Now â??tireless self-promoterâ?? was funny.

Right. Running a conservative line through a gauntlet of disgruntled, middleaged Lefties stuck on the fringes of academia and government.

Way to promote self.

Freud, Nabakov & Kerouac stand aside!

Kerouac? That’s one busted trinity, Jack.

My remark you refer to was actually aimed at mini-J but if you want to see if the shoe fits, then hey be my guest.

Now “tireless self-promoter” was funny. See, you do have a sense of irony if not humour if only you’d realise it, me old FIG JAM merchant.

â??Nabakovâ??, you are beyond parody.

Ahh, so true. You, however, are not.

Those who can’t teach get a Ph.D. in Education so they can implement instruction for instructional implementers.

See that’s more American military-business language than critical academic language… Although it’s even infested critical academic language.

I’d also venture to suggest that anyone who carries on like a monomanical crank online is not really likely to be in the best position to personally discuss the infinitely subtle world of human relationships.

Whereas a self-obsessed wanker and tireless self-promoter like “Nabakov” is the go-to guy when you want to “personally discuss the infinitely subtle world of human relationships”. Freud, Nabakov & Kerouac stand aside!

“Nabakov”, you are beyond parody.

Don’t know if this link will work, but latest isse of The American Scholar has a cute article Love on Campus addressing this.

Unfortunately, brain sex was never something I experienced with any teachers. But that’s ok, that is what writers are for.

You’ll note that nowhere did I pass any judgement on the morality and/or ethics of student/teacher sexual relationships, only rather to propose that the dusty groves of acedeme didn’t strike me as very fertile ground for the kind of dangerous, sexy, life-enhancing and death-challenging praxis and pursuit of eros that I joined with Jinamro and Rob in endorsing.

I’d also venture to suggest that anyone who carries on like a monomanical crank online is not really likely to be in the best position to personally discuss the infinitely subtle world of human relationships.

There just arenâ??t any â??battlersâ?? attempting to breach the ramparts of the education department, its only Marxists, lapses Marxists and a few fundies (annoyed about Darwinian theories, sex education et al) that seem to believe schools are indoctrinating students.

And there is little you can do for people that have such a mechanistic outlook in life, should academic rigour be sacrificed for those that would prefer education mirror their personal purview. In reality there is no outcry, its just noise and sloganeering attempting to disguise for the lack of elbow-grease on the policy front.

“The reality is” that good students are more likely to make good teachers. Just as good followers make good leaders. (France excepted.)

Put a bunch of North East Asian swots, Azkhenazi nerds, Bangalore maths whizzes or can-do Yankees in your class and pretty soon the glittering prizes will start to shower onto the alma maters lap.

No doubt ideological sound and fury in the education industry signifies nothing much more than glorified business as usual.

I was flabberghasted by the Teachers Union’s ideological stances during the eighties, which were well to the Left of Loony Left. I remember asking Dr Knopfelmacher – a real culture warrior of the Holocaust-surviving, Normandy-fighting, revolution-witnessing type – about the strange obsessions of the teaching industry. He brushed my qualms aside with a wave of his hand and a rasp of his inimitable Mettle-European accent: “just a bunch of no-hoper officials putting up a smokescreen for their bludging members!”

Or to quote a more contemporary commenter in the same vein:

Those who can, do.

Those who can’t, teach.

Those who can’t teach get a Ph.D. in Education so they can implement instruction for instructional implementers.

There just aren’t any “battlers” attempting to breach the ramparts of the education department, its only Marxists, lapses Marxists and a few fundies (annoyed about Darwinian theories, sex education et al) that seem to believe schools are indoctrinating students. And there is little you can do for people that have such a mechanistic outlook in life, should academic rigour be sacrificed for those that would prefer education mirror their personal purview. In reality there is no outcry, its just noise and sloganeering attempting to disguise for the lack of elbow-grease on the policy front.

Don’t know what that has to do with racism. I just thought Donnelly and Pearson, considering the low standard of their work, should be the last complaining about the standards of the education minister.