The academic tradition of linguistic essentialism is perhaps best exemplified in Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. This oft-taught tome is full of strict rules for when to use a semi-colon and when NOT to. There is no room for negotiation. Reading Strunk and White one is left feeling as though no written language is ever polished carefully enough. It leaves one afraid to write a single word. And yet, as Strunk and White continue to be taught, the English language continues to evolve. More than that, individuals continue to experiment with what is “right” in the best interest of communication over prescriptivism.

At the other end of the academic linguistic spectrum are the editors who recognize that language has a purpose beyond the minutia of punctuation and sentence structure. Language is a living entity—as it is spoken it changes, and this change reflects the culture in which it lives. To strip the written word of its idiosyncrasies, its colloquial accents, is to sterilize communication in real and detrimental ways. If writers had all followed Strunk and White, we wouldn’t have the invented words that give illustrative names to important elements of experience. For example, had Shakespeare followed the rules, we wouldn’t have words like eyeball, obscene, hot-blooded, epileptic or alligator, to name only a very few.

For the linguistic progressives, language is a tool, not an untouchable gem on a shelf somewhere. Language belongs, first and foremost, to the people who speak it. For them, it is the job of the academic to adapt to the spoken word, not the other way around. Surely, there must always be a level of compromise between the two—a place where the structure of language persists to facilitate readability and to prevent misunderstanding while allowing for variation and interpretation. In short, academics must remember that language is not owned by academia.

If the prescriptivists have their way, written language will become further and further removed from spoken language. As the years go on, only the most highly educated, the elite and privileged, will be able to spend the requisite time in school to learn how to write “correctly.” Eventually, this will lead to an intellectual caste system in which academic writing becomes first difficult and later unintelligible to the common person. It does seem as though we could learn a thing or two from history on this point.

References and Resources:

Language Log
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/

The Elements of Style
http://www.bartleby.com/141/

No Sweat Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s Words
http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-words.htm

For starters, Moleskine enjoys a storied pedigree. Back in Versailles in the 1920s, Earnest Hemingway sat in Parisian cafes scrawling in his trusty Moleskine. For Hemingway, the notebook was more a pleasing aesthetic object than a statement. The soft leather and heavy-stock pages take the ink and stand up to a great deal of abuse. The handy tie secures the book closed so it doesn’t get bent and mangled in a full shoulder bag. The same goes for Pablo Picasso who preferred the Moleskine for sketching. In this sense, the Moleskine is an example of a good design that endures for its utility. But today, when thousands of notebooks are available for less money than a Moleskine, consumers are clearly concerned with more than utility. They want the history of the object. They want to be part of a great literary tradition. They want their own scrawlings to endure.

This strange attachment to the history of a type of object puzzles. Clearly the Moleskine today’s writer holds in her hand bears no connection to the Moleskine of the famous travel writer Bruce Chatwin, or the surrealist Andre Breton. There is a sense that the design of the object somehow inspired the words within—that the tools of one’s trade directly influence the trade itself. While this might be true for carpentry, in today’s writing world full of iPads and laptops, why does this attachment persist?

Perhaps it is precisely because of our modern-day reliance on keypads and virtual space that makes that pen and paper newly compelling. And of course it is true that each writer has his preferred tools for writing. Some prefer a 1930’s Underwood typewriter while others are content to compose their novel on a Palm Pre. Whether or not the idea is true that the mechanics of writing affects the finished product, there is no end in sight to the assumption that it does.

Writers are a superstitious bunch. It makes sense that a life spent relying on the elusive spark of inspiration might lead one to fits of metaphysical fancy. Like a baseball player who never changes his playoff socks, a writer who has succeeded once on a Moleskine isn’t likely to trade it in for a legal pad. Whether or not the people over at Moleskine saw it coming, they’ve got their hands on an enduring commodity.

However, there is also the culture of writing and art to consider—a culture traditionally obsessed with novelty. Now that the Moleskine is available to anyone with $12 and a dream, will the mystique of the object diminish? At what point will writers begin to seek out other objects to identify themselves as the creative elite? What I’m really asking is: when should I sell my shares in Moleskine?

