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My site has got very serious recently. So I intend to publish jokes that I like. I have a typically British sense of humor - basic. So I will use my Blogger site so that if you don't share this crude view of the world, you just have to avoid the link.
This one is about "Uncle Who"
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Today marks the beginning of a new spot on CBC Radio in the afternoon with host Matt Rainnie on Mainstreet. You can hear CBC streamed here
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We will call the series 'Finding Home'. It will be on air monthly and it will tell the stories of people from "away" who have found "Home" here on Prince Edward Island. I will have a few words with Matt today at about 4.30 introducing the series and then on Monday 31st, David Bergmark will be our first guest.
David came here from Massachusetts in the early 1970's to work on the Ark. This was a milestone in the early development of the ideas of systems' sustainability.
David's arrival coincided with a choice to come and live here that many young Americans made at that time including an important group who are affectionately called "Back to the Landers". PEI was then at the forefront of a movement of people who wanted to find a simpler life. They found the culture and the way of life an ideal fit.
Paradoxically, just as those committed to a more simple life were arriving and finding home in rural PEI, (This included our current premier Pat Binns) the province was being thrust into the industrial era by the "Plan". The intent was to industrialize PEI. Schools were taken out of communities and consolidated. Family farms were converted into mono-crop businesses and those that could not cope discovered EI.
It is wonderful to note that having turned our head away from a leadership role in sustainability, that PEI is putting its best foot forward again. David is also once again playing a lead role in the design of the new Federal Building that will be one of the most advanced of its type. It is my hope that the wheel of time has turned again and that the flame of community renewal is being rekindled - not the least by some of the "elders" like David.
David will tell us how he came to do a project and found his home. Coming up will be some young people who have come here to make a difference. I hope to cover as many points of view as I can. So if you have a story or know someone who does - please comment and I will contact you.
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Pullman steps in to remind us that the only good way to learn is to do (Thanks Stephen)
The report published this week by the University of York on its research into the teaching of grammar will hardly surprise anyone who has thought about the subject. The question being examined was whether instruction in grammar had any effect on pupils' writing. It included the largest systematic review yet of research on this topic; and the conclusion the authors came to was that there was no evidence at all that the teaching of grammar had any beneficial effect on the quality of writing done by pupils.
Needless to say, this goes against common sense. That particular quality of mind, the exclusive property of those on the political right, enables its possessors to know without the trouble of thinking that of course teaching children about syntax and the parts of speech will result in better writing, as well as making them politer, more patriotic and less likely to become pregnant.
For once, however, common sense seems to have been routed by the facts. If we want children to write well, giving them formal instruction in grammar turns out not to be any use; getting them actually writing seems to help a great deal more. Teaching techniques that do work well, the study discovered, are those that include combining short sentences into longer ones, and embedding elements into simple sentences to make them more complex: in other words, using the language to say something.
Reminds me of my attempts in the 1950's to become a rock star. I nagged my mother into getting me a guitar. But then I was sent to Madame Kramer for lessons. Did I learn a simple tune? No we spent months learning scales. I died of boredom gave up the guitar and we all missed me being Jimmy Paige.
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More on small business and how the blog will connect it to the consumer. The New York Times today heralded the use of blogs to link designers directly to consumers.
The revolution in small business using blogging is accelerating.
"Now that blogs, or Web journals, influence just about everything from politics to technology news, they are starting to transform the once clubby design community. On design blogs, readers who are normally not privy to chatter among interior decorators and tastemakers can participate in debates on burning topics (sample: Is the designer Karim Rashid overrated?); get advance word on design trends, like erotic stained glass; and find answers to practical issues, such as how to quiet an obnoxiously loud apartment buzzer. These tips and tidbits are sometimes dispensed by bloggers who support themselves with day jobs within the design industry.
Sara Antunovich, 24, said she turned to blogs for furnishing ideas when she moved from Chicago to Brooklyn last summer. "I trust bloggers," she said. "They're just normal people walking around saying, 'This is cool.' "
As design blogs proliferate and develop loyal followers the sites are forcing the established shelter and design publications to take notice. "As an editor, I can't see everything all the time," said Amara Holstein, an associate editor at Dwell, the design magazine. "Blogs provide me with what's new."
For designers trying to gain a foothold in a competitive market, blogs are a direct and usually free route to potential customers, and one that bypasses the usual middleman: retailers.
Last year, Greg Blonder, 49, a furniture designer in Summit, N.J., was looking for ways to sell a table he created that can be configured into various modern shapes. So he sent an e-mail to Harry Wakefield, who runs a design blog called MoCo Loco (www.mocoloco.com) from his home in Montreal. After Mr. Wakefield posted a note about Mr. Blonder's Talus Table, which retails for $1,800, traffic to his Web site spiked from 50 visitors a day to more than 4,000. One inquiry converted to a sale. "For a higher-end designer like me, it's a big deal," Mr. Blonder said.
Like many sites in the expanding blogosphere those focusing on design can become a habit, drawing visitors back to read posts that are added throughout the day."
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Image and link by Judith S. Kleinfeld
I have posted earlier on the "Well Curve" on why offering a mainstream approach in education today means that you miss the boat.
Here is another perspective that suggests that, surprise surprise, girls are different from boys. Now I am not the President of Harvard so you may not kill me for suggesting this. Kleinfeld tells us that the meaning of the diagram is this. Boys distribute on the conventional Bell Curve with long wings. There are more very successful boys but there are also more boys in trouble than girls who crowd into a more compressed distribution.
