Teddy Bloggie Blog Blogging

I'm glad, ecstatic, thrilled that Cal's football team got off to a 70-22 start this year. As the Daily Cal writes:

Cal ignited the onslaught in its first play from scrimmage, and in the most audacious way imaginable.

Bears quarterback Kyle Boller lateraled to halfback Terrell Williams, who then lobbed the ball to a wide open David Gray for a 71-yard touchdown.

"I was just running across the field and hoped the ball would be there," Gray said. "I didn't see him throw it, so I didn't know if the ball was coming or not."

After appearing to stumble and then regain his balance, Gray caught the pass and ran it in for Cal's first touchdown from an opening play since Marcus Fields' 49-yard run against Rutgers in 1999.

I remember when I was at McClymonds High School last year watching David Gray & Co. play, they would always put on a show and cap a game with a similar score. At the time, when I asked a Mack student about the team, he replied, "Yeah, our team is all nastttty and saucccy."

Well, it must've rubbed off. Because last weekend's game was about as nasty and saucy as it gets.

Today, I was thinking about how this weblog probably wouldn't exist if I were living in China. There, I would be afraid to question the views of the state. You can do it if you want to (so long as you don't discuss Taiwan independence or the Falun Gong), but people generally don't because they remember what happened in the 60's during the cultural revolution, when anyone with rightist views were persecuted, sometimes jailed, sometimes killed. McCarthyism times 100. My father's uncle who lived with us during my childhood was labeled a rightist for spouting ideas different from Maoist socialist ideology and was jailed for many years. He never really recovered from that experience, always loafing around the streets after his release, unable to hold a job and burdened by his reluctant silence. No, I'm glad I'm writing this weblog in this country because I know my right to speak my mind is the very essence of our democratic government and only by exercising free speech can it be sustained. It doesn't matter if I agree with Bush or if I hold the popular opinion because dissent is expected, not frowned upon.

Sometimes I wish I focused more of my attention on happier events, stuff that doesn't tempt me to be critical or cynical; alas, I seem drawn to publicizing the threats around me. Well, today I want to point out the threat to academic freedom. This one is from the Hoover Institue of Stanford. Sometimes, even the farm across the way comes up with a great critque of popular rhetoric.

The Crisis Role of the University by John H. Bunzel

Why, one wonders, are various conservatives and other voices of the political right seemingly driven to drawing up enemy lines?

I've been learning a lot about test bias lately thanks to David White, the founder of Testing for the Public. He's been coaching me on how to teach a prep-course for the GRE. Let me first say something about David White. He's an admirable iconoclast, a specialist in standardized testing with a law degree from Harvard, and he looks the part by resembling a mixture of Einstein and some guy from Haight/Ashbury. His insights into test bias have really put a dent in my beliefs in the usefulness and accuracy of standardized testing and should really tear down the institution of standaradized testing as it exists today.

The primary and most insidious problem of the Graduate Records Exam is that all questions are pretested for "consistency". This means questions tossed at test-takers in the "pretest" part of the exam (1 of 4 sections you'll have to take on the GRE). Your performance in the "pretest" doesn't affect your overall score, but it's there to test whether a question will be included in the scored part of a future exam. The thing test makers look for in these trial questions is consistency, the correlation between how well you do on the test and how well you do on the experimental question. Basically, this mechanism for introducing new questions perpetuate any bias that's in the test.

Let's take Armando who's from mexico. He might know a few words with Latin roots, say ferrous, that your average, white Joe Smith doesn't. Let's say he gets that question right on the pretest, he associates ferrous with ferrocarril and bingo - ferrous: iron containing. But, he does horribly on the GRE. Well, eventhough the question is legitimate, that question won't make it onto the GRE because it's inconsistent; upper-middle class, white Joe Smith got it wrong and he scored well on the "real" GRE. Hey, that's why when you're taking the test and you've narrowed it down to a few answer choices you're better off picking the one that's Anglo-Saxon-sounding. It's more likely to be right. Why? Because Joe Smith knows more Anglo-Saxon words. Sounds dumb, right? It did to me the first time I heard it, but as you do practice tests and take the real GRE test, it becomes clear that when you don't know the answer, picking the Anglo-Saxon word that sounds like grunts and groans is more likely to be right! Another tip: when anything relating to boats come up, that's the right answer. DOOR:ROOM::HATCH:HULL. Those are just a few examples of bias in standardized testing.

All this leads to the conclusion that standardized testing isn't used to find the smartest, most qualified people to fill the available spots in universities (I don't know what could). Its only pupose is to fill them with the same people that were accepted last year. It's not diversity or creativity they're looking for; it's strict conformity.

Remember buying readers that were equal in price to textbooks? It was the intellectual copyright costs that made those readers expensive. I hope that changes in the future. No educational material should cost more than its reproduction. At 2 cents a page, that should be two dollars for a hundred page reader. I know it takes a lot of effort to write a book and that effort should be repaid, but for education purposes, the copyright laws often presents an unsurmountable hurdle. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. In fact, I'm sure many authors would forgo the income from books if they could be guaranteed free and open access to their material. Many authors of educational material get income from consulting and speaking engagements that arise as the result of authorship and therefore can afford to "donate" their knowledge to the public domain.

