#not necessarily educators and not necessarily enthusiastic about interacting with students

[flamagenitus]

Spent a half hour typing a speech about studying in the tags of a post 👍 I'm a normal person who's had a normal time in the academic system

[ehlenvs3000w24]

Teaching as an Interpreter ( Blog 2)

Hello everyone, welcome back to my nature interpretation blog! This week there is a lot to think about for myself as a future nature interpreter, specifically, what is my ideal role as a nature interpreter? When I first think of a nature interpretation career, I think of a well-experienced environmentalist who spends most of their time outdoors camping, identifying species, or carefully observing the wild unexplored areas of the earth. Quite the stereotypical example.

As a student with most of my experience in lectures, labs, and being taught indoors, it was quite difficult to envision myself as a nature interpreter. How can I teach others about nature and the environment when I've learned through lecture slides for most of my academic career? However, with some more thought, my ideal role does not necessarily mean that I have to be formally educated in conservation or ecology with plenty of fieldwork experience. For me, the ideal role of nature interpretation would tap into the experience I already have with nature from my childhood and some of the special interests I've grown up with. I would want to do something I really connect with. Spending my summers outdoors with my family (as per last week's discussion) gave me a few new interests and knowledge from observing the scenic atmosphere of rural Ontario. My grandmother introduced me to birdwatching and would tell me fun facts about the various species that would come up to her feeders, as younger me sat glued to the window watching these birds. To this day I consider myself a bird enthusiast, every time I'm walking I point out the birds I see. I've owned pet birds such as yellow canaries and green-cheeked conures, and I've gotten good at identifying common species in southern Ontario. Based on these interests, I could see myself becoming a bird guide as my form of nature interpreter.

If I were to take on the job of an interpreter to teach others about birds, the job might entail me becoming more acquainted with the wild bird species of Ontario, as that's where I have some knowledge. In addition to identification knowledge, I would like to take some courses about physiology and bird behaviour so I could share more than just what type of bird we are seeing. Making connections for interpretation would also mean discussing their role in the food chain, contributions to biodiversity, and impact on the ecosystem. I would prefer to work not too far up north and nothing remote so that folks could come and join the educational observation sessions. In addition, class times would be kept interactive but relatively short (maybe one hour), to keep interest and not overload students with information. For this kind of topic, an in-person learning setting may be beneficial to lead by exploration for tactile learners and incorporate visual learning at the same time. This may be more beneficial to learning about birds in a whole ecosystem approach rather than just using lecture material for auditory learning. I would utilize the amazing parks and conservation grounds that we have in southern Ontario, such as places like the Arboretum, which have trails to lead the educational walks. On the walks, spotting nests, recording species in the area, sharing facts and behaviours, and keeping a journal may be some of the activities learners will practice.

I never thought of myself as someone who would enjoy an outdoor job, but for animals I love, maybe I should reconsider my options. Some food for thought.

Thanks for reading!

[beca-mitchell]

nothing has changed me quite like you (1/1)

Summary: Chloe Beale and her shetland sheepdog, Juniper, make quite the pair. Set after PP3. Written for @bechloe-week day 2 - he bit me!

Notes: Fic title from "Nothing Is U" by Bleachers. Written for Bechloe Week Day 2 - He bit me! Wrote this after a burst of inspiration tonight. Unbeta'd, sorry.

Read on AO3 or read below.

* * * * *

Chloe adopts Juniper from her uncle when she moves up to Ithaca to begin her veterinary school education. Juniper is a happy dog, incredibly enthusiastic about walks, and happy to lie on top of Chloe’s chest to wake her up in the morning.

Chloe had always wanted a dog again since her childhood dog had long passed away. However, living at Barden hadn’t really allowed for it in her first year there. Then living in a house constantly filled with loud, singing women...that hadn’t been the time either.

