YOU KNOW IT'S TIME TO TAKE A DAY OFF WHEN ...

mathematics intrudes.

Via Voluntary Xchange, who got it from Applied Mathemagics, who got it from Illiterate Alliteration.

SYMPTOMS OF EURO-SCLEROSIS?

Again, unexpectedly.

Employers in the United States added only 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year and not even close to what economists expected. For the first time since last June, the unemployment rate rose, to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent.

That's against a smaller labor force than that just before the financial markets crashed. Overseas, ominous signs proliferate.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 275 points, its worst day of the year, and for the first time was down for 2012. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is almost 10 percent below its 2012 high, the traditional definition of a market correction.

The political finger-pointing has intensified.  InstaPundit has a roundup from this morning, as does the Associated Press.  Daniel Mitchell gives the national government's stimulus efforts a poor evaluation.

But I suppose the good news is that the United States is not Europe. Government is even bigger on the other side of the Atlantic and many of those nations are in the middle of a fiscal crisis and the unemployment rate averages 11 percent.

Yes, but we have an executive branch bent on spending money and providing social services more like Europeans, and an Opposition offering only a rudimentary fiscal stimulus, in the form of not changing the tax rates.  And defenders of Our President suggest that he's been practicing fiscal restraint on a scale not seen since Herbert Hoover.  Jonah Goldberg questions the basis for that comparison. "Obama took what was supposed to be a one-time emergency expenditure and made it part of the new normal."  That's based on a different post from Daniel Mitchell, who also provides a lighter look at the fiscal policy, with links to the more substantive analysis.

You'd think that a large emergency spending bill that prevented wholesale liquidation of dubious assets followed by a large Democratic stimulus package would have, well, stimulated.  The stimulus spending as implemented, however, imposed so many constraints on projects as to dissipate much of the effect in process losses.  The uncertainty over the future course of federalized health care plus the changes, or not, in the tax code and in spending, have to dampen even the wildest of animal spirits.

THE RETURN OF TRANSPORTATION CARTELS?

The safety enforcers are cracking down on bus companies.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s enforcement action primarily targeted three Chinatown operations in New York and Philadelphia: Apex Bus Inc., I-95 Coach Inc. and New Century Travel Inc. The government ordered 10 bus company owners, managers and employees to cease all passenger transportation business, including selling tickets, according to a Transportation Department statement.

The crackdown is reminiscent of efforts the authorities made to ensure safe for-hire transportation by jitney operators, years ago.

Curbside bus operators, which typically sell tickets online and pick up and discharge passengers on the sidewalk, have a fatal crash rate seven times higher than terminal-based operations, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board reported in October.

The three primary targets in the U.S. crackdown controlled a network of other companies, leading to the 26 separate shutdown orders, the transportation department said. The companies’ networks included one ticket seller, nine active bus companies, 13 companies already ordered out of service that were continuing to operate and three companies applying for permission to operate.

Among those terminal-based operations is a legacy regulated carrier, itself subject to regulation thanks to protests from passenger railroads.

Sophia Xu, who sells tickets at I-95 Coach in New York’s Chinatown at 87 Chrystie Street, said Transportation Department officials came to the shop yesterday and said the company needed to close, without explaining why.

Signs posted on the glass outside and inside at the ticket counter give a phone number to call for online ticket refunds and say people who paid cash can get refunds at the counter.

Chen Chen, a fellow ticket seller, said Chinatown buses are being unfairly targeted.

“This doesn’t happen to Greyhound,” he said, holding a Chinese-language newspaper with pictures from the shop of police he said were rude.

Greyhound's fares, the article reports, are higher than those charged by the curbside bus operators. Next a legacy bus company will invoke cream-skimming.

HYSTERIA

Forever overwrought Chris Matthews really loses it.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What does Al Gore losing the electoral vote despite successfully getting out the vote in sympathetic districts in 2000 have to do with overreaction, if any, to voter fraud today?

