Comments for The G Bitch Spot

Comment on School Board v. School Board by Stanford s. Collins

Stanford s. Collins — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 21:07:26 +0000

I just stumbled on your site. It is very informative. Keep up the good work.

Comment on “There is nothing more they could have done.” by samjasper

samjasper — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:53:19 +0000

I just read the entire article. Now see, I feel terrible saying this but Nancy Lanza. . . .Probable straw man purchases, her son holed up with plastic all over the windows, the spreadsheet 7′x4′ (okay, I’ll let that slide as it could have been folded up and maybe she didn’t see it), photos of him “strapped with weapons”? I also saw a report last week that the gun safe had not been forced, so either she opened it for him (possibly at gunpoint, I’ll give you that) or he had the combination. I just don’t get it. I didn’t get why the parents of the Littleton guys didn’t notice bombs and tons of ammo in their kids’ rooms either, and while I understand that it was their children who did these things, not them, it just baffles me that a parent wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t step in, do something, anything, if their child was had fallen that far off the rails. Particularly in this case where they are saying this was years in the making. And of COURSE it’s not just video games.

Comment on Oh, Yeah—Katrina Cottages. Katrina Cottages? by Ann

Ann — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 03:36:17 +0000

You always blow me away! I’m so happy somebody out there is awake & alive. I know I’m getting ripped off. I know it everyday.

Comment on “there are no spooks behind the door!” by G Bitch

G Bitch — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 17:57:26 +0000

His statement is full of assumptions---that this black female academic's personality or presumed hate-whitey feelings interfere with her becoming more attached to/part of the department; that "race" is something that black folks, Latinos/as, Asians, etc. have to deal with, with the clear assumption/assertion that blacks, Latinos/as, etc. are different and must become more like "their peers" in order to succeed; that it is your internal "race" issues that cause problems for those around you; and, which I have also encountered, that certain departments or fields are more "liberal" than others and all that race "stuff" has been settled or has nothing to do with that department/field regardless of the lived experience of non-white and/or female academics. The most prominent assumption that I have experienced as almost a convention is that your lived experience of anything, and especially in that department/field, is not valid or valued or support for or against anything, that the slights or assumptions or passing over for x or t are not Real but "perceived" by the minority person. And that whites, and especially white males, are the arbiters of Truth, Valid Experience, The Real and The Profession, and know more about you and your experience than you possibly can because they have Knowledge and The Correct Politics. The same sentence can throw doubt upon your qualifications and tell you that you are paranoid to think that anything ever said is insulting or degrading or based on feelings and stereotypes rather than evidence/support. Look at who gets/has tenure. Then look at who doesn't, or did twice the required publishing and service to get tenure, and who gets hired full-time or tenure-track versus who gets hired for temporary, underpaid adjunct positions. Ann, if you are a woman of color with an advanced degree, stay where you are. Trust me.

Comment on “there are no spooks behind the door!” by Ann

Ann — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 04:40:23 +0000

Wow, scary. I never trust anyone who tells me to trust them or who dares to speak as a rep for a whole group of people. What seems to get us all in the most trouble is assuming we know what anyone else is experiencing… Your blog is so interesting— makes me want to pack up and go to NO.

Comment on Back When We Were Rich by Ann

Ann — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 04:35:20 +0000

Oh what a great question! I love your blog! The answer, as you already know, is that the corporations need to do away with us educators to make their pockets fatter. If they were richer education would be better!

Comment on Pain, in Words by Editor B

Editor B — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:19:18 +0000

Lancinating is also a just plain amazing word. Thank you for introducing it into my vocabulary.

Comment on Pain, in Words by G Bitch

G Bitch — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:15:34 +0000

I know pain all too well, but I also thought when I saw this list that some folks do not have many of these words in their vocabulary. I had never seen “lancinating” before but when I read the definition, I realized I knew that kind of pain.

Comment on WTMF? by G Bitch

G Bitch — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 13:13:41 +0000

Then I'm a really old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud. When I tell folks I teach college-level English, they start a bit and when I say my favorite class to teach was Advanced Grammar, they go pale or stumble away from me. I LOVE grammar. I loved teaching my students that the over-simplified "rules" some of them learned in grammar school [like "Never use'I'." HUH?] are actually "conventions," and if you know the rules/conventions, you can artfully break them. I always told my students that English is their/i> language and theirs to master. It is a real joy to have competency in an area and grammar is a great one.

Comment on WTMF? by geauxteacher

geauxteacher — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 14:20:45 +0000

Well “G,” when I went back to school in 1990 to get my teaching degree at age 42, the theory was that English teachers should not teach grammar in isolation but should embed it in literary studies. I was required to take only one semester of “grammar” which was a semester spent learning why you shouldn’t teach grammar. I might have adopted that theory had my second year of teaching not been in a St. Tammany junior high school which required students to take a two hour block of English language arts. I immediately saw the need for formal grammar instruction. In 17 years of teaching I learned something new about grammar every year and parents thanked me profusely for spending time on what so many people mistakenly consider boring and useless. Specifically regarding spelling, toward the end of my career I was introduced to a curriculum that focused on Latin and Greek stems that was developed by a professor living in Puerto Rico. I had always wanted to learn more about the history and etymology of our language myself so began the teaching and learning process. I was dubious about the ability of my students learning 25 new stems a week and retaining all over a period of two years but the results were astounding. They enjoyed the studies immensely and began recognizing the stems in their other class studies immediately and appreciated their new ability to recognize meaning, on their own. It made vocabulary studies almost like a scavenger hunt.

I digress – to share one of my pet peeves – the use of everyday as one word when it should be two. I see the error made every day as it has become an everyday practice. I was also taught that the English language is an ever evolving one, and popular use dictates change. Realtor will soon be realtor and nuclear will be nucular. I guess I am old fashioned in believing that some things should never change.