She had thought maybe—maybe when she moved into an apartment with Beca, her longtime crush and (even more) longtime friend, would have been the time. But no. Amy happened. And their tiny apartment happened. Their tiny apartment which meant that Chloe spent cold, sleepless nights trying not to cuddle too close to Beca, lest she startle her and send her running away for good. Those cold, lonely, sleepless nights spent wondering if Beca would ever reciprocate her feelings.

The nights spent after Beca and Jesse’s Breakup™. The nights spent falling asleep together after another bad Netflix movie.

The nights spent together after nights out. Sleeping only, of course.

All the nights.

It almost made Chloe forget about wanting a dog—about wanting a companion. Almost. It would have just been difficult to have a dog in such a small face while nobody was really home to take care of a dog.

(But it had made Chloe smile—widely too—when she had mentioned it offhandedly to Beca. The whole ‘having a dog’ thing. A rather domestic suggestion, if Chloe thought about it for too long. She had almost been afraid about bringing it up even hypothetically to Beca. It felt like a step she hadn’t been sure about taking even though they weren’t even anything. But still. Beca liked dogs and would have liked a dog of her own—their own?—if it weren’t for their roommate and their living conditions.

That was a win to Chloe.

Beca liked dogs. Nobody was taking that away from her.)

Finally, Chloe moved upstate. Upstate where it was easier to get a spacier apartment; where there was that much more greenery. Many more accessible parks to run.

It was finally time to get a dog.

Finally, then came Juniper—a force of energy rolled into one fluffy Shetland Sheepdog.

 * * * * *

 Juniper is a happy dog.

So happy to the extent that Chloe is surprised the first time she attempts to bring somebody back to her apartment. She brings back a nice woman from the Pharmacy School after a surprisingly refreshing date. They barely make it into the apartment when Juniper immediately begins leaping at their legs, surprisingly excited and over-eager for the rather late hour.

“Shh,” Chloe hushes, smiling apologetically at her date. “Sorry, she’s not usually like this. Um...here, let me grab your jacket. I can make us some tea or something.” She tries not to sound too desperate. “If you want to stay for a little.”

Valerie smiles—a pretty smile entirely too reminiscent of another brunette with blue eyes—and nods. “I’d love to.”

“Great!” Chloe exclaims, a bit too high-pitched for her liking. She turns so Valerie can’t see her wince. Valerie doesn’t necessarily need to know exactly how long it’s been since she was...super intimate in any sense of the word. Herself not included. “I’ll be back,” she calls over her shoulder, clutching her date’s jacket in her hand.

Juniper obediently follows her to the kitchen, little nails tapping against the hardwood. “You can do this,” Chloe murmurs to herself, opening cabinets as she searches for a good mug to use. “You can do this, right Junie?” she asks, bending down to coo at her dog. Juniper yelps, tail wagging happily as she flits around Chloe’s leg, clear herding instincts coming out. “She’s not Beca. I mean. Who is. But she’s pretty. And nice.” She glances at Juniper as if her dog is listening to her attentively. “She’s pretty nice,” she chirps, smiling at Juniper.

Juniper offers no feedback, other than a brush of her nose against Chloe’s leg.

Chloe sighs, bringing the mugs back out to her living room.

 * * * * *

 “Ow!”

Chloe draws back quickly, immediately pushing herself up on the couch and peering down at her date nervously. A small yelp of pain isn’t necessarily the reaction she’s used to unless discussed beforehand with her bedmates.

“Sorry,” Chloe whispers, hushed. “Did I bite you?”

Valerie sits up at well, cheeks still flushed attractively, lips still swollen from their make-out session. Chloe’s eyes don’t even wander to her half-unbuttoned shirt. “No, I think—your dog did?”

“My wha—” Chloe twists on the couch, peering around in the low light. She sees Juniper sitting up, alert yet somehow still innocent, in her dog bed in the corner of the living space. “She’s…”

“I didn’t imagine it. She definitely bit me.”

