Point Lobos: Nature's Healing Power

Nothing refreshes the mind and cleanses the soul more than wilderness, be it the wilderness of the woods or of the shore. Point Lobos, a California State Nature Reserve about eighty miles south of San Jose and covering approximately 9 square miles, is one of those rare places where visitors find a merging of the woods and the shore, timeless trails lined by ancient pines and colonies of seals and cormorants on rocks shaped by wind and surf over millennia.

It is difficult for any photographer to comprehensively capture the haunting beauty of Point Lobos across the seasons, although Edward Weston, one of the earliest (1886-1958) and among the elect, tried. His lyrical black-and-white prints of unusual rock formations at the reserve have inspired scores of nature lovers to flock to the California coastline over the years.

With a summer of record-breaking temperatures in drought-stricken California winding down, I recently found myself approaching the Pacific from a pinecone-strewn trail at the Reserve.

The tide was coming in, watched over by a preternaturally calm gull poised on a rock. Colorful pebbles, green, brown, white and red, glistened in the sun, as did pink and white corals shaped like miniature trees.

Most striking were the tide pools reflecting bits of the sky and filled with the flower-like sentient anemones that closed and opened every time some seawater food got inside it while surging waves crashed on the rocks around them, sending white spray skyward.

Hermit crabs seemed to appear from nowhere, some falling awkwardly trying to scale the slippery slopes of the rocks. Others met headlong only to sidle away in opposite directions. Snails were out in force as well, crawling from nooks and crannies to approach the tide pools. Limpets, barnacles, and starfish used their suction-like holdfast to add to the diversity of the shore. With each wave, the starfish seemed to change its location.

The predator-prey relationship that had evolved over millennia was in full exhibit everywhere you looked. The tiny creatures looked fragile but there was an element of resiliency and fierce fight for survival in them that was palpable.

A tangled forest of kelp and rockweed farther out sank and surfaced as the tidal surge washed over them. A flock of gulls wheeled over them. Next to the kelp was an oystercatcher, a real work of art. Its deep-black body, bright red bill and yellow feet made it look both pre-historic and ultra-modern. It was feeding on the ocean flotsam that had washed up the shore and emitted a piercing cry that stopped me cold in my track when I tried to approach it. I did the only brave thing I could do: I quietly withdrew.

In a rock island farther out in the sea, saw hundreds of birds preening and, well, socializing. And farther beyond were seals talking up a storm in their rocky habitat, a combination of grunts and exclamations, punctuated by what seemed uncannily like the sound of laughter.

As I stood back to take the whole elemental scene in, I smelled it, the pine-scented breeze wafting in from the ancient grove nearby, and I thought: The music of the forest is lapping at the shore of eternity!

The sun moved across the sky with an urgency rarely witnessed on a normal day. And when it set in a blaze of yellow and crimson, with a flock of pelicans flying in formation across its golden orb, I knew I had gotten what I had hoped for: the gift of a fresh perspective and the appreciating the blessings of being alive.

Movie Review: "Mr. Holmes: The Man Beyond the Myth"

Creative reimagining of the canon is an art unto itself.

Such is the case with the movie, “Mr. Holmes: The Man Beyond the Myth.” Based on the book, “A Slight Trick of the Mind” by Mitch Cullin (1985), it explores the life of Sherlock Holmes in retirement as he raises bees in a farm upon the South Downs in Sussex in the south coast of England.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), creator of the wildly popular detective, wrote fifty-six short stories and four novels (A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Valley of Fear) centered on his super sleuth.

But when Doyle ‘exiled’ Holmes to his apiary (The Blanched Soldier, The Lion's Mane and His Last Bow), it only kindled the imagination of writers convinced that age could not possibly dim this prodigious mind.

The stories in the canon suggest that Holmes would have been about 50 years old when he retired in late 1903. The movie opens with Holmes (played by Ian McKellen in an  Oscar-worthy performance) pushing 93 in 1947 in post-WWII England. His mind is as agile as ever but his memory is failing him. That explains his recent visit to Japan where he went in search of the elusive “prickly ash,” a plant with alleged ingredients to spruce up the memory, the ginkgo biloba of its time. He and his Japanese guide (Hiroyuki Sanada, who has a mystery of his own that he wants Holmes to solve) discover the plant in the bomb-blasted ruins of Hiroshima. Holmes’s physician derisively calls the plant “Ashly prick” but is unable to convince Holmes of its uselessness.

Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney, also brilliant) is Holmes’s long-suffering housekeeper, burdened by her gifted son Roger (Milo Parker, gifted actor indeed!) who helps Holmes with the upkeep of the bees and shows all the signs of a budding Sherlock Holmes in his own right. The pair’s verbal back-and-forth can carry the movie for those for whom a riposte goes farther than an edge-of-the–seat car chase.

