Objectives!

These are kind of stacking objectives for English/Language Arts. The focus is on character traits. It is best done with a book with more ambiguous actors--no good and bad guys--and full of strong characters. Recommended texts include Curious George, Where the Wild Things Are, Despereaux, The Magician's Elephant, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (basically, any book by Kate DiCamillo), Flowers for Algernon, Hamlet, Othello, The Great Gatsby (who am I kidding, you can use the Great Gatsby for everything!), The Percy Jackson Books, Harry Potter, etc. (Basically, it can be taught in any grade).

Remembering

The student will be able to, given a narrative text, identify and list the main characters in the story with 95% accuracy.

Understanding

The student will be able to, given a list of main characters from the story, infer character traits, compare character's traits, and group characters by like traits, with 90% accuracy.

Applying

The student will be able to, given a character from the story, demonstrate an understanding of the character's traits by writing a journal for that character that parallels the events in the story, with 85% accuracy.

Analyzing

The student will be able to, given a character from the story, outline changes in character traits throughout the story and attribute in a report, changes to events in the story, with 90% accuracy.

Evaluating

The student will be able to, given characters in a story, hypothesize the character with the best traits and debate their decision with their classmates, focusing on quality of character traits, with 85% accuracy.

Creating

The student will be able to, given a well developed character, create a new story in which the characters traits play a key role, including a central character change, with 85% accuracy.

Over the Wall

Believe it or not, this blog post is not about Orion or anything like that. I just thought the metaphor was dually applicable to the idea of language barriers.

Someone mentioned earlier today about the idea of how difficult it would be to be in a place where no one understood you. I decided to comment on this by providing a frustrating story. As most know, I'm Sign fluent and that I have some friends that are Deaf, as well as having some students that I work with as a tutor at SAC that are Deaf. The single most frustrating experience for me is when my bosses (well meaning, I am sure) and other peripheral individuals (those people that just seem to always be around, but don't necessarily work with me) ask me why students who are Deaf do not make more use of the interpreter services available to them. I can think of no more isolating interaction than the interpreter interaction. I know most Deaf people try very hard to meet a hearing person--writing on a notepad, gesturing, etc. This is not an attempt to be a part of the hearing community, but rather an attempt to make a connection with the hearing community. I can also assuredly say that most Deaf people would like to see the same kinds of investments from the Hearing community.

And that leads me to the questions of today. Is Captain Dathon's sacrifice worth it? I wish I could say yes. I mean, in the end, The two societies are able to find a peaceable agreement and live with each other. But it is Picard's first interaction with Dathon's people that reveals the smugness of the primary society and it's view of the secondary, and hints at the tragic conclusion. I wonder if this is very much different from the way the Europeans came upon the Natives--an awkward language, weird rituals, and bold threatening stances. Ceremony. I wonder if these people didn't spend so much time posturing, if Picard had not assumed about Dathon's intentions, but had sought to understand them, if things would have ended sooner, and more positively. You could write a book on 'ifs.'

Dathon died. It reveals some tragic truth about our social structure: bodies bridge gaps more readily than minds build bridges. Pragmatics says, yes, it was worth it, because the end he desired from the experience was reached.

As for Picard, one hopes he came away with a better understanding not of language and people, but of himself, and his assumptions about other, alien, people. It's destructive to interpret any other culture through the lens we interpret ours--to the culture, its people, and to ourselves.

If only if only...

Orion and the Scorpion

My descriptive piece! Yay! It was hiding out under my coffee table, probably afraid of the dog. :-/

Orion climbs over the horizon
a leg and an arm first--a hunter mounting a wall,
with new stars--a trophy--in his belt
and a witch on his shoulder.

He passes the winter here, scanning
the sleeping earth for the last living creatures
and then slips away,
us leaving him behind as he looks elsewhere for life;

then:
the scorpion comes;
hunting for him.

I'm going to have to play with format some more, but that's the basic idea.

