Welcome, All!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   I realize that many of you are waiting for your books to arrive in the mail. Please don't be anxious - I posted some great articles (see links starting with "MAJOR FIGURES OF CRITICAL PEDAGOGY" in the column to the right) for us to read the first week. Hopefully most of your books will arrive by the second week. If possible, you might want to Express Mail the Nicholas Paley book, Finding Art's Place, since that is the first book we'll read.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        In the meantime, we can introduce ourselves. Tell us where you are in the MAE program (for instance, if it's your first semester or if you plan to graduate within a year), where you live, why you decided to enter the MAE program at Texas Tech and what you hope to achieve. If you're comfortable with telling us your current occupation, please feel free to do so. If you're a practicing artist, which I believe most of you are, you can tell us about that too. If you're really gregarious you can tell us about your family, your pets, your general age range (whether you remember the JFK assassination or think Madonna is Lady Gaga's grandma) and where you grew up. Whatever is important for us to know about you.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Let me know if you encounter any difficulties accessing the syllabus or navigating the blog. I know that for some (if not most) of you, distance learning is a new experience. You will catch on quickly. The best thing about online learning is that it forces us to practice our writing skills. If you are a teacher in the U.S. today, you know that almost everybody needs to work on their writing. Online learning provides us with an opportunity to articulate our ideas in writing - statements that can be saved for later use in a research paper or even a thesis.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             So before we start reading about some of the major figures of critical pedagogy, let's take time to say who we are and get to know each other. If you want to post a picture, just email it to me and I will put it on the blog.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    If you have any special needs or concerns that you'd like me to know about but otherwise remain confidential, you can ALWAYS email me at -  c.erler@ttu.edu   - I am here to help and serve YOU.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Once again, welcome to the class. I look forward to a great semester!                                                                   -                                                                                                                                                                      carolyn / Dr. Erler (call me carolyn)