APPLIED SCIENCE.

The University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment describes the science of renewable coal.

CSR Project 130 has a simple goal: create the world’s cleanest, most powerful passenger locomotive, proving the viability of solid biofuel and modern steam locomotive technology. The Coalition will put its technology to the test by planning to break the world record for steam locomotive speed, reaching 130 miles per hour and demonstrating the viability of this revolutionary, clean transportation technology.

The locomotive will run on torrefied biomass (biocoal), a biofuel created through an energy-efficient processing of cellulosic biomass. Biocoal exhibits the same energy density and material handling properties as coal, but unlike coal, it is carbon neutral, contains no heavy metals, and produces less ash, smoke and volatile off-gases. Since it exhibits such similar characteristics to coal, biocoal has the potential to revolutionize the way the United States generates clean electricity.

The effects of commercial production of biocoal on the freight railroad infrastructure, which exists to move existing fossil fuel coal from mine to market will provide an opportunity for all sorts of research.

I wish, though, that promoters of advanced-technology steam locomotives (the Project 130 simply being the latest; there was a serious effort in the 1980s to develop a freight locomotive, and there's a model in HO scale, for an HO modeler with a lot of discretionary income) would understand the capabilities of the competition.

Preliminary research shows that CSR’s test locomotive will cost less to maintain and less to fuel, and will exhibit greater train handling performance than any diesel-electric locomotives available today. The modern steam locomotive has relied on technology that has been neglected for decades. This is about to change. With the ability to burn biocoal efficiently and without negative impact on the environment, CSR’s modern steam locomotive will also exhibit significantly better horsepower output at higher speeds than the current diesel-electric locomotives that pull the majority of passenger trains in the United States.

Might be wise for the technical team to ask some Milwaukee Road veterans about Fast Fifteen: any world speed record Milwaukee holds for steam locomotives was quickly rendered moot by a standard prewar E-6 diesel set. Might also be wise to talk to the British, where a diesel train that might have inspired a line in an Elton John song attained something like 145 mph on a test run, and thirty years later the production version still cruises at 125 on Brunel's billiard table.

THOSE MISSING BLUE-COLLAR ARISTOCRATS.

Milwaukee used to produce them, but recession or no, there continue to be shortages of skilled tradesmen, and the recovery is going to be slower for their continued scarcity.

The latest findings come from the seventh-annual Talent Shortage Survey being released Tuesday by ManpowerGroup Inc., a globally active staffing and recruitment company that has headquarters in Milwaukee.

Manpower found that 49% of U.S. employers encounter difficulty filling "mission-critical" positions within their organizations. Topping the list for a second consecutive year was a category called "skilled trades," which includes craftsmen such as steamfitters, tool-and-die makers, construction workers, bricklayers, electricians and industrial workers.

Also appearing on the list repeatedly since it began in 2006 are trades such as engineers and information technology specialists. The most common reasons employers run into trouble include lack of available applicants, applicants looking for more pay and lack of experience.

The problem is not new around Milwaukee, where some manufacturers complain they cannot fill orders or keep pace with the economic recovery, and some even chose to expand elsewhere in the United States or at offshore sites. In a regional study last year, the seven-county Milwaukee 7 economic development group estimated that 5,600 industrial jobs went unfilled despite chronic unemployment.

Where applicants lack experience, or seek higher pay, there is something called a compensating differential for employers to consider.

LIFE IMITATES PRELIMS.

What is the effect of no-fault divorce on the labor-force participation rates of married women?

Commitments are not as credible, and paid work is insurance.

Researchers believe it’s because marriage provides “implicit social insurance” for women, who are still more likely to be the secondary income-earners in the U.S. and Europe. So in the U.S., where divorce rates are higher, “women have a higher incentive to obtain work experience in case they find themselves alone in the future,” they write. “European women anticipate not getting divorced as often and hence find less reason to insure themselves by working as much as American women.”