Roger and Holmes run circles around Mrs. Munro with their observations, their air-tight logical inferences. “She doesn’t even know how to read,” says Roger in an outburst of cruelty that earns him a rebuke from Holmes. The practical Mrs. Munro wants to move out for the sake of her son’s future, a possibility that distresses both Holmes and Roger. “Exceptional children are the product of unremarkable parents,” Holmes arrogantly tells his housekeeper, indifferent to the cruelty of the remark. But he redeems himself by also telling Roger that “a good son always does what a mother asks him to.” Holmes also makes clear his distaste for people who “cloak cowardice in flags of sacrifice” and who does not wish, particularly at this stage in his life, to be a “last resort for lunatics out there.”

The story revolves around an unfinished case that Holmes investigated thirty years ago, of a devoted wife (Ann Kelmot, played by Hattie Morahan) whose miscarriages left her, and her husband Thomas Kelmot (Patrick Kennedy), in misery and suspicion. When finally Holmes takes the mystery to its logical conclusion, it leads not to a sense of satisfaction but to a despair unknown to the First Detective who commanded mass adulation in his prime. “Human nature is a mystery,” says a rueful and chastened Holmes, “that logic alone cannot illuminate.”

What of the man beyond the myth? Earlier in the movie, Holmes informs an incredulous Roger that Dr. Watson, his quintessential sidekick (who had “at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association” as Holmes recalls in The Blanched Soldier), was not beyond taking poetic license in transcribing his adventures, including associating the iconic detective with the hat, the pipe and the cigar. He wishes to correct the embellishments of Watson who “turned me into fiction.” When Holmes struggles to recall the case of Ann Kelmot, it is Roger who supplies the crucial link that allows him to reconstruct the tragedy that unfolded so many years ago. As to why the case haunts him, Holmes tells his young protégé that “one shouldn’t leave this world without a sense of completion.”

Holmes’s enigmatic brother, Mycroft Holmes (The Greek Interpreter, in which Holmes confided to Watson that “If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an arm-chair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived”) makes an appearance to help viewers tidy up the case of Holmes’s Japanese guide. There are also allusions to Jack the Ripper and, of course, to the fearsome and ferocious Hounds of the Baskervilles.

There is a subtle, and it turns out, telling difference between the sting of a bee and that of a wasp. When Holmes comes upon the seemingly lifeless body of Roger on his estate with angry stings all over his body, his first instinct is to summon an ambulance before informing the boy’s mother. In anguish, the mother accuses Holmes of exploiting the boy and not really caring for him. “But I do,” laments Holmes as he breaks down before the mother in a heart-breaking scene of pain and guilt, remorse and repentance.

At the confluence of art and science lies the power of observation. This is what saves a distraught Holmes, already reeling from an “outbreak of mortality,” as he suddenly realizes what really happened to Roger now fighting for his life in the hospital.

“What will happen to the bees when you are gone,” Roger had asked Holmes earlier. That question helps Holmes figure out the chain of events that ensued when Roger went to check in on the bees dying mysteriously in their hives.

Curious? Then consider seeing this poignant, cerebral movie.

The STEM Engine

In 1964, the legendary physicist Richard Feynman, then forty-six years old, delivered a 7-part series of Messenger Lectures at Cornell University on “The Character of Physical Law.” (Bill Gates has made videos of the lectures available to the world in 2009.)

Feynman began his lecture with these words: “It is odd, but on the infrequent occasion when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics. I believe that is probably because we respect the arts more than the sciences.”

“Respect the arts more than the sciences!” The suggestion was perhaps hyperbole on Feynman’s part to set the stage for his inimitable presentation on the basic laws of physics and their role in defining how nature works. But even if it was true in the ‘60s that the arts received more respect than the sciences, the table has certainly turned in the decades since. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) appear to have left the arts in the dust.

Is this development for the better?

Surely from an employment perspective, anyone savvy with programming or big data analysis stands a better chance of earning a livelihood than someone versed in the nuances
of Shakespeare’s sonnets. After all, there are just so many positions available in English departments but those with proven ability to code or analyze data or conduct research on the mathematics of singularity or the strange properties of dark matter will be courted by numerous employers.

STEM has been expanded to STEAM, (STEM + Art = STEAM) and elicited support from industry and academia but there is a general feeling that the ‘A’ in STEAM is an afterthought, a way to pacify those concerned about the decline of humanities from our curricula.

But as Fareed Zakaria, a Washington Post columnist and author of ‘In Defense of a Liberal Education,’ pointed out in a recent column, a broad general education is a requirement for innovation and creativity. “Exposure to a variety of fields produces synergy and cross fertilization. Yes, science and technology are crucial components of this education, but so are English and philosophy …”

What do community college students think of the ascendency of STEM at the expense of the Arts?

Luis believes wholeheartedly in the importance of STEM in revitalizing education in the United States. He worked on a STEM project in a summer camp last year and was amazed by the enthusiasm of boys and girls, particularly girls, from low-income families, in mastering STEM subjects. “In my experience, most girls don’t like to go for professions involving science and technology and math but these girls in my camp couldn’t wait for the next day’s activity to begin after a hard days of work. STEM is a way to lift students out of poverty and turn them into lifelong learners.”