About My Missing Descriptive Piece

I totally and completely lost it. :( I am still looking for it. I know I showed it to some of my people on Friday, but then it got eaten by the massive stack of things to do that is my desk. Sad day.

Randy

My Expository/Informational Text

Okay, so I'm a little confused about what I'm supposed to be doing here. I am not completely sure if it is supposed to be an informational text or a 'how to' text, so I went with a how to text. This will be in the form of a small booklet, like something you might get with a small telescope, and will provide the steps to finding the north star. Those steps are as follows (I haven't made the book yet):

Step 1: Find the big dipper or Cassiopeia. The big dipper is one of the most recognizable constellations in the sky: It looks like a big scooping spoon. Even though it is easy to find, it is not always in the sky. If it is not, Cassiopeia is. Casseiopeia is either a big bright m or a w in the sky.

Step 2: If the Big Dipper is in the sky, draw a line to connect the last two stars in the spoon. Follow that line for five times the distance between these two stars. There you will find the North Star, and the little dipper.

Step 3: If Cassiopeia is in the sky, look at the first 'V' of the W. cut the V in half and follow it the way that the V opens (it may be useful to think that the mouth of the V is trying to eat the north star!) to find the North Star. Keep in mind that when Cassiopeia appears as an M, you will need to use the second mouth, rather than the first.

A brief explanation: The big dipper and Cassiopeia are circumpolar constellations, which means that they both rotate around the North Star, which is directly north of planet earth (but very far away!). This is why if you cannot see one, you can see the other, and why they can always be used to find the North Star.

My Persuasive Piece

Following my group's advice, I abandoned the boring essay and went with a flier to get kids to come to a Star Party. It took forever to make. It is obviously an appeal to a fourth grader's ego. Enjoy.

Randy

My Narrative (Finally)

John and Elizabeth had gone fishing with their father before, a few times, to sleep rocking in the bottom of the boat while dad fished late into the night. This was the first time that Dad had asked John to help thought, and it was the first time he had taken John by himself. Elizabeth pouted some, but Dad had said that she could help him take the fish to market, and mom let her help pack their lunches, and that seemed to make things better. So Dad and John set sail in the early evening, floating out to see and into the setting sun, with Mom and Elizabeth waving at them from the shore.

The calm water turned dark when the sun went down, and John's father did not hang a lantern on the boat like he normally did. The two of them sat in silence, John lying at the bottom of the boat, starting up at the stars, clear in the night sky and reflecting off of the water. Then John's father began to talk from his fishing perch. John knew that the stars were important; he knew that his dad used them to go and come home safe, and even to monitor the time. Tonight, Dad told the story of the two bears.

"Once," he said, "they were two humans, a mother and son who loved each other very much. But because the mother drew anger from the gods, she was turned into a bear. She stayed near her son and watched him grow. One day he was hunting and encountered his mother, and decided that a bear would be a good trophy. To save the mother, the gods turned the boy into a bear as well, and then put them both among the stars, so that when we are lost, we can see how they found each other, and find our own loved ones."

John loved the stories his father told. His father's voice was slow and rhythmic like the waves. Even though John knew all of the stories, having heard them as a kid, he loved to them over and over. He climbed out of the bottom of the boat and his father made room for him on the fishing perch, where he was going through the net for snags. John pointed up to the small bear and identified the North Star for his father. Dad smiled at his son's ability.

The night went on this way; father and son watching the constellations rise and sometimes Dad would tell the story, while other times John would recount the story of the constellation. Neither of them seemed to notice the wind picking up, except that John wrapped himself in a blanket to protect from the crisp breeze. But the wind kept blowing, and John's father decided that they should head back a little earlier than normal. He walked over to the sail to trim it and steer them toward home. Just as he grabbed the sail, a very strong gust blew and, John, used to seeing his fathers work, watched as the gust ripped the sail from his father's hand and his father fell into the bottom of the boat. John ran over to his father, but he knew immediately that he had been hurt, and that he would have to get the boat back to land on his own, out of the coming storm before things got worse. Working the sail and the rudder was a familiar job for John and his sister--his dad would always let them move it. But Father would always tell them when and how far: staring knowingly at the stars and telling them 'right' and 'left' and 'an arm's length.' John glanced forward at Ursa Major, mother bear, riding the horizon, and then set to work at turning around the boat.

