But I decided to push the button on the left, so the Aughts will resume tomorrow.

My favorite fictional teacher is Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan.

In the meantime, here are a few things that you, as a blogger, can do to make our lives as readers a little easier:

• Let us subscribe to comments. We’re a lot more likely to discuss something if we can keep up with the discussion. Reloading a page 20 times a day to see if there’s anything new is a real pain. If you’re using WordPress, consider a plugin like Subscribe to Comments.
• Publish a full RSS feed. I use Google Reader to keep track of over 400 blogs. Publishing a full feed instead of just a few sentences – or even worse, just the title [this means you, Teacher Magazine] – makes it a lot easier to keep up. If I wanted to load a page to read every article, I wouldn’t bother using an RSS aggregator.
• Check your feed’s formatting. Rule #1: Subscribe to your own feed. You’ll see how it appears for other people, too. If your feed mashes together paragraphs into one huge block of text, no matter how long the article, consider checking that formatting. We want to read things smoothly and easily, not sift through text.

And a couple smaller things:

• Don’t use CAPITAL LETTERS for EMPHASIS. Using the right words in a well-constructed argument makes THIS TACTIC irrelevant. Furthermore, it’s an offensive gesture. Do you really think your readers are too dumb to seize on key words and recognize their importance? If you NEED to do this, you’ve failed already. The alternative – and it’s a good one – is to use bold sparingly to catch attention.
• Strikethroughs. This unbearably banal charming addition to the blogosphere irks me. We have no gripe when it’s used properly as a copyediting mark; it’s instructive and honest, two pillars of blogdom. However, most of the time it’s used to denote cheap snark and cheaper sarcasm. There are less obnoxious ways to go about this.

Any others?

Apparently this was on Deadspin, but I read the education sites each day before I hit sports, so I’ll tip the hat to Mr. Russo.

The Bengals wide receiver formerly known as Chad Johnson legally changed his name recently to Chad Ocho Cinco to reflect his jersey number of 85 – and now “Ocho Cinco” will appear on the back of his jersey in place of the old “Johnson.” Cue the outrage!

Rubes like me don’t know much about Spanish. We just know that Teddy Roosevelt whooped the Spanish single-handedly and that a lot of people in California [like Spain, another foreign country] speak their language. I’ll do my best to sum up the gripes detailed by these scholars of the language – consider this testimony fair warning.

Here’s the meat:

“Why is Carlson, and many other Spanish teachers so upset? “Ocho cinco” actually means “eight-five”, while “ochenta cinco” or “ochenta y cinco” would be the correct formations of 85 in Spanish.”

Yes. Yes, I follow. The question I’m having trouble with is…

… so what? Another scholar explains:

“Aaron Carlson, Spanish teacher from Kearney, Nebraska explains: “Chad’s little prank is making it difficult for us to effectively teach numbers. Students think that we are teaching them wrong because this clown can’t use a dictionary.”"

I wouldn’t call a legal name change a “little prank,” but Kearney is entitled to his mouth-frothing.

Take a step back, Mr. Carlson. Is Chad Ocho Cinco’s football jersey the highest hurdle you face as an educator? If so, don’t let the education world know – your school will get about 40,000 applications for its next job opening.

Perhaps Kearney and others could use this as what the proper ed-school graduates and certified teachers – not me – call a “teachable moment.”

Really, how often does grammar in any language come up in pop culture? It’s a fairly interesting bit – taking 3 minutes to describe how “ocho cinco” reflects the “8″ and “5″ on his jersey and not the cardinal number “85.”

This might be one of the few times when I’d argue that the discussion would facilitate engagement among students, and that the engagement would be a valuable thing.

Chad Ocho Cinco seems to grasp the gravity of the issue:

““I really don’t care, you cant stop me either way,” related Ocho Cinco. “Maybe next year I’ll go with Acht Fünf. That’s some German right there.”"

As soon as these teachers pound out a solution to this intellectual rift, they might want to tackle two other problems in high school education.

1. High school teachers don’t know basic English, as evidenced by the mean GRE Verbal score of 484.

2. High school teachers don’t know basic math – algebra and geometry – as evidenced by their mean GRE Quantitative score of 576.

Both of these scores are well below the mean. Verify it here [PDF] at your leisure. I recommend you take solace in knowing that your bosses aren’t any better off.

Good job, guys. The grammar myth of The Ocho Cinco Jersey? Consider it busted.

Hell, the Spanish teacher article is probably a fake, but since I read 20 real education articles a day this ridiculous, I’ll treat it as true.

If ya know what I mean.

I’ve subscribed to the Boston University College Democrats e-mail list for some years now. I was never involved in any political groups when I was a student there, but I knew a few who were. It’s good to stay abreast of what the other folks are doing – not out of stool-pigeon-y creepiness, just for information’s sake. As I wrote in the comments over at NYC Educator, everyone should go to as many events on the other side as possible.

And everyone graduate should subscribe to his alma mater’s political lists because, well… occasionally there’s some top-notch entertainment. From the BUCD:

“Hey!  Hope everyone is as excited as we are to start a new year of college democrats fun!”

Well, I know I’m ready. Are you?

Our first meeting will be on this Thursday (That’s tomorrow!!) at 7PM in CAS 316.

Subliminal nanny-statism. These College Democrats don’t even trust that I know that since today is Wednesday, tomorrow is Thursday.

“We will be meeting each other…”

Were you planning to get together to meet… other people?

“… for some mixers and a bit of discussion on what events we have on the radar this semester as well as what we want our goals for the year to be.”

