Education

With a discussion group at the local city college

I became a classroom teacher a-way back in 1981, and have been teaching in one way or another ever since.

A few more facts about me:

  • With degrees in English, philosophy, and education, I have been a classroom teacher of biology, history, photography, and various aspects of English (from college writing to literature to ESL). I have also tutored middle school math and general science.
  • I have been a principal and a headmaster in elementary schools; a teacher in a junior high and high school; and a professor in a college. I have also taught adults (mostly business people) and even Buddhist monks!
  • After working many years in the United States, I have lived primarily in Asia since 1997, including five years in Japan and over 11 years in China. I am now resident in the Philippines.

Now let's explore some of the riches on offer.

---BUZZWORDS---

Two or three times a week since 2007, I have written "Buzzwords," a column for English learners in a Chinese newspaper. To date, that's over 2,100 columns covering:

  • Miscellaneous grammar points and vocabulary builders (including slang and idioms) (256)
  • English proverbs (313)
  • Dialogues between college students on a variety of academic subjects (464)
  • Biographies of great authors, scientists, artists, musicians, film directors, and more (279)
  • Holidays around the world (58)
  • The countries of the world (201)
  • Wars and battles (272)
  • Retellings of the world's stories and tales (over 350 and growing...)
  • Extra lessons never published in the Shenzhen Daily (13)

All of these are online in more or less developed states.

The perpetually surprised
Professor Jim Bucket

THE REAL DEAL

  • The most-developed ones (though some are still missing parts) are on my Jim Bucket site. Use the navigation at the top of the page to find each section.
  • The lessons that have NOT been developed are mingled with those that have on a "secret site" I call "Buzzwords Shadow." The undeveloped ones are linked as "RAW." (It's an astoundingly wide range of topics!) These will be migrated to the first site listed above as completed.

JUNK SITES (to be deleted as incorporated into the One True Site above)

  • Some lessons--often just questions and a (usually broken) link to the newspaper article--are repeated on JamesBaquet.com I'll be taking them down as I integrate the questions into the above site.
  • Another page on JamesBaquet has nearly 60 pretty little posts--despite being subtitled "100s of lessons for learners of English." Many of these have also been moved; when the migration is finished, I'll remove the site.
  • A few times I have pushed these lessons on various platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and Weebly (which was visible in China when other sites were not). These, too, will be gleaned for unique material, then shut down.

---THE JIM BUCKET LIST---

In a late 2021 "pandemic project" I created my alter ego, Professor Jim Bucket. "He" created a Substack where there's currently a very messy collection of all kinds of stuff (based on material from 12 newsletters) and a Facebook group to promote it. There are also Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter accounts (mostly unexploited) and a tiny YouTube channel which I hope will become more active someday--video learning is the way of the future, and I have a LOT of material to draw on!

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Clockwise from top left:
A birthday card, a "Great Book" lesson,
a visit to a World Heritage Site, and a "Mini-Lesson"

There's lots of slush here, but starting in 2021 I spent several months posting "learning cards" on four subjects:

  • A birthday card for an author born that day (Index) (273 posts, Sep. 2021 to May 2022)
  • A selection from the "Great Books" (Index) (109 posts, Feb to May 2022)
  • Mini-Lessons on a variety of subjects: English, science, art, music, and so on (Index) (162 posts, Sep. to Oct. 2021 and Feb. to May 2022)
  • "The World's Heritage," sites from UNESCO's World Heritage List (Index) (201 posts, Nov. 2021 to May 2022)

The best place to find these is in the blogs linked to the titles above. There is also an incomplete index given for each one, and a very incomplete index covering all of these and the newsletter.

---FOR FILIPINOS ONLY---

For a couple of weeks I attempted to create and promote daily lessons specifically aimed at Filipino students. No one signed up for the Substack (well, two did--and they were both ME!); I had a few active members in a private Facebook group, but mostly the effort 9as so often happens to me) far outweighed the results. So once again I quit--but it was good while it lasted. I really liked those lessons!

---JUNK SITES---

I humbly slipped myself in with good
company to promote my tutoring business.
(Can you name them all?)

Finally, two Big Ideas that never went nowhere:

  • James Baquet, Tutor: A Facebook effort to drum up some business, which I never got. In later years it was made up of posts about 165 vocabulary terms and roughly the same number about famous people.
  • The Great Books Academy of the Philippines: A business plan for training "discussion coaches" throughout the islands. I still think this was a great idea.

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