The substitution effect of lower marginal tax rates offsets the income effect for men.

With diagrams.  Via Andrew Sullivan.

CONNECTIVITY, CONSISTENCY, CONVENIENCE.

My recent train ride to Longview, Texas might have been more instructive for what it revealed about Amtrak's passenger base than it did about the railroads' ability to manage an unusual movement.

Let's start with the case for connectivity.  Amtrak's long-distance trains do not exist as entities unto themselves.  Among the passengers I met are the following journeys: New York City to San Antonio, Toronto to Dallas, Pittsburgh to Arkadelphia (family reunion), Texas points to South Bend (Notre Dame graduation), business trip Chicago to Fort Worth and return, circle tour of U. S. baseball stadiums (in coach) originating in London (yes, the one with the Queen).  I was probably the only passenger riding solely for the detour (the serious railfans putting the mileage ahead of things as mundane as submitting grades).  In Longview, an attorney who remarked on my back-pack (certainly not an accessory to accompany a business suit and a court date) noted that the Texas Eagle was conveniently timed for business in St. Louis.  Probably competitively priced, even in the sleeper.  I didn't research those fares, but what I paid for the Chicago - Longview round trip came in as less than the Chicago to Longview round trip air fare, and my parking at Elburn and Metra connection to the train is cheaper than a rental car, choose any car in the aisle or not, and a hotel, which a business trip by air would involve.  Eighteen hours each way on the train, however, may be a losing proposition commercially, the availability of cell phone service and wireless internet over much of the route or not.  But Longview to Little Rock or St. Louis might work for the business traveler, although the Little Rock to Longview is for former members of the military or early risers or devotees of the red-eye, and you avoid the tender mercies of the Transportation "Security" Administration for the most part.  As one passenger put it, he'd like the carriers to treat passengers like a guest, not a suspect.

Conclusion: there is much Amtrak can do to encourage passengers to take journeys on multiple trains.  Much more, that is, than timing the east coast trains to arrive at Chicago in the morning and depart in the late evening, with the west coast trains leaving and arriving from midafternoon on.  (The Lake Shore Limited  deliberately has a late evening departure from Chicago so as to protect connections from late-running Western trains, and even with the timings, a Capitol Limited that was close to time at South Bend ran into the all-too-common Norfolk Southern freight train tangle west of there, and a few passengers transferring to the Eagle expressed dismay at not being able to visit the Art Institute or the Skydeck during their anticipated layover.)

Next, consider the consistency.  Amtrak 22 Texas Eagle, Longview to Chicago via C&EI detour, 17-18 May 2012: diesel 114, transition sleeper 39026, sleeper 32057, diner 38021, buffeteria car 37009, coaches 31042-34062-31003.  Hot but dry temperatures at Longview and dry rail.  Train arrives 6:23, my space in lower level of 32057, an unrebuilt car, conductor checks coach tickets and assigns passengers to seats at trackside, all passengers boarded and train in motion at 6:32.

BY THEIR FRUITS SHALL YE KNOW THEM.

"Be careful what you wish for" is a recent thesis nailed to Newmark's Door.  (I can't resist the Martin Luther reference, kinna hurra or not).  It's all about the folly of Utopian Wonkery, and each of the cited references is worth a visit.  The Trenchant Observation of the Day, or perhaps the Cassandra Award, goes to Victor Davis Hanson.

[F]or 30 years we have been lectured to death about global warming, the brilliant Ivy League technocrats, the genius of Keynesian borrowing, the need for multiculturalism in the White House, if only we had open borders, why lawyers and academics need to be in charge — all on the “what if” presumption that no one in his right mind would let any of the above become gospel. And so we had the constant liberal whine, “if only.…” Now we have it in the flesh, and in cathartic fashion Obama is going to purge us of that unhinged temptation for another generation.