31 words to say “set the semester’s and year’s agenda.” Very college democrat. But here’s where it gets laughable:

“Freshmen get excited!”

You bet they do! Does the University still offer WR 150? If so, do they cover the comma?

“Freshman representative elections are coming up!  Freshman representatives are in charge of getting new members, keeping regular members active, and have the opportunity to see how the BU college democrats is run first hand!”

… and there’s the comedy. Freshmen are enslaved’n'indentured, not unlike a really cruddy frat, to do all the grunt work – with the lure that they’re “seeing it all first hand [sic].” If that doesn’t describe the elitist wing of the Democrat party, nothing does.

“It’s an excellent experience and a great way to get involved.”

Just in case you might’ve thought it was a raw deal, there ya go.

“Finally, this Friday we will be holding signs for John Kerry visibility.”

Really? John Kerry needs “visibility” in Boston, Massachusetts? Is the BUCD afraid that Kerry might slip below an 80% favorability rating in MA? Good Lord, what a waste of time. The BUCD could be out campaigning in small, contested local races, or even just doing some community awareness/public service, but no – they’re making sure that John Kerry’s visible.

I pasted their paragraph to a friend who thought it was a joke statement written by the College Republicans. Seriously.

“You can meet up with the group in Marsh Plaza at 8:00 AM. Look for a cute blond girl with a sign.”

Despite my noted objections, I’m sold.

I try not to criticize without providing a little value to the target, so I’ve got a treat for the BUCD. Feel free to right-click and ’save as’ the jpeg logo in this post. I optimized it for the web – for you, for free! It went from 46kb to 5kb.

Reducing bandwidth by 90% without any loss of quality? That’s how Reagan would’ve rolled it if he’d had Photoshop.

You know that old saw? That one about ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it?’ [Hint: It was a chart-topper for George Santayana in 1904 or so.]

Not everyone does.

Remembering history has other benefits, too – when you recall the past, you avoid hyperbole that makes you look like a fool.

The issue at hand is the LPGA Tour’s new requirement that all athletes be proficient English-speakers. Not an unreasonable request, but the LPGA’s mandate could have been formatted, communicated and implement better.

But that’s neither here nor there – this is an education site, so we’ll focus on history.

Roy S. Johnson calls it the “Dumbest Rule Ever.”

Dear Roy,

Dumbest rule ever? Really? Dumber than mandating that all players be white? If I had some cash to waste, I’d invite you to speak to a few of the surviving Negro League players who visit the Hall of Fame here in Cooperstown – provided that you explained to them how requiring players to learn English is truly the dumbest rule ever.

As far as indignities in professional sport go, this one isn’t in the top 10. Get thee some historical perspective post haste, Roy. And if your editor, and not you, wrote the title, give him/her hell for it.

Linda Lowen, who writes the About.com Guide to Women’s Issues, calls it “Racism, Nationalism, Sexism.” The case for racism is misguided, but one has to understand that she argues it because of the high number of Korean-speaking golfers on the LPGA Tour, who represent the bulk of those affected by the ruling. Requiring those who grew up in Korea and who don’t know English fluently to become proficient with the language is different than racism.

Nationalism? Well, the LPGA just wants its athletes to communicate with the English-speaking, English-driven American market. I can understand that request. It has nothing to do with the United States and everything to do with the LPGA’s economic sustainability. That’s different than nationalism.

Sexism? Oddly enough, she doesn’t mention sex in the article – she just quotes an unhinged, illogical Bob Ford [not the one who shot Jesse James] who sees this as a slippery slope:

“Will there be a required physique for the tour? Will there be a sexual-orientation requirement to appease those lusty sponsors? Why not? You get the impression the LPGA would dress them all like Olympic beach volleyball players and have them drive the beer wagons during the pro-ams if possible….

An organization dedicated to women that perpetuates the stereotype that how a woman talks and how she looks is more important than what she accomplishes has lost its bearings.”

Relax, Chicken Little. I’ll let you fire a few neurons and figure out why this language requirement isn’t sexism. Even Ford’s characterization of golfers as cigar-smoking old boys has historical counters, like the PGA’s reception to Babe Didrikson-Zaharias – the other The Babe – all the way back in the 1940s.

The LPGA pretty much wants to make sure the athletes can do things like… conduct interviews easily. If you want to make a solid argument over this issue, argue that the LPGA was irresponsible by mandating before it had implemented a voluntary, well-supported effort to give its athletes the resources they needed to learn English. That’s a fair, reasonable argument. Freakouts about racism, nationalism and sexism are not.

Sportswriters are notoriously awful at two things: statistics and history outside the sports they cover. They’re probably hopeless with the former, but they could at least pretend to work on the latter.

There’s lots of stuff on the market – some free, some not, some good, some worse. I’ve always liked JumpStart’s games. They’re geared toward the youngest crowd, but they’re fairly inexpensive [$10?] and always charming and useful.

I was browsing through the educational software at Knowledge Adventure this afternoon – I remember when it was just Number Munchers, Oregon Trail and Zork. We’ve come a long way, baby.

And now if you see what you like, you can pretty much buy it and download it right away. Sheesh.

Another intriguing feature is BooksByYou – sort of a template/narrative program in which you can tweak a pre-made storyline and toy with layout and artwork. Then they’ll throw your book through Lulu [self-publisher, print-on-demand] and mail you a hard copy. Not bad for the young ones – seems very easy and very cool.

Check it out, lots of neat stuff there.

For now, here’s Dolly Parton singing ‘Coat of Many Colors’ [YouTube video] on The Porter Wagoner Show [1974] – one of my favorite songs, and one of the most touching songs I’ve ever heard.