John proved a good sailor: his father lay in the bottom of the boat, covered in a sea blanket to keep warm and dry, and John worked, sailing by the stars. He watched the time go by as constellations slid beneath the horizon as new ones rose. He had no idea what time it was, only that he was tired and the stars had changed--and that some of the new ones were less familiar to him. The wind was picking up and fear kept John awake.

Soon a light appeared on the horizon, and John thought at first that it was the hints of the sin peeking out, and was immediately relieved and filled with dread. Even while he was glad for the end of the night, John had no idea how to sail in the day---the day made the water and sky look all the same. He feared to think that he had been sailing for so long. The light seemed to make time freeze, and John watched it in fear that it would at any minute erupt over the horizon as the glowing sun. He glanced up at the little bear, the brightness of the North Star seeming dim in the presence of this new light.

The light on the horizon was not the sun. It rose and rose like a new star: bright, but not the sun. John got closer and closer and realized what he was looking at--it was the lighthouse! He was almost home! He adjusted the boat's path a little, knowing what the wharf would be off to the left of the lighthouse, and trimmed the sails. He then sat beside his father and tried to wake him to let him know. His father's eyes opened bright, he watched the North Star high above, and then felt the light of the on them.

The rain came right as John and his father came to shore. John called and Elizabeth came and helped pull the boat in--their father helping, but protecting his hurt arm and rubbing his head where he had fallen. John rolled the boat over after they had lain down they mast, and they all ran toward the house, where John's mother was waiting in the doorway. John went in last, looking back and seeing the big bear and the small bear even through the rain, shining bright, reminding everyone that they could find their way home. Then his father put a hand on his shoulder and brought him into the warmth of the house, smiling at him as any proud father would.

If you cannot differentiate instruction, you shouldn't be a teacher

I hope that is clear enough. Because it is something that has to be said. If you cannot make your lesson approachable by every student in your class, well, you really have no place in a class. Because there is one place where there is no room for pure democratic principle: information dispersal. That is, you cannot distribute information in such a way that it is packaged for the majority.

This is not just an issue of ethics--it's a logical impossibility. Why? Constructivism. Constructivism says that students develop interpretive schemas based on experience. Which means that, unless two students have the exact same experiences (both internal and external, chemical and physical, and all of those realms of human experience which we fail to quantify), they will not have the same schema.

What passes for 'mainstream' education is an education that is accessible to the largest portion of the bell curve. There is a difference between accessibility and mastery, and I would submit that our settling for accessibility has a lot to do with the deterioration of the bell curve in general.

We've got to do better as teachers. We have to stop saying that to ask teachers to ensure make education accessible to more than the majority is 'idealist; asking too much; living a dream.' If we don't start expecting teachers to teach, and holding them accountable to that, what makes think that they will?

P.S. I know I haven't posted my story yet. I haven't finished revising it. I was waiting on a friend's expert opinion, but she hasn't e-mailed me yet.

A Ghost in the Classroom

Since we are talking about talking, I want to talk about our good friend Lev V. because I'm not sure that I could talk about talking without talking about Mr. V. (for the record, that is supposed to be a little loopy).

Maybe it is because I'm a little elitist, or over confident, but I'm all for the upheaval of the modern classroom structure. I don't think we took Lev to heart--he haunts the curriculum and the jargon and even the classroom: we talk about scaffolding instruction, and social cognitive development, and then we let our kids talk amongst themselves briefly during lessons that we present. What we don't do is create social learning environments--environments where learning is organic.