Vanessa, on the other hand, believes that the emphasis on STEM is misguided. She finds the reach of technology disturbing. “Technology companies target even young children. I personally prefer for someone to be more artistic. Music and art of any kind help develop our brains. They allow us to actually think for ourselves. While STEM is important, art is equally important. I believe if we push more of the arts like painting and playing instruments, it will expand our minds and also improve our performance in reading, science and math.”

Cindy also believes that STEM education is limiting in many ways. “While it is good to be great test takers and have plenty of information sitting in our brain, STEM subjects by themselves don’t expand our horizon as much.  By cutting classes like English, Art History, and any type of Humanities, you are taking away any chance to promote critical thinking. I think all subjects are equally important to learn.  I have seen how dramatically Humanity classes have been cut from colleges. It's sad to see how everyone looks like robots taking the same courses!”

Garcia finds many benefits in STEM subjects but “there is also a downside to it as well.  When I was in grade school, there was a push for math and science. I was terrible at it but with tutoring I was able to get through most of the classes. Students today are influenced by technology and the media. The focus on STEM doesn’t include what students learn working in a group or with other peers with different social skills. It removes the social interaction many children need. I do not believe STEM by itself will work because it does not address the issue of diversity in the learning styles of students.”

Madisyn believes in the importance of STEM subjects but feels that it has to be complemented by an equal emphasis on the arts and the humanities. It will be a mistake to set up the ‘two cultures’ as rivals. “Knowledge is synergistic. Who wants to hire a scientist who can’t write? Who wants to employ an engineer who isn’t a creative problem-solver? Doesn’t technological innovation require critical reasoning, ethical awareness and sensitivity to the diverse populations in which such advancements are actually put to use? The brain has two hemispheres. It will be serious mistake to nourish only one half. In this day and age, promoting classes focused on technology and mathematics is much more of a surefire way to attain a career but I will argue that a CEO of a tech company must have a grasp on not just mathematics, but also of psychology and communication. Over-reliance on STEM education will be like putting all our ‘knowledge eggs’ in one basket. It may lead to short-term gain but will be disastrous in the long run.”

Jessica thinks that STEM or no STEM is a false dichotomy. She feels strongly in a balance between STEM and the Humanities. “If we cut funds from Humanities courses, thinking it will improve our math and science teaching, it will only handicap us and make us regress. The probability of kids becoming more interested in the STEM subjects is not guaranteed. If there is anything Americans know about their youth today, it is that if they are forced to do something they are not interested in, they will rebel. Unfortunately, our youth have become lazy. They are more interested in celebrities and social media than in subjects that expand their minds. If you’re not studying subjects you are passionate about but join a job for the money where you won’t travel the world, experience new cultures and be stuck in a boring office working 9 to 5, you will be miserable. STEM should be encouraged. We should become more math savvy. We should be bilingual. And we should not ignore the Humanities.”

Erica understands that education system in America focuses on creativity but finds the obsession with STEM subjects alarming. She wants STEMS balanced with liberal arts and philosophy. “I attended a performing arts school all through elementary and high school. We had art, drama, ceramics, dance and many other art divisions. I was in the GATE program in elementary which stands for Gifted and Talented Education. I was good at math, science and history but I entered the program due to my metaphorical and critical thinking skills. I was really good at writing. I started losing interest in math because of my grumpy, uninspiring math instructor who would force us to go to the board and make fun of us when we didn't answer questions correctly. Our education system needs to focus on ways to help expand our creativity in mathematics. Perhaps taking ideas from other countries could help establish the right formula for our education system. Now that I am in college, I've grown to know myself and don't let anyone intimidate me. I've learned to value math and how much we deal with it on a consistent basis, something I never knew before but am grateful I do now.”

Jocelyn recognizes the importance of STEM but finds the overreliance on technology troubling. “STEM is important, but in order to improve our society, we need to be also focused on social skills and creativity. Ever since Facebook and Apple have become insanely popular, people are obsessed with social media and gadgets. What people should be interested in is how they can improve society as a whole. I love science and I am pursuing it as a career; however, I also believe a society needs to thrive in different categories to be successful. For example, while mathematicians and scientists expand our knowledge, it is often the artists who change our society. We should emphasize both STEM and the Humanities.”

Redemption in Sports: USA vs. Japan in Women's World Cup Soccer 2015

History redeems more than it repeats.

So it will be with the United States Women’s Soccer team against Japan’s on Sunday, July 5, as they play for the FIFA World Cup in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Although it comes a day after America’s Independence Day, for fans it will be the fitting finale for the fireworks of the night before.

Why?

Because Team USA will beat Japan, that’s why.

You can call it destiny, Karma, or whatever word suggests a combination of redemption and inevitability.

The story began four years ago in Frankfurt, Germany when Japan stunned the U.S. on a penalty shoot-out following a 2-2 draw in regulation time before 48,000 fans and won the World Cup, the first Asian team to do so.

