Soft Heart and Iron Will

Posted on by March 18, 2010
4

Mamacita says: Dear students who blew off midterms last week:

I foresee dark and stormy days ahead for you. . . . I predict that something difficult and complicated will loom before you, messing up your social life and playing havoc with your bank account. . . .  I fear for your family relationships once the results of your actions become well known. . . .The inner eye sees your tanned and self-satisfied selves looking stunned, and rivaling a toddler in the art of the whine. . . .

Because so many of you have not yet been potty-trained and tend to have accidents in places and situations normally associated with adults I have a soft head heart, I am going to allow you to take a make-up test. After next Wednesday night, you will find your exam in the Testing Center on the main campus.  Be sure to pay particular attention to the instructions and limitations, as they are quite different from the instructions and  limitations those students who came to class and took their test on the proper day had.  Don’t bother to bring your textbook, dictionary, notes, or any electronics.  All you will need is a #2 pencil, possibly two of them “just in case.”

Whatever a student who took the exam on the proper day may tell you, pay no attention.  YOUR test is different, and your instructions are different.  You won’t care overmuch for either, but as you had exactly the same choices those students who showed up on the proper day had, my heart does not bleed for you.

Don’t get me wrong:  I hope you all do well.  I sincerely do.  And if you so much as answer your cell phone while you’re taking that test, your Scan-tron sheet will be shredded.  You will take the test there in the Testing Center, under the watchful eyes of the testing monitors, and you will be filmed.

I hope you’re checking your campus email while you’re sunning on that Cancun beach, for if you are, you won’t embarrass yourself by inquiring about the possibility of a makeup test before the end of next week.  You will have one week from next Wednesday night to schedule yourself into the Testing Center, and you will finish the test in one sitting.  None of you has an IEP or any official special instructions, so these instructions will apply to all of you.

I have already entered a zero for the midterm for each of you who blew it off.  If you want that zero changed into something else, be bloody sure you get that test taken before your time is up.  After I place your test in the Testing Center, the rest is entirely up to you.  If you don’t get yourself up there, the zero stands.

If you allow that zero to stand, you will need to present yourself to the registrar to withdraw from the class. You’ll also be required to pay back your financial aid.

Sincerely,  Professor Had-It-Up-To-Here with the lot of you.

P.S.  Students who showed up on the proper day get bonus points, which will be added at the end of the semester.  Also?  These students rock.  They’re awesome, while you’re. . . . well, never mind.  It was an antonym.  I hope you had a good time in Cancun.

P.P.S.  Students who took the test on the proper day:  your grades are now posted on Blackboard.  Congratulations to most of you, for most of you did very well.  I’m proud of you.

Pogue Ma'Hone, YET Again. AND Again.

Posted on by March 17, 2010
20

Mamacita says:
May you be buried in a
casket made from the wood
of a 100 year old oak
That I shall plant tomorrow.

Oh, tis a wondrous thing to be Irish, although the same could not be said earlier in our country’s history.  Many people do not know how unwelcome the Irish were here,  in those days.  We’ve since learned wisdom.

I loved to read about Beany Malone for so many reasons, some of which were the casual ways their Irish ancestry was a part of their everyday lives.

Click here for some cool St. Patrick’s Day experiments for you and your kids to do, stolen borrowed from the Master Magician Scientist, Steve Spangler.

For another foin Irish activity, why don’t you and your kids make a leprechaun trap and see what you catch in it?  And what’s a little green water between friends?

(This picture is by Tim Nyberg, a fantastic artist who draws awesome things for the Wittenburg Door, which is a wonderful thing in and of itself.)  (Don’t click the link if your corncob makes you walk funny.)

What is it supposed to be?

Why, it’s St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, of course.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all. If you’re not wearing green, strangers are allowed to pinch you.

What’s that?  I can’t hear you.  Come a little closer. . . thaaaaat’s right.  Gotcha.

I repost this, adding a little here and there and subtracting a little likewise, each March 17, so if it looks familiar to you, you’re not crazy.  Well, not about this post, anyway.

Pogue Ma’Hone to you all, for you know why you deserve it even if I don’t.

Quotation Saturday: Curiosity

Posted on by March 13, 2010
2

Mamacita says:  Children are naturally curious.  With each passing day, an infant is more and more curious about what’s going on in the world around him/her.  When is this happening?  When is that happening?  And, later, WHY is this happening, or not?  Add to this everything in between, and it’s little wonder that it’s so easy to help a little child learn new things.  Their brains are wired for curiosity.  So were ours, once.  It’s the fortunate adult who never lost the desire to go on and on, beyond the known horizons, learning more and more, because he/she is never satisfied with what he/she already knows.

