The beginning of summer and the escape from class...

Blue skies are coming...

The semester has finally come to an end, and I can look forward to new adventures: a new house to decorate, new classes to organize and more traveling. I still have to shake off the effects of this past semesters students. For the most part, they were wonderful. I've been incredibly lucky with the quality of the students ability and also their personalities. I've been hearing horror stories from colleagues about students who don't pay attention, who horse around, but show blatant disrespect for us as teachers, and I worry that this will become the norm, rather than the aberration.

Higher education has changed from a rare privilege to something that every child is expected to shoot for, if not achieve. Students not long look at college as a chance to prove themselves, to learn, to gain a better understand of the world around them, but instead to party, to socialize and to have fun. While those things are part of the college experience (they were of mine), they should be secondary to learning, which many (not most) students have ignored. Even worse, many don't care, and in my opinion, indifference is far worse than ignorance.

Thankfully, there are many student who are engaged in their own learning experience and want to improve themselves. I can only hope that their desire rubs off on their peers.

*photo of the sunrise outside our apartment May 2008