it's literally a mob scene between class times), I felt as if each point of "contact" was a threat. After finally making my way into the classroom, as I began my usual routine of setting up my laptop for use in my lecture, I could hear more than a few folks make those unmistakable sounds of the cold and flu season. At that point I decided that I would shift my class to "online" status. There were hints that this might be an option in the future, but I was not going to wait.

In recent years I had built in an "online" option into my non-online courses as a way of dealing with times when either the weather or some other event made it necessary to miss a scheduled class. Typically these were online lectures rather than "Zoom" sessions, but over the years advances in instructional technology (e.g., Canvas, Blackboard) had made it possible to deal with the traditional "snow day" scenario. As a result, what would otherwise seem like a radical transformation of the class from bricks-and-mortar to online would not prove that difficult. The trick was to do so smoothly in the middle of a term.

But the classroom was a risky place for someone with my vulnerabilities, and so I told the students then and there that all future classes would be online. And since this was my final semester at UNH (I planned to retire in May), that March 3 class session was my last one.

After class I packed up my laptop and whatever else was related to my courses that spring term and did not return to campus until I made a quiet and very brief mid-summer trip to pack up what remained in my office. By the evening of March 3rd I had made the needed changes in the syllabus that would make the adjustment to a fully online course as convenient as possible for students. There was actually no negative feedback from either students (none would miss the in class quizzes) or the "powers that be".

The next week was spring break, and by the time it was over the university-wide transition to online courses began. It turns out I was just a week or so ahead of the game.
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Bagel variation

Bagel variation….

Today's procrastination is once again a baking bread narrative. For the past couple of days I've been contemplating returning to my neglected "shelf" started (I have one in the fridge which has also been neglected) and trying another sourdough something or other from the list is "discard" recipes. But ran into a problem: I had indeed neglected the starter too long, and the odor it gave off startled me. Like strong cheese gone bad.

After consulting the google gods, I concluded that the shelf starter could not be salvaged -- and so I followed the instructions of how to best dispose of the smelly remains. It was for just such an occasion that I kept a fridge starter (starting from scratch is an 8 day process), and luckily it seemed to be in tolerable condition for use as the source of a fresh shelf starter. However, it would take a few hours (and overnight) to revitalize a new batch, so I tried to find a non-sourdough recipe to work with. By now it was 2PM.

As it happens, King Arthur Flour sent around an email about twelve new recipes, and one got my attention: Stuffed Bagel Buns. I looked at the ingredients and figured it was worth the attempt. After all, it was something related to a bagel....

The basic "stuff" in this bun is a mixture of cream cheese and shredded cheddar -- and I had access to both. I made the dough (easy enough) and but it aside to rise (i.e., puff up) and then got to work on the cheese mixture with a bit of help on technique from Randi. This part called for creating 12 balls of the cheese mixture and putting them in a freezer to chill while the dough was proofing. After dinner I took the next steps, and Randi did the stuffing of the now very chilled cheese into it dough (which was then rolled into balls) while I took care of the water bath.

There were several points where we wondered if we were doing things correctly, especially when the cheese mixture started to ooze out of the buns during baking. But the recipe included a comment that the leaks of cheese were a side benefit we would get to enjoy after everything cooled.

The result is pictured at the start of the rolling period, and the one we shared after waiting an hour was very good. The rest have been refrigerated and several will warmed up for breakfast.

After posting the picture on FB, my son wrote that there is a Mexican restaurant near his place in Nashville that served something similar, except with cream cheese and jalapeños in the stuffing. That is something I will try in the near future. The recipe itself suggested adding fresh herbs into the cheese mix, but I stuck with the basics. Now I am tempted to try all sorts of additions to the mix.

It is a great recipe and can by found at the King Arthur's website.


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