Nate Knows Nada

I’m serving as the teaching assistant for an International Law class
this spring.  My advisor teaches it, and I have done this
particular class twice before.

I’d like to add a blogging component to the class this time around, and
I’ve been searching out sites that talk about blogging in the classroom
and how one can effectively use it as a component of learning.  I
should be clear — I do not want to supplant traditional discussion
sections with a web-based “bulletin board.”  But I want the online
content to be vital and continuing for the students.  In other
words, they shouldn’t post or contribute because they have to.  I want them to want to, just like we bloggers want to do this.

I know some of you readers out there might have some ideas about
this.  Can you drop me a comment or an e-mail with your
suggestions or websites on how to do this effectively?

I wrote the following letter last Friday:

I grant that the numbering of the commandments varies if you’re Jewish
or Roman Catholic, but I was raised Protestant, so it’s the second for
me.  And frankly, most of these people are Protestants, too, so
I’ll speak their language.

If you’re interested in the numbering aspect, this page has more detail than you might have ever been aware existed.  Interesting, in its own way….

O.K.  Some of you have come up with good ideas about adjusting to Boston.

When you mention “culture,” what sort of culture are we talking about
here?  I can see the history (and though it’s not my period, it’s
still fun, as long as the person you’re with doesn’t go on and on about
how all of America started here and we have New England to thank for
freedom, Mom, and apple pie [BTW, BF rarely, if ever, does this] — I
have some people in various parts of the country that used to be Mexico
or France who’d object vociferously to the “this is the origins of it
all” line), but besides the good classical music and the MFA, I’m
bereft in knowing about the culture that’s here.  The Lonely
Planet guide doesn’t do much to point it out.

Brief caveat: I will not spend time in the bars of Allston and
Brighton.  They always look too much like a whole town full of the
bars I spent time in during college (but we only had 5 bars in a town
with 20,000 college students, so you can imagine), but which I made a
point even then to avoid at night….

(I could make a jab about Dunkin’ Donuts in here, but considering that
I grew up in a land of strip malls, that’s a bit unfair.  But
purple and orange?  Who chose the color scheme?  The “Queer
Eye” guys would NOT approve, nor would Martha….)

Do other people have suggestions?  How else can the displaced come
to love Boston?  O.K.  “Love” is probably a bit
optimistic.  How about “like”?  Or “get along with”?

And how do I keep the cars out there on the road from trying to run me
over or yelling some conjugation of “fuck” at me when I am riding my
bike?  (This, I realize, is a totally separate question, but it
seems slightly related.)