The fact is that boys are doing very badly at school (the link is to Kleinfeld's full article) compared to girls. Why - is surely the question of the day. It is clear that the conforming, low challenge, abstract and non-physical thrust of school and home-life today (don't climb that tree Johnny you may break your arm) does not fit boys. Just as a lot of school did not fit girls.
One of the saddest aspects of our modern dogma is that many hold to the idea that, apart from a few bumps and cavities, men and women are the same. Science and our experience tells us otherwise and the sooner we give up this idiocy the sooner we give back our sons a chance of getting a good education.
Thanks Nine Shift
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Thanks to Hugh a new voice for me on how the world works. A group of 4 evangelists for the Passionate Life.
Here is a long snip for Kathy's post on the Classroom
The problem with most corporate/adult learning programs is that they're just like school. And the problem with school is that it sucks. It works against the way the brain wants to learn......
The best learning occurs in a stimulating, active, challenging, interesting, engaging environment. It's how the brain works. The best learning occurs when you move at least some part of your body. The best learning occurs when you're actively involved in co-constructing knowledge in your own head, not passively reading or listening. (Taking notes doesn't really count as being actively involved.)
People complain that their kids can't pay attention in school, then their kid comes home and spends two hours studying the elaborate world of Halo 2. Reading, absorbing, problem solving, using sophisticated mental maps, and on it goes.
When learning is "presented" in a push model, your brain says, "This is SO not important." You're in for the battle of your life when you try to compete against the brain's natural instinct to scan for unusual, novel, possibly life-threatening or life-enhancing things.
Forcing people to sit in a chair and listen (or read) dry, formal words (with perhaps only a few token images thrown in) is the slowest, least effective, and most painful path to learning.......
Skyler (my switcher-daughter) was fortunate enough to go to a private school until 6th grade. In that school, there were no classrooms. There was no teacher-at-the-front rows of chairs thing. Kids sat where they wanted to do their work--on the floor, on the deck, at the kitchen table, whatever worked for them. There were no lectures, no formal lessons. When kids needed help on a "project", they asked, and one of the teachers helped them. If a few kids were dealing with the same thing, the teacher might take them into what looked like a little corporate conference room, for an ad-hoc session. Even then, the teacher was more like a mentor/guide, and not the "sage on the stage". Kids were allowed to work on whatever they wanted, as long as they were fulfilling, somehow, their goals to include geography, math, language, etc.
And each kid had his entire curriculum custom-made for his personal interests. For the things that turned his brain on. One kid was obsessed with dinosaurs, so with the help of his teacher, he designed his entire first year around dinosaurs. Everything he did was based on learning more about dinosaurs. Math was based on calculating sizes and dates, and making his own categorizations. Language was, well, he had to learn to read if he wanted to learn about his passion. Geography was based around researching the areas where different dinosaurs lived at different times, creating timelines, etc.
This site is a gold mine
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"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had else where its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison house begin to close
Upon the growing boy
But He beholds the light and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth who daily farther from the east
Must travel still is nature's priest
And by the vision, splendid,
Is on His way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of day"
From Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
For me, these words sum up all that I believe is both potentially available and all that is wrong today with our view of "learning".
School as a Prison House. Nature as our teacher. Our inherent knowledge that only has to be remembered.
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There is a hot debate about how we will have ads in the conversation market.
My 5 cents.
We still all think of ads. Maybe ads are themselves passe in the new medium of conversation.
Hugh has promoted his friend the Bespoke Tailor.
Why would I want to continue to be bombarded with ads when my aggregator will have a commercial section of my friends who answer my need for services?
How will I buy a car in 5 years time? I will go to a few trusted sites where cars will be discussed. Then I will choose. How will I buy an appliance or gadgets now? I go to a trusted site. How will buy my food? I think that I will be able to go to trusted sites that link producers that I trust to me.
Don't we have to look more deeply?
It is so hard to break free from a pervasive mindset. With the advent of the web, we just put print online - the conventional mindset. Now that we see the value of the web, we are still thinking in terms of ads - the same old deal.
We know that they don't work very well anymore. Only 15% convert in the auto industry versus over 70% for WOM.
In 5 years time most ads will be for soap and cat food
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I found this today as I was looking for a quote. When I looked beyond the quote I found gold
Snip:
"There are now millions of dues-paying environmentalists in the United States alone. Some count the number at 10 million. There are more; they just haven't signed up yet. But whatever the number, they don't seem to have anywhere near the power they should.
What are the reasons for this? The quick and dirty answer is: lack of boldness, smug leadership, battles over turf, absence from the legislative arena, bureaucracy, and no fun.
I like to pose this question: What do environmentalists, feminists, the far-righteous, the right-to-lifers, and the Bible have in common? Answer: No humor. No one has disagreed yet......
Never take yourself too seriously. And have a good time saving the world, or you're just going to depress yourself.
People want to be part of something fun. It's exciting to change the world. If you're in it simply out of worry or guilt, you won't last, and normal people won't join you. People want to love life, if love hasn't been crushed out of them when they were children. Learning to read the Earth and saving it is fascinating stuff. Put fun in the movement to conserve, preserve, and restore, and celebrate it, and people will run to sign up."
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Here are a few pictures that I took this morning
They are thumbnails so click to see more - that is if you can
Here is the main view facing North. There was 6 feet off snow piled up outside the front door when I got out at 6.30 am.
The view east
The view of the cars - when will I ever get them dug out? And the barn - Hi Steve (our tenant)
The view of the wing - Hi Lisa (our other tenant. There is tons of snow on the deck
No one is going anywhere today
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