Actually, that isn't true. I mean, where do you think your kids are learning the 'bad words' from? Certainly not their teachers (unless you live in Manhattan, in which case it's probable). The thing is that students learn from people that are like them--and most learning in school takes place in the informal social context rather than the dispensational forum anyway, so as teachers really the only option is to harness that information so that students are learning more than the 'f' word from their peers--unless that f word is friction, fiction, faction, or France.

I spoke briefly about it in Dr. Wilson's class, and I want to expand on what I said here: Lev Vygotsky is more than ZPD and Scaffolding. He's about interactive, socially relevant learning; and he isn't about a teaching strategy, so much as a pre-existent phenomenon. The zone of proximal development isn't the capacity of development of the student--it's a zone that is a natural development of the interaction between two people. That is to say that no matter whom you interact with, a zone of proximal development exists. Lev does talk about optimal Proximations--formations that foster learning to a greater extent, and we must understand that no learning in this context is one way: enter scaffolding.

I read a few semesters ago in the Oxford Commentary on Vygotsky something that stuck with me, and that is that we have badly misrepresented scaffolding. When we think scaffolding, and how we are taught the concept of scaffolding is assisting a student to reach a concept, like the concept of a building--as the building is developed, the scaffolding is removed. Not only is this a misunderstanding of Vygotsky, but it's a misunderstanding that leads directly to our conclusions that a teacher must control the classroom. It is a one way interaction--we must scaffold our instruction so that students can have access to primary concepts. What is forgotten is that necessary part of what scaffolding actually is--a relational development. In this way both people learn and grow from the scaffolding relationship.

How does all of this relate to talking? Well, all students are an expert at something. Some students will be experts at things the teacher will not. No two students have similar backgrounds. And every student interaction fosters a zone of proximal development that, well, develops a student. Talking is the conglomeration of all of this. Students learn from each other. They learn in the thirty-five minutes at lunch things with more social relevance than they do in the rest of the day. Talking is the way we harness this in the classroom so that students learn from each other. Talking in dynamic roles, understanding perspectives within a social context, and learning from the diverse pool of tools that community provides: such as in a debate, in a discussion of what 'love is,' what a cycle is.

Education is the communication of socially relevant concepts, the provision to a future generation the tools necessary to maintain the future society. All of this underscores community, and community learning--not a sage with answers to pass out. It is often said that our generation will have to solve problems that our parent's generation did not know existed, and that underscores our parent teacher's inability to teach us how to solve them. Martin Luther King, Jr. once stated that you cannot solve a problem using the same logic that created it. All of these demonstrate the need to let students have control of the classroom: what problems will our children have to solve that we do not even know are problems, and that they will have to develop their own logic to solve?

Talking needs to happen in class because it is the context of social learning--what is language but the indicator of two people's need to communicate information to one another? All of this to say that Lev shouldn't haunt education, but to take center stage--and perhaps that means the teacher needs to sit down, and let the students talk.

Memories Sweet Memories

Memories are funny things--like wine, they only get better with age. Or they are better the less we remember of them. In any case, I'm going to talk about my girlfriend. Don't begrudge me this--I'm not one to usually fawn over a girl.

I'm also not one to be caught up on a gift. And I'm not, really. It's a harmonica. I like it--it's a very nice harmonica that I haven't quite learned to play. And that's really where the story starts, as well as ends. I am a pretty decent guitar player, and I can bang out a song or two on the piano. When I asked for a harmonica I was just learning to play the piano, and thought that the three would make a pretty awesome ensemble, so I said I would like a harmonica for Christmas to a few friends. And I got one. No shocker. I think that it is the effort, not the gift that, is such a sharp memory to me. See, Steph (my gf) knew very little about me and music at that time. So she did some foot work, asking my best friend what she needed to know about harmonicas (such as that most are made in a single key) and then what information she needed to know about me (such as what key I play in most usually, which is C for the record). Then she went to Alamo music downtown where she was told she could find one. But as is the case with Christmas, they were sold out (because everyone cool wants a harmonica). Now, here I have to say that Steph does not drive--she takes the bus everywhere. So after Alamo music didn't have one, she had to track down another music store that did. I don't know all of the details of it (and she doesn't remember them) but she ended up somewhere on the north side to buy the harmonica, and it was an all day trip. Over a harmonica. That I still haven't learned to play, because it's not so cut and dry as guitar or piano.

