“My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.” A. A. Milne
“I don’t see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing.”
― Mark Twain
“God, don’t they teach you how to spell these days?”
“No,” I answer. “They teach us to use spell-check.”
― Jodi Picoult
It goes like this: I’m at a school and giving the class a handout. I’m reading it along with them so I can answer (hopefully) any question that arises. The first page is a list of vocabulary words (the day’s “Do Now” is: “Why do you need to increase your vocabulary?”); the following pages (parts A & B) are fill-in-the-blanks based solely on those words. The kids are struggling already. The answers are on the first page given: they just have to read, go back to the list, circle the correct letter or fill in the blank.
Part C is different: it’s a journal entry that asks them to think. All well and good, but then it says (and I’m only slightly paraphrasing here):
“Don’t Worry About Spelling.”
That in itself boggles my mind, but it’s not the first time I have been mentally gobsmacked (hmmm..is that possible, since a gob is a mouth? Don’t care: I’ll follow Mark Twain from his above quote. So yes, I am dumbfounded).
I wrote about a previous experience with third graders before: in assisting a student with a written assignment, in my trying to help them correct all their spelling errors, which were many, I was informed that the school administration did not want that. If the word read like it sounded, then that was good enough. I informed the teacher that I’d rather be fired for trying to help the student spell correctly then to dumb down. Nothing more was ever said to me on that subject.
In the case of the above hand out, this was High School. Six and seven grades higher, and “don’t worry about spelling” is emblazoned on the paper. Scary. Just plain old scary.
On a recent interview, I was told by the interviewer that they had to discard so many resumes and cover letters due to the amount of grammatical and spelling (many homonym) errors that a normal spell check system does not catch. I’ve heard this before, and I’ve kicked myself in the head the few times I did not proof read a cover letter as well as possible, catching that stupid mistake that makes me sound like a dolt.
So…the schools say “don’t worry about spelling.” The job force, which is getting stricter and harder to break through, IS looking at these things.
Scary…just plain old scary; and very, very sad.
Public schools need to raise their standards and return to a more traditional, classical educational learning method.
If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.~Henry Ford
An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates. ~Thomas Mann
I enjoy writing, but hate editing. I’ll do it, but it is a painful experience. From what I’ve read, a good number of you agree. Recently, I wrote two longer stories for submissions as opposed to the shorter/flash fiction I put up on Tale Spinning. For those tales I knew that if I was to have any chance of success they would have to be edited.
Luckily, I had a number of people I could call on to give my work an editorial eye. What I found enlightening was, through five different POV’s (points of views), that all who responded to my call saw something different. Grammatical changes pretty much were the same, with punctuation styles varying from one to the other.
What changed was how they approached the work: solely as Editor; solely as a reader of the genre; or a combination of the two. This allowed me to take what was offered, evaluate what I wrote through others eyes, and then edit myself to the point I felt I produced the best work possible.
To see the results of this: Nyctophilia (entered for the Figment/HarperCollins YA Defy the Dark contest). If the link does not work for you (and I think it only works in the US): go to Figment and type in the name of the story in the search box. I’d be interested in your comments, as I do think this story is publishable. The other story has been submitted, and only time will tell (both submissions had a September 1, 2012 cut off).
I want to thank the following for their time and effort: Golden Eagle; Allan Douglas; Roy A. Ackerman;Lisa Vooght;and someone who wishes to remain anonymous. The links are to their blogs. They are all well written, all interesting, and all very different POVs. Check them out.
Writers:
How do you edit your work?
Do you hate editing your own work?
Do you have Beta Readers/Critique Partners?
Are you part of a writing group?
If you have an editor that you work with consistently, how did you find her/him?
“There is a fountain of youth; it is your mind, your talents,
the creativity you bring to your life and the lives
of the people you love. When you will learn to tap
this source, you will have truly defeated age.”
The creative arts should be, to me, flexible and adaptable. Embracing new concepts, moving along with the social/economic/political spectrum, can allow new discoveries as well as keep things afloat. What good is it if you master your art, stick to that one idea, but the times have left you behind?