“No, I believe you, she’s just not normally—she likes other people.”

Valerie laughs, sitting up all the way and beginning to button up her shirt. Juniper perks up at that and scurries over, as if she is excited to watch Chloe very much not have sex.

“You don’t have to go,” Chloe urges, though she isn’t sure why she even wants to protest. “I’m—I mean we can—”

“Look, you’re very nice, but I guess...I just want to be friends.”

“Oh. I’m...that’s okay. I don’t…” Chloe finds she isn’t extremely disappointed, just a little stunned that her evening is ending so quickly. Though she has no extreme connection to Valerie—no lingering passion—she is still relatively disappointed by the lack of sex in her life. She sighs, deflating. “I’ll get your jacket.”

* * * * *

Chloe doesn’t think much of it. It’s just a pattern of behaviour that she assumes Juniper has developed. She doesn’t really bite people—she just nips. Regardless, Chloe knows it isn’t behaviour that she should encourage by any means. She just assumes Juniper is a little protective of her. A little territorial.

It isn’t until weeks later that another major incident occurs. Chloe has since learned not to really go back to her own apartment with dates, with this one being an exception.

Mark is a PhD student at the engineering school. She meets him through a veterinary school friend and they had agreed to go on a date together. One thing had led to another and they had ended up tucked away in Chloe’s room after their date (Juniper had been locked out of her room on purpose) and well—

It’s fun. That much Chloe can say. It isn’t until later, with Mark’s heavy snoring next to her that she realizes that she hadn’t felt any real connection to him. But maybe, she muses, it’s too early to tell. It had been one date. And she had felt enough of a connection to sleep with him, even though it isn’t something she does regularly. Putting out on the first date at least.

It is the next morning that everything becomes apparent.

Chloe wakes up alone, eyes blinking against the harsh sunlight of her room. She hears a strange sound, something that sounds like muffled yelling. Or whisper-yelling. She senses the distinct emptiness next to her and sighs, wondering if she even has time to be disappointed. Or if she had prepared herself adequately for this inadvertently.

She hears a bark. Followed by a hushing sound.

Chloe rolls her eyes. Sneaking past her dog. Typical.

Without more thought, Chloe pulls a robe around her and yanks open her bedroom door, wondering what she’ll see. She blinks at the scene in front of her and takes in the way Mark appears to be in a stand-off with Juniper.

She sighs, realizing he has probably encountered one of her behavioural issues. Her earlier annoyance aside, she tries to offer sympathy and clears her voice, making her presence known. “Oh, I’m so sorry, she’s—”

“Aren’t you a vet or something?” he asks, holding up one of his ruined shoes. The other, Juniper still holds in her mouth, her tail wagging enthusiastically. Like this is some game. “Can’t you train your dog better?”

“She’s not usually like this!” Chloe exclaims. “Junie, come here, baby. Stop that.”

“Do you know how expensive these shoes are?”

Chloe almost laughs at the expression on his face, but she remembers, fleetingly, how much Beca had valued her precious headphones. She supposes everybody has their hobbies.

“Give that back, you little—”

“Don’t be mean to her!” Chloe cries, attempting to intervene. “She’s just playing. Junie, come here,” she demands.

Mark scowls, continuing to tug at his remaining shoe. The one that isn’t covered in dog pee. Juniper refuses to let up, even growling a little as he tugs harder. She stands her ground with surprising force. Chloe wonders if she had imagined Mark’s arm muscles. Clearly nothing compared to a shetland sheepdog with something to prove.

She sighs, choosing instead to lean back against the wall. She pulls her robe tighter around herself, tucking the fabric to protect herself against the chill. At least she gets morning entertainment in the place of a one-night stand trying to run out on her.

“Hey—Hey!” Mark cries out, pulling his hand away, both shoes dropping to the ground. “She bit me!”

Chloe pushes off the wall, concerned.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m f—”

“I was talking to Juniper,” Chloe says shortly. “You were antagonizing her on purpose. Rule one of interacting with dogs.”