The U.S. led Japan throughout regulation play but the tenacious Japanese drew even every time. Although the U.S. got its revenge against Japan in the London Olympics a year later, the defeat in Germany never left its dark hold on the psyche of the players. It was the proverbial one that got away and its only redemption lay in defeating the plucky Japanese in another World Cup.

And so here we are four years later. Thirteen members of current Team USA were part of the team that lost in penalty kicks in 2011. And get this: all four women who took the penalty kicks for Team USA in Germany will be playing against Japan in Vancouver this Sunday.

Revenge is not a noble word because it is universally agreed that its antonym – forgiveness – is. And yet in sports, revenge can be a good thing, a substitute for redemption.

Anyone who watched the semifinal match between Japan and England in Edmonton on  July 1 will probably agree that England was the better team. They controlled the play for most of the time and created the better opportunities. And yet when England’s Laura Bassett scored a soul-crushing own goal in stoppage time to give Japan the victory, you had to read between the feints and the passes to recognize what was going on: Japan and the U.S. were destined to meet in the final, the confluence of forces beyond analysis and data-crunching. Undoubtedly England will get its chance at redemption in years to come but now the spotlight is focused on Team USA to erase history and write a new chapter.

It is true that the Women’s World Cup soccer pales next to Men’s in its global impact. On a scale of 1 to 10, the Women may merit 1 or 2 while Men register a whopping 10+. There is no comparison in the passions that the Men’s Cup unleashes. Consider what happened to Andres Escobar of Colombia who scored an own-goal playing against the United States in the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Colombia lost 2-1 to the U.S. and was eliminated. Five days later, in the town of Medellin, Colombia, Escobar was murdered in cold blood by some disgruntled fans. 

For Ms. Bassett, on the other hand, there has been nothing but sympathy even from the notoriously unforgiving English media.

The final between the U.S. and Japan is likely to rouse passion to at least level 6 in soccer’s impact scale. Asia, or at least South Asia, will be riveted because Japan is playing. North Americans will be glued to the screen, well, at least the soccer aficionados will. South Americans will probably be watching as well, since on Saturday, July 4, they will have watched Messi and Argentina take on Chile in Santiago for the Copa America final, a game steeped in soccer history and rivalry. That leaves Europe, Australia and Africa (penguins in the Arctic and Antarctic get a pass) but with soccer a global game, and teams from these continents having played in the tournament in Canada, the audience there is also expected to be sizeable. Besides, all the talk about revenge and redemption have aroused the curiosity of even lukewarm fans.

So, here is the prediction: Team USA will beat Japan.

By what score, you ask?

3-1.

One other thing: Hope Solo, Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Abby Wambach, Kelley O’Hara and company must peak on July 5 (they haven’t yet, although against Germany they showed the flashes of brilliance they are capable of) to reach the summit. Redemption requires a river of sweat and tears and, unfortunately, even some blood.

NBA Finals 2015, Statistics and Luck

The NBA Finals this year has proved more riveting than other years because of the ‘cruel’ and colorful history of the protagonists. Golden State Warriors, led by Rick Barry, last won the championship 40 years ago, in 1975. Cleveland Cavaliers … well, the Cavs have never won the NBA title. The last time Cleveland won a major championship was when the Browns, led by running back Jim Brown, who carried the ball 27 times and gained 114 yards, won the NFL title in 1964. That was 51 years ago!

And now the whole country (and many other countries where basketball is the real ‘beautiful’ game) is abuzz with the match-up between two of NBA’s biggest stars: Warriors’ Stephen Curry and Cavaliers’ LeBron James.

Curry burst on the NBA scene in the 2014-15 season, an intriguing and captivating MVP whose meteoric rise has fueled the passions of Bay Area fans, even more than the unpredictable but lovable characters of the San Francisco Giants who won the World Series three times in the last five years.

Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors

And LeBron James? Only that the he is the best basketball player in the world, considered by many to be the best ever, even better than Michael Jordan. When he left Cleveland for Miami Heat in 2010, he was labeled a Judas who had sold his soul for lucre. What time has wrought! All has been forgiven. Cleveland has again embraced James as its redeemer, one who will lead the long-suffering city to the Promised Land of sports.

Of the first two games played in Oakland, California, neither team played to its full potential, although LeBron showed with his statistics why he is the best. In the first game, the Warriors trailed for most of the game and only pulled out a win in overtime when the Cavs suddenly went cold. Simply put, the Warriors got lucky.

It is almost a given that a team can get lucky several times in a 7-game series but rarely consecutively. That’s what happened when James and company pulled out a win in the second game that could easily have gone to the Warriors as well. The two games have been sliced and diced in every conceivable data-driven way but after all the data have been analyzed, it is still luck- mysterious, unquantifiable luck - that held sway.

For the Cavs, the goal was simple: snatch at least one game from the lion’s den. That’s what the team did. For the Warriors, losing home court advantage would open up Pandora’s Box. That’s what unfortunately happened.

So what now?

From the perspective of statistics: If the claim is that the Cavaliers will win, and the significance level is set at the usual 5 percent (0.05), then there is a 5 percent probability that a Type I error is made, and the Warriors will triumph.