I’m not.  There will never be an end to my constant climbing and searching for new things to “know.”  How else would I blow my siblings out of the water during trivia contests?  They’re all smart, and they know tons of awesome stuff.  Even so, I couldn’t stop seeking answers if I tried.  I don’t WANT to stop.  There’s always something else around the bend and I HAVE to find out what it is.

However, I know people who wouldn’t care if they never learned another new thing.  I pity them, because when learning stops, stagnation begins.  Those stinky little ponds all over southern Indiana, covered with scum and mosquitoes?  They stopped moving, and now they are dead and dead things stink.  When people stop learning, they might as well be buried and get it over with, for they are as good as dead. I consider a person who is content to allow his/her head to be stuffed full of other people’s opinions as good as dead, also.

Thinking can be hard. Some people just aren’t willing to put forth the effort. Besides, thinking sometimes makes us question our choices, values, and beliefs. Horrors.

Harsh?  Sure.  But it’s how I roll.  One of the many things I despise about most of our public schools is the fact that they pretty much beat the curiosity out of our children.  Often, children are punished for wanting to know MORE and refusing to stop once ONE answer or solution is reached.  Of course, as Professor Umbridge says, the important thing about school is taking tests, and tests are concerned only with predetermined answers, not curiosity.  “Next year, Billy,” a teacher might promise.  But when next year comes, Billy soon learns that the new year is just like the old year: day after day of sitting and waiting for other kids to catch up, with never anything for the kids who already know, and detention or worse for the child who dared experiment with his lunch or the ink in his pen or the clay or a poem or story or the paints in the art room.  Sigh.

Curiosity:  Let’s encourage it in our children, for the curious thinkers and scientists and writers and dreamers are the hope of the universe.

As for unimaginative and uncurious adults. . . .  I should be a lot sorrier for them than I am, but it’s their own fault.  Life is full of choices, and there’s more than one kind of Easy Street.

There will be a lot of Einstein.

1. Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death. — Einstein

2. Sometimes questions are more important than answers. — Nancy Willard

3. It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. — Einstein

4. Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly. — Arnold Edinborough

5. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. — Einstein

6. The greatest virtue of man is perhaps curiosity. — Anatole France

7. When you’re curious, you find lots of interesting things to do. — Walt Disney

8. Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

9. A good scientist is a person in whom the childhood quality of perennial curiosity lingers on. Once he gets an answer, he has other questions. — Frederick Seitz

10. I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity. — Eleanor Roosevelt

11. I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way. — Franklin P. Adams

12. Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why. — Bernard Baruch

13. The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. — Dorothy Parker

14. It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry. — Einstein

15. I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life. — Eleanor Roosevelt

16. Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not. — Isaiah Berlin

17. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. — Einstein

18. The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. — Einstein

19. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. — Einstein

20. Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. — Eugene S. Wilson

21. Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. — Aldous Huxley

22. Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people. — Leo Burnett

23. Curiosity killed the cat, but where human beings are concerned, the only thing a healthy curiosity can kill is ignorance. — Harry Lorayne

24. For infants and toddlers learning and living are the same thing. If they feel secure, treasured, loved, their own energy and curiosity will bring them new understanding and new skills. — Amy Laura Dombro

25. Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all – that has been my religion. — John Burroughs

26. One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute. — William Lyon Phelps

27. Satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.
— Linus Pauling

28. I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. –Albert Einstein

29. Be curious always, for knowledge will not acquire you; you must acquire it. –Sudie Back

30. Fear paralyzes; curiosity empowers. Be more interested than afraid. – Patricia Alexander

31. If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. — Rachel Carson

32. Every man ought to be inquisitive through every hour of his great adventure down to the day when he shall no longer cast a shadow in the sun. For if he dies without a question in his heart, what excuse is there for his continuance? — Frank Moore Colby

33. I suppose the one quality in an astronaut more powerful than any other is curiosity. They have to get some place nobody’s ever been. — John Glenn

34. The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value. — Arthur Schopenhauer

35. You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives. — Unknown

36. Mere curiosity adds wings to every step. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

37. I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. — Einstein

38. While we are born with curiosity and wonder and our early years full of the adventure they bring, I know such inherent joys are often lost. I also know that, being deep within us, their latent glow can be fanned to flame again by awareness and an open mind. — Sigurd Olson

39. So as I thought about it, the most important “tool” you can have today in business is insatiable curiosity. The minute you lose it, you’re dead. — Steve Rubel

40. This I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. — John Steinbeck

41. Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death. — Einstein

42. Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. — Abdel Aziz Rantissi

43. Seize the moment of excited curiosity on any subject to solve your doubts; for if you let it pass, the desire may never return, and you may remain in ignorance. — Agung Laksono

44. We were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests; to investigate what ever aroused curiosity. — Orville Wright

