Enjoy Picasso.

There aren't any rules around here - we're trying to accomplish something.

--Thomas Edison




"Schools teach you to imitate. If you don't imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it is more sophisticated, of course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to convince the teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the instruction and going ahead with it on your own. That got you A's. Originality on the other hand could get you anything-from A to F. The whole grading system cautioned against it....eliminate the whole degree-and-grading system and the you'll get a real education.
...The abolition of the degree-and-grading system produced a...negative reaction in all but a few students at first, since it seemed, on first judgment, to destroy the whole University system. One student laid it wide open when she said with complete candor, 'Of course you can't eliminate the degree and grading system. After all, that's what we're here for.'
She spoke the truth. The idea that the majority of students attend a university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a little hypocrisy everyone is happier not to expose. Occasionally some students do arrive for an education but rote and the mechanical nature of the institution soon converts them to a less idealistic attitude. "

--Robert M. Pirsig "Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"



So has the grading system failed us? Only producing imitators. Or has it been silently serving it's designed purpose? Was it designed to make followers instead of leaders? Students ignorant that they are being made to be sheep in shepherds clothing? There are two graduates one who has learned that success means doing exactly what he or she has been told, and one who has learned by taking new, untested approaches? Which would you hire? Which would you rather be? I can't say I am completely opposed to the system. It certainly solves (probably over-solves) the problem of too many Chiefs, not enough Indians.

Click here to Hear my latest song.

this usually a really long song folks, and tonight I'm gonna play it real slow.

A poem

Love is lost
but once had
the smallest taste
and drove me mad

And mad I stay
for memories of
the smallest taste
of the greatest
Love

elephant

A theory on Matriculation

It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin barefoot irreverence to their studies. They are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.
--Jacob Bronowski

(guilty of Ragamuffining)

chalk dancer