Another Reason Why Utah Valley University Can Never Be Taken Seriously As An Institution of Higher Learning

27. The geocentric universe suggests that:
a) God and all the saved souls existed beyond the tenth crystalline sphere.
b) The earth was comprised of substances similar to other heavenly bodies.
c) A motionless Sun is at the center of the universe.
d) The earth is perfect and constantly in motion.
e) God is the center of the universe.

Here it is...the question straight from my midterm. I got it wrong because the answer was "a" according to the teacher...even after I argued with her...

Take a stroll with Wikipedia...then you try and answer the question.

Poor UVU.

Copernicus--For the Love

Copernicus...famed astronomer (also the name of one of Doc Brown's dog in Back to the Future) was convicted of heresy for his publication concerning heliocentrism and subsequently burned to death (is there any other kind of burning? crispy? flame-broiled?) for his beliefs.

Recent similar crimes in the tune of heresy have recently been committed in a neighborhood near me.

It's midterm season here at UVU and I'm down 1 test with 3 to go and as much as I am a neurotic perfectionist, I have succumbed to the Cs and Ds gets degrees Hakuna Matata philosoph. Don't judge me--I am disillusioned with school.

But...that was bound to happen having transferred from the University down the street (literally). I'm not sure what infuriates me more: the teachers teaching down to the students and the students' expectations of that kind of base pedagogy (I hate this word with a burning passion...sorry); teachers attempting to teach at the level of the course but ultimately teaching over the heads of the students who are not prepared for true academia; or teachers teaching at a higher level in a lower course but testing at a higher level nonetheless.

A part of me is all up in arms Newsies style but there really isn't anything I can do...

...that's where Copernicus comes in.

I was taking a midterm in history which I had not adequately prepared for (remember when I was out of school for a good part of January and February?). I turned out to be the last one done and decided to ask my professor if she wouldn't mind giving my exam a look over to give me a general idea about how I did.

"Of course, but I don't have the key."

What a loaded response!

First of all, I wanted a general idea about a midterm that she created in history. She was bound to know some of the questions...right?

No.

Secondly, she pulled out an exam of one of her star pupils (sorry, S**n B***n but I know all about your midterm) and started to go over the midterm with me. Should I stop to make a note about how unethical this was or should I keep going?

Keep in mind that this was not the key so I wasn't being graded, however, shiz hit the fan when we came to a question that she told me was incorrect according to S**n B***n's exam. I told her that I disagreed with the answer. She picked up the exam and reread the question and again said the "correct" answer in an attempt to stymie my efforts to refute the answer which at this point in time was backed by S**n B***n and her knowledge as a history teacher and because I got that question wrong, I got a couple more wrong because they were based on the same question/concept.

Oh, Mike...you're not one of those students that argue over every little point do you?

Audience, you decide.

The first question was something along the lines of: What is the geocentric universe concept? Mr. B***n's answer was something along the lines of (I kid you not) something about the tenth crystalline sphere of Earth where the souls of the dead and God reside. By this time, I was questioning the legitimacy of my teacher's sanity and intelligence. For those who don't know, the geocentric Universe concept was a prevailing piece of dogma that was backed by the Catholic Church back in European days. The claim is that Earth was the most important place in the universe because God placed his most important creations on Earth so therefore, the universe revolved around the Earth.

Let's put on our etymologist hats for a second. "Geo" as in the Geo Prism? Nah, "geo" as in geography, geology, National Geographic, geocache, etc...and "centric" as in center? So, something about Earth and something about being in the center...

"Are you sure geocentric doesn't mean that the universe revolves around the Earth?"

"No...the answer is A."

"Okay..."

The next question was along the lines of: Who was killed for his scientific heliocentric theory? I got that one right: it was Copernicus...but that means geocentric is not heliocentric--in fact, heliocentrism goes hand in hand with the understanding of why the geocentric universe concept is incorrect.

Etymology lesson again...only if you bear with me and promise not to laugh at my nerdery. I love Greek mythology. I've been reading about it since I was in elementary school. I watched Hercules: the Legendary Journeys starring Kevin Sorbo and shamelessy admit to watching its spin-off Xena: Warrior Princess starring Lucy Lawless. I was disappointed in Disney's Hercules because it didn't really follow Greek mythology (Hera was not Hercules' mom...in fact, she hated his stinkin' guts and wanted to off him any chance she got).

Okay, my point.

Apollo is the sun god. However, Helios is also the sun god. It's complicated--I don't know if the Greeks even knew what was going on. Helios drove a chariot across the sky. The steeds were supposed to be solar steeds. You can even see the process in the Disney movie when night becomes day via Helios and his chariots of fire (ha ha ha). We already know what centric means so...Helios+Centric=Heliocentric...therefore, we revolve around the sun.

I am irked for many reasons: Copernicus' death for his theory seems like a scientific tidbit reserved for an astrononmy class...BUT...his death also occured during a time (the effin' Renaissance!) when people were thinking outside the Roman Catholic Box...his theory was opposing the might of the church that held Europe by firm grip and he was put to death.

