mail at last!

Jay Lemke (jllbc who-is-at cunyvm.cuny.edu)
Mon, 16 Nov 1998 21:35:21 -0500

How sweet it is! to see the "XMCA" mailbox on my screen again, activated by
actually arriving mail from the list ... none of which I've seen, despite
being re-subscribed since Nov 7.

I can only conjecture the context of Peter and Eva's notes on ideal
practices and the conflicting motives in the life of the poor downtrodden
student teacher ... and I will visit the archives again to see what I
(shouldn't have) missed.

I hope that we are not still missing other members of our community who are
verifiably on the list but not actually receiving mail ... I realize there
have been some gremlins visiting the xmca server since I left for Spain,
and I hope that out of respect for my return they will now depart! :-)
AVAUNT !!

Has a rite of exorcism been tried yet?

I am tempted to post something truly outrageous now just to see how many
people are actually getting their xmca mail this week. Could we perhaps
fake a flame war? (Just kidding, Mike!)

I imagine that Eva would be fascinated to see my solution to the problem of
how to simultaneously, in one posting, energize with wroth all the various
viewpoints in our community. The challenge is almost irresistable; in some
ways it would represent a concrete theory of our heteroglossia. But I am
too grateful to our colleagues in San Diego for getting things, at least
for me, back together, to indulge in this exercise.

Is it true, I wonder, that the number of active participants increases
during times of list-stress (reaching a peak before crashing -- in flamewar
stress, as some of us unsubscribe in protest ...)? and the recent
listserver problems, do they represent an alternative kind of list-stress
to flame wars? one where the initial interest is in preservation of the
community, rather than in preservation of some people's norms for it? there
would seem to be an interesting relationship here ... for of course flame
wars are put out precisely because most of us value the survival of the
community more than we do any particular norm within it ... we back off
into reluctant tolerance of the intolerable to preserve the benefits of
interaction, or at least most of us do. Anyone know of a theory of
list-stress?

yes, of course I can relate all this to student teachers ... and so can
you, so I will take a break.

Welcome back, xmca ... JAY.

---------------------------
JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
---------------------------