45. Effective questioning brings insight, which fuels curiosity, which cultivates wisdom. — Chip Bell

46. One should never count the years — one should instead count one’s interests. I have kept young trying never to lose my childhood sense of wonderment. I’m glad I still have a vivid curiosity about the world I live in. — Helen Keller

47. Youth is not measured by the age of a person, but by the curiosity a person keeps. — Salvador Pániker

48. All my life through, the new sights of nature made me rejoice like a child. — Marie Curie

49. Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science. — Edwin Powell Hubble

50. The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!) but “That’s funny…” — Isaac Asimov

51. The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them. –William Lawrence Bragg

52. Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

53. What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what’s going on. — Jacques Cousteau

54. Be curious, not judgmental. — Walt Whitman

55. Education would be so much more effective if its purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they don’t know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it. — Sir William Haley

Bonus points if you know who the little boy in both pictures is.

Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus

Posted on by November 11, 2014
17

Hogwarts_Crest_1Mamacita says:  Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus indeed. It’s advice we should all heed.  At the risk of exposing my Harry Potter obsession to the world – and it’s no doubt far too late to worry about that – I have been looking at the series with my teacher-eyes lately and have noticed some pretty awesome things.

At age eleven,  children were expected to know the basic skills and were plunged directly into applying them to the real world.

There’s nothing in any of the books about the students studying grammar or spelling, but there’s PLENTY about writing essays, and a lot of hints that these essays were read carefully and graded strictly.

Reading wasn’t a class; it was what the students used in EVERY CLASS.

I saw no mention of a regular math class, but I noticed  LOT of references to USING math to do other things.  Advanced students studied Arithmancy, for example.

There were no mention of biology or chemistry classes, per se, but there was plenty of scientific application.  Students were told to measure, count, plant, prune, mix, and transfer things from one container to another.  Test tubes, flasks, stoppered bottles. . . . students were expected to handle these and more, plus their contents. Potions class was chemistry class.

I also noticed that most classes were either lecture or hands-on, and that the hands-on classes usually followed a lecture, and featured a lot of low talking, groupwork, and expectation that anything mentioned in the lecture would be necessary in order to do the groupwork.

Oh, and there was HOMEWORK.  Lots and lots and lots of homework, which was expected to be done.

And the SARCASM!  Nasty sarcasm, from Snape, for example, is never nice, but a little sarcasm can be quite productive and do a lot of good.  At Hogwarts, the professors AND the students both knew how to appreciate sarcasm for its intrinsic value as a “prodder,” and also to learn by experience the difference between hurtful sarcasm and helpful sarcasm.  In other words, the students learned all about context by experiencing everything in its proper – and improper- context.

There was only once course that seemed to be sniffed at, by both teachers, administration, and students, and even that proved extremely useful in the end.  coughcoughcoughdivinationcoughcough

Students had free time.  Apparently unsupervised free time.  The professors assumed that the students had what it takes to handle themselves, whether the kids were roaming freely on the grounds or walking to the nearest town to spend the day as they wished.  And, since the kids were expected to be able to handle this, they did.

Every Hogwarts students was able to- sometimes eventually- find success at something.  Nobody was “left behind,” but many were soaring while others were still crawling.  The soarers were not required, or even expected, to remain on the ground just because someone else couldn’t leave it.  Yet.  The school’s professors were always willing to tutor, give extra time to, encourage, cheer, reach out of the box, and pass along compliments.

Peer pressure was rather encouraged, although not the bad kind.  The suggestion that a student who did poorly gave the entire House a bad name was enough to make the slackers buck up.  And the attitude of the other students toward a student who lost the House some points was enough to make the wrong-doer think twice about doing it again.

Students were often ashamed of themselves for failing, wrongdoing, or otherwise letting themselves or others down.  In our culture, personal shame is stifled, because people can’t help it, or were driven to it, or “made a mistake.”  Perhaps this lack of shame is why our public school students continue to do things a Hogwarts student would have far too much respect for himself and for others to do.

At Hogwarts, self esteem was only for those who earned it.  This is also as it should be.

I guess my question is, if Harry and his friends could do it, why can’t our kids?

Even in the upper grades, and even at the COLLEGE LEVEL, schools are still focusing on basic skills that Hogwarts expected of children when they were eleven years old.  Every textbook I’ve ever used taught and re-taught the same stuff, over and over.  Those students who “got it” at age nine are sitting in class with students who still haven’t “got it” at age seventeen, but nobody seems to care much about the students who KNOW this stuff ALREADY.  Why don’t we have accommodations for these kids?  Why do we require them to sit and endure the same stuff over and over again, when they’ve already proven mastery?  Why don’t we rejoice in their mastery and allow them to soar higher and higher, learning NEW things and applying them to the universe?  The sad fact that some kids can’t do it and never will should have nothing whatsoever to do with allowing those kids who CAN do it and are capable of even MORE to move onward and upward.

