This weekend my first-born son will graduate at age 20 with a B.A. in Biology. He will join thousands of other graduates across the country marching to the dais to accept his hard-earned degree from school officials dressed in the medieval cap and gowns we still wear for such occasions. And then he will march [...]
All posts in category Education
Welcome to the Knowledge Factory
The lead article in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education Review is titled “The Ph.D. Now Comes With Food Stamps.” More than 350,000 Americans with advanced degrees applied for food stamps in 2010, part of “an often overlooked, and growing, subgroup of Ph.D. recipients, adjunct professors, and other Americans with advanced degrees who have had [...]
Posted by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez on May 8, 2012
http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/welcome-to-the-knowledge-factory/
May Day: Here, There and Everywhere
A reader asks why I did not stay home from work and join the May Day protests today, and I feel like this question deserves a serious response. Partly, I have always had a phobia about crowds, and never willingly put myself into a crowd situation. I don’t even like to go to an agricultural [...]
Posted by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez on May 1, 2012
http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/may-day-here-there-and-everywhere/
America, land of the brain-damaged and debt-enslaved
Is it any surprise that we Americans treat animals and the natural world so badly, given the way we treat even our own cherished children? This week there were two grim news stories illustrating the callousness of American society towards its young adults. The first was a disturbing column by Nicholas Kristof revealing to the [...]
Posted by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez on April 26, 2012
http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/america-land-of-the-brain-damaged-and-debt-enslaved/
Who’s Afraid of Distance Learning?
It used to be that a smart, motivated young person could work hard, earn a doctorate, do a good job as a junior professor, and live happily ever after as a tenured professor. It also used to be that a smart young person could work hard, get into a good college, and expect to be [...]
Posted by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez on April 20, 2012
http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/whos-afraid-of-distance-learning/
Pleasure plus meaning equals happiness: homage to my mom
Yesterday I went to a Berkshire Festival of Women Writers workshop facilitated by psychologist and inspirational speaker Maria Sirois. The workshop was called “Happiness: Writing as a Path to Positive Transformation,” and since I am always looking for ways to link all those terms—happiness, writing, path, positive, transformation—I was eager to see how Maria would [...]
Posted by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez on March 5, 2012
http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/pleasure-plus-meaning-equals-happiness-homage-to-my-mom/
Out of the mouths of babes….
One of the most interesting aspects to me of Carol Gilligan’s research on childhood psychological development is her finding that as girls and boys mature, they lose touch with the instinctive, joyful, totally honest voice they were born with. To some extent, this is necessary. No one would want to live in a chaotic society [...]
Posted by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez on February 18, 2012
http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/out-of-the-mouths-of-babes/
Coming to Voice, Saving the Planet
Yesterday acclaimed psychologist Carol Gilligan paid a visit to the class I am currently co-teaching at Bard College at Simon’s Rock with theater professor Karen Beaumont, “Human Rights, Activism and the Arts.” Gilligan’s ground-breaking book, In A Different Voice, was the first to examine the psychological development of girls. Yes, you read that right. Before [...]
Posted by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez on February 17, 2012
http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/coming-to-voice-saving-the-planet/
There’s More to Love Than Cupid and his Arrows
One of the reasons I was unhappy in the last five years or so of my marriage—which lasted 21 years—was because my husband, who had been so apparently social and outgoing when I fell in love with him, had become taciturn and isolationist. He scorned Valentine’s Day as a commercial holiday, and considered buying me [...]
Posted by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez on February 14, 2012
http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/theres-more-to-love-than-cupid-and-his-arrows/
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