“My role as a teacher is to motivate, inspire, and inform,” Jeff says. “With so many personalities, learning styles, and learning speeds in the room all at once, it’s difficult trying to make sure that everybody’s paying attention and keeping up. The best way I’ve found is to be entertaining, listen to the students, and get feedback from a different student each day on how the class went. When you approach a student as an equal and ask for their help in making your class better, it makes that student much more likely to pay attention and stay on track.”

Day Schedule of a High School Teacher

6:15 a.m. Jeff arrives at the school cafeteria to supervise breakfast. He jokes with a few familiar faces, asks a colleague how her math classes are going, and reviews his lesson plans for the day.

7:00 a.m. First period: a chemistry course. “This class is never easy to engage,” Jeff says. “They’re all still asleep! In past classes I’ve tried a dozen things to jolt them awake: fast techno music, an obnoxiously energetic persona, trips down the hall or out to the soccer field… but it’s still chemistry, and still seven in the morning, and they’re drowsy. They don’t even begin to perk up until about ten or fifteen minutes before the class period’s over.”

8:30 a.m. A school-wide break. Jeff gathers up some quizzes to grade.

8:45 a.m. Second period: a study hall. This one is held in the cafeteria. “I don’t know whether it’s the smell of the food or what, but if the first period was too sluggish, this one’s a little too feisty. This is one of those spans that the school considers to be peaceful, paid paper-grading time, which is a joke.”

Jeff turns his head. “Debbie! If you don’t be quiet and read something, I’m gonna sit you in the corner and tell you all four hundred and three of my favorite mitochondria jokes!”

10:15 a.m. Time for a biology course. “I’m trying out a new idea for this period: we’re going to use a webcam to talk to a marine biologist named Miriam Genoveso. She’s an old friend of mine, and she works on a research boat out on the Pacific Ocean. She’s been there for about eight months now. Hopefully she can show us one of those crown-of-thorns sea stars. Have you seen those things?! They’re cool.”

11:45 a.m. Lunch. Jeff’s not supervising the cafeteria today, so he takes half an hour to relax in the teacher’s lounge.

12:15 a.m. Final class period of the day: a physics course. “This class is easy to teach because at least part of every class is hands-on and action-oriented. It’s also the most energetic class of the day.

“That’s one of the hardest parts of this job: finding the tricky balance in every class. Sometimes you’re drilling through eighteen layers of apathy trying to reach the kids; other times you’re struggling to harness their abundant energy before it overflows and social order dissolves.”

2:00 p.m. After hosting a half-hour meeting of the Chess Club, Jeff turns out the lights and heads home with a stack of papers to grade.

Above my desk I have a list of quotations from the great thinker Socrates.  There are a number of quotes included in the list that I’ve tried to live by, but one in particular that has always stuck with me.  It says, “The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.”  I think that what he was trying to say is that education and the pursuit of knowledge is the road that leads to greatness.

So with that, I’ve compiled a list of what I feel to be some of the most poignant and remarkable quotes regarding the noblest of pursuits, education.  Some are funny, some are insightful, some are from great thinkers and some are from popular figures, but all are great. And I hope that you don’t mind, but I threw my 2 cents in.

“Remember that our nation’s first great leaders were also our first great scholars.”
John F. Kennedy

An apt quote from the author of “Profiles in Courage” and a great American. I don’t think that it

is a coincidence that the success of our country was founded on the backs of our great scholars

more so than it was on the backs of our great legislators.

“A liberally educated person meets new ideas with curiosity and fascination. An illiberally educated person meets new ideas with fear.”
- James B. Stockdale

You might remember Admiral Stockdale as Ross Perot’s running mate, and the disastrous Vice Presidential debates of ’92. But truth be told, he was a P.O.W. camp survivor for 8 years.  The quote is telling that one of the most decorated men in U.S. Military history held a stance on education that most politicians today would describe as “left wing liberal.”

“Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially for the lower classes of people, are so extremely wise and useful that to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.”
- John Adams

Going back to the JFK quote, we look at one of our nation’s founders.  If John Adams were alive and running for office today, he would be decried as a “bleeding heart” and unrealistic as to the amount of budget that can be allotted to education.

“Education is not the answer to the question. Education is the means to the answer to all questions.”
- William Allin

When I hear this quote, I think of the incredible minds associated the Large Hadron Collider. These people have taken their educations and degrees and used this knowledge to help answer some of the most difficult and pressing questions of all time. Namely, “What is life really?” and “How did we get here?”

“All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.”
- Aristotle

An important note about how intrinsically tied the relationship is between the education of youth with the success of the future.  Something I think that we forget all too often.

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.”
- Jim Rohn

I think that what is being said here is that a degree will take you so far, but your own education and experience will take you much further.

“In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

I’ve got to be honest here, I love Nietzsche quotes.  He has a point with this quote, that public education is like institutional cooking… no love, care or technique applied. While it may be true, it can be up to the student to add the ‘salt and pepper”, and turn it into a good meal.

“The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.”
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton

I love this quote because I detest dogmatic educators.  Beware anyone who is dogmatic, because they hold you in contempt.  And a teacher who holds his students in contempt is a greater hindrance then no teacher at all.

“The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make facts live.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

There are a great many who have enough education to pass an exam, but it is the ones that take that knowledge and turn it into magic that are to be esteemed.  I think of the men and women involved with the early N.A.S.A. programs, who took their degrees and said “With this knowledge, we can accomplish something that man has quested for millennia.”

” Conservatives say teaching sex education in the public schools will promote promiscuity. With our public education system? If we promote promiscuity the same way we promote math or science, they’ve got nothing to worry about.”
- Beverly Mickens

I find this quote to be both funny and sad.  What is the old adage?  “The truth hurts.”

“Ye can lead a man up to the university, but you can’t make him think.”
- Finley Peter Dunne

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.”
- Chinese Proverb

I left these last two quotes for the end, because I feel that they have a special significance when it comes to online education degrees.  If you’re learning about getting your education degree online, then you’ve taken the first steps in a journey.  But once you’ve figured out what you’re goals are, where you’re going to go to achieve them, and how you are going to do that, you’re still left facing the journey itself.  It’s easy, when you’re taking an online education course, to say to yourself “I’ll get to the paper later, I’m going to watch some T.V. first.”  When you don’t have to face a professor and tell them that you don’t have the assignment finished by deadline you can find yourself procrastinating more.  The truth is that if you want to you want to finish an education degree and you want to teach others, you must first start by educating yourself.

Assigned Reading

• The Online Books Page – This website, from the University of Pennsylvania, is a great place to find free books online. There are more than 30,000 books on the Online Books Page that can be read or downloaded for free.
• Questia – Although it is best known for its research capabilities, Questia is also a good place to find free assigned reading materials. You can find more than 5,000 rare and classic books in Questia’s online library.
• BookSwim – If you can’t find the books you need for free, you can always rent them from BookSwim. Like NetFlix, this online book rental library service delivers books right to your house with free shipping both ways. You can rent textbooks, fiction, and nonfiction from BookSwim.
• Lit Sum – Lit Sum offers more free study and literature guides than any other website. Most guides include chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, theme notes, and discussion topics.
• SparkNotes – SparkNotes is a great place to find free study guides, condensed colleges texts, literature summaries, and other resources that will help you explore the books you are required to read.

Calculators and Converters

• Calculator.com – You can calculate almost anything on Calculator.com. This site is made to work with your PC, PDA, cell phone, and other mobile devices.
• Math.com – The online calculators from Math.com are great for math homework. Math.com provides a number of different calculators, including basic math calculators, square root calculators, scientific calculators, equation calculators, and probability calculators.
• Ecalc – If you are looking for a free scientific calculator with lots of bells and whistles, Ecalc is your best bet.
• XE – XE, a popular currency site, provides a Universal Currency Converter that can convert more than 85 different currencies.
• OnlineConversion.com – You can convert just about anything on this website–OnlineConversion.com offers more than 50,000 conversion options.