Or not: the Permanent Republican Majority came a cropper sometime between Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terry Schiavo.  Legal pads are still relatively cheap, and with Waterloo Maple it's still easier to design worlds that cannot exist and prove the necessity of Corrective Taxation or Subsidy or Second-Best Intervention in those worlds in ways that reduce to Pithy Soundbites.

A COMMUTER DISCOUNT?

How else characterize a recent Northern Illinois University scholarship?  It's based on geography, not necessarily merit.

One of those tools is a $4,000 scholarship for local high school students who have at least a 2.75 cumulative grade-point average.

“Local students grow up hearing about NIU, and they drive by the campus,” said Anne Hardy, director of NIU’s scholarship office. “This is really giving them the opportunity to see NIU as a choice for higher education.”

The DeKalb County scholarship program started in 2011, and 61 local students enrolled at NIU with the scholarship last year.

Hardy expects as many as 90 students to enroll with the scholarship this fall semester. She said NIU officials won’t know how many students will attend until September, when fall enrollment numbers have been calculated.

Hardy said NIU stepped up its local recruiting efforts through the scholarship program because many local students have chosen to attend community college before entering a four-year school.

“[Community college] is a great choice for many students, but we also wanted to make NIU an affordable option,” she said.

She said students who attend four-year universities as freshmen are immersed in student culture early on rather than as a junior.

A 2.75 in high school? Some of the critics of the common schools who see grade inflation everywhere are likely to be non-plussed: that 2.75 is last century's failing.

More seriously, though, the university has grappled for years with the Illinois Articulation Initiative.  It prevents the kind of game-playing four-year and two-year colleges engage in to increase tuition yields to the inconvenience of students.  At the same time, the four-year institutions face a challenge in filling the general education classes that common wisdom has subsidize the upper division courses, and an economic incentive might be more effective than general education clusters or marketing the student culture (too often, alas, frats 'n football) as a way of bringing freshmen and sophomores on board.

CHAMPION OF THE RIGHT?

It's rare that Wisconsin politics make Illinois look good, but America's Dairyland is into the second year of recalls.

Recall, if you must, the carping the pundits of the right engaged in when Our President rolled out his re-election slogan, Vpereds, er, Forward.  (I've heard Our President say "together forward" but as yet he is not short-listed for our College of Law.)

In Wisconsin, though, current governor Scott Walker is using the expression "forward" (in red letters, no less) with reference to progress in job growth and fiscal stability, and branding the self-styled progressives seeking to fire him as the backward-looking wreckers.  The self-styled progressives take umbrage.

RAILWAY PRESERVATION.

A screen-grab from the Illinois Railway Museum web-camera.

In the foreground: an air-conditioned Chicago and North Western Commuter Streamliner.  There's nothing quite like seeing one's work-a-day conveyance in a museum to make one feel old.  Approaching the station on One: the Nebraska Zephyr, also air-conditioned, and in good enough shape to make occasional sojourns onto the mainline railroads.  Waiting on Two is Leviathan, a replica Civil-War era American Standard.  There are several other replicas of Gilded Age locomotives in steam, and enough Super Power era steam locomotives in preservation that our restoration money goes into returning those to steam rather than building replicas of the ones that were lost, as the British are wont to do.

FOURTH TURNING ALERT.

Via Media sees symptoms of the continuing third-worldization of the West.

That the survey is global offers Americans a small degree of comfort; certain corporate cultures abroad are known for their tolerance of shady behavior, and we can hope that the figures for American business are a little better. But that is no cause to be smug. A pervasive culture of dishonesty in business is more than a nuisance; it is a threat. There are always a few bad apples out there, but if we reach a tipping point where enterprise is habitually and routinely dishonest, the world will grow nasty and poor with surprising speed.

A pervasive culture of dishonesty forces everyone to deal defensively and to think only of the very short term. Systemic dishonest exacts huge costs; it also leads to a commercial environment where avaricious lawyers and ham-handed regulators have the upper hand.

