Asstd. Misc., etc.

[silveradept]

Stuff that should get out on bits, but otherwise has no rhyme or reason:

• Into the Spider-Verse was very cool. Also, I find that I keep thinking that it's scored a lot more like The Matrix than many other movies. The score is there for specific set pieces, it has themes running through it, but otherwise it's just not there until it's needed. I liked it, and I think it's a really good score, but it reminded me a lot of the way the music for The Matrix went.


• You know how the common word for fox in French is a euphemism because foxes are generally tricksters and its a bad idea to invoke them on yourself? I wonder how much the Miraculous Ladybug folks are consciously playing into this, given that we have two fox-based characters, one hero, one not. The character named after the Latin name for fox? Villain. The one named after the euphemism? Hero.
  
  Makes you think.


• I think I've leveled up somewhere along the way, in that there's a proper chair and couch being put into my living room soon. We'll have to see how it rearranges the floor plan, but I feel like I've crossed a threshold somewhere, and it's a little scary.


• I'm taking my own advice and working on a writing project that I don't really believe has much of an audience, but that I like the idea for and keep coming up with things that can go into it, and so we keep going.


• It would be so much nicer if the people at work could pay better attention to the pronouns they use about and around people. I'm getting ever more caustic about people who have been around me long enough to read the name badge, or my email signature, and still persist in using the wrong set of address.


• I'm beginning to come around to the idea that my technical prowess at work is entirely due to the fact that I was encouraged to experiment and provided the tools with which to do so at an early age, which let me subsequently learn how to interpret errors and make educated guesses about where in interfaces features and functions might lie. For other people, who seem to have been raised in the idea that the computer is an expensive black box that does things at random and caprice, the idea of the machine not working is closer to terror than "let's see what happens." Perhaps in some other generation, knowing how to fix your own vehicle would be the same sort of situation.


• Teachers, stop using leveled reading systems as anything other than evaluative measures about works. Because even when I, and a caregiver, say that reading for enjoyment is more important than reading for level, the children absorb the message that they have to read at a narrow band around their level, and it stifles them in ways you do not see.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

♥

[silveradept]

Pretty much.

[sonia]

Yay for writing project and for furniture! Acknowledging that the threshold is scary. Boo for wrong pronouns!

Interesting about being encouraged to experiment. I think it can happen at any age, but debugging is definitely a set of skills that needs to be taught/learned. I learned partly early on (helping my dad fix his car!) and partly over time in college.

[silveradept]

Yeah. Scaffolded instruction is helpful at getting someone off the ground, and having someone who can help you out when you get stuck (or get yourself into more trouble trying to fix something) it helps when it comes to feeling life you can see how far something can be pushed or modified before it starts to misbehave or break.

[marahmarie]

Wait, wait, wait...you have pronouns, right, so what are they? I've known you for how many years now, I want to make sure I'm not screwing them up (and regret if I have already, with my apologies if I did).

[silveradept]

The they are correct pronouns for me. Thanks for asking.

[redsixwing]

Here's hoping they come around to the right pronouns as fast as possible.

Yay for writing for you!

[silveradept]

Here's hoping.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Teachers, stop using leveled reading systems as anything other than evaluative measures about works.<<

They probably can't. They have little control left over what they do or how; someone else decides that, and they just read from guidelines.

>> Because even when I, and a caregiver, say that reading for enjoyment is more important than reading for level, the children absorb the message that they have to read at a narrow band around their level, and it stifles them in ways you do not see.<<

Sure, because you aren't punishing them and the teachers will if the kids aren't pleasing. It's not about learning. It's about making a powerful person happy enough not to hurt you. the kids don't care about reading because they're ordered to read crap. They know it is crap. There is no pleasure in it, just a job to be done as fast as possible. This is how we get people who leave school saying, "I'll show you -- I'll never read a book again!" And they don't.

[amarie24]

Hey there, Silver! Your pronouns are noted-"they"! And screw any assholes at your job that want to give you shit about it.

And about the leveled reading systems: ditto. I remember vividly that during my grade school years, I was always exceptionally advanced in the reading levels. And I'll admit that being may be able to help in some areas-for example, I'm a pretty fast reader, which helps w/having to take in massive amounts of nursing school information.

Reading can be enjoyable. But...there's so, so much more to life than reading. So, so much more. And I remember way too many kids thinking they were stupid because, no matter how many grades had passed, they still didn't enjoy reading like they were told to. A lot even outright resented reading and probably still do to this day.

[silveradept]

Yeah, getting people to enjoy reading isn't actually all that hard, if you take it as a given that people will gravitate toward the things they want to read, if they have the choice to do so. But there's some sort of "you be to be able to read these difficult, dry, texts because that's Literature" that gets in the way and makes it harder for someone to associate reading with enjoyment. The skill comes when it does, with practice and enjoyment.

[amarie24]

That's also part of the incredible elitism there is in the "classical literature" world. It's very white, very straight, very cis, and, well...very white.

People should absolutely read whatever they like because shouldn't the basis of reading being joy and comfort?

[silveradept]

And occasionally information and enlightenment, but those are generally also pleasurable.

Yeah, literature canons tend to lionize White, cis-het men to the exclusion of everybody else, even if they wrote some really good stuff. There are tokens from everywhere else, because tokens are enough to not be racist, amirite? *thbbbbpth*

[amarie24]

Amen, my friend...a-freakin'-men.