I almost always agree with you on a broad range of issues but on this you seem really off base. It’s not they don’t communicate with those uneducated whites, it’s that they do not want to listen. UHC won’t help them? Affordable child care won’t help them? Increasing minimum wage won’t help them? Affordable college and vocational schools won’t help them? Parental leave won’t help them? Consumer, labor and environmental protections won’t help them?
If these things can’t reach them but blaming immigrants and colored people for stealing their hard earned tax dollars does resonate, then there’s something missing and broken within them and nothing rational will break through their bigotry. While Fox News acts as the propaganda arm of the Republican party, it’s not effective in a vacuum. They want to believe the bullshit RWM peddles.
Heh, it’s entirely possible I’ve overshot the mark here, but my thinking is that when you have a small group of people who simply will not understand what you are saying, it’s probably them, but when you have a huge group of folks missing the point, it might well be you.
My thinking is that, as the song goes, it ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it. The messages you mention are really clear–to us. They also rest on shared assumptions that make those messages not only clear, but blindingly obvious. The audience we need to reach doesn’t share a lot of those assumptions–yet–and I do not think much effort has been made to bridge that gap. When I give a presentation at a conference, the language I use and the way that I communicate is different than how I say the same things in my classroom for undergraduates. Not because the students are less intelligent than the academics at conferences (hell, sometimes it’s the opposite) but because the vocabulary and arguments I might use in one situation simply do not resonate or even work in another. The leaders of the Democratic party and much of the broader liberal establishment, I’m arguing, are saying the right things, but they’re saying them as if they are talking to people like them. When I say they are not making a good effort to communicate, I’m saying they are not doing much to adapt their message to the real audience, the people that don’t think they way they/we do already.
I don’t honestly think people believe all of that Fox News crap because they are malignant, horrible people. Some are, sure. Most though are reacting that way because Fox and Fascists, er Fox and Friends are more savvy about how they frame things, and how they tailor their message to the masses.As long as liberals continue to communicate mostly as if they are talking to other folks at a meeting of like-minded intellectuals, not much will change. Look at the successes in primaries recently; the liberals who are winning are doing so by shifting their rhetoric to hit the hearts, not the minds, of average folks.
We spent about $200 for two access codes to required online materials, one for math ($75 thanks to the professor giving the students a direct link to the publisher’s site, saving them about $25-$40 over retail) and one for Essentials of Business Communications. Both had additional loose leaf “textbooks” (what a joke!) you could buy for another $75-$100, but the profs said those were a waste and don’t bother.
We then purchased his Astrobiology book used on Amazon for an astounding $8. The professor actually told the kids exactly what to put into Amazon to find the $8 copies. I like that guy already!
We rented his Political Science book from Barnes & Noble for $45. That was cheaper than the used/rental prices on Amazon and Chegg.
Finally, his Business Foundations class requires an eBook which appears to only be available through the campus bookstore via a link to something called IncludEd, and is $50 for a 6-month rental. Maybe it’s one of those contract things @TheWombat described?
So in the end, around $300 thanks to some vigorous comparison shopping and very helpful professors. I look forward to repeating this process every semester for another 4 years…
Not really so crazy. First, if you’re talking about a big class, 300+ students in one room, the wifi infrastructure has to be capable of dealing with 300+ responses from a variety of devices, all at exactly the same time. The clicker hardware is purpose-built to do exactly that. Second, if the students are using their phones to respond to quizzes, they will inevitably also use them for everything else teenagers use their phones for.
Yeah, I get the clicker usage, but that seemed like a lot of money for such a limited device. Fortunately I think we can sell it back at the end of the semester… probably for like $5…
A lot of the schools around here were ready and raring to buy expensive clicker sets before they realized that, wait, all our kids already have cellphones and are monkeying with them anyway in the middle of class, so let’s just use those.
I hear the concerns about response times, etc., but if I was (barely) able to use the internet at GenCon with 65,000 other nerds, I kinda think most lecture halls are safe. . .
. . . and the college kids are already on their phones. And probably laptops/tablets, too. And maybe Google Glass.
This is a reason for the school to make clickers available, not require students to buy them. And I understand what we’re talking about, we used them for audience response for 3000 people at a time.
Would you spread the cost of ‘providing’ those clickers around, as part of tuition/fees for all students? Which would include the thousands of students who don’t need them?
The clicker is a 1-time cost for the students. In those majors where clicker use is common the students may use their clicker in 2 or 3 classes per semester and will keep and use them through 4 years.
It’s also a one-time cost for the schools, and it is the schools who require it. It isn’t necessary for teaching, they’re just choosing to use it. Passing it onto the students is, well, stupid.
Not sure what you’re getting at. Do you think the school is using clickers “just because”? As opposed to because there are studies showing their use increases student engagement and learning.
If they’re not improving learning, then they’re a waste regardless who pays.
If they’re going to be used, then they are either paid for by the students who actually use them, or their cost is spread out among all students, including those who don’t use them.
I may have missed it up thread, but what the hell is a “clicker”? I’m so thankful that buying textbooks isn’t a requirement for teachers college. I made it through my first year and I had to buy a total of one textbook for $65 which I then sold for about $40. All the other courses have provided the readings ( mostly journal articles) as PDFs.
If they’re improving learning, they should be used by everyone, and they’re like chairs or projectors or screens, e.g. part of the infrastructure.
If they’re not being used by everyone, then they’re an affectation of some teacher or other, and making only those students by them seems wrong to me.
In any event, they are reusable. There’s no reason to require someone to buy something that can be used by every other student. The school buys them once, and they get reused by every student. Hand them out as students come into the class, then collect them as they leave. You’ll need fewer that way anyway.
To play off this, do we expect every student to buy Bunsen burners or pipettes? Do we expect them to maintain subscriptions to numerous journals? What about classroom computers?
Not to mention efficiency gains. If a student uses it in a single class, but that class has three sections in each semester, then this would require three times as many clickers as a classroom set would.
Which is to say that spreading out the cost as part of the already high classroom tuition fees would help bring the cost down for everyone in the absolute sense, merely by cutting waste.
Your 450 students enter the auditorium. Each one needs a clicker and the clicker they receive needs to be associated with them, personally, so they get credit for their answers. How do you get each student ‘their’ clicker, or how much time do you take out of each day for them to somehow click in their identity?