He correctly recognizes the source of the rot, and the consequences of allowing it to spread and calling it inclusion.

We need teachers, headmasters, principals and college presidents and deans who are ready to stand up for (and be held accountable by) serious moral standards beyond the tepid green PC pablum that substitutes for serious ethical and religious discourse in many contemporary educational institutions.

Tolerance of unethical personal and business behavior among the rich and the powerful needs to be recognized for what it is: a deadly threat to all we hold most dear.

Amen.

LEARNING TODAY, LEADING TOMORROW.

That's the latest Northern Illinois University tagline, part of the marketing and branding that obsesses full-time administrators who don't have classes to prepare for.  A similar tagline didn't work for the University of Houston, but something similar works for Griffith (Indiana) Middle School, with farcical results.

Students who have the misfortune to attend school here have virtually no speech rights, pursuant to vague, arbitrary anti-bullying and intimidation rules that include such cryptic provisions as a ban on "innuendos," for which they may be suspended or expelled. They are subject to rules against using or possessing profanity, pornography or obscenity that include a breathtakingly vague prohibition of "other inappropriate materials" and a ban on "using or writing derogatory written materials." I suppose they could be disciplined for reading this post, which intentionally derogates Griffith School administrators.

I wonder if there are full-time administrators in Griffith who prowl the social media for infractions by students for whom they don't have to prepare classes.

THE STAKES ARE SO SMALL.

Yet corruption diffuses into collegiate women's basketball.

Baylor runs the table with its East German center, yet accepts sanctions for recruiting irregularities.

[Baylor coach Kim] Mulkey was stripped of two scholarships and forbidden from recruiting off campus this July. Which will hardly dissuade other coaches from employing the same tactics. What are a couple of lost scholarships and a month off the road compared with 40-0 and a national championship banner, with another one likely next season? The conclusion is that it’s entirely worth it to cheat.

Eastern Michigan displaces Toledo or Bowling Green as the power in the Mid-American, yet becomes the subject of an investigation into "tame violations".

[T]he team had regularly gone over the NCAA rule of no more than four hours per day and 20 hours per week of basketball related activities (practice, film, games).

Graduate programs generally limit students with 20 hour assistantships to nine credits per semester. Presumably basketball players take up to eighteen undergraduate credits a semester so as to graduate in four years.  The end to which some people will go -- just to win the Mid-American and become one-and-done in the national tournament.  The coach has resigned.

The previous day, Michigan's Kevin Borseth left Ann Arbor to return to the Green Bay Phoenix.

ORDER, COUNTER-ORDER.

Apparently there wasn't enough disorder in The Battle of the Crater as interpreted by historians Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen, so they took their historical novel so-titled and re-titled it as To Make Men Free.  Whatever.  The book takes its original title from an attempt by the Army of the Potomac to end the siege of Petersburg by undermining a critical fort and dropping it into a pit.  The new title probably refers to the prominent role of United States Colored Troops in preparing for the follow-on attack.

Book Review N^o. 15 will refer to the work as Battle, as it was by that title that I bought and read the hardback version.  I wonder if the book serves more as an allegory of Washington intrigue than as military history, no matter the title on the cover.  The usual maxim in military matters has a thousand fathers for victory, but the failure of the plan to drop the fort is clearly not an orphan: senior generals and senior engineers and more than a few quartermasters were involved.  I'm not conversant enough with the eastern campaigns to recommend a good analysis of the Battle of the Crater for comparison purposes.  Fortunately for the Union effort, the Confederacy was losing the war faster than the Federals could win it, with the failure at the Crater being followed almost immediately by the surrender of Atlanta.

(Cross-posted to 50 Book Challenge.)

MAYBE NOT SO LOST A CAUSE AFTER ALL.

Although the British are reuniting the six surviving Gresley Streaks for the 75th anniversary of a claimed speed record set by one member of the class, that record may not be safe for all time, in the same way that American League hitting records for pitchers, or Roman chariot racing records, are.