But as any statistician will affirm, improbable events happen. And they happen with more regularity than we think. There may be 1 in a million chance that someone will win the lottery, but it is still 1 in a million, especially for the person who ends up winning the lottery!

If the Warriors can win either the third (6/9/15) or the fourth game (6/11/15) in Cleveland, the team will win the NBA title in 7 games and send Bay Area fans to frenzy, removing the lingering heartbreak inflicted annually by the hapless San Jose Sharks on the loyalists. It will perhaps also mitigate the pain of the physical drought California is suffering through now, even if for a week or so!

But how probable is that? All statistics point to the distressing truth for Bay Area fans: The probability is low. To win in King James’s court will be a monumental challenge for Curry and his crew, even though statistics show that Curry is at his best on the road.

If the Cavs take the next two games, King James will likely deliver the title to Cleveland in six games, ending a drought for the city that has lasted over half a century.

But what about the improbable happening? Consider this fact dug up by Mark Purdy, sports columnist for the San Jose Mercury News (6/9/15 edition): It turns out that Stephen Curry was born in the same maternity ward of Summa Akron City Hospital in Akron, Ohio, in March 1988, where James LeBron was born 4 years earlier, in December 1984.

Is that a fluke, a random quirk, a pure happenstance? Maybe, maybe not. The point is, there are improbables, and imponderables, that cannot be quantified completely, that lie outside the reach of super-rigorous data analysis and blazingly efficient algorithms.

Warriors or Cavaliers? The New Kid on the Block or the King?

The heart says Warriors. The head says Cavaliers.

As much as it breaks the heart of a Bay Area fan, here is the prediction: Cavs in 6, with a margin of error of plus/minus 5 percent.

Big Money Undermines Higher Education

Education and business isn’t quite the pair as, say, horse and carriage or love and marriage, but the association seems to be getting stronger every semester.

Consider the business perspective and the logic of its exponents.

Education, a $1 trillion business according to the Education Industry Association, is the only 'enterprise' that hasn’t changed in a fundamental way in the last hundred years. A teacher walks into a classroom, the undisputed source of knowledge and wisdom, and lectures to a captive audience. The hope is that some of that knowledge and wisdom may hold and help students attain the goals they aspire to.

But it’s a hit-or-miss game because there is no accountability and no rigorous method for measuring whether or not the students have learned anything.

So why not apply business principles to enforce accountability and measure scientifically the ‘product’ (education) being delivered to the ‘clients’, that is, the students? If there are ‘dead woods,’ incompetent teachers, in the system, replace them with competent ones. After all, there is a huge pool of available teachers, particularly technologically-savvy young and idealistic shapers of minds, adept at delivering lessons in the native media of digital-age learners.

Successful corporations are ruthless pruners. They incessantly demand accountability from their employees who must earn their wings every day by contributing to the ‘bottom line’ in some tangible and measureable ways. Fail and you are out. Succeed and your incremental raise is more or less guaranteed when evaluation time comes around.

Can anyone argue with this line of thinking? Why not bring the pressure of the market to bear on a moribund educational system and infuse it with vigor and excellence? Why not put in place a rigorous system of checks and balances to extract value from the billions of dollars the government spends annually on public education, instead of letting it disappear down the black hole of unaccountability?

The logic is flawless.

And there’s the rub: Flawless is theoretical and rarely practical.

The major business practices applied to education so far has had no significant impact on the state of education in general and on the performance of students in particular. In many cases, it has made things worse.

Here’s a partial list of such practices, and their impact, or lack thereof.

1. Hire name-brand CEOs, preferably charismatic fundraisers, to transform educational institutions into profit centers. Stellar student performances are bound to flow.

The diagnosis is in and it is grim. Escalating salaries of University presidents, extensively documented and available online, is turning institutions of higher learning into corporations with even less accountability than before. Only to the willfully blind is it not clear that Wall Street principles and educational principles are incompatible. Education comes from the word ‘educere,’ which means to draw out or unfold the powers of the mind. Well-connected presidents can raise endowments that reach the stratosphere, giving bragging rights to ivory towers and their lesser brethren but it does nothing to unfold the power of the mind, the raison d’etre for institutions of higher learning.

One side-effect of turning colleges and universities into mini or full-fledged corporation-like entities is the hiring of administrators at the expense of teachers. A significant portion of the state and federal funding for schools go to pay for these administrators whose impact on student performances is negligible.

Another is the insidious effect of ideologues and political operators on higher education. As big money pours in from influential donors who have no interest in the power of the mind (in fact, they would like it to remain dormant as it suits their agenda) but everything to do with influencing administrators, faculty and students to promote corporate interests and vote for their hand-picked candidates. No doubt about it: The financial elite is subverting the purpose of higher education for their personal interests.

Between 2005 and 2013, for instance, the billionaire Koch brothers have invested at least $68 million on college and university campuses, paying for faculty, research and publications. You can check if your school is receiving Koch funding here.

