On the 8 Spot

Mediocre teachers make for mediocre students. See a lot of teachers who are simply put in basketball terms mailing it in. I don’t begrudge them this because A people eventually break free from the bondage of mediocrity of surroundings, it just takes a little longer. I suspect my views of teachers have been colored by watching Mr Holland’s Opus too many times!

What you can learn from a lousy teacher…

If you have a teacher (of any sort) that you cannot please, that you cannot learn from, that is unwilling to take you where you need to go because he is defending the status quo and demonstrates your failure on whatever report card he chooses to use, you could consider yourself a failure. Or you could remind yourself…

1. Grades are an illusion

2. Your passion and insight are reality

3. Your work is worth more than mere congruence to an answer key

4. Persistence in the face of a skeptical authority figure is a powerful ability

5. Fitting in is a short-term strategy, standing out pays off in the long run

6. If you care enough about the work to be criticized, you've learned enough for today

via Seth’s Blog: What you can learn from a lousy teacher….

I-Witness documentary wins Peabody Award

04/01/2010 | 10:27 AM

Ambulancia de Paa, an I-Witness documentary that showed how a mountain community worked as a team to transport the seriously ill through rugged mountain trails, has just won the prestigious George Peabody Award, the awards’ board announced on its web site Wednesday night.

Among 36 annual winners of the award, Ambulancia de Paa “memorably chronicled how residents of a poor, remote town can only get their sick and injured to medical care using the ‘ambulance on foot,’ woven hammocks that they carry over dangerous terrain,” according to the Peabody Awards site.

via I-Witness documentary wins Peabody Award – Nation – GMANews.TV – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News.

ditto. Read the whole thing!

These profiles give an authentic glimpse of a style of life that hasn’t yet been captured by a novel or a movie — the subtle blend of high-achiever successes, trade-offs and deep commitments to others. In the profiles, you see the intoxicating lure of work, which provides an organizing purpose and identity. You see the web of mentor-mentee relationships — the courtship between the young and the middle-aged, and then the tensions as the mentees break off on their own…. You see the way people not only choose a profession, it chooses them. It changes them in a way they probably didn’t anticipate at first.

… Sotomayor’s life also overlaps with a broader class of high achievers. You don’t succeed at that level without developing a single-minded focus, and struggling against its consequences.

via Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Sonia Sotomayor Has Pursued Her Calling.

Damn, think I’ve made this choice already, sadly subconsciously.

I believe the unvarnished reality about work-life-balance is this: the only people who successfully follow an all-consuming, high-impact professional calling are: a) either single or married to a someone who has a “career” (or less) and not a “calling” and, b) do not have kids.

The most effective men and women of this variety tend to be married to a comparatively passive partner (this does not mean objectively passive) because marriage boosts happiness, and do not have kids.

Yes, there are plenty of exceptions, but that's what they are: exceptions. Yes, Lewis's distinction is too rigid, but it's to make a point.

Many men, including some of Silicon Valley's most famous, do their “calling” early in life and then “career” later in life with kids. Men have the luck of being able to organize their lives in a way that this can work. Women, not so much. Damn biological clock.

via Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Do You Want a Family or a Calling?.

I also appreciate the types of bills he has filed: they are clearly reform-oriented in very overarching ways. It comes as no great surprise that Noynoy became a strict fiscalizer in his time, focusing more on accountability in government appropriations and spending than anything else. Among the measures he pushed for were greater restrictions on exemptions to the requirement of public bidding and strengthening legislative oversight over executive spending. He also sought to tighten congressional oversight on the executive’s use of public funds.

More importantly, if one studies the actual bills he filed and the quality of thinking that has gone into what are clearly pro-reform views, what is more striking is how many of them were not passed. How is it that none of these (arguably stellar) initiatives — on PNP reform; an increase in penalties for corporations and work establishments not compliant with minimum wage; the banning of reappointments to the Judicial and Bar Council; the prevention of reappointments and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments; real property valuation based on international standards; and superior responsibility for senior military officers, who are ultimately responsible for their own subordinates — had been passed? Had they been blocked, I had to ask? These were after all not the kind of trivial initiatives one might associate with certain legislators, for instance, and could certainly have benefited the country as a whole…

Noynoy agreed with my reading, noting that the job of an effective legislator goes beyond merely proposing laws. After all, legislators have the responsibility to ensure that the checks and balances system in our government is at work as well. But he had clearly pitted himself against the administration in a score of privileged speeches that questioned the government’s alleged human rights abuses (with respect to the desaparecidos, informal settlers, marginalized groups and extrajudicial killings). He has also continued to question the misuse of public funds (ZTE-NBN, “Euro Generals” and Fertilizer Fund, etc.). So it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if he had rubbed the administration the wrong way, which would certainly explain why so many of his initiatives never saw the light of day. Clearly, he would have been threatening to many in the establishment, which further sheds light on why he was stripped of his post as Deputy Speaker for Luzon after he called for GMA’s resignation at the height of the “Hello, Garci” scandal…

via Notes from an Insomniac: A conversation with Noynoy by Lila Shahani.

The only way to remember who you are is to refuse to let anyone or anything dictate what you want. I write to share my triumphs and defeats and to remind you that wanting something other than herd-like, soul-crushing monotony is not only natural, but necessary.

via “a child would not hesitate to pack up a sleeping bag and sleep on a pier under the stars with you” | gapingvoid.

Read the whole thing.

A child would not hesitate to pack up a sleeping bag and sleep on a pier under the stars with you.

Since that flight, whenever people asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I replied, “I want to be a child.”

So if you ever wonder why I share so much of myself with the world, from the sacred to the profane, the answer is that I think everyone could use this license to be who they are and enjoy what that means. We do live in a society with norms about what we can and cannot share, what we can and cannot do, but as Einstein once said: “if the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.” That’s what I want to do – I want to change the facts.

Your wants are beautiful, your truths are powerful. Maybe you want to sleep on a pier or share a fairytale kiss under every triumphal arch in the world. Maybe you dream of diving the wreckage of a galleon or quitting your job and starting your own company.

They’ll say you’re crazy. They’ll say, “I wish I could be as impulsive as you are,” and that you should grow up. Life isn’t like that – there are norms, you know. There are ways to do things. You don’t talk to people at the security line at the airport. You get through it as fast as possible, go to your gate, wait for them to board you, sit down and be quiet. You go to your job, bust your ass, go home, change, go to some social thing, entertain the same questions, go home, watch bad television and do it all over again. Polite, proper, efficient. That’s life, right? Then you get old and maybe play some golf, then you die.

Fuck no.

via “a child would not hesitate to pack up a sleeping bag and sleep on a pier under the stars with you” | gapingvoid.

I support this!