Railroad Picture Archive photo from Jeff Carlson.

That looks like a new candidate for the Scrap Line column header, but it's potentially a lively corpse.

A new Minneapolis-based organization, the Coalition for Sustainable Rail today announced plans to rebuild and modify ex-Santa Fe 4-6-4 No. 3463 into “the world’s first carbon-neutral higher-speed locomotive.” The engine was built by Baldwin in 1937 and has been on display in Topeka, Kan., since 1956. The group has already acquired the locomotive from the Great Overland Station Museum and Education Center in Topeka.

The locomotive is the last surviving 84" driver Hudson in the United States (the representatives from The Milwaukee Road going to scrap in the early 1950s, and the representatives from Chicago and North Western surviving in ore-thawing service until the early 1960s, when they also went for scrap.)

It is therefore fitting that a seven-foot drivered 4-6-4 with technical support in the Twin Cities be rebuilt to burn cleaner fuel ... and set a new steam speed record?

Seeking to develop a high profile and prove its technology, the group plans to use a modified 3463 in an attempt to break the world speed record for a steam locomotive, operating it at speeds up to 130 mph. It has named the venture “CSR Project 130.”

The plan appears to be serious.

Once its modernization is complete, CSR 3463 will have little in common with the smoke-belching steam engine it once was. Featuring a gas-producer combustion system, improved steam circuit, modernized boiler, low-maintenance running gear and steam-powered electric generator (to power the passenger train), CSR anticipates 3463 will be able to pull a passenger train with electric-like performance for less than the cost of diesel-electric locomotives. In order to further prove the viability of biocoal and modern steam technology, CSR plans to test the locomotive in excess of 130 miles per hour, out-performing any existing diesel-electric on the market and breaking the world steam speed record. In light of this achievement, CSR has named this endeavor: “Project 130.”

Keep in mind, though, dear reader, that a Milwaukee F-7 spun the dynamometer at Pennsylvania's Altoona test plant at 140 mph.

Steam dreaming aside, let's see how this project progresses.  After two years of frustration with the extension and upgrade of the Hiawatha service, something new in midwestern railroading appeals.

LIBERATING TOLERANCE IS INTOLERANCE.

Canada has hate speech laws too creepy even for Salon, and Quebec has now added a law requiring protesters to designate their free speech zones in advance.  A Montreal brewery has turned its annual sale of a special beer into a protest of the law.

Cold Spring Shops has long been on record against university free speech zones.  Maybe when tolerant, compassionate university administrators consider the implications of students protesting tuition hikes being turned into criminals because all of Quebec is a prohibited speech zone, they might rethink whether free speech zones are means to provide respect for all points of view.

The passing of Law 78 is a direct attack on the freedom of assembly and the right to protest. It not only bans unpermitted marches or any unpermitted gathering of more than 50 people, but the vaguely worded “special law” also threatens to levy enormous fines against organizers, unions and potentially anyone who participates in an unpermitted assembly. The law comes in response to the growing popularity of the student movement and can be read as as symptom of the government’s inability to control the movement; it is a sign that in some ways the students are winning. In fact, since its passage last Friday, the nightly marches have only gotten larger as more people see the struggle expanding from the single issue of university tuition to a broader one that includes the right to protest and the suppression of dissent.

Whether that dissent generalizes to California, where tolerant, compassionate administrators preach respect for diversity until they encounter some, remains to be seen.

STRESS.

The homefront is sometimes the toughest test for Special Forces.

Indeed, the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have pushed many troops to their limits, with a spillover effect in military families that can test relationships and often end them. Even as the war in Afghanistan winds down, special operations troops — including Delta Force, Navy SEALs, Green Berets and Army Rangers— are expected to continue playing a crucial role, fighting at a high tempo.

The article is instructive. Read and understand. The Special Forces are also working with Olympians, who are getting a new idea what tough training is about.

