LIVE FREE AND DIE

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 6:34 pm By Sam Rocha

Libertines, everywhere. We have conservative libertines, liberal libertines, secular libertines, and religious libertines. We have reactionary libertines, sexual libertines, social libertines, cannabis libertines, economic libertines, and anarchist libertines. Groupie communitarian libertines, solo individualistic libertines, populist proletariat libertines, and ironic aristocrat libertines. Indigenous sovereignty libertines, nativist isolationist libertines, border-crossing pragmatic libertines, and starry-eyed lovely libertines. (Anti)Intellectual libertines, (non)influential libertines, and (post)modern libertines. Liberty and freedom have imprisoned us, swallowed us whole. I’m a libertine, too. I am trying to free myself... Read more

Airport Affectations

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 6:34 pm By Sam Rocha

Over the past two months I’ve become an infrequent blogger. I once resisted that title. “Blogger.” I’m not sure what snobbery developed my absurd allergy to blogging as an identity. Today I see things differently; I guess I’ve realized that there is a difference between blogging in the abstract and the concrete reality of this blog, this virtual dwelling place. I’ve been busy, of course. I write to you from an airport terminal, so on and so forth. You? I’ve... Read more

Primer Update and Sneak Peek

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 6:29 pm By Sam Rocha

My latest book — A Primer for Philosophy & Education — was released two weeks ago. Since then, there have been two reviews — here and here — posted on Patheos blogs and there are several more to come from Patheos and elsewhere. Entering this crucial third week, I’d like to ask you for your help once again. Anything helps: Facebook liking and sharing, Tweets, and especially personal recommendations to people you think might be interested are all a huge... Read more

A Sunday Letter: Bikers and Fishing, Rhythm and Harmony

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 6:29 pm By Sam Rocha

My dear readers, Happy Pentecost! Here’s something of a weekend review: Friday I played drums for the opening act and guitar for the headliner — “Little Bobby and the Storm” — at a biker charity event in St. Hilaire, MN. It felt very retro. Biker leather and tattoos don’t age much and there were not the usual smart phones everywhere. I never knew that bikers like to slow dance as much as they did. The beer was unlimited and the... Read more

Sex Miseducation: Abstinence Doesn’t Make Sense UPDATED

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 6:30 pm By Sam Rocha

Calah Alexander has written a powerful essay about the psychological and spiritual violence that is often inflicted on women by abstinence-only sex education. Read it. Since I seem to be in a womanist mood these days, I’d like to fully endorse her argument and bolster it with a very simple addition: teaching fertile females and virile males to abstain from having sex is crazy. It is almost as crazy as instructing trees to abstain from growing leaves in the spring. A student once interviewed... Read more

The Womb of Love: A Womanist Manifesto

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 6:30 pm By Sam Rocha

The Ascension is a soft-spoken Catholic feast about dwelling in a prolonged and reoccurring Advent. More and more, I feel like all feasts eventually collapse on each other, but today the feast of the Ascension feels unique because of its peculiar absence, its anti-climatic and even surprising exit. Birth, Death, and Resurrection is much more straightforward. It covers all the bases and leaves no loose ends. But there’s more? Yes, yes, there is. Salvation history is an infomercial. Like the Resurrection,... Read more

Housekeeping, Announcements, Gratitude, Spring

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 6:40 pm By Sam Rocha

Those who know me also know that I don’t keep a calendar, although sometimes I do in one form or another. It’s a defensive mechanism. The things I do forget, are simply that. The rest gets done at a regular pace without breathing too heavy down my neck. It’s been a long, hard winter. Laura Ingalls Wilder comes to mind. There are no words to describe it properly — what it does to you. North Dakotans tell me that I... Read more

Philosophy in a Trout Stream

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 6:40 pm By Sam Rocha

Over the past two summers in rural Indiana, I rekindled my life-long love of fishing. Last summer, just before our trek up north, a student told me about a small river nearby where trout were released and could be caught by special permit. Having grown-up fishing for rainbow and brook trout in southwest Colorado, I jumped at the chance. He picked me up the next morning; I got my trout stamp, and we were off. We arrived and decided to... Read more

Constructivism and Its Discontents: An Interview

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 6:30 pm By Sam Rocha

About a month ago, I was interviewed by one of my doctoral students, Emmanuel Mensah, for his qualitative social science research project on constructivism and teaching. I was shooting from the hip in a casual, coffee-shop environment, but I think I managed to think through some things, and make some distinctions, that I hadn’t done before. My comments follow closely to a talk I gave at Wabash College in February, titled “The Teacher-Centered Classroom.” For those who find the term... Read more

(Un)Fashionable Nostalgia

Last updated on: February 4, 2015 at 6:40 pm By Sam Rocha

I grew up wearing second-hand clothes. And hating it. Shopping was always ritual in humiliation. The psychology of used clothing, at least when you’re in high school, is all about branding. If I could buy a brand that was popular enough, Goodwill would always outdo Wal-Mart. When I didn’t find the right brand, when the cool clothes just weren’t there or didn’t fit, I’d go for the obscure names and console myself with the conviction that my obscure threads were... Read more