Anyway, I think it's pretty awesome when someone will go on the chase for stuff like that. I love music and I love my harmonica, even if I'm not so good at it. Here's a few videos for harmonicas and legos, the runner up.

Randy




warning: if you're not a fan of 'f' bombs, well...

An Author, to His Blog

First, a RAFT by someone more clever than I:


Ever since we've gotten this assignment, I've been thinking about Anne Bradstreet, the proverbial tenth muse, and her poem "An Author, to her Book." And then my friend just went and wrote an address to his pencil. So, as a little bit of background, this is inspired by those two and my recent decision to read back through John Igo's On Poetry and Poetics. (inspired by last week's post).

My RAFT:

Role: The Kleenex Box
Audience: People
Format: Commentary/Critique/Monologue
Topic: Manners

The Snuffbox Decides to Sneeze

Bless you is a great example: it is a knee jerk reaction, one that no one seems to be sure of it's initial meaning anymore. Everyone says it. No one means it. It's one of those fickle redundancies without reason or reference with your sort, you humans. I feel like I could be an apt metaphor for human relations, what with the way you use me up, empty me out, and replace me with the next--No single after-thought as I'm tossed into the dustbin. No one ever says thank you. Never have I heard a 'Bless you.' Just an unceremonious push off the desk, to be replaced by a scarcely distinguishable relative, full and bursting with life, and here I am, the object of a conscientious human's conservative fetish. Your type is funny about what gets a ceremony. Deaths, sneezes, mornings--It's all closer to drudgery than celebration; I've never seen a species more devoted to the careful observation of your own misery. And never anyone else's either--always your own: A bless you, a how are you, a million facebook friends--all of them to be used up, emptied out, and replaced with the next. And all of this, without a Bless You.

P.S. Sorry if this is a bit more morose than usual. We can't all be hilarious all the time.

The Blog Where I'm a Hypocrite

Yes, I am: I am about to talk about writing as a process on what is the compositional equivalent of throwing up in public: a blog. And I'll start with a few admissions. No, I don't actually do it; not on anything other than creative writing, anyway. I do still recognize the relative merits. But, in my years as an English major, I learned a certain formula for paper writing: to write a good, A grade 500 word essay, with no sources other than the text, I needed half an hour. Each 100 words or sources adds an incremental hour. That means that a 700 word essay would take me 3 and a half hours. Then there is creative writing, and my thesis for the writing process:

There is no such thing as good writing; only good rewriting.

Now don't get mad at me, or shoot the messenger, or whatever the appropriate euphemism is. I got it from John Igo and Professor Rossignol.

So what is the writing process? It's code for common sense. Before you write, you should do some prewriting exercises. That is, get an idea of what your writing on, and do some cursory research (no matter what you are writing--bad fiction is fiction with no research). Do some brainstorming, write an outline, et cetera.

Then, when you have your bases covered (read: you read the Wikipedia article and a few of the articles sources) you write a draft. Emphasis on the draft. This is not publication gold. I have taken to calling it the sloppy copy--because that is what it is.

When you are done drafting, don't go correcting grammar and stuff. Here is where common sense comes in. If you're going to redesign a house, you make sure you have the frame right, then you put in the wires. Grammar is the wires; sentence structure is the frame. So, before you start throwing commas where they belong, make sure your sentences are worded the way you want them worded. This is revision.