"These guys are extremely motivated," Kenneth Andreasen, U.S. Sailing's high performance director and head coach, says of his sailors. "Having the Navy SEALs here is amazing. They have the training, the background, and (the athletes) have respect for them.

"The biggest part of this is the mental side of it — that they don't quit, that they keep on going. That's the biggest lesson."

When asked whether these sessions are at all similar to actual SEALs training, one of the SEALs says, "It's really not that close a comparison."

Special Forces work with Olympians in part as a way of recruiting fit, motivated people to the Special Forces. Whether the stresses an Olympic effort might put on a person's private life are comparable with the stresses of a military career is left to the reader as an exercise.

IT IS UP TO THE PROFESSOR TO MAINTAIN STANDARDS.

At Inside Higher Education, John Warner, deputising for Oronte Churm, reacts to Janice Fiamenco's Unteachables post.  Mr Warner concurs with a Cold Spring Shops diagnosis in part, then dissents in part.

It would be hard-to-impossible to argue that the “everyone gets a trophy” mentality hasn’t resulted in some, let’s say, excesses of self-esteem that occasionally rear themselves in ugly ways in the classroom. I don’t think this concern is limited to traditionalists or conservatives, however, as you can hear this lament in the hallways of the most liberal of institutions.

I think it’s just as reasonable, however, to argue that the attitude of entitlement is rooted in the corporatization of higher education, where a degree is a commodity, and students (and parents) are customers.

There's plenty of blame to go around, but you'd think that higher-education-as-business might recognize what the graduate programs in business do, namely, that the customers are the employers who hire tables at the job fairs, not the students.

Keep reading, though.

Ultimately, though, that debate isn’t all that interesting to me. Whatever the cause, many of us agree on the result that winds up in our classrooms.

What piqued my interest is her conclusion that these students are somehow “unteachable,” because my experience is the opposite, and the notion that today’s generation of students is somehow any more “unteachable” than any other is total horseshit.

Indeed. Teaching is a lot like farming, although the growing season begins in late August.

When I look at my classroom at the start of each semester, particularly in a freshman writing course, I realize that I’m looking at a room of people who, in reality, don’t really know what it is we’re there to do.

I know this because I was them. My hunch is that Professor Fiamengo was not. Professor Fiamengo is assuming our students to be familiar with things they can’t possibly know, or, even on her own terms, are too warped by their progressive educations to understand.

If our students don’t know something we think they should, it is our job to teach them.

The column is instructive, particularly for beginning professors, heck, for veteran professors who would like to encourage student achievement without shamelessly becoming undemanding (which the students will see through in any event.)

When it comes to grading, I tell them that grammar and mechanics and accuracy count because in this class, the ideas are inseparable from the way they are expressed. I explain my attendance policy (there isn’t one), my loathing of cell phones, why I don’t allow computer-aided note taking, what to do if they miss class. I briefly describe all the assignments they’ll be doing. I inform them of my teaching philosophy, of my grading standards, and even the historical distribution of grades in the class.

In sum, I inform them of all the things that I believe are important in the course and discipline we are studying, and I am inviting them on board the train as it leaves the station.

Does everyone get on board? Of course not. Do I still get disgruntled and upset students in my office? Of course I do. But when they’re there, it’s not to try to move me toward their standard, it’s to understand what they should be doing differently to succeed at mine, something I’m willing to spend as much time as necessary doing.

What I am doing, is offering them access to a kind of power, a freedom, agency over themselves and the world.

I like the reference to getting on the train. Some years ago I heard someone offering two different visions of teaching styles, using the 'bus as a metaphor.  Do you keep the 'bus on time, or do you make sure the people get on the 'bus?  It's a rare semester that I don't apologize to a class for scheduling too much stuff, then cut out a topic or a reading, rather than cause unnecessary stress.  The main material is challenging enough, whether I get through all the subtleties or not.