When the focus is on profit rather than on truth, ‘higher education’ degenerates into dogma and despotism flourishes at the expense of democracy.

2. Tenure is a prescription for failure, since it is virtually impossible to fire incompetent but tenured teachers. Hire full-time teachers only when compelled to. Appoint as many part-time and adjunct faculties as possible. Let them do the bulk of teaching. Since part-timers have hardly any overhead (including such mundane stuff as health coverage), in glaring contrast to full-timers, the savings can add up and profit soars.

But what are the facts on the ground?  Students are more frustrated than ever before. They are not getting the education they deserve since part-time faculty cannot give them ‘office hours’ (difficult, since they have no offices) as they travel from campus to campus (‘freeway fliers’) to teach, hoping to somehow cobble together enough cash to pay for basic necessities. Demanding part-timers to become primary education-givers makes all the sense in the world from a corporate perspective but it does nothing to promote the well-being of either part-timers or students.

3. Include as many Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as possible in the curricula. That eliminates the need for maintaining in-house resources and faculty for critical courses, leading, again, to ‘massive’ savings.

Well, MOOCs were supposed to liberate students from the limitations of their own institutions, allowing unfettered access to instructions from the best and the brightest stars in the firmament of higher education. The business model is compelling: For the price of a fast Internet connection, institutions can offer students top-quality education while eliminating the need for teachers in some of the core and critical subjects. The savings could then be applied to help students attain their goals.

It turns out that the savings, if any, have not resulted in improving the lots of students, such as offering more required classes during more flexible hours. MOOCs are not what they have been touted to be. At their best, they can act as supplemental instruction to traditional classroom teaching but it is clear by now that ‘MOOCotopia’ is not going to lead to ‘edutopia.’

4. Technology can save education by cutting costs and empowering students to take responsibility for their own education. Technologists and ‘educational entrepreneurs’ would like to eliminate the middleman, that is, the teachers, and let students learn what they want to, when they want to and how they want to, by using the magic of technology, each new iteration promising faster and better education. To paraphrase Thoreau, ‘In technology is the preservation, that is, the fulfillment, of students.’

We have been down this road before. Technology has made access to information easier and data crunching faster but in terms of enhancing critical thinking and improving performance, the needle hasn’t budged a bit. No technology can replace thinking, doing and making connections between insights and ideas.

5. Invest heavily in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) courses because that’s where the demand is and that’s what can guarantee the employability of students. If STEM can guarantee the maximum Return on Investment (ROI), why not put all the efforts there? The implication, of course, is that such subjects as English, philosophy, history, and in general  what we may call ‘The Arts’, may bring students personal satisfaction but no living wage in the fiercely competitive global market. Interdisciplinary studies? What benefit can they possibly have when specialization is the key to survival?

Much has already been written about the fundamental purpose of education and the
short-sightedness of putting all educational eggs in the STEM basket. The Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria, author of In Defense of a Liberal Education, has pointed out why America’s obsession with STEM is bad for the nation’s future: ‘A broad general education helps foster critical thinking and creativity. Exposure to a variety of fields produces synergy and cross fertilization. Yes, science and technology are crucial components of this education, but so are English and philosophy.’ 

The New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, author of Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania, quoted his English teacher about the purpose of higher education: ‘It is for developing the muscle of thoughtfulness, the use of which will be the greatest pleasure in life and will also show what it means to be fully human.’

STEM courses can develop such muscles but so can anthropology and art history and English. And it is interdisciplinary studies that have led to some of our most remarkable and serendipitous discoveries since antiquity.

The intertwining of education and Big Money creates a highway that leads to nowhere. Colleges and universities must rethink the purpose of higher education and ward off any attempt by agenda-driven, wealthy ideologues to subvert this purpose.

Tom Hanks and Community Colleges, Part 2

Actor Tom Hanks wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times titled, “I Owe It All to Community Colleges.” It caused a stir among community college students. They compared their experiences to that of the actor’s and reflected on areas where their colleges fell short and ways to overcome those deficiencies. This is the final part 2 of the article. You can read part 1 here.

Much like Tom Hanks, Tyrone couldn't afford to pay tuition at a 4-year university. “In high school I missed out on an opportunity to earn a full scholarship to continue playing sports and further my education. Community college was the best option for me for a variety of reasons. I was accepted into CSULA and CSUNY, but wasn't ready to stop playing basketball, a game I loved. I carefully weighed all of my options and decided to attend San Jose City College (SJCC). Along with a good education, SJCC also offered an excellent basketball program, funneling athletes to big-time programs for sports. I was determined to accomplish my goals, although frustration set in during the freshman year. I didn't think I was going to accomplish my goals. But I stayed humble and refused to let doubt set in. I finished my freshman year with a high GPA. I will be receiving my AA-T in communications, graduating, and transferring to a 4-year university as a student-athlete. My experience at SJCC has been amazing! I haven't had a single teacher who didn’t want the best for me and for my fellow classmates. All my teachers not only taught me subjects but also how to live a meaningful life.”

