Things have been going well so far, and some of it might interest you:
Moral Development: my advisor teaches this, and so far it’s a great course. We look at how our morals develop (starting with earliest childhood) from an academic standpoint, but we also look at morality as it plays out in the world and in ourselves. We start each class discussing a Dilemma of the Day (DOD) which she presents for our consideration. There’s one I want to throw out to you to debate amongst yourselves, but I’ll save that for its own post. It’s kind of fun.
Statistics for Behavioral Sciences: we’ve really only just begun this course because the only text she likes is about 30 yrs old and out of print. She has permission to make copies for her class, but before she could do so she had to find out how many copies she’d need. We finally got them yesterday. In the meantime she started discussing Individual Organism studies vs. Group studies; you can’t extrapolate data from one to figure out what will work for the other. There’s a lot of blah blah blah from your standpoint so I won’t go into it. But over the weekend we were supposed to grab someone and explain what she had covered so far to them. If we could explain it to someone else so that they understood it, then we ourselves understand it. I chose Randy. He dozed off somewhere in the middle, but claimed to understand it afterward. Good enough for me.
History and Systems only meets once a week on Wed. nights. So far we’ve been covering Greek philosophy and medicine as it pertains to the earliest development of psychology. The most interesting thing so far? Our prof drives 3 hours from his home in Vermont to teach it. That’s not even the most interesting part. He plays his tuba while he does it! And I thought talking on cell phones while driving was bad. Glad I drive to school a different way.
Philosophy of Racism is really labor intensive, but fascinating. The prof is great. One of the things I had to do last weekend is to take an Implicit Association Test (IAT), which uncovers hidden biases you may have. It checks how long it takes for you to categorize certain words or images. If you take too long your response is discounted because you’re thinking about where the item should go rather than acting automatically from your gut. There are a few places you can take it online, but I liked Harvard’s the best. Some test for race bias, but there’s gender bias and many others. If you choose to try it and find yourself race biased (which is not the same thing as racist), don’t feel bad. 80% of the people- Black as well as White- score biased in favor of Whites. I’m proud of the fact that I fall into the 20% category, but shockingly show a gender bias. I seem to have a moderate bias towards men as career and women as caregiver. So while in my deliberate thoughts and actions I am egalitarian, society has taken a toll nonetheless. Harvard gives out the IAT subjects randomly, though. If you want to take the Race or Gender IAT, you can take them here.
Major British Writers: we haven’t actually begun reading the literature yet. Rather, he’s had us learn a little about the history, geographic nomenclature, and development of the English language. To that end he posted “Caedmon’s Hymn”- supposedly first recorded English poem- first in Old English, then as a literal translation. Finally, we each have to come up with our own loose modern English translation:
Old English:
Nu scylun hergan hefaenricæs uard
Metudæs maecti end his modgidane
Uerc uuldurfadur, sue he uundra gihuaes,
Eci dryctin, or astelidæ.
He aerist scop aelda barnum
Heben til hrofe, haleg scepen;
Tha middungeard moncynnæs uard,
Eci dryctin, æfter tiadæ,
Firum foldu, frea allmectig.[1]
[1] http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/369.html
Strict Literal Translation:
Now must we praise of Heaven’s kingdom the Keeper
Of the Lord the power and his wisdom
The work of the Glory-Father, as he of marvels each,
The eternal Lord, the beginning established.
He first created of earth for the sons
Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator.
Then the middle enclosure of mankind the Protector
The eternal Lord, thereafter made
For men, earth the Lord almighty.
My translation:
Now we must praise the marvelous work of the wise and powerful Lord,
Keeper of Heaven.
In the beginning the Glorious Father created a home for his sons,
With Heaven above as a roof and
Earth below as a foundation upon which mankind may dwell
Under the Lord’s protection.
There you have it, my first week of school. Now I must be off to do homework for this week, but be on the lookout for the DOD discussion, coming soon.