So, should she have known the answer to this question?

Yes.

She made the quizzes from where she took 5 questions from each to make her midterm.

Did I mention this is a history class?

Sigh.

It actually gets worse...like acne during puberty.

She asked if I had a quiz to turn in and I did even though it was late. She said that we could grade that one right now so she could take it home and record the score. Surprise--she didn't have the key, which I gathered at this point that she needed because she didn't know what she was teaching (more on this later). So, she pulled out another quiz from her stack that got a perfect score and we began to go through my quiz.

Take home open book multiple choice quizzes are impossible to fail. I'm pretty good at them because I'm good at I-SPY and Where's Waldo and at using the index to look up names and concepts. Needless to say, I know I had a perfect quiz...but I didn't...according to so-and-so's quiz that was being used as the key.

I hate confrontations but here I was again with a disagreement with one of the answers.

"I don't agree with that...I'm pretty sure this is the right answer."

"Well, the answer is B."

"No, it isn't."

"Well, we have to go by the book."

"Okay, can I show you where the answer is?"

"Okay."

I hurried over to my backpack, feeling guilty for arguing over another little question at the expense of my professor. I opened up the book and flipped to the page and pointed out the paragraph. She had some mad upside down reading skills and read the paragraph only to come to the conclusion in support of so-and-so's quiz. Please understand that by this time I was ready for violence.

"But if you keep reading, it actually says Japan here. China is only mentioned briefly in the paragraph you read in a commentary by a Chinese journalist. If you read on, the answer to the question is Japan."

"No, it isn't. Okay, the next one is C."

"I don't agree with that one either. Here, look at this paragraph. The answer is this Japanese man who convinced the Emperor of Japan to open Japan to foreigners."

"Okay, I can see that."

"Well, the supposedly correct answer according to that student's quiz is C which is the name of the Chinese journalist and it's obviously not. So, I'm right about the question before this one..."

Pause.

"Don't mark it wrong."

"Why would I mark it wrong? It's right."

"Well, we have to go by what the book says."

"I just showed you what the book says."

"Look, I'll give you the points for that question, but remember to mark the wrong answer on the final."

"What, why would I do something like..."

In the mere seconds that it took me to utter that last question, I realized that there was a bigger picture I was missing. She was not interested in changing the answer on the final. It's tedious work no doubt--but she wasn't going to educate her students on an insignificant question--heaven forbid she was a teacher.

But she is.

And her class structure and pedagogy (I REALLY, REALLY HATE THIS WORD) is not inducive to learning anyway. Class quizzes are handed out the class period before and are graded the next class period. Grading happens when two students come up to the front of the class and go over the quiz: "Okay, number 1, what did you get?"

Row by row, the students give their answers.

"I got A."

"That's not what I got...I got C...anyone get A or C?"

Half the class murmurs in support of one or the other while the other half are actually doing their quizzes as the class is going over the answers.

"Well...let's vote...okay, C it is...next?"

Don't worry--the professor isn't going to step in...she's sitting down already, flippantly observing the scene. Shouldn't she know the answers? It's her quiz. Well, in the perfect world...she would know the answers and she could prevent incorrect answers from transforming (not the cool kind of transforming in the tune of Autobots and Decepticons) into correct ones via majority vote. However, that's not how she works.

My studies in psychology as well as my work at work have forced me to become familar with pedagogy (...ugh...) and the learning process. There is ample research out there that supports the idea that students learn when they teach other. This history class is now my third class at this institution of higher learning that has taken this concept to the extreme.

On the first day of class, she divided the class into pairs and assigned each a chapter from the book. A class is 1 hour and 15 minutes long. Each partnership is responsible for teaching about the chapter and covering the quiz questions. That's pretty much all she's done this semester.

One partnership had the section on British Imperialism so one of the two girls brought in her neighbor who was from...you guessed it...England...which makes him the foremost authority on British Imperialism as he had been a postman at one point of his life which makes him an authority on the subject.

I'm presenting on the Vietnam War.

I'm my own special guest.

Administration of Justice (Hammurabi Style)

I'm on campus early today so I can make up a midterm before I head in to work. In my drunken stupor that is the first hour after I get up, I told myself that I would go get breakfast. UVU has a place called the Valley View Room where breakfast, lunch, and dinner (I think) is served. And so with reckless abandon, I decided to test the perpetuated myth that eating breakfast is an important part of your day...nay existence...and I am thinking this might be one of those actual things I believe in like the American Dream, karma, or the military cover up of Roswell.

I feel focused and attentive...which is in stark contrast with some extra Zs I caught on the bus all the way to school. It wasn't the best nap in the world because I was jostled around quite a bit by bumps. I'm pretty sure we hit some curbs on the wide sweeping turns and I'm sure a puppy might have met its demise but I'm not going to judge the racial makeup of the driver (makeup as in the racial profile...I wasn't in a clown car).

But I have a reason I'm blogging!