Arts administrations need to do the same, as the economic landscape has changed so drastically in the last five+ years. A new, or renewed, interest in Life Long Learners can be key in keeping organizations going well past the base of the school ages that many focus on.
What was inspiring to me was participating, through OPERA America, a section of the Open Opera Conference: Creative Resurgence. Opera companies are looking at involving the older adult population in more ways than just filling seats. A number of opera companies from across the US and Canada attended this day long workshop/program on Creative Aging, with many of them already utilizing interactive, participatory programs.
Storytelling is one of the primary arts disciplines that seems to be in wide use: delving into true life testimonials, musical works have been formed, from revues to full mini-operas. Being part of the creative process, the participatory input ranged from storytelling and writing to either performing the work or having professional singers enact their life stories. The librettos ranged from true life to fictionalized non-fiction.
In Creative Aging and the Arts (Part 1), I spoke about our morning session with Ms. Susan Perlstein, an advocate for the creative aging movement, and is the Founder Emeritus for the National Center for Creative Aging (NCCA). In the afternoon two groups shared with the assemblage two recent projects that had just been completed: the pilot project I did with my musical collaborator Zach Redler for OPERA America, and Opera North’s latest operatic collaboration with an elder population.
Presentation: Transitions: Sung Stories
Opera North, Inc. worked with NewCourtland (a service for older adults) to produce Transitions: Sung Stories. Gathering oral history from Philadelphia, PA elders, Jules Tasca (Librettist) and Leslie Savoy Burrs (Composer and Executive Director of Opera North, Inc.) created a moving story that stemmed from the real life interviews.
Relating the details of the process to the group, both Mr. Burrs and Mr. Tasca laid out a professional program that produces positive results. In a video that showcases Mr. Burrs, we got to obverse how he interacted with a group of physically challenged elders. Working with a variety of percussive instruments, the participants helped lead Mr. Burrs, wielding a flute, to compose one of the pieces that became part of their opera.
What was apparent, watching the video, was how involved and engaged everyone was. No one just sat on the side, a spectator. This was a vibrant community coming together for a project that celebrates their lives, and also celebrates the worth they still have in the greater society.
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In Part Three of Creative Aging and the Arts, I’ll be discussing the work that I had the pleasure to experience with our group as well as responses/reactions of the attendees from the full day seminar.
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ATTENTION:
I am available for consulting on Inter-Generational Program Development
as well as Project Management/Facilitation
I am willing to travel or work over Skype with your organization
I was just on an interview for a job I would love to have. One of the questions I was asked was about the working hours: would I mind working the longer hours this new school would schedule. What struck me is that it needed to be asked at all: there are many, many reasons why extended school time is needed today.
Before I continue, these are MY opinions from what I’ve observed in the field (I have taught as a Teacher, Teaching Artist and as a Substitute Teacher); I’ve left you five links above for others on the subject. Object if you must, but do so with justifications and always keep it civil.
I have heard from too many educators that there is just not enough time in the school day to accomplish all that must be done. I’ve experienced it myself: you just get things going, and they have to rush to another class instead of investing the time needed t o really explore. I’m not talking about busy work, which I have seen in an abundance. Actual student engaging moments get cut short many times.
We have a shrinking teacher base, due to budget cuts in places there should not be budget cuts. Classrooms are overcrowded. Tests and evaluations and rote “learning” practices shove aside a real chance for connections and actual learning.
Yes, we should have more teachers, more classrooms, and less students per class.
With the changing economic realities, parents are not always home until later in the day. The idea of Mom always being home after school is antiquated in many parts of the US; that has changed, but the schools have not changed with the times. There are after school clubs and such already in place; but again, the idea for a longer day is not just social activities (which they do need to foster as well, since much of home life gets truncated that way).
Double blocks of teaching (80 to 90 mins) during the day gives the teacher and the class to work on projects. The time constraints we have now means that there are only three classes per day that way. A longer day would allow more constructive work.