When you have your sentences saying what you want them saying, then you make sure you've written in syntactically, grammatically correct English. Put the commas where the commas go, the semicolons where the semicolons go, make sure all your sentences are capitalized and punctuated, and that you didn't write 'there' for 'their' (p.s. Microsoft won't catch those errors. A good secret is to read your composition backwards to catch this and misspelled words, because it takes them out of the context that allows your brain to ignore errors).

So, now you've performed literary alchemy: lead to gold, as it were. This is where you publish: put it on a blog, send it to the newspaper, turn it in, hang it on the fridge, or something. Publishing something is making it public. So, go tell the world.

And that's the writing process. I do think that, if ever a student (or anyone, for that matter) is going to write something worth reading, it should be walked through this process, maybe the middle parts several times: Draft, revise, edit, draft, revise.

Publish.

Favorite Vacation: Final Draft (I don't have a title)

It all started because of football: my two brothers (John and Nathan) and myself were watching the Terrapins game, who just happen to have an awful front line--though you couldn't tell my brother John that, and he wouldn't believe you if you did, anyway. But, for the record, the Terrapins have an awful front line. I commented on how the linemen reminded me of the phalanx in ancient military tactics, to which Nathan responded (because he's not the best in history): "So what is this--Roman Elephants versus the Maryland Terrapins?" That comment brought on a lengthy debate on who had elephants--Rome or Carthage, the Terrapins lost their game, and before you knew it we were in Rome, on vacation (but more just to sort out Nathan's history).

Rome is, by the way, much more hot than San Antonio. So we went straight from the plane to the Pantheon, thinking maybe a tribute to the gods, or at least Apollo, would fix things up a bit--make things cooler. We spent a while roaming about the Pantheon and couldn't figure out what to do before deciding that the Pantheon didn't work and headed to St. Peter's Basilica, thinking maybe we had picked the wrong deity or something.

In the end, neither location made Rome cooler (literally). We went on to the Circus Maximus, which isn't really a Circus after all, but more just a big race track (who knew?). Nathan had thought that there would be elephants at the circus, and it made sense to me, so we spend some time waiting for the circus, or a parade, or something--anything really that might have elephants--until John told us "I told you so" and convinced us to go see the Colosseum. Nathan asked if that was where the elephants were, and John followed the map.

The Colosseum didn't have any elephants, but it was awesome: A big football stadium, basically. We all realized that and started talking about how great it would be if Rome had a football team and what they would be called when Nathan said, "The Roman Elephants of course." Then, remembering the point of the trip: "Oh yeah. Where are the elephants?"

John sighed. "They're not here. That's just it Nathan, Rome didn't have the elephants; Carthage did."

Nathan was of course yammering along with him, mocking him the way we did when we were kids. "Well, you know what? Elephants or no elephants, the Terrapins lost that game."

"And so did Carthage," said John.

Then we went home and made like the whole thing never happened, except every once in a while Nathan mentioned his new favorite football team, the Roman Elephants.

A Basic Strategy for Really Boring Papers and Really Interesting Books

And that about sums up this blog post.

Not really.

But since everyone else was putting cool pictures on their blogs, I figured I would follow the crowd. Next time, I'll be relevant.

Speaking of which(!), I have a blog topic: Pre, during, and post strategies, and how they help students.

First, and explanation of pre, during, and post strategies for language arts instruction. These strategies are reminiscent of that effective, but supremely boring, essay strategy from Composition I. First, you tell them what you are going to tell them. In this case, them is the students, and this step is the 'pre stage.' You inform the students , or get the students thinking about what they will be learning, and get them to engage the material they will be learning. Then, you 'tell them.' This is parallel to strategies during the reading phase which reinforce student interactions with a text and with language in general. When the lesson is over, you tell them what you told them: Post lesson strategies. These strategies are ways to elaborate the learning that has taken place, and to make the learning their own.