He has enough sense to look appropriately chastised, but still displeased with the entire situation.

She rises, holding out her hand to inspect his hand. “Let me see,” she murmurs.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll just go.”

Chloe watches the door slam behind him, Juniper by her side.

“Another one, huh, Junie.”

 * * * * *

 The next semester comes quickly enough, January creeping into February, then the early stages of March.

“Beca?” Chloe blinks, stunned. “What are you doing here? In the—in—?” Chloe peers out the door as if expecting a camera crew to surprise them in the middle of the hallway. This is some Punk’d energy Chloe feels. She hadn’t expected to see Beca for at least another few months, even if she has spent the last few months alone missing Beca terribly. “This isn’t L.A.,” she says slowly, wonder creeping into her voice. “You’re not in L.A.”

“I—surprise!” Beca spreads her arms, hesitant smile on her lips. Chloe gapes at her, noting how different Beca looks...yet completely the same. Maybe a little more...expensive, if Chloe had a word for it. Her jacket is sleek-looking, her hair is slightly curled and—

“Did you dye your hair?” Chloe asks, reaching out to touch the ends of Beca’s hair. “It’s so pretty…”

“Thank you,” Beca says, blushing. “You look...wow.”

Chloe touches her hair self-consciously. It’s tied up in a messy ponytail to match her oversized sweater and leggings. She hadn’t planned on seeing anybody today, intent on having a quiet study day. “Really?” she asks softly before she can help herself.

“Yeah, I—oh.” Beca pauses, looking down at Juniper who creeps between Chloe’s legs to peer up at Beca with interest. Chloe feels Juniper’s tail wagging against her legs. “Who’s this! Is this the cutie you always post about on Instagram?”

Hearing the high-pitched tone of Beca’s voice as she continues to talk to and about Juniper makes all kinds of affection shoot through Chloe’s body. That and something else. She smiles at Beca, realizing just how much she had missed the other woman over this time. While Beca had been off in L.A. making a name for herself, Chloe had missed her all the while, attempting to fill the voids that Beca had left behind.

“Yeah,” Chloe murmurs, watching as Beca holds out her hand for Juniper to sniff. “She’s just a little...temperamental with new people, I—” Chloe freezes, stunned when Juniper licks Beca’s hand and immediately pushes her body into Beca’s knees, clearly intent on receiving more cuddles.

“She’s adorable, Chlo.”

Chloe thinks she might cry. “She really is.” She clears her throat, battling the emotion away. “Do you want to...come in, or—?”

“I...okay. Yeah. I mean. I did come to visit you, but I’m telling you, she might take some attention away from you.”

Chloe scoffs. “As if that would ever happen,” she teases.

Beca hums, something non-committal, but not quite the immediate disagreement Chloe expects from her.

“Chloe?” Beca asks quietly as the front door shuts behind her. “Can I do something?”

Chloe turns, confused. She takes in the sight of Beca standing there in front of her with her expensive jacket and her expensive duffel bag (she hadn’t seen that before—did Beca intend on staying with her? In her one-bedroom, one-bed apartment?), with Juniper sitting obediently right next to her.

It is very much a picture of a girl with a mission, too weighed down by all her insecurities.

Chloe’s heart races. “Sure,” she whispers.

“I...wanted to do it the moment you opened the door. But I guess…” Beca smiles down at Juniper. “Needed the seal of approval first, huh.” She takes a step closer, dropping her bag gently at her feet. “I’m...Can I kiss you?”

That simple statement, said with such clarity and sincerity, snatches all the air from Chloe’s chest. She stumbles, eyes widening as she notes that Beca is standing right in front of her with nowhere else to go. Her favourite blue eyes, taking up her entire field of view.

“Chloe.”

“I—um. Yes. God, yes, please kiss me,” Chloe replies, wondering very much if this is still a dream.