Advisory meetings, portfolio work, special projects that have a true impact and are not busy work (again, seen too much of that), planning sessions; individualized work (NOT study halls: I saw, in one location, 12 students on computers playing Halo in study hall; not making that up, and it was not my place to stop them)…there is so much that can be accomplished with proper time use.
The long summer breaks were originally set up by agricultural needs: farmer kids needed to work on the farm. School came second.
Education should not come second in anything we do.
It was the 2012 Memorial Day Weekend, and I get a pleasant surprise: I have been honored TWICE with the One Lovely Blog Award, as passed on to me by Allan Douglas of Simple Life Prattle and The Write Stuff (and fellow Triberr buddy).
How could he bestow this upon me twice? One is for here, Born Storyteller; the other is for my creative fiction blog, Tale Spinning.
The “rules” are simple:
Thank the person who awarded the award (Thank you Allan) and link back to their blogs: Click HERE and HERE
Tell SEVEN things about yourself that no one knows (but two blogs… 14.. but…14? TMI)
Pass on the award to (15) blogs you follow and like/admire/wish they were yours.
I’ll do as many as I can.
So…
Seven Things :
I’ve lived on the East Coast of the USA all my life, but have visited more than half of the states now.
I read SciFi, Fantasy, Thrillers, Mysteries, and then the occasional other book. Existentialism, anyone?
I wish the lyrics to John Lennon’s song Imagine were achievable.
People find me unfocused in my field of interest (the arts); I find myself versatile.
I believe in ghosts, but not vampires and werewolves. Especially not shimmery vampires.
I like both cats and dogs; I do NOT like fish, as pets or otherwise.
I have never gone to a demolition derby or a monster truck thingy; I’d like to, at least once.
In no particular order, blogs I pass this along to, and you should give them a look/leave a comment (tell ’em I said Hi):
You can believe in what you want. As long as it’s not hateful or harmful to others, I’ll even listen to your POV if you promise not to try to ram it down my throat, or try to convince me that your belief is the only right way.
Democrats and Republicans do many wrong things, for the wrong reasons: there are lobbies/big money that have no concerns for the people of this country, only profits.
The blame game is what is hurting this country. I read a series of posts on FB, an anti-President Obama thread, that were volatile and negative spewing. The main thrust was, from the person who started the thread, that he feels all Republicans should say NO to anything coming from an opposing POV.
No listening and judge on individual merits; no attempt to compromise; no attempt to work for the betterment of all the people in the country. Just Say NO was his mantra…and then he and others complained that “the liberals” only spout and don’t listen and run away from a fight.
[Side Bar: As to arguments about Bush Bashing…one thing to disagree with the man, which I do. I have my reasons: my two biggest complaints are: his getting the news of the 9/11 attacks and just sitting dumbfounded in a Kindergarten classroom, not making a move, not directing the country, not showing any action; the second is, when asked about his greatest achievement in office, he talks about a fish he caught. Joke or not, to me, it’s not funny. I’m not even going to go into the economic state of the union he left for whoever won the election to pick up after him. Nope. Not going there.]
Before any civil rights acts, inter-racial marriages were forbidden, as were inter-religious ones. They were, for those days, their own “war on marriage” which, yes, I have seen slogans for.
The President spoke his mind and made a stand: he believes in same sex marriage. He did not say any other state of marriage should be nullified, nor did he exclude anyone. He did not say, in any way, that this was a war on marriage. He did not say we all must believe as he did. Many won’t, and that is their prerogative. He is, if anything, advocating the civil rights of the “rest” of the country for consenting adults in love to get married.
If you don’t want to be married to someone of the same sex, or a different religion, or a different skin color, or a different nationality, then: JUST DON’T. But, don’t impose your own POV on someone else.
Why then, as a straight man, am I so behind repealing an amendment based on hatred and bigotry?