Pre, during, and post lesson strategies are actually a whole lot more interesting than the essays I wrote in Composition I though; primarily because of the way they offer engagement. For example, one can use prediction or exploration to engage students with subject matter before presenting them with the book to inspire curiosity; teachers can teach vocabulary concurrently within a text, and then check predictions, recap vocabulary, and elaborate on story topics, words or settings in post story writings, or send students to the library to find other information on topics that interested them within a text.

So, what's the point of all this? A lot of things, actually. Hopefully, the students have acquired multiple references to the text in their file storage system (read: brain) which makes the story easier to access, and by extension, the lessons that were imbed into the story, such as vocabulary and sequencing. Also, it allows a variety of language arts to be taught in an organized manner through a single story. This is especially effective if the story content is appealling to the students. The cummulative result is that students remember more information in a more organized manner that is accessible through a wider variety of connections; and they enjoy a great book and learn a lot from it.

P.S. Narwhals rock.

O Homework My Homework

Or: The blog where I wonder what Walt Whitman would say about the state of American Education and how much homework we do (but probably not).

Ladies (I refrain from saying and gentleman, since I'm the only one in the class, but if you are indeed a gentleman (whatever that means), please feel free to read on), I have a confession to make: I had a wonderful weekend. I played computer games, read, did a *little* cleaning, slept in, worked some, saw a movie.

All the while, my girlfriend and my brother did homework. They read chapter after chapter in numerous textbooks. Both are college students: my girlfriend majoring in English and Education and my brother in something to do with computers.

Last night, this incessant studying broke down into a discussion on homework, success, high school, college, etc. etc. My brother, a first semester college student, was asking Steph, a hardened college veteran, about her organization strategy and approach to completing all of her homework on time. Her response was fairly daunting: basically, in college, read one chapter of every book you own between each class's meeting. I balked at first, because well, I had just had a weekend of frivolity. But then I conceded the point.

Do we do too much homework? I admit that the subject is split down the middle for me. I do think that the promotion of less homework in high school is ridiculous and poor planning if college is going to maintain its academic rigor. Stephanie was explaining how her nephew complains about his homework volume in high school--a complaint for which the only appropriate response is 'just wait 'til you get to college.'

But then, if we know that some countries with the best education systems do little to no homework, why are we so homework heavy? Is it time to let the hours and hours of homework die? Are teachers compensating for something with their heavy homework requirements?

Why do we have so much homework in college? I personally think it is because our primary education isn't doing it's job, but is not doing it's job with redundancy. Let me illustrate the point with one phenomenal class I had too long ago to admit: American History II--from 1865 to present. I think this subject gets covered at least twice in every American Primary education. And then once in college--this in itself is overkill, in my opinion. Nevermind that in this college class, I learned more than all of my primary education on the subject had ever afforded, the course actually made me interested enough in history in general that I am now something of a history buff, and I had one homework assignment all semester.

I hope everyone is as shocked as I am. I'm going to leave this here for now, because I don't really know the solution. I do have good news--the finnish seem to, and everyone who graduates high school there can tell it to you one of three ways: english, finnish, or french.

Learning and You (or me, as the case may be)

I really wanted to find the lolcatz photo with the books that says learn me some informashun for this post, but alas, i could not. So as you're reading this post, keep that picture in mind. If you find it, send me a link. I'll give you a cookie.

If you don't know what lolcatz is, go here and watch hours of your life disappear.

In other news, it's official: I'm an existentialist. Or at least, according to Gardner's multiple intelligences test. I am curious about the standard deviation among different versions of the test, because according to this round, I am only half logical.

That is, in part how I learn; or at least why. I guess that's a motivational thing. We have been discussing the different things that influence learning: learning strategies, multiple intelligences, motivations.

I tend to be motivated to learn by a diverse number of things--I don't think any of them are extrinsic, save for social learning, but we will get to that in a moment. Most of my learning is curiosity: wanting to know who Archimedes is or how texting works or etc. etc. Of course, a discussion like this inherently relates to my social sphere, as our curiosities and desires are informed by the people around us. So often times I set out to learn something when someone mentions or references information with which i am unfamiliar.