At last, MIT is beginning to address this issue, creating an open source for educational material. It's a step in the right direction, and I think it's great that one of the leading educational institutions is championing the cause. I can't even see the limit of the opportunities and possibilities that this project opens up...

MIT OpenCourseWare

MIT OpenCourseWare reflects the commitment of the MIT faculty to advancing education by increasing access to their academic materials through the Internet and the World Wide Web. We believe that with modern communication technology we can not only transmit information but also stimulate and enhance the deeply human, person-to-person endeavor of education.

We hope the idea of openly sharing course materials will propagate throughout many institutions and create a global web of knowledge that will enhance the quality of learning and, therefore, the quality of life worldwide.

We are opening our pilot to the public for review and feedback. It contains a sample of MIT courses, offering an early look at the content and design of OCW. As we pursue our intensive work to find the most effective way to make OCW a valuable resource for all who use it, we will continue to add courses, until virtually all are available.

We thank our sponsors, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as the faculty who have dedicated so much creative energy and time to this endeavor. We are pleased to have you as a participant in this educational journey.

Charles M. Vest, President, MIT

Credit for the title of this entry goes to Wayne. He's absolutely right, I should be writing about Cal's big win in the BIG GAME today. 30-7. What a huge relief. They actually lived up to the season opener's promises. My brother graduated without seeing Cal win the Big Game, Wayne graduated without seeing them win the Big Game, and just about every friend I have at Berkeley never celebrated a Big Game victory. So today's win is mango-nectar-decay-your-tooth-sweet.

I'm glad Lisa's inability to find the game's televised time and station led us to don our helmets and ride doubled-up on the red Honda into Berkeley. Our plan was to get to an ATM and find two tickets. It went much more smoothly than planned. After we parked next to Soda Hall and sauntered up to Memorial Coliseum we were met first with a guy selling two Stanford tickets, which we promptly refused. But you know, I have to admit Stanford tickets look much nicer. They are printed on these nice colored paper that look real compared to the two Berkeley tickets we picked up from the next scalper for $30 each. The Berkeley section tickets are printed on white laminated paper with interspersed 'Cal' scripts on a dot matrix machine. Very plebeian. Actually, I think one of the tickets we bought was a fake, but I'm not sure. In any case we got in sin problemas. The ticket-taker didn't look twice or even once at our so-called-tickets...

There were 71,000 plus in attendance of the Big Game today and it was a nightmare to find seats. We weren't sure if we had "real" tickets anyway so that wasn't a big problem. Ernesto and Julie were kind enough to holler at us, get our attention, and sit next to us for the length of the game. It was great seeing them. Ernesto was an Econ major just like I am and Julie was a PEIS major just like I am. But they both graduated on time unlike a certain someone that writes weblogs in the early wee hours of the morning.

By the time we sat down, Stanford had scored the first touchdown, a throw to Teyo Johnson, the only one they were to score for the day.

Actually, you can look here for a recap. I'll just add this. The kicking team was terrible today. What happened? How do you have two missed field goals, one blocked field goal, and a missed extra point all in a single game? Doesn't matter though. We won! We Won! Also, it was sad to see Stanford's outstanding Teyo Johnson and Kyle Matter injured in the waning moments of the game when the game was already out of reach for the Stanford players and fans. I'm relieved to hear on the night's news program that they weren't injured badly.

What more is there to be said? It was a beautiful day in wind-chilled, overcast Berkeley if you've been waiting to see the Bears win one against Stanford and a sea of blue and gold flood impatiently onto the Memorial Stadium field with 11 inconsequential seconds left on the clock. The AXE is back!

From the SF Chronicle:

David Gray, 21, a sophomore wide receiver for the Bears from Richmond, was arrested in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco at about 1 a.m. Friday. He was booked into the county jail on charges of tampering with identification marks of a firearm, a felony.

Yeah, he came from a tough neighborhood, but that's why I was so excited to see him become a good football player at Cal. Why does he have to live up to the stereotype?

I wrote this about two years ago:

Cal's Season Opener

I'm glad, ecstatic, thrilled that Cal's football team got off to a 70-22 start this year. As the Daily Cal writes:

Cal ignited the onslaught in its first play from scrimmage, and in the most audacious way imaginable.

Bears quarterback Kyle Boller lateraled to halfback Terrell Williams, who then lobbed the ball to a wide open David Gray for a 71-yard touchdown.

"I was just running across the field and hoped the ball would be there," Gray said. "I didn't see him throw it, so I didn't know if the ball was coming or not."

After appearing to stumble and then regain his balance, Gray caught the pass and ran it in for Cal's first touchdown from an opening play since Marcus Fields' 49-yard run against Rutgers in 1999.

I remember when I was at McClymonds High School last year watching David Gray & Co. play, they would always put on a show and cap a game with a similar score. At the time, when I asked a Mack student about the team, he replied, "Yeah, our team is all nastttty and saucccy."

Well, it must've rubbed off. Because last weekend's game was about as nasty and saucy as it gets.