I’m also a JEWISH male, and if anyone wants to talk about history of abuse and hatred against a people, then let’s talk. We got ya beat by thousands of years.
It’s time to let things that are NOT important to the running of a country go, and focus on what we can do POSITIVELY and for the GOOD OF THE PEOPLE. The civil rights of American Citizens are being crushed under foot by those who say they love this country.
You love this country, then show it. Stop forcing your negative religious beliefs on others and do something positive with all that energy.
Fight poverty
Fight human trafficking
Fight hunger
Fight injustice (and you better believe this is injustice)
Fight for a stronger economy
Fight to bring our schools back to a place of prominence
Fight for a way to bring this country together, instead of continuously tearing it apart
Education (providing the best; promoting and supporting a healthy structure)
Unemployment
Health Care for all
…the list can go on, and please feel free to add on to the list of “Important Things.”
Yet, we as a nation focus on something that is NOT Important in how the country is run, how the lives of the people are improved on, how we can help to strive for a better future. We seem to be fixated on something that obfuscates real issues:
Who Can Marry Whom.
Used to be interracial marriages were illegal. Inter-religious ones were kinda verboten. Segregation issues (against Blacks, Jews, etc) were the standards. All along these lines, those barriers came down, and…unless it is hit with personal prejudices and bias, had not affected your life in any real way. You may not like it, still, but really: beyond sensibilities…?
If marriage is so sanctified (there again: marriage is NOT only a religious ceremony, and hasn’t been for a long time: civil court marriages anyone?) then why do so many heterosexual couplings end in divorce? Why do so many wind up cheating on their spouse (Yeah, looking at you, Newt)? Why do so many in POWER (talking money power too) think it gives them the right to abandon that sanctity for the trophy wife, the mistress, the pursuit of affairs outside of wedded bliss? How many heterosexual wives were jettisoned for younger models, straying outside of “under God”, etc?
So, about me…
I’m not gay
I’m not Black
I’m not a woman (which also brings up: why can OLD men in the Senate tell a woman what she can do with her body?)
I’m not overly political, but I lean more towards the Democrats than Republicans; I feel Libertarians have more to add to the discussion, but are too extreme for what we are now.
I AM for HUMAN rights and freedoms, ones that have nothing to do with a political agenda but one that should strive for the betterment of humankind. Except for committing violence against myself or others, I have no right to say to another: “hey, I don’t like you doing that, it offends me, so I will stop you from doing it.” I just don’t have that right.
Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase about “separation of church and state,” and while it is not in any formal document, I feel it should be.
The freedom of religion and of speech is set in constitutional stone; you can believe in what you want, and say it as well, but don’t push it on me.
I may not (and don’t, in this case) share your point of view.
Repel Amendment One, and put all this effort into something that will help other people, not bog us down in negative things.
What would happen if we put this much energy into doing something positive?
One of the most disturbing things that I have heard from a student was:
“Why should I try? I’ll only be working at McDonald’s.”
I was an Artist-in-Residence for a year for a large school district in Westchester County, NY. Still early in my profession, that statement was both a shock and a revelation of a point of view I had never considered before: low expectations given, and projected; leading this student to live that that is all they can do. The young lady who said that to me was in a ninth grade repeat class. Most of them, I was told much later, were on their THIRD repeat of ninth grade.
Yes: she was a third timer.
It was not that working at McDonald’s is such a negative job, but the expectation of that is all she could expect in life is. There are jobs that many would never consider ever doing in their lives as “beneath” them; there are people who feel that there are jobs that are forever out of their reach.
I worked at a private Prep school (the capital P is on purpose) for five years. They were a usual sort of kids, except for one basic thing: their parents had power (=Money). Money enough to afford the very high K-12 tuition. If I remember correctly, all of these students went on to Ivy League universities , or “back-packed” across Europe, before coming back to such schools.
Were they born smarter, more diligent? Driven, yes, by their parents status. Academically as well. They were not taught to pass a test as the NYC public schools are (and have been) but really had a well rounded curriculum.
