Saltspot

I am unable to confirm whether bombasity is an actual word.  Webster isn’t feeling it, but a Google search yields 986 hits so I trust it will eventually become a part of our vernacular, because Google is knowledge.   I do know that bombasity has very little to do with Shaggy (for the Mr. Bean fans) or the aeroplaneblonde or Risseldy Rosseldy (although they’re all pretty cool in their own right).  In the context of higher ed., bombasity is defined in the AJSV (an authoritative version of reality) as emphatically calling lots of smart people stupid while interjecting on overly simplistic golden bullet solution to an increasingly complex phenomenon.

Yesterday I sat through a presentation by a “big name” researcher in the education field.  It wasn’t terrible and he had some interesting insights about how to improve education, but like many I’ve seen in his position, he ruined it with an extra helping of bombasity.  That’s the problem with bombasity.  You can say a lot of really helpful, illuminating things and still unnecessarily alienate your audience by feeling the need to exercise your bombasity muscle.  What’s more, with bombastic claims, researchers put themselves in an all-or-nothing position that they end up having to support with less than transparent or straightforward evidence.

So what is it with academics who think they’ve cornered the market on truth while us peon researchers devote our lives to exercises in futility?  I heard one top criminology researcher go so far as to characterize almost all other research in his field as quackery.  This is undoubtedly a decent way to make a name for yourself (if your delivery is well-executed, as was his), but I guarantee that it gets lonely on top of Mt. Bombasity.

I do agree somewhat with one blogger‘s observation that, “surely most every person who has done something significant in the world — be it grandly humane or shockingly cruel, be it artistically provocative or technically innovative — must have significant ego and a healthy degree of bombast.”  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that most every person of significance is bombastic, but our society certainly rewards megalomaniacal individualism and egotistical bombasity (e.g. Mr. Olberman and Mr. Limbaugh — to be balanced).  That’s the rub, right?  Many of the top 1% of the talent pool are divas; not just in higher ed., but society as a whole.

Now, I’m all for provocative stuff if it’s framed as such.  What I mean is that there’s a huge difference between being a facilitator of critical thinking and implanting yourself as the last bastion of absolute truth in this fallen world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/

I caught the tail end of a very interesting PBS “American Masters” special on Jerry Robbins (of West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, and Gypsy fame to name a few) last night.  I had previously no knowledge of the man, and I consider myself less than an expert on Broadway musicals and ballet.  Yet I was captivated by his story.  Obsessed is probably an understatement in describing his attention to detail, staging, and choreography.  This obsession made him arguably the best choreographer on Broadway (and beyond) producing some of the most memorable musicals of the 20th Century and launching the careers of such as Barbra Streisand (see, I really paid attention to the documentary).  His ability to painstakingly transfer the vision in his head onto a stage was what set him apart from all the rest.  His domineering style evoked many positive and negative adjectives, but indolent and compromising weren’t two of them.  Robbins was renowned for his ability to squeeze every last ounce of talent and potential out of his dancers.  Many have remarked that they performed for him at previously unfathomable levels.

Following the spectacular success of Fiddler, Robbins retreated from musicals for almost 25 years (and Fiddler was essentially his last real directorial work).  He continued to choreograph exquisite ballet arrangements, but he never really returned to the craft that had made him most famous.  When explaining why Robbins retreated from musical theatre, one close colleague remarked that it had become too painful for Robbins to continue having to perfectly transfer this vision in his head onto the stage.

This man with an obsession for painting onto a stage exactly the picture in his head was no longer willing to pay the price to do so.  My point is not to bash such a prodigious, productive artist.  Who knows if this remark from this friend was entirely accurate.  My point is that he was, in my calculation, two giant leaps ahead of where I am right now and then he took one step back (and maybe short-circuited future greatness).  I’ve felt recently that what’s really missing from my graduate studies is a good dose of obsession.  Now I don’t mean the domineering, family-neglecting, completely unbalanced sort of obsession.  I mean the type of obsession where I find a phenomenon that messes with me so much that I have to know everything about it (perhaps Deep Learning as some of my colleagues call it), and I have to find a new way to see it, to know it, and to contribute to the way that others know it.  It would be something that keeps me up all night once in a while regardless of whether there’s a “grade carrot” attached and something that ignites my rather atrophied implicit motivation apparatus.  If you don’t have that, what do you have?  Without it, you become the wrong half of the 50% dropout rate in PhD programs or the lifer ABD guy/gal.  Sure, there’s those that do gut it out, but for what?  A paycheck, summers “off”, and eventually a comfortable tenure position isn’t enough for me.  Unlike many others in this world, I’ve always had all my basic needs taken care of and more (I’m talking middle class, not trust fund living… just for clarification). As such, I’ve been able to, from an early age, think about what it really means to live, what it really means to reach my full potential.  There have recently been glimpses of this obsession, but the magic comes in the very next step.  The vision is there, the motivation is welling up and we’re faced with a question: “Am I willing to pay the price to transport the unadulterated version of my obsession, my vision into the light of day?”  “Will I fight the temptation to compromise when I know that my standards are well above those who are in a position to me move along to the next step in my career?”

Or maybe I’ve just had too much coffee today.

This is perhaps a curious debut post for the much anticipated launch of my new blog *sarcasm intended*, but it’s these types of things that I think about during a 70 mile (one-way) commute.  I guess it would be prudent to say that I hope this blog is less about me and more about interesting stuff, but we’ll let opinions emerge on that front as we go.  Ultimately, I hope that this blog would provide encouragement and interesting ideas for those interested (and/or immersed) in higher education and educational technology.  Again, I make no promises.  At it’s broadest level, this blog is a literary presentation of self (as in me).  As such, there’s no way to predict where this whole thing will go… and what fun would that be anyway.

Anyway, I am convinced that there is a cosmic conspiracy to reconnect me with the music of Jimi Hendrix.   Both my iPod and Pandora insist on playing “Hey Joe” and “Castles Made of Sand” at unnaturally consistent intervals.  Someone is obviously messing with the algorithms.  Sure, I like Hendrix, but I only have one (plus maybe a few more songs) CD of him on my iPod and one station out of some 15 representing his work in Pandora.  So here are a couple of things I believe someone is trying to tell me: 1) it’s time to lighten up a bit and enjoy a good, teeth-grinding electric guitar solo once in a while 2) remember that I’ve fallen but a few paces from the tree that is my father (an avid Hendrix fan) 3) remember that life is short and Hendrix wasted his prodigous (dare I say otherworldly) talents in the bottle and the needle.  Thus, here are a few insights related to the above observations:

1. Life really is good.  Rewriting literature reviews after getting scalded by a prof can seem pretty bad, but life is good and being a grad student is a privilege.  There are hundreds of thousands of people much smarter than me who will never be afforded the academic opportunities handed to me.
2. We cannot deny the pervading influence of our biological family in every aspect of who we are.  The more we revisit and process the ways in which our relationships with our parents has shaped our lives, the closer we will become to being an emotionally healthy human being.
3. We all have great potential to create beautiful things.  We’ve been given the power to choose whether we will realize that potential.