Essays and Other Papers

• Citation Guides – These citation guides, offered free by Westfield State College, provide an overview APA style, MLA style, Chicago style, and CBE style citations. Each guide includes multiples examples.
• OttoBib – This free automatic bibliography maker transforms ISBNs into MLA, APA, or Chicago/Turabian formatted citations. After building your citations, OttoBib will give you a free, permanent URL that can be referenced at any time.
• Essay Punch – Essay Punch is an interactive online essay writing tool that doubles as a tutorial. The tool takes you through the process of essay writing with prompts and advice.
• The University Writing Center – The UCF University Writing Center provides a giant list of argument topics that can be used for research papers. Topics are available for a wide range of subjects.
• Free MIT Essay Workshop – This free essay workshop from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is designed for experienced writers who want to explore advanced writing topics. The workshop includes an entire collection of study materials for self-learners.

Presentations

• OpenOffice – This free software suite is perfect for presentations. You can use OpenOffice to draw, write, create slides, and design multimedia presentations.
• Zoho Show – Zoho Show is a free online tool that will help you create, edit, and share presentations online. Zoho offers pre-built themes, graphics, and clip art.
• Empressr – This free media presentation tool can create presentations using photos, music, video, and audio. You can share your Empressr presentations online with whomever you choose.
• Prezentit – This web app makes it easy to prepare, edit, and share presentations online. Prezentit is great for collaborative projects.
• Infran View – Infran View is a free graphics editor and viewer. This easy-to-use freeware can create slide shows, act as a multimedia player, and much more.

Web Research

• Library of Congress – Thought to be the largest online library in the world, the Library of Congress is a great place to find historical documents, maps, photos, and more.
• Encyclopedia.com – This site offers access to 49 encyclopedias and 73 dictionaries and thesauruses. All of the resources on Encylopedia.com are accurate and verifiable.
• RefDesk – This award-winning online fact checker can be used to explore newspapers, encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, and other reference materials. RefDesk also offers 260 search engines, demographic information, and a homework helper for college students.
• Google Scholar – This Google search engine makes it easy to search for scholarly literature, including books, articles, peer-reviewed papers, and abstracts.
• The New York Times – If you’re looking for older news stories, The New York Times website offers an excellent database. You can search for articles dating from 1851 to present day.

Writing

• A Short Guide to College Writing – This University of Chicago guide to writing is designed to help students make the transition from high school writing to college-level writing. The guide is short, but includes a lot of valuable information.
• The Purdue Online Writing Lab – The Purdue OWL offers 200 free writing sources for students.
• CCC Guide to Grammar and Writing – Sponsored by the Capital Community College Foundation, this interactive guide includes grammar overviews, quizzes, and answers to frequently asked questions.
• Grammar Girl – Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty delivers “quick and dirty” grammar tips through a regular podcast. If you don’t want to listen to the podcast, you can read or search through transcripts of it online.
• AutoCrit – AutoCrit is designed for manuscripts, but it will work on almost any type of writing. This online tool searches writing for cliches, overused words, repeated phrases, dull sentences, and other common writing problems.

Miscellaneous Homework Resources

• ChaCha – ChaCha is a free, human-powered search engine for mobile phone users. You can text or call ChaCha with any question and receive an answer back within minutes.
• Quizlet – On Quizlet, you can browse and use flashcards made by other students. You can also create your own flashcards to print or use online.
• HackCollege – This popular blog provides fantastic life hacks and study tips for college students who want to learn how to work faster and more effectively.
• Gearfire – Gearfire is an award-winning student blog that provides regular tips for academic success.
• Intute – This consortium of seven universities evaluates material on the web to provide students with quality online resources. The Intute database contains only the most trusted and reliable research materials.