"I just. Wasn't sure after Europe," Beca says stiltedly. Breathless, almost. She reaches up with shaking hands to put her hands around the back of Chloe's neck.

"Kiss me," Chloe whimpers.

So Beca does.

 * * * * *

 When Chloe wakes the next morning, she wakes up alone. Her heart pounds, wondering if Beca had left in the middle of the night. She lies, somewhere between dream and nightmare, too afraid to wake up and face the Pandora’s Box of her reality.

The previous night had been nothing short of amazing. Chloe struggles to find words to encapsulate the spectrum of emotions that had crashed through her the moment she and Beca finally got to know each other intimately. Wandering hands, heavy kisses, breathless pants, and the annoyingly rhythmic sound of Chloe’s bed creaking under the weight of two bodies finding their perfect match in each other.

It had been perfect.

Chloe wonders if anything will ever top their first time, now that she knows what it feels like to be wanted by Beca Mitchell. Beca, who flew across the country to pull Chloe into her arms and kiss her. Not quite an “I love you” but also not quite a “Let’s be friends” either.

Chloe sighs, sitting up and letting the sheets fall around her. She is too afraid to check, but she has more faith in Beca than that. Her longtime friend. Her longtime crush. Her maybe-not-one-time lover.

“Hey,” Beca calls quietly as she pushes open the door. She is wearing one of Chloe’s old oversized shirts and a shy smile on her face. Her hair is delightfully rumpled, catching all the rays of sun that sneak into Chloe’s bedroom. In her arms, she holds a squirming Juniper who looks like she is very much attempting to lick Beca’s face or jump onto the bed. Or both.

Chloe almost gasps, but she only manages a shy smile of her own, stunned into silence for once.

“You’re here,” Chloe murmurs when she finds her voice.

Beca sits on the bed, gently letting Juniper squirm free from her arms. Juniper curls up at the foot of her bed, ears twitching excitedly. “I hope you don’t mind, I just gave her some food. She was waiting for us when I woke up.”

Us, Chloe thinks happily. She smiles, reaching out to grab the front of Beca’s shirt to draw her in for a kiss. Beca responds immediately, hands coming up to frame Chloe’s cheeks gently, tilting her head, like she is responding to Chloe’s unspoken word. Us, she seems to echo in her kiss. Look at us.

Scratch perfection, Chloe thinks. This is all she needs.

fin.

[paperbackrevolution]

“Book People”: a response

I have been thinking about an essay I read on Jezebel for the last while. It fit in so nicely with something I have been mulling over for months: readers. I mean serious readers. The kind of people that track their reading, that keep up with the publishing industry, that can relate to bookish memes, that overthink how their bookshelf is organized, and that seek out like-minded readers to interact with on social media. This essay, by Joanna Mang, uses a phrase for these kinds of readers: ‘Book People’. Mang uses it in a derogatory manner, and I have heard it used as such before though in those cases I believe the phrase Book Snob would have been more fitting. For Mang, Book People, are not the good sort of reader, but I want to unpack that in a bit.

Mang’s article is titled “We Have to Save Books from the Book People”. I actually only found it through a response written at Book Riot by Tika Viteri (“Back-Talking the Tone Police: Book People are Not Your Enemy”). Essentially, after rereading Mang’s essay a half dozen times (to try and follow the meandering argument and to seek what the point was) I think Mang is arguing a few things: that classics should still be taught in high school and not argued about on twitter, that English teachers bear no responsibility to encourage reading, and that Book People are bad for liking books a whole lot and have a Secret Plot to keep the publishing industry running. What any of this has to do with the title of her article remains unclear.

