Talking Education Blues

If you're not familiar with folk songs and don't know what a 'talking blues' is, it's basically a poem in meter usually accompanied by a banjo. There's a specific tune that's played in the ones I've heard. The ones I know best are the Weavers' Talking Blues, the Almanac Singers' Talking Union, Woody Guthrie's Talking Dust Bowl Blues and Noel Stookey's Talking Candy Bar Blues.

And this one, of course.

I wrote this in my first year at UCSC.

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Talking Education Blues

You wanna get an education, let me tell you what to do
Gotta get good grades in that old high school
Or a real high score on the S. A. T.
Real unfair if ya wanna ask me
Sure ain't based on ability
Or desire.
And don't even mention financial need.

Well you get to university and you find
Things that'll help you build your mind
Like open-book midterms and final exams
Spend two days beforehand crammin' and crammin'.
But you know, they say you never forget
Least for a whole hour after the test.
Maybe longer.
'Course, your eyes won't come through it any stronger.

Well, after you take that old class
Comes round another one ya gotta pass
Or if you don't, you're on the street,
One thing at college that can't be beat:
Student Loans.
Perkins, Stafford, the boys out to get you.

Well, you pass your major and GEs
Done got out with your degree
And now it's time to get to work
Got a boss who's a real jerk
The Company, it pays high wages
But the labor surely doesn't engage
The enthusiasm.
Or the interest.
I went through four long years of that, for this?

Indecisive Studies

When I first got to UCSC in 1988, a number of my hallmates got in a conversation about majors, and we asked one hallmate what her major was going to be. She said she hadn't decided yet. I wrote this major for her. She and other hallmates were originally listed as "professors." Also, the buildings I used for the "in its upcoming move" line have changed through the years. I believe they were originally planning to move to Nat Sci III, a building now long since built. I finally quit trying to keep up with the frantic pace of UCSC construction.

This may not be at all funny without the background of what UCSC's catalogs look like, but what the heck.

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Indecisive Studies


Faculty and Professional Interests

   Hoo K. Aires, Professor of Politics, Stevenson
   Diplomacy and the open mind, undifferentiated products 

   May Bhee, Associate Professor of History of Consciousness, Kresge
   East Asian indecisiveness

   Vic R. Bray, Lecturer of History of Consciousness, Oakes
   Tudor-era indecisiveness, agnosticism, Olivier's Hamlet
 
   C. Ross Campus, Professor of Education, Merrill 
   Academic advising, class shopping, university administration 

   Knot Know, Professor of American Studies, Cowell
   Procrastination, hypocrisy, history of "No Comment"

   P. R. Haps Nott, Assistant Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Porter
   Quantum uncertainty principle, indecisiveness from the cosmic perspective

   Aaron R. Priven, Professor of Sociology, College Eight, Coordinator
   Western cultural indecisiveness, mostly

Scope 

   The Indecisive Studies Committee is at this time (it is believed) a group 
of faculty members (well, they could be faculty members; frankly, we've never 
checked) who have not yet decided that they want to help students who are 
similarly irresolute. The Committee may possibly like to see students who are 
unsettled about their academic interests and are indetermined to continue on 
in such a fashion in the future. The Committee may offer a path for students 
with any possible interests, except perhaps psychobiology (well, maybe even 
that). 
   The Committee has recommended in the past (although this may change 
without notice) that incoming students prepare themselves in many different 
subjects, although theater arts and engineering courses are stressed on 
alternate Thursdays. (Or was that Tuesdays?) 
   The Indecisive Studies Committee office was last known to be located at 
313 Merrill, and could be telephoned at 459-2850, but the office furniture 
and supplies have been put in storage at Hahn Student Services in preparation 
for a move to the new College Eight facilities (or was that Natural Sciences 
IV?). 


Requirements for the Major

   Eleven or so courses and something of a comprehensive are required for a 
B.A.  Those requirements are (at press time): 
   Introduction to Indecisiveness, Perhaps (course 10). This 
course may provide a basic study of modern indecisiveness for those who are 
not sure they want to enter the major. 
   Sort-Of-Advanced Indecisiveness (course 100). This has given 
students (in the past) a strong foundation in whatever the fundamentals of 
Indecisive Studies are. 
   Two upper-division courses from each division, and two from the arts. Arts 
courses may not be used to satisfy humanities requirements except in years ab 
urbe condita divisible by 3. 
   One other upper-division indecisiveness course, well, unless you don't 
have time this quarter. 
   Completion of an oral comprehensive examination or senior thesis. 
Alternatively, this requirement may be satisfied by doing the coordinator's 
laundry for a month, if the coordinator doesn't get too nervous about being 
found out. 