I’ve already written, a number of times, about this inequality in teaching. If Bloomberg and other mayors really cared, they’d look at the educational platforms that these private schools use. Yes, money pushes those kids along. We can’t fight that, but…we can elevate the level of how students are taught, what the curriculum is, and the entire structures of schools. I wrote about some ideals of mine in What Constitutes Education? and also in Public vs. Private Schools (there is a comparison of NYC schools and the same private prep school mentioned above…hopefully, it’s eye opening).
The other part, and it is a huge part: The Parents.
Parents have to be involved. Not just in making sure that their kids do their reading/homework, but support them, encourage them, take the time to invest in what they are learning, get involved in outside of school learning (excursions outside of their neighborhood)…being parents, not just adults whose house the kids reside in.
So, the next time you see your lawyer go to a McDonald’s drive through (or his/her aide), think of who is doing the ordering, and who is serving.
Taking a short hiatus from things can be good, now and then. I’ve wondered what to do with this blog: the guest posts have given me a wonderful respite, allowing me time to get better as well as well lend time to write when I felt like it, as opposed to just churning out something to post.
So…a huge thank you to all who have already guest blogged here, and to the ones that I still have in wait. I’m going to set up that schedule soon.
As to right now, I again find myself questioning directions for the next segment of my life. I am tired of all the negative chatter that surrounds us; doing something, anything, is preferable than sitting in a corner (to me). I am not sure if this is the proper forum for achieving any goals.
Is blogging just another Tower of Babel?
I took on the mantle of blogging just a wee bit more than a year ago: “get an internet presence!” was what my (then, hopeful) agent said to me, as well as others. In that year time, I am still not sure what greater good this has done for me or anyone else. So…
Now that I have that down, I need to take another step back, post the guest posts I have in hand, and figure out “What Comes Next.”
One thing: I commented on Bonnie Copeland’s (My Rivendell) The Foundations of Character post about what I feel breaks down character. I do think we are lacking in character, overall, and bend to who shouts the loudest. I called it a “non-community of yellers”, the age we’re living in.
Listen—really listen to someone’s POV. Place your own concerns aside for the moments it takes to really click with where someone is coming from. Communicate back: don’t condemn, place judgement (moral or religious or political) and LISTEN. Ask questions “Why?” or ask for clarification.
Does it take time? Sure, a bit more. But…we’d all be better off if we agreed to really hear what someone else has to say, really try to care why they feel that way.
Thanks for all of your support. It DOES mean a lot.
In January, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs fell to 7.3 million. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 5.5 million and accounted for 42.9 percent of the unemployed. (See tables A-11 and A-12.)
BTW…this was for “nonfarm payroll employment.” I did not look up anything for farm workers; almost afraid to see how many more that adds to the numbers.
So…the long-term unemployed? Little change, and about 5 and half million: 5,500,000 people who are without work!
This is not taking into any account of those who worked the temp/part time jobs, nor does it state how many fall close to or under the poverty level doing that work. This does not take into account a lot of new college graduates who were not “long-term” employees, nor those who, due to the financial reality of today, are trying to get INTO the workplace, to help support families.
It does not tell the story of ages, of careers/long held positions that are no longer, and people having to move along, finding what work they can….IF they can.
The statistics do nothing to really tell the stories, and it is the stories that matter most, because then we can relate. We can find that bond/thread to someone’s else’s plight.
Do we have to make it personal? Do you have to know the person to really care? There is a reason that the Viet Nam Wall in Washington has such an impact. There is a reason, if you see someone’s name &/or face attached to an atrocity that it makes it more real.
Statistics? Nameless numbers that can get juggled to tell it’s own story.
There were protests across the country, Occupy (insert wherever). No real focus, lots of noise and fuss, that, now, months later, has amounted to a lot of nothing. If there was a protest against the “1 Percent“, it did little to nothing to change anything.
Until we have some really clear focus, and some caring about what is going on, and a REAL PLAN…
bornstoryteller 