Mang opens her essay by complaining about people complaining on twitter. Specifically, people that are complaining about the classics they had to read in high school. The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, and Catcher in the Rye are all mentioned. Even more specifically Mang is upset at the redundancy of these arguments, that they come up again and again. I mean she is definitely correct, because once someone talks about something no one else is allowed to talk about that thing ever again. Ever. Right? I doubt it is the same person rehashing this conversation daily, more likely Mang has stumbled across or perhaps actively searched out these conversations as they are being had by different people. I mean as far as I know there are more than a handful of people using twitter, right? And if it is the same person dredging up this conversation daily, I have a suggestion: unfollow them. Problem solved. But then if that had happened, we would not have this essay to unpack.

Mang seems upset that people on twitter say that they felt forced into reading books that they did not enjoy. According to Mang anyone that disliked these books did so because these books are classics that they just failed to understand. Mang mentions that with a good lesson plan anyone can like classics, but perhaps they did not have a good teacher with a good lesson plan or maybe it is because they just did not connect with the book. Not everyone must like classics simply because they are part of the canon. A book’s inclusion within the canon does not mean that it is necessarily enjoyable to read or study for every single person. It simply means that it was influential in some way. I can recognize and value the significance of a classic novel and still also dislike the reading experience.

I did find it ironic that these conversations on twitter are doing exactly what Mang says she encourages her students to do: “When I teach literature, my goal is to give students the tools and confidence they need to attack and write about texts, to “talk to” the text rather than receive it passively” (Mang 2021). On these twitter threads we have people reflecting back on books that they were required to read in school. But because they are engaging with these texts on twitter it cannot count as the same thing? I have come across some fascinating analysis on classic books on social media that would have made my English professors proud. I fail to see the problem here.

Mang then goes on to speak about the notion of whether certain books should or shouldn’t be taught in school to avoid “turning kids off” reading, since this is often an extension of those twitter conversations. This is something that people in education have been honing for years. A quick google search reveals many theories, pedagogies and lesson plans that can help encourage reading. Teachers and other education experts are out there exploring options to encourage reading in their students. Why though? Why do we want turn children in to readers? Mang suggests that Book People have an odious plot to save the book-as-object which I will unpack in a moment. But maybe it is actually because it increases empathy? Or because it builds vocabulary? Because it prevents cognitive decline as we age? Because it is a stress reducer? Might even make you live longer? Improves general knowledge? Improves writing skills? Aids sleep? Could even help prevent alzheimers? I think it could be at least one of those reasons, especially since most of these studies explain that these benefits do not come from reading those three books back in high school but as a sustained habit over a lifetime. Though Mang, an educator, also states in her article “It’s not an English teacher’s job to make students love reading; an English teacher’s job is to equip students to read and communicate” (Mang 2021). Which I think is certainly true, but (thankfully) many other educators are attempting to go beyond the pressure to yield good test results and are still trying to help their students become readers. Of course, as Mang does mention, the formation of a sustained reading habit is based on more than a single factor (Mang mentions “parental attitudes, family wealth, the student’s disposition and other sources of stimulation”). Why this should excuse English teachers from even trying to encourage reading is lost on me. Further I also wonder what the point there is in teaching students how to actively engage with books if they are not continuing to read outside of school? Why bother with English class at all if this is the case?

I am not here to say that schools should not teach classic literature or should not encourage students to engage with the canon, I am here, however, to say that we can also all go on to complain about it on the internet afterward. If someone does not find value in these conversations, then they are free to tune them out.

After talking about education and American schools’ reading lists, Mang finally gets to the part about Book People. Mang differentiates between readers and Book People stating:

“A reader is someone who is in the habit of reading. A Book Person has turned reading into an identity. A Book Person participates in book culture. Book People refer to themselves as “bookworms” and post Bookstagrams of their “stacks.” They tend towards language like “I love this so hard” or “this gave me all the feels” and enjoy gentle memes about buying more books than they can read and the travesty of dog-eared pages. They build Christmas trees out of books. They write reviews on Goodreads and read book blogs and use the hashtag #amreading when they are reading. They have TBR (to be read) lists and admit to DNFing (did not finish). They watch BookTube and BookTok. They love a stuffed shelf but don’t reject audiobooks and e-readers; to a Book Person, reading is reading is reading” (Mang 2021).