Lisette believes that by attending a community college, she has fared better than her school mates who moved to 4-year institutions right after high school. “They constantly complain of noise and round-the-clock parties in their dorms. On average, freshman change their majors four times, wasting time and money. I have faced no such distractions at my community college. There is no time to waste. I am taking classes that will help me transfer to a 4-year institution. As Tom Hanks said, taking general ed classes give students an idea of courses they may like or dislike. After my first semester at SJCC, I realized I enjoy business and a bit of law. Taking these classes has given me insight into my purpose in life.” One area in which SJCC is lacking is in counseling. “To begin with, it is almost impossible to make an appointment with a counselor at a time that is convenient for the student, let alone a specific counselor the student desires to see. And when an appointment is scheduled, they are doled out in 30-minute slots. Every time I see a counselor, the appointment is rushed. At times it feels as though the counselors do not take the student seriously. I would like all the counselors to be evaluated on their performances, based on student feedback.  Those who score highly should continue; the rest should be terminated.”

This Fall 2015 semester is the last at SJCC for Naomi. “I am sad to be leaving, but also excited to be moving on to a state university. I loved attending City College, the same college my sister attended!” She is grateful that her parents encouraged her to attend SJCC. She started at SJCC as a junior in high school in the Fall of 2012. She took an American Sign Language class for two consecutive semesters. The following year, her senior year, she was able to attend SJCC full time because she had taken the California High School Proficiency Exam. That meant she was able to complete her senior year of high school and her freshman year of college at the same time. “This allowed me to jump a year ahead of most people my age, which thrilled me. This could not have happened had I not gone to a community college. Community college is also where I met my boyfriend in a history class! Additionally, I have had the opportunity to take some really interesting classes as well as some fun PE classes. I met some awesome people, and connected with some really great teachers. Tom Hanks says of the community college that he attended: ‘That place made me what I am today.’ I completely agree. I have learned valuable lessons and life skills from my psychology classes. I am also sure I will see more benefits, although it may be later in my life.”

Regarding improving SJCC, Naomi thinks that adding more sections of interesting and elective classes, as well as a wider selection of classes, would be a start. “That will give students a more well-rounded education, beyond just the required GE classes. When I register for classes each semester, I see a lot of classes that look very interesting, but often there is only one or two sections of that class and they are at a time that does not work into my schedule. This is true for many students. If there were more sections of these classes, and if they were promoted better, classes would fill up and more students could get a broader education. This can become a reality if full-time teachers at SJCC consider teaching some new classes. If there is a wider selection of classes, then there is more opportunity for students to try new subjects, have more job opportunities, and make SJCC a more appealing school.”

Feminism and Far From the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature for almost twenty years in a row in the early 1900s but like Tolstoy, he never won it. Yet his novels continue to be read and made into movies, while those honored by the Swedish Academy during that period remain mostly unknown. (Rabindranath Tagore, the 1913 laureate, is an exception.) Can anyone name a book by the Spanish writer Jacinto Bonavente, winner in 1922 when Hardy was also a nominee?

Exactly.

The movie version of Far From the Madding Crowd playing in theaters now offers a hint to Hardy’s relevance. Written in 1874, the novel is about an audacious, free-thinking young woman named Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan), an anomaly in her time who tells her shepherd suitor Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), “I don’t want to be another man’s property.” This is her response to Gabriel after he tries to win her over with, “I have 100 acres and 200 sheep.”

Land and sheep were the quintessential symbols of affluence in 19^th-century England but they made no impression on a feminist determined to chart her own course.

How inspired would people around the world be if an Afghan woman could use the same words to a proposal by a wealthy landlord in 21^st-century Afghanistan!

This is the second time Far From the Madding Crowd is getting the cinematic treatment. The first was in 1967, directed by John Schlesinger and featuring Julie Christie, Terrence Stamp and Alan Bates. Christie’s Bathsheba was more fiery and temperamental although the movie was slower-paced, but Mulligan’s is closer to the book, no less fiery but tempered by a touch of the vulnerable and the tragic.

When penniless Bathsheba inherits a farm from her deceased uncle, she becomes wealthy and free from the daily grinds of earning a living. Gabriel, on the other hand, loses his sheep after a catastrophe hits his farm and ends up as the manager of Bathsheba’s estate. He still nurtures his love for her but Bathsheba is indifferent. “I am too independent for you,” she informs him. All commerce and purpose, she is determined to take her inherited fortune to the next level, and declares to her farm hands, “It is my intention to astonish you all.”

Dependable Gabriel throws himself into his work, grazing sheep, growing grain and keeping the farm not merely solvent but profitable. (Schoenaerts’s brooding Gabriel reminds one of Alain Delon and Steve McQueen but it will require years of honing before he reaches their level.)
 

Bathsheba is in control of her destiny, or so she thinks. As she gallops across the plains of Wessex on her horse, she evokes the image of her kindred spirit, Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, separated by a mere half century. From Wessex in England to Tara in Georgia is but a single leap of imagination.

