Educational conferences and Spotted Dick

The Brits have a dessert that's tasteless in both senses of the word. Spotted Dick is, according to various sources, a boiled suet pudding with raisins or currants stuck to the outside. Serving the delicacy with custard doesn't help much. It's best to eat the sweet, dried fruit and then look for the dog to finish the rest.

I've been to a few educational conferences in the past three months. They, too, have had some sweet treats in a flavorless puddle. The good parts are real and exciting; the boiled suet is soul-crushing.
The conferences have had these general characteristics:

• There are excruciatingly few questions from the audience. Most of the few questions are the teacher-equivalent of "Will this be on the test?" The educators ask about logistics and process, rather than digging deeper into the ideas. 
• Even the good presenters often aren't interested in talking afterwards. They're good on stage, but have a tough time with individuals and small groups. 
• The Twitter stream and other social media channels are quiet. Some of this depends on conference organizers. If' they promote it online, more people respond. Otherwise, there's little chatter inside the room and even less from people outside.
  

  Academics tend to be politically and socially liberal, but very conservative on matters of changing the way they teach. #UMass
  — Karl Hakkarainen (@RoasterBoy) March 28, 2013

• If the people at the conferences are the innovators or interested in innovation, imagine the dispirited temperaments of those who didn't attend. We should be worried about the future of education. 

We also need to make sure that the catering staff (mostly students) checks their spelling before lunch.

A solid educational experience

In the early 70s, I worked for McManus's, an all-night restaurant in Hadley. We had a Metro van that we used for errands around town. The van was an International Metro Mite, painted with the McManus logo. The notation near the driver's door said that the van's height was 7' 00".
One day, I needed to go to UMass for something and so I went to the parking garage in the center of campus.

I made my way into the garage, made the first turn, and got stuck when the top of the truck hit the roof of first parking level. After many uncharitable words toward the nameless workers who hadn't measured all of the clearances in the garage, I let enough air out of the tires to lower and free the truck.
It was in that spirit that I went to UMass yesterday. I was there for a conference, but I found myself thinking about nearly 50 years in the valley.
I started hanging around there when my father was working on the construction of the Southwest dorm complex. During the summer, we'd drive from the camp, through the fog banks along Route 202 near the Quabbin, to Amherst. I'd spend the day on campus, reading newspapers, drinking coffee, smoking the cigarettes that I could buy for thirty cents from the vending machine.
I had a good time pretending to be a college student. I did that for a long time.
During those years, UMass grew in size and stature. The Boston Globe had a good write-up this past Sunday about the aesthetics of the concretized campus. I have a fondness for those buildings in way that I remember that old van. It wasn't real pretty when new, but it got the job done. It was dented front, sides, and back. I was the only one to put a dent on the roof.

Our technology conference was in the campus center auditorium, gray vaulted ceilings high enough for the tallest truck and unfriendly to radio waves of any type.