September 29, 2012
True Grit - Rock Center
How Self Expression Damaged My Students
Every decent human impulse we have as teachers shouts in favor of not imposing rules and discipline on students, but liberating them to discover the power of their voice by sharing their stories. Of course children will be become better writers if they write personal narratives instead of book reports. Obviously children will be more engaged and motivated if they can write from the heart about what they know best, rather that trudge through turgid English essays and research papers.
Grammar? Mechanics? Correcting errors? Please. Great writing is discovery. It is the intoxicating power of words and our own stories, writing for an audience and making things happen in the world. We know this works. We all saw the movie Freedom Writers, didn't we?
Like so many of our earnest and most deeply humane ideas about educating children in general, and poor, urban children in particular, this impulse toward authenticity is profoundly idealistic, seductive, and wrong. I should know. I used to damage children for a living with that idealism.
Quartermasters: Inside the World's Last
Pinball Design Shop
Every decent human impulse we have as teachers shouts in favor of not imposing rules and discipline on students, but liberating them to discover the power of their voice by sharing their stories. Of course children will be become better writers if they write personal narratives instead of book reports. Obviously children will be more engaged and motivated if they can write from the heart about what they know best, rather that trudge through turgid English essays and research papers.
Grammar? Mechanics? Correcting errors? Please. Great writing is discovery. It is the intoxicating power of words and our own stories, writing for an audience and making things happen in the world. We know this works. We all saw the movie Freedom Writers, didn't we?
Like so many of our earnest and most deeply humane ideas about educating children in general, and poor, urban children in particular, this impulse toward authenticity is profoundly idealistic, seductive, and wrong. I should know. I used to damage children for a living with that idealism.
Quartermasters: Inside the World's Last
Pinball Design Shop
While The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” still stands up after four decades of radio play, the designers of the pinball machines that made Tommy so good have become an endangered species.
Only one company in the world, Illinois’ Stern Pinball, still designs and produces these electro-mechanical marvels, the lone holdout since industry behemoth Williams Electronics shuttered its pinball division in 1999. It may be a dying art, but the creative minds at Stern are nonetheless continuously creating new machines that can keep their industry moving forward and give them one more replay.
Today's Photo:
Move Out.
Day 2.
Thank God for Craigslist.
I sold these two pieces of furniture before I had to move them myself.
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