A Valentine’s Day prank Bathsheba plays on her wealthy neighbor reduces the proud William Boldwood (Michael Sheen) into a whining lover. “I can offer you shelter and comfort,” he tells her but Bathsheba is both candid and ruthless in her response: “I have no need for a husband.” “You have to admire my persistence,” Boldwood insists. “If you will marry me out of guilt and pity … I don’t mind!”

Lovelorn Boldwood is losing his senses. “I seem to cry a lot these days, someone who has never cried before!” he laments.

Something unexpected has to happen.

Enter Francis Troy (Tom Sturridge), a vain and shallow Sergeant whose scarlet uniform is as revealing of his superficiality as his lust for gambling and pleasure. (It is easy to dislike Sturridge the moment he shows up in the story. Whether it is due to good acting or bad is difficult to tell.)

Bathsheba melts as he tells her she is the most beautiful woman he ever saw, raising that ancient question: Why do bright and beautiful women fall for rogues and lowlifes? Hardy is suggesting perhaps that virtue is inevitably drawn to vice, as moth to flame.

Gabriel warns Bathsheba. Troy is not worthy of you. He will ruin you. It will be a terrible mistake if you marry him.

But that tryst with the sergeant in the fern-filled woods and his passionate kiss has turned Bathsheba irrational.

Disillusionment comes soon after the hasty marriage. Troy gambles most of Bathsheba’s money away. He has become used to her charms and is bored. One day he finds his former love begging at a village fair. He was set to marry her but the wedding came asunder when Fanny Robin ended up at the wrong church on the day of the wedding. (Make a mistake in finding your church and your life falls apart? Surely a weakness in the plot.)
 

Troy deserts Bathsheba.

Gabriel nurses his sorrow in silence even as he occasionally smolders but Boldwood is devastated by Bathsheba’s impetuous, reckless decisions.

The moment of truth arrives for Bathsheba when Gabriel saves the farm almost single-handedly before a storm can destroy it. As the scales fall from her eyes, she begins
to understand the value of loyalty and the meaning of love.

When Troy suddenly reappears in Bathsheba’s life, Boldwood takes the law into his hand and does what he must to save the woman for whose love he is willing to sacrifice everything.

Bathsheba is a changed woman by now, battered by a love rectangle created by forces beyond her control. She has seen too much and suffered too much, yet she knows this:
She will not let the man whose love for her never wavered leave for distant shores. She is determined to redeem herself.

And so she does.

Director Thomas Vinterberg has done a fine enough job with his cast but his best claim to fame may lie in the guts he has shown in bringing a 19^th-century classic yet again to the screen, knowing full-well it will never be a blockbuster. It is worth retelling a great story, the Director seems to be telling the Hollywood hit-hunters, even if the box office returns merely cover the expenses. For this principled stand, he deserves our thanks.

A Man With No Plan - Manny Pacquiao!

The oft-repeated saying in boxing is that a boxer has a plan … until he gets hit. That’s why it was so disappointing to see Manny Pacquiao abandon any semblance of a plan that could secure him a win against the wily Floyd Mayweather, even though he was not hit.

Where was the dynamo who was supposed to swarm Mayweather with punches too rapid for the eye to see? Manny is no Ali but the huge disparity in the sheer number of punches thrown and connected by Mayweather made this an embarrassing no-contest, no matter what the pundits may say.

Pacquiao is known to throw hundred punches per round. That boxer was nowhere in evidence in tonight’s PPV extravaganza that is expected to generate about a billion dollars in revenue, after every cent is counted.

I saw the fight with a group of Filipino friends (no mystery who I was rooting for!) and a pall of gloom descended after the fourth round – Manny’s best round – when it began to dawn on us that Pacquiao was being outclassed by the unpopular Mayweather, who slipped punches with an ease that was painful for Manny’s fans, both at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and outside.

“I thought I won the fight,” said Manny after the fight. “He’s moving around. It’s not easy to throw punches when he’s moving around so much.”

Really? You didn’t know that, Manny, even though all the boxing fans around the world knew? What about Freddie Roach, your coach?

That’s another thing.

At the corner, Floyd Mayweather, Sr., Mayweather’s coach, was infuriated with his son for his supposed lack of action. That’s what motivates fighters. What are you doing, the dad scolded the son between rounds, disgust and anger written all over his face. This, when Mayweather was clearly ahead on points!

Freddie Roach, on the other hand, seemed hardly engaged with his charge. There was no emotion, no anguish, no sense of a loss looming to inspire a spirited and furious attack by Manny. If the origin plan fell by the wayside for whatever reason, weren’t you supposed to come up with another, Freddie?

If Pacquiao could convincingly carry the last two rounds, rounds 11 and 12, he would still have a chance but Mayweather handily won both, extinguishing any flickering hope his opponent may have harbored.

The highest-grossing fight in history was billed as a fight between good and evil but in the end it came down to a contest between superior skills against merely good skills. Floyd Mayweather will never win any popularity contest, given his record of domestic violence and reckless personal life, but in the ring he proved to be the more nuanced and effective boxer in every department, and for that he deserves recognition as one of the best ever.