I’m thinking that perhaps Hogwarts policies weren’t just about magic; I’m thinking that Hogwarts policies were wise, practical, and enabled students to fly higher than any Quidditch player could possibly soar on a broomstick.

At Hogwarts, students were treated like soon-to-be-adults, expected to fulfill obligations, meet deadlines, and pass difficult, detailed exit exams.  Disruptions were almost non-existent, and students who just couldn’t get it were not allowed to enter the upper level classes.  It is insinuated that such students would end up as clerks, housemaids, servers, bus drivers, and service sector workers, etc.  There is nothing wrong with this.

Only the best students were allowed to go on, to soar, to learn, and apply.  They all started out at the same level, but nobody was held back because someone else in the class wasn’t ready or wouldn’t ever be ready.  It is hinted that the lower level students – those who just didn’t have the smarts or talents to soar – would be taught to run, or at least walk without tripping over every single thing, at least.  But in separate classes, not the advanced classes.  Which is AS IT SHOULD BE.

I think our own education systems might have a lot to learn from a fictional series about British schoolkids, in a school that seemed to really, really understand how to deal with them.  And it has nothing whatsoever to do with magic, unless we are speaking of the fact that education, done properly, is , indeed, a magical thing that will transport sincere learners into realms heretofore undreamed of. . . .

Hogwarts policies applied to areas other than “academics,” too.  It’s too bad our actual schools don’t have  policies such as this one:  “. . . be warned: Thieving is not tolerated at Hogwarts.”

Because in so many of our public schools, thieving is just something kids do because their self-esteem requires constant puffing up by the acquisition of property, and if the property is someone’s else’s, well, let’s chat with the thief about honesty, tap him on the wrist, and turn him loose again. As for the true owner of the stolen property, well, life isn’t always fair, you know.

To sum up:  Hogwarts policies rocked all the way, and most real public school policies can’t even keep time to the music.

Bonus points if you can translate the title and tell me why I used it.

Signing Off, Signing On, Test Patterns, and the Peacock

Posted on by March 7, 2010
24

Mamacita says:  Most of you have never seen this picture before. Most of you have never known a time when television wasn’t a 24-hour marathon of programming.  This is a test pattern.  If you turned on your television after midnight, this is all you saw.

The fact is, things used to have down time. Stores closed. Television and radio stations “signed off,” and each station often had its own unique signoff ritual. After midnight, people went to bed; they didn’t stay up for hours and watch because there was nothing to watch. When people said, “There’s nothing on TV,” it wasn’t just an expression.  Radio stations signed off, too.

Sometimes I think it was better the old way. After midnight, people generally went to bed. People didn’t watch show after show just because something was on, because something WASN’T on. Just blackness, static, or a test pattern.

I can remember turning on the TV on Saturday morning, seeing nothing but the test pattern, and waiting patiently until 6:00 a.m. or so for the station to “sign on.”

When my cousin C and I were kids, and would stay at our grandmother’s house every weekend we could manage it, the sign-off for Indianapolis’ WTTV channel 4 was a few minutes of Mahalia Jackson singing.  I can’t remember what she sang, specifically, because C and I usually watched our grandmother when Mahalia sang.  It was one of the few times we saw Mamaw laugh out loud.  Mahalia’s kind of singing just wasn’t heard much in southern Indiana, and the shock value of it set Mamaw off every Saturday night.

Most sign-off rituals were religious in nature, and patriotic as well.  A local clergyman would speak a few words, the National Anthem would play, and the sign-off words were spoken, along with a promise to sign-on again in the morning.  It was kind of cool.  It was also a signal that everybody still up ought to go to bed, as well.

Maybe that’s one reason people stay up so late these days.  They’re glued to the TV, and there’s nobody now to tell them it’s time to sign off and go to bed.  As long as there’s SOMETHING on TV, some people will watch it.  I’ve never understood the mentality.

This picture, now, is the NBC peacock, telling us that the next program would be in living color. Those of you who thought In Living Color was nothing but a funny television show have a lesson to learn here. And now you know why the title of that show was funny in more ways than one!

Seeing that NBC peacock flexing its tailfeathers was the signal that Bonanza was about to start. A lot of the old 50’s sitcoms had been filmed in color but never seen in color, and eventually those started to be shown as was intended, too.

Here’s your laugh of the day. I didn’t know The Wizard of Oz was partly in color until I was in my teens. It made the expression “a horse of a different color” understandable, for the first time.

I’m not really QUITE that old, but my family just waited that long to get a color TV.