It's very hard for me to draw the line here between what I want to learn through disposition (nature, if you will) and social pressure (nature). Multiple Intelligences is, to me, the conglomerate of these two ideas: I tend to appreciate bigger questions (existentialism), social relevance and self-improvement (intrapersonal), and writing and discourse (verbal). I'm also definitely a visual learner and writer: show, not tell, as the old adage goes. All of this really means that I find little time for minutia.

I had never heard of the general strategies for processing information, so that is new to me. I have however, spent the last few weeks going through one overrun hard drive on my computer that has acted as a reservoir, and so I am definitely acquainted with the actual practice. It seems redundant to say that I organize information, given that that is the designated function of the brain, but I definitely am a classifier. I rarely rehearse things--I typically am more of an 'in the moment' thinker and speaker. I do elaborate on topics extensively--usually toward the point where two distinct concepts overlap, to create a point of reference, which is usually why I think in terms of philosophies more than functions, and also why I demonstrated a tendency toward existential thinking.

The End.

Some Videos for Yesterday

In honor of the Badgers, and how the internet and your brain are not big trucks.

Technophiles and Technophobes

Yesterday, for Dr. Wilson's class, we read and discussed an article on the movement from standard to digital textbooks. Now, as I sit here at Starbucks blogging away on my Mini, I'm sure most would be able to discern that I am for the movement. I think it is absolutely necessary. Of course, I'm also for things like federal curriculum plans, which, as far as I know, the United States is one of only two industrialized nations to be without.

However, I do understand the concerns. Our generation is inadequately prepared for students who live and breathe technology. In an education system where cell phones aren't allowed in the classroom, it's hardly palpable to push for laptops. And teacher's education programs aren't helping. In my classes last semester, three out of five banned laptops from the classroom. The question is: if future teacher's aren't trusted to use technology to facilitate education, is it really a wonder that they would have negative impressions of the idea?

What we need are more creative solutions to the question of distractions in the classroom. College professors do not want laptops in the classroom because their students will be on facebook, or whatever: a moot point, in my mind. If students are distracted or uninterested in what is going on in the classroom, the solution isn't to remove all sources of distraction, which is, in my mind, impossible: the solution is to be a better teacher, and to hold students attention through more effective and environmentally appropriate mediums, plain and simple. Instead of telling students they can't bring laptops, teachers need to be trained to use these new tools in as an educational medium. Until teachers are trained to employ technology effectively in their own education, it is not so inappropriate that they wouldn't think it was possible. To that end, so long as we have course instruction to which the only changes have been made are updated editions of books, which fail to incorporate technology into classroom learning (to be differentiated from student work, which almost always requires the use of technology--unless of course there are professors that still have students write their papers with pen and paper), we will have teachers afraid of technology, and therefore unable to relate to and instruct a generation raised on and by it.

Sideways Stories from Wayside School

So, I have to start this by saying that somehow I missed the boat. I had no idea that these great books from my childhood were written by the same guy that wrote Holes. That is super duper cool because last semester I read Holes with Ms. Devine's seventh grade class for the first time, and it was a fantastic book (go read it). Back to our regularly scheduled program.

For school this semester, I have to keep a blog. This is good news for all of you who have been requesting some update on my severely unkept website. This is bad news for anyone who thinks I already talk too much. So, about school. It has started out, well, disheartening to say the least. Texas A&M has changed a few classes, and I am not sure exactly how I am going to work out the new requirements. But that is a story for another time, or at least another place.

The exciting news is that for one of my classes, we are writing a children's book. Or at least part of one. Given my inclination toward writing (despite my apparent lack of practice) this promises to be fun.

I still have yet to attend two of my classes. And I ran out of words, so I'm off to read Water for Elephants and make a star. Later later.