James Drogan

Re: Conversations wth Dave

My students and I have been discussing the Dubai Port World situation and, the other night,we touched on oil.

There are two points I would like to make in connection with these discussions.

First, we teachers have an obligation to engage our students in discussions of contemporary events to hone all those survival skills they need when they walk out there where the cold wind blows. I opined to my department chair that it would have been absolutely terrific if the DPW situation could have been a focal point in all our courses over the last couple of weeks. But we lack the culture to enables that.

Second, the students were a bit more tuned in to what was going on, had thought about things more, and had more reasonably well-formed arguments than I had expected. I was pleasantly surprised. There are a few glimpses of light on the distant horizon.