I am studying for 3 make up exams and 1 exam that actually caught up with its make up exam. So, I'm throwing down history, geology, and two biology tests this week. I'm over stressing over history.

The Tigris and Euphrates just seemed way more entertaining in 6th grade.

My point!

I'm reading about the laws of Hammurabi and I came across a section that I thought was pretty interesting: "If a judge has heard a case, and given a decision, and delivered a written verdict, and if afterward his case is disproved, and that judge is convicted as the cause of misjudgment, then he shall pay twelve times the penalty awarded in that case. In public assembly he shall be thrown from the seat of judgment; he shall not return; and he shall not sit with the judges upon a case..."

Don't be corrupt.

The end.

Also, don't be get behind in classes and have to make up your exams up the wazoo.

25 Random Things About ME

1. Sometimes, I dream about dropping out of school. I would open up a bakery (like Ana Pascal in Stranger than Fiction)…Or just travel down rivers like the Mighty Mississippi, Danube, or through a canal like the Erie or the Suez in a homemade skiff made from empty soda bottles and used gerbil wheels.

2. My siblings and I used to tape ourselves recreating Disney movies like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. Being Asian, my family had to video record everything. They didn’t like me manning the camcorder because my filming made them queasy but if only they supported me and I could have made Blair Witch or Cloverfield…or the Bourne movies.

3. When I was young, I resented Disneyland because when we would go as a family, my dad would get tired from the day and need a mid-day break to nap…on a bench. We wouldn’t be allowed to go off on our own because we were too young so we sat by the bench like beggar children trying to sell ‘papes on the streets of New York.

4. I watched the premiere of the first episode of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.

5. I am from California and I do not like In-N-Out Burger.

6. When I was in first grade, the school nurse suggested for me to see an optometrist. I took this as an opportunity to MAKE SURE I would have glasses like my best friend at the time. So, I stared at the sun. I wore his glasses that were thicker than the ice roads that the ice road truckers from the History Channel drive on. My eventual exam of lies went something like this…Doc: “What looks better, 1 or 2?” Me: “Um…neither?”

7. One late evening as a kid, I chucked a rock at the neighbor’s kid and when they called the cops and confronted my parents and myself, I blamed it on my older brother who had been in the shower the whole entire time.

8. I have an irrational fear of swimming in open water, especially when I can’t feel the bottom…but I also love Discovery Channel’s Shark Week (best week of the year). I have a scar and indentation in my skull/forehead from slipping on some of those big rocks pier things as a kid. I was catching little crabs that lived in the cracks and cracked my skull when I fell. I was holding a big, emptied can of Cheetos which were filled with crabs that took my debacle as a chance to scurry over me with their sharp, prickly legs.

9. My favorite X-Men is Jubilee but not because she is Asian.

10. My mom thought I was in a cult in high school because I had Star Wars posters on my wall after the Heaven’s Gate incident.

11. O.J. Simpson is guilty.

12. I have taken a P.E. volleyball class a total of 12 times during my undergraduate career. I came in second on two different teams during a one day tourney at my apartment complex and another for charity. Intramurally, I’ve played on a bunch of teams. I’ve played on two city league teams: last year at Orem when we won ZERO games and a few months ago at Provo when we won the championships. I play setter and I’m a setter snob. I played one year as a freshman in high school and that was that. Some of my volleyball team names have included: the Ligers, the Late Comers, the Flux Capacitors (go Provo champs!), and Affirmative Action.

13. I don’t know remember the last time I did a pull up.

14. The scariest movie for me growing up was Fire in the Sky.

15. Vitamin C’s Graduation Song (Friends Forever) still makes me think about high school but strangely, nothing specific.

16. I am Asian and I am terrible at math AND science.

17. I have never fired a gun.

18. I have rudimentary proficiency in Spanish that I use for eavesdropping more than anything else.

19. I am 25 but I still speak of the future in terms of “WHEN I GROW UP.”

20. I write in all-caps.

21. My favorite accent is the Scottish…which I would like to learn how to do perfectly.

22. I thought Dumbledore was still alive.

23. Dakota Fanning bothers me.

24. I believe in the American Dream.

25. I can watch Scrubs 24/7.

You Are The New Day

I will love you more than me and more than yesterday, if you can but prove to me you are the new day.

Send the sun in time for dawn; let the birds all hail the morning. Love of life will urge me say: you are the new day.

When I lay me down at night knowing we must pay;
Thoughts occur that this night might stay yesterday.

Thoughts that we as humans small could slow worlds and end it all--lie around me where they fall before the new day.

One more day when time is running out for everyone like a breath I knew would come I reach for the new day.

Hope is my philosophy; just needs days in which to be; love of life means hope for me borne on a new day.

You are the new day.

When I was in high school, my then girlfriend was in choir and this is one of the ballads I liked the most! I have a King Singer's rendition of it and sing with it all the time...it makes me feel like a man when I go ahead and hit those low notes with all the manliness in my loins. Yep.