Let’s dig into this before we get to the conspiracy. Just because I am baffled by the snobby tone of this paragraph, and I do not understand what is wrong with any of this.

A Book Person has turned reading into an identity: Just as many people do with any hobby, they tend to entrench themselves within it. People who hike seriously can and have turned that into an identity, they’re hikers. But just about everyone can walk so hikers should then not make their hobby part of their identity? Sometimes people really, really enjoy something and it becomes a big part of their daily life. What is wrong with that?

A Book Person participates in book culture: A culture can form around a social group. So, if we have a hobby group, which is a kind of social group, it is not hard to imagine that eventually a culture would build up around it. So then, yes, people would then also participate in that culture.

Book People refer to themselves as “bookworms”: What I am most puzzled by are the quotation marks, as if this nickname is something strange and new. The first known use of the phrase bookworm dates back to the 1590s and is defined as “a person unusually devoted to reading and study”. Yeah, it is a little dorky, but many hobbyists across various hobbies have silly names for the people of their hobby. Star Trek fans call themselves Trekkies or Trekkers and apparently train enthusiasts call themselves railfans. It’s a hobby thing.

and post Bookstagrams of their “stacks”: As for this, I think this is an example of a fascinating development among readers. Robert A. Stebbins, a scholar of leisure activity and hobbies, has long denied that reading could be considered a ‘serious’ hobby or what he refers to as a Serious Leisure Pursuit (SLP). He has maintained that reading is a prime example of a casual pastime, and even explores his stance in more depth in the book The Committed Reader: Reading for Utility, Pleasure and Fulfillment in the Twenty-First Century. He argues that reading cannot be a SLP due to the solitary nature of reading and the lack of a social world. To Stebbins a social world is a social network group made up of hobbyists and others connected to that hobby. Social media has changed that, however, allowing serious readers to form a social world and also find ways to make the act of reading more social itself. Book clubs have always been an attempt by readers to make reading more social. But social media allows these attempts to get closer to the mark. Readers on twitter host reading sprints to encourage people to read together at the same time. Others host read-a-longs on various platforms such as instagram to encourage a more engaging version of a book club that invites readers to read the same book section by section. And some booktubers (Book People on youtube), host live videos that invite their subscribers to grab a book and read with them. I will digress here for now, but this is something I plan on exploring more on this blog in the future. Put simply, what Mang is disparaging here is actually evidence of reading achieving SLP status under Stebbins’ hobby model. This is simply an active social world of readers.

They tend towards language like “I love this so hard” or “this gave me all the feels”: This is simply how people tend to talk on the internet? Especially amongst fandom communities, of which there is huge overlap in bookish communities. This is hardly exclusive to Book People.

and enjoy gentle memes about buying more books than they can read: memes are things people share on the internet. I am failing to see the issue with this. Again, not something exclusive to book people. What I am starting to see here is that Mang seems to take issue with internet culture in general, more so than with Book People.

and the travesty of dog-eared pages: Only Book Snobs care if other people dog-ear their own books. I am using the phrase Book Snob to distinguish between avid readers and people that find the book-as-object almost sacred. There can be overlap, certainly, but not all Book People see books this way.

They build Christmas trees out of books: No books were harmed in the making of those christmas trees. Oh, is this where the title comes in? Are we saving books from becoming christmas trees? I promise it doesn’t hurt the books.

They write reviews on Goodreads: I am confused by what is wrong with this. Mang stated earlier in her article that and I quote again, “when I teach literature, my goal is to give students the tools and confidence they need to attack and write about texts, to “talk to” the text rather than receive it passively.” How is reviewing a book not doing exactly that? Not all reviews are as aggressive as an essay can be perhaps, but it is still an act of engaging with a text