I’m up to day 2 1/2, and of course it’s harder to keep things straight since, well, there are more things. Nevertheless, I know about intuitive/narrative, mathematical, and graphical levels. I know that the slope of a productivity profile frontier (I think that’s what ppf stands for; I’m going from memory here) (EDIT: production possibility frontier) is always negative because economics deals with scarcity. I know that absolute advantage is different from comparative advantage, and I think I remember that the former has to do with how much/how fast, whereas the latter has to do with cost. Even if that’s not quite on the money (sorry), the fact that there are two kinds of advantages and they differ is intriguing enough to keep me going.

I also know that cookies and pancakes are Dr. Blanchard’s daughter’s favorite foods. But now I’m too tired to remember her daughter’s name. (EDIT: Caroline.) The other person’s name in the ongoing cookie/pancake example is Scott. I’m betting Scott is her husband, though I don’t think he’s yet been identified as such.

Three other things before I forget them. One is that it was obvious on day one that people started to leave five minutes before class was over, and left en masse as soon as any word of conclusion came out of the professor’s mouth. To craft a graceful end, not an abrupt one, Dr. Blanchard took pains to talk a bit about the next class, and to try to recap a few points. Yet the exiting students were clearly done. Most students at UMW are far more polite (or, perhaps, engaged) than that, and will wait patiently until the class is done. Perhaps it’s also that there’s less anonymity in our smaller classes. If the lecture hall for my intro film class held 500 people, I’d be much more of a kiosk to those in the back row, I’m sure. Still don’t make it right, hoss, as John Mellencamp would say.

I also noticed that at the beginning of day two, Dr. Blanchard had to ask the class to stop talking. That’s also pretty rare at UMW. Yes, there are blessings to be counted here.

Finally, I noted at the end of day one that Dr. Blanchard offered an example of cost involving textbooks. I believe the whole thing centered on opportunity costs, but the point for me was that she confidently asserted that no one would ever buy an economics textbook if they weren’t taking the course. I was struck by the truth of that statement, and how readily it applies to most textbooks for most of my students. I got in the early habit of keeping all my books, even the textbooks (as opposed to primary sources), because I was starting a library and wanted to preserve my contact with the materials of my education. (Sounds high-flown, but it’s true.) There’s something interesting here, and it’s not just about generational changes. I think it’s about school and its processes. Perhaps a textbook can be defined as a book you would never buy unless you were taking a course. And perhaps that definition means that the book isn’t much more than a set of study notes. If the text has no more intrinsic interest than that, who wouldn’t sell it back?

Or perhaps it goes the other way, and the textbook industry with its sell-back processes of disposability (and the price-gouging that seems to take place these days) merely reflects the complete commodification of the classroom itself. Instead of trying to make an education out of a set of courses of study–or more accurately, the start of a habit of education–students and faculty and administration concede to a model in which the course is a good to be used and thrown away.

Maybe that’s too dismal. Still, Dr. Blanchard’s words forced me to consider my own practices and my own experiences within education. I’m always sad to think my students would sell back the books they bought for my classes. There may be economic necessity here, and I’ll concede that necessity, of course. But behind all that there’s also a strange view of books and education, or at least it seems stranger to me now than it did pre-podcast today.

EDIT: Production Possibility Frontier.