psychology dector

In a classroom lesson, as in writing, anything that does not advance the lesson, or essay must be cut. Beautiful language is no excuse for gratuitous verbiage. A teacher, like an essayist, has only so many minutes and words to make his point, and therefore he must be ruthless with his editing. The same can also be said for equipment and tools in the classroom. I love Kenneth Branagh’s film version of Hamlet , but at 242 minutes, it is simply too long to show to a class at the rate of 45 minutes per day. That’s six days of class time in the dark watching film. So we must select scenes to show. Too much of any one thing spoils the soup, so to speak. I read the recent article in The New York Times on the military’s use of Microsoft’s PowerPoint program with great interest. In education, PowerPoint has become, for many teachers, the only tool. Everything from notes to the final exam can be mounted on digital slides and thrust in front of students sitting in the dark staring at a screen.

One of my favorite writers, Joan Didion , wrote a book in 2005 about the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne . I thought it was her best work, and that is saying a lot since her books of essays, The White Album and Slouching Toward Bethlehem changed me on a molecular level and continue to influence my writing to this day. Joyce Carol Oates has always been, in my mind, the counterpart to Didion. They are the two women writers who set the bar by which all others are measured. Oates is extremely prolific, churning out novels, plays, and essays at a breakneck pace, all while teaching English at Princeton. Didion tends to take longer with her novels and essay collections, publishing frequently in magazines and journals like The New York Review of Books before gathering her work together for a book. In the current issue of The Atlantic , Oates writes a piece on the death of her husband, Raymond Smith , well-known editor of the literary magazine Ontario Review , a project the husba

The bell rings, a combination of a shrill electronic note and the clang of tradition. The hallways flood with students. Someone is screaming in short staccato bursts. Four middle schoolers race down the hall at full tilt, yelling wild, incoherent squalls at each other, looking to be first in the cafeteria line. Their thunderous feet shake the building. A senior throws his backpack over the stairway; it lands with a solid thump on the first floor, nearly braining a sophomore girl making her way upstairs. Screams, screams, screams—two annoying juniors are laughing like hyenas: that is all they do—walk from one end of the hallway to the other shrieking like metal on metal, like a semi slamming into the center divider at eighty miles an hour. Stupid stuff. I stand against the wall, eyes half closed, looking for the still point of destruction. A stone tossed into a quiet pond radiates in concentric circles outward in tiny waves; so too does stillness begin at the center and ripple out. So I

Last Sunday, I went to Mount St. Mary’s College , the Chalon campus in Brentwood, with my niece. She is thinking of transferring there for the fall to be an English major. I have a long history with the Mount, as the faculty, students, and alumnae call it. My grandmother took a degree in dietetics from the school in the 1930s, and sixty years later, my wife followed suit with a liberal studies degree. There was a point in my life, when I was on the cusp of adulthood, that my grandmother and I made the pilgrimage up the winding roads of west Los Angeles to the hilltop campus to hear a concert. It was the dead of winter, and my grandmother was trying to open some doors for me. She wanted me to attend Mount St. Mary’s for a music degree. I wanted to go to Cal State Northridge. CSUN had a jazz program. The Mount was steeped in classical. Sister Teresita Espinosa , the music department chair, met us at the concert. She told us about the programs and facilities, the practice rooms, the fact

Since Stone the Weimaraner passed on , I have been warned by many people that I will see my best companion in the faces and mannerisms of other dogs. I have not found this advice to be true, but on Saturday at Woodley Park, the prophecy came very close to reality. It was Saturday in the Park with Petey. And Bobo. And Hercules. All are Weimaraners, and all frolicked in the park as part of the 16th Annual Weimaraner Festival presented by the Southland Weimaraner Club. Events included a Weimaraner Health Exchange, where owners could swap stories of personal experiences with veterinarians, holistic healers, dog chiropractors, and canine acupuncturists. There was obedience training and a variety of games and activities for dogs and their owners, topped off with a potluck lunch and a rescue parade. I have found myself lonely and desolate when I see dogs these days, and when I leave the house I cannot help myself. I touch Stone’s box of ashes and his picture on my way out the door, and once

A special Thursday edition of The Teacher’s View focuses on someone who needs your help. The following is a press release from Friends For Pets Foundation with an accompanying link to a video of a special friend-in-need: Madeline is a friendly Wire Haired Pointer. Friends for Pets Foundation interceded for Madeline by taking her out of a shelter where she had been impounded and unwanted by her owner. She had a limp and her right rear hip muscle was atrophied. She was in a lot of pain. An x-ray showed that Madeline's femur had been severely impacted and driven into her pelvic bone and it had fused that way. Our vet thinks she probably had been hit by a car when she was about 6 months old and didn't get proper treatment from her owner. Madeline was going to need an expensive surgery if she was going to have a chance at walking and playing again. Dawn VerMeulen took Madeline to a specialist and he said the only way to reduce the pain and let her lead a fairly normal life would b

Shhh!! I am trying to get something done here. Amid all the splashing, crashing ocean waves, crystal clear skies and sunlight, I am chained to my desk. Spring break has broken. I have a week and a half off and I am frantically working to position myself for maximum teaching in the three weeks leading to AP exams starting in May. In Los Angeles, there is no spring; we cut right to summer. It is eighty-plus degrees out and the Santa Ana winds are in full, gusty form. And I am correcting, correcting, correcting. I planned it out: seven days to do seven sets of essays. Plus, I must reread several books, organize handouts, and plan the next month of lessons. Most people see this as a week’s vacation. Just add it to the eight weeks of summer and two weeks for Christmas, and we have a cushy job, right? Teaching is a full time job, and even when I am home, I am working. At school, I am teaching classes, meeting with students, supervising teachers, attending various meetings, meetings, meeting

It is a terrible shame that a growing group of perverts and child molesters is destroying the legacy of Catholic schools. Those of us educated in the Catholic school system know the value of that education facilitated by dedicated priests, nuns, brothers, and lay teachers, but that testimony will matter less and less in light of the current scandal. To make matters worse, the Vatican cannot seem to stop shooting off its own foot, with Father Cantalamessa, senior Vatican priest, telling us that the world’s outrage directed at the pope and the Catholic Church over the sexual abuse of children is just like the persecution of the Jews. Being Jewish is not a crime, and anti-Semites are a bunch of ignoramuses. The rapists-priests are criminals who victimize children, and those of us who find such conduct reprehensible, illegal, and morally indefensible are justified in our condemnation of those in authority—including Pope Benedict XVI—who failed to act on the sordid criminal behavior of tho