Late April Thursday Attire. . .

A cold but sunny morning here in Mid-Michigan with a heavy frost during the night. Items for today include a vintage overcoat from Botany 500 that I found in my favorite thrift-/charity shop for less than US$10 about ten years or so ago when we still lived in the wilds of Central Illinois (Bloomington-Normal).

The necktie for today is a navy grenadine from Chipp by the way, in contrast (?!) to yesterday's wool number, which was also navy. A bit matchy-matchy with the shirt and pocket square this morning, sure, but otherwise a not unpleasant combination of items.

Tomorrow is the final day of the Spring '22 semester. While today is relatively easy with just a few things to take care of, tomorrow I will be swamped with about 150 semester reflections. Provided they follow directions laid out in the assignment prompt (and not everyone does), students will revisit and assess their learning for the last 15 weeks. In keeping with pedagogical thought about the practice of metacognition (thinking about your thinking), I routinely ask my students to look hard at what they have done so far in the course each week, what they are doing currently, and how they might improve their learning practices as we move forward through the course.

A large part of this capstone self-assessment involves students looking honestly at their independent and team work habits and related choices during the term relative to weekly independent assignments, related student learning team collaboration, and three collaborative projects that teams develop and submit at key points during the semester. While some of these final reflections are fairly pedestrian, as you might expect, others make for interesting examination. You can easily see that some students take the assignment seriously and have put consider time, thought, and effort into their work, which is rewarding.

But when you multiply five or six pages, or five to six minute voice recordings or videos -- I give students creative leeway in keeping with Universal Design for Learning tenets -- by 150+ submissions, well, that's a lot of reading, listening, and or viewing for the next week or so. Whew!

-- Heinz-Ulrich

The Pleasaures of a Well-trained Dog. . .

A few final photographs from my visit to my sister in Washington, D.C. last week. These include one of 'Mr. Beau,' my sister's meticulously trained and truly wonderful Doberman, another of my sister, second cousin, step-father, and yours truly on the steps of the church outside Lexington, North Carolina just after our late mother's interment service, two of me solo at the National Cathedral, and a final one of my sister and me hamming it up during a long evening walk the day before I returned to Michigan. My sister routinely walks to the cathedral, about three blocks from her place, to enjoy the grounds and gardens. The Bishop's Garden, in particular, is a place she likes to sit for quiet contemplation and internal dialogues with our late maternal grandparents and mother, very much in keeping with the Episcopal side of things. Our grandfather, who was raised Methodist, became an Episcopalian when he married our grandmother. Before you ask, I am not sure tha

Avoid Careless Chatter. . .

E specially about the personal details of our lives. There is a lot that OUGHT to be kept more private in 2022 than has become the accepted norm for many. With the conscious and intentional cultivation of classic style in mind, however, we want to avoid oversharing and keep a bit more of ourselves to ourselves. Exactly what personal information and how much of it to keep private seems to be a slippery concept though. Here’s my take based on what I was told and observed as a child and young person at home. Basically, one should keep oneself to oneself in all respects (finances, personal worth, accomplishments, politics, sex, dirty laundry, etc.). As my late father used to advise when we were very small, and I am talking preschool and kindergarten, there were particular subjects that were not discussed outside the immediate family. There is a time and place for sharing certain details of one’s life, but most of the time, those should be played very close to the chest,

Classic Style

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