Lower-Division Courses

10. Introduction to Indecisive Studies, Perhaps
   Introduction to what might be the major.  May discuss the nature of 
indecisiveness and why people don't choose to become indecisive. Or do they? 
Maybe you can find out.  Studies indecision, frustration, and the burdens of 
choice.  Field study in the 5th week at Baskin-Robbins. (General education 
code: either IH, IN, or IS, but nobody's really sure.) The Staff 

42. Student-Directed Seminar.
   Seminars taught sometimes by upper-division students under faculty 
supervision (but not necessarily much of it). (See course 193, or was that 
192? Whatever.) Prerequsite: consent of instructor and a note from the 
chairperson of any board beginning with "C" or "E."

80. Topical courses.

These courses probably deal with a single subject, somewhat in-depth. That's 
the intention, anyway. 

   Q. Hypocrisy and Cowardice in 1950's America.
   Might well deal with McCarthyism and the refusal of many to commit to it. 
Discusses the reaction (or lack of it) by the moderate-to-liberal business 
community and media to the assault upon leftist groups by the House Un-
American Activities Committee, and in doing so will try to find out what an 
un-American activity is anyway. (General education code: T, usually.) K. Know 

   Z. Strategies for Course Selection 
   All (well, most) about courses at UCSC and how to avoid picking yours 
until the last minute, if even then. How to shop for classes, how to attend 
two different classes at the same time for at least the first week, tutorials 
on Add/Drop Petitions and Late Fee Waiver Petitions. (General education code: 
T, W for designated sections.) C. Campus 


Upper-Division Courses


100A. Sort-of-Advanced Indecisiveness.
   Mostly a continuation of studies from course 10. Goes into vacillation, 
incohesiveness, confusion, and coin-tossing, and the effects on American and 
world society. Priority given to majors and people who say "please" a lot. 
Prerequsite: course 10, or an equivalent course at another institution. A. 
Priven, K. Know 

100L. Sort-of-Advanced Indecisiveness Laboratory (.2 course credit).
   Laboratory sequence studying some (but not all, probably) of the topics 
covered in 100A. One about three-hour laboratory section per week. 
Prerequisite: concurrent enrollment in 100A (or promising you will take it 
real real soon). The Staff 

120A-*B. The Western Tradition.
   Studies the way indecisiveness has progressed in the West. A: Begins with 
Greek and Roman indecisiveness and continues through indecisiveness in the 
Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Special seminars on Hannibal: to stay in 
Italy or to return to Carthage; and on Jerome's literary decisions.  Special 
unit on the English Reformation. B: Post-Renaissance indecisiveness.  English 
public opinion during the Revolutionary War, French monarchism and 
republicanism, Haiti's status as a colony, and American isolationism. A: A. 
Priven, V. Bray; B:  A. Priven, H. Aires 


140. Eastern Indecisiveness.
   Indecisiveness in Eastern religions and the works of Eastern philosophers, 
including Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, Vedic, and Shinto thought. (Well, I 
guess including that... I really haven't made up my mind yet.) Also studies 
uncertainty within the Eastern religions' world view, if there is any. M. 
Bhee 

163. Uncertainty in Modern Physics
   Analysis of the uncertainty principle: Schrödinger's and Heisenberg's 
revelations and what they mean to modern science, philosophy, and religion. 
Relation of the uncertainty principle to indecisivism and the way in which 
indecisivists have affected modern physics. P. R. H. Nott 

187. Study for the Comprehensive Examination.
   Reading and discussion under individual direction (if you can decide what 
to read and what to discuss). Required of majors who are taking the 
comprehensive examination, unless you complain to the coordinator enough. 

192. Directed (sometimes) Student Teaching.
   Teaching a lower-division seminar (if anybody shows up) under some 
(usually not much) amount of faculty supervision. (See course, uh, 42.) 
Prerequisite: upper-division standing (or sitting, if you have a broken leg); 
submission of a proposal supported somewhat by a faculty member willing to do 
what passes for supervision. The Staff 

195A-B. Senior Essay.
   Preparation for the senior thesis over one or two quarters normally 
including the middle quarter of the senior year. If taken as a multiple-term 
course, the grade and narrative evaluation submitted for the final quarter 
will apply for the first quarter unless a Petition to Erase the Evil IP is 
filed. The Staff 

196. Coordinator's Laundry. 
   Students selecting this method of fulfilling the comprehensive requirement 
may take this class to receive credit for the work.  Due to odiferous 
footwear, prospective students with olfactory nerves are cautioned against 
taking the course. A. Priven 

198. Independent Field Study.
   This course is to provide for off-campus work for credit. Only offered to 
nonmajors because no Indecisive Studies major could decide where to go. The 
Staff 

199. Tutorial.
   Independent projects carried out under supervision of the faculty, or at 
least part of it. Prerequisite: bribery of the coordinator. 

Isadore and Its Man

I had a class called "Humanities" in my senior year of high school; it was basically field trips for credit, both big group field trips and little individual field trips (there were many and you picked a set of them). One of the individual field trips was to Bay Tree Park in San Mateo, where there was (naturally enough) a large bay tree, older than the development around it. One of the assignments (we were to pick one of five) to complete after visiting it was to write a story. It was later published in the high school literary journal, One Hand Clapping.

I imagine it being rendered into a teleplay. "POV shot: Tree."

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Isadore and Its Man

The man sat at the base of the tree, explaining.

"They want to cut you down, Isadore. They want your wood. They don't understand about you. But I'll talk to them. I'll make them understand!"

The tree with the name Isadore simply stood. It closed up its stamens, for night was falling. It went to what we must call sleep -- for no human can understand the nature of trees -- until the next day. The man put out his fire and did the same.

When the sun reached the topmost needles the man was gone. The tree with the name Isadore didn't know that. It only knew that the warmness against its body was gone, but the sun's energy was back and it could produce again. Water and food circulated in its bark. It grew slightly larger -- the tiniest portion of a small ring. The tree grew and circulated and photosynthesized all that day, and the next.

On the third day the man was back. The tree did not know that the man was back. The man said, "Isadore, they're going to make me move. They're going to take me away from you. But I won't let them! I need you, Isadore! I can take care of you!" The tree with the name Isadore felt its leaves shake as wind from below brushed them.

The next day the man was there again. The tree began to understand -- although trees cannot understand in a manner that is sensical to humans -- that another being was in its area. A being who made the wind move, a being who was warm and sometimes created hotness. The tree with the name Isadore could not hear the man or see the man but he felt the closeness of the man when the man was there. It began to recognize the presence of the man.

For many weeks -- the tree did not know or care how many, and indeed it could have been three days or ten years -- the man stayed. He fed the tree with nutritious chemicals and the tree protected him from sun and rain. The man spoke to the tree, and the tree spoke to the man. Neither comprehended, but both knew "friend".

Then weeks later -- or it could have been years, or days -- another man came. The tree did not understand. How could there be two of Man? There was only one tree, one Isadore (although the tree did not know that the man called it Isadore). The second man spoke to the first man, but it was not the same way that the man spoke to the tree. The second man was unpleasant. The tree wished that the second man would leave. The man felt so too, although how the tree knew this it had no idea.

The second man spoke to the first man for a little while longer and then left. The tree was happy -- although trees cannot be happy in any way understandable to humans. The first man went and spoke to the tree, leaning against it, as he had done so many times.

"They're going to call the Forest Service on us, Isadore. They're going to cut you down. The companies want your body." The tree felt dew along its trunk. For some reason it was not happy any more. It felt very sad, or something as close to it as a tree can be.

The next day many men came. Some of the men were taking the first man away. The tree wondered -- as much as a tree can wonder -- why he was leaving. The tree wondered if he would come back.

The other men were doing things the tree didn't understand. Some of them felt around the tree with a tape. Others stuck sticks in the ground and made marks on a flat thing with a small stick. But the sun was falling so they left.

They returned the next day. They got a large metal flat thing -- totally foreign to the tree. The men got next to the tree with the large metal flat thing. They started to cut.

The tree screamed, and the man heard.

Red Pen

I wrote this in the hour after an unhappy incident with a student teacher in my junior year of high school. (Writing this was without question the most productive time I ever spent in trigonometry class.) It was published (the next year) in the school literary journal, One Hand Clapping. Since the story is essentially true up to the third paragraph, it was amusing to the students who remembered the incident when it was published.

We used "Ralph Peterson, Jr." as a standard anonymous name on the literary journal after he had been run as a fake candidate for student body president the year before. (I took it upon myself to run him for Student Union Assembly chair at UCSC in 1989; I don't have any of the posters we produced for him, though, or I'd put them up here.)

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RED PEN

Ralph "Papa" Peterson

The student came into the class angry. He didn't like the teacher; he didn't like the work she assigned; he didn't like the books she made him read. But he came. He sat down peaceably. The bell rang. Announcements were read. Papers were passed back. his essay was dotted with corrections that -- more often than not -- were arbitrary. His anger increased. Dittoes were passed out.

He corrected a ditto, giggling and smirking. He found many mistakes. More than she had found on his essay. He giggled as he marked with red felt-tipped pen. He wrote, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach," in big dark red letters. He finished. He waited for the right moment, giggling to himself. Then he handed the red-splotched paper back to the teacher.

She was not pleased. She stood in front of the student's desk. She said, "Come outside."

The student replied, "Red pens. Three touches." She nodded.

They went into the hall. Another teacher came. The second teacher officiated. The student and the first teacher began walking apart. They turned to face each other.

The officiating teacher shouted, "Go!" They began. They thrusted. They parried. They lunged. The teacher scored, the student's sweater acquired a spot. Then the student scored. A red splotch appeared on the teacher. The end was in doubt. But twice more the student scored. Two more blood-red marks were found on the teachers coat. The second teacher called it over.

The teacher and the student slowly reentered the class. The other students stared. The old teacher took the student's desk. The student went up to the podium and spoke.

"Let's continue, class."

Stopping by the typewriter on a sultry evening

This was dedicated to my high school English teacher.

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Stopping by the typewriter on a sultry evening

(To M. C.)

Teacher this is I think I know.
His room is in the hall below;
Essays I write have made me fear
The grades I get, so very low.

My typewriter must think it queer
To start without an idea near.
I go on as my fingers ache
As on the page the words appear.

It gives its line-end bell a shake
As through the book my fingers rake.
I only hope I'm ab'l to leap
To bed before the dawn shall break.

To doze leads on to something deep,
But essay mine, it will not keep;
I've pages to write before I sleep,
And pages to write before I sleep.

What, Definitions? What's a Definition?

I got pretty bored in my high school chemistry class (although not so bored as I was the next year when I repeated it, having gotten a D -- because I never did any homework, not because I didn't understand it). When we received an assignment to write a story (or an essay, or something, I don't remember now) using a bunch of chemistry vocabulary words, I jumped at the chance to do something interesting, and at that point I felt getting a low grade on this assignment was worth it for the jokes. (As it happens, he didn't take off much for words I misused, only words I didn't get right in the first place -- for example, the word was "base" not "basics," and freezing points are lowered, not elevated. But there was a big "Don't do this again!" written on the paper.) My silly teacher let me read this in front of the class -- not the way to encourage me to do good work, even if he did precede my reading with "this is an example of what not to do."

Still, I had changed my mind about this being a good idea by the next year.

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What, Definitions? What's a Definition?

Alistair continued driving up the mountain road. It was winter, and he was on his way to his ski-cabin on Mount Dooright in the Sierras de Luz in northern Coloflornia, one of the Federated States of Vespucia. He saw a sign by the road. "Cation! Falling Rocs!" A gigantic bird fell from the sky and missed his Bristol convertible by two inches. Two more signs, pointing out two rock formations, read: "Boiling Point: Elevation 2426m" and "Freezing Point: Elevation 3101m." It was mid-November, and the posters for electroned officials and proton and conton various propositions were still up. A military truck went by and the people on it soluted him, ostensibly because he was wearing a doorman's uniform. He didn't think it was funny, but what was he to do? He was a doorman. It was cold, and he closed the solvent that let the air into the car.

He continued to his cabin. A homogeneous mixture of white fluffy aqueous precipitate had fallen on the ground around his cabin, in contrast to the heterogeneous pollution found near the road. He found some needles and other paraphenalia from the previous owner's addiction to acid, but Alistair was down to basics. He turned on the electrolytes so he could see better; it was a dark cloudy day. He went to the kitchen, where he saw some horribly green anion rings from a hamburger joint and a box of salted crackers. He went and unpacked his brand-neutron telescope -- he liked to look at stars when he wasn't in the city. Moons were good too, and he remembered the view he got of the Galilean satellite Ion once -- what a sight! He had a solubility telescope for sun-viewing at home, too.

As he put away his telescope, readying himself for bed, he looked out the window at a gopher, digging with high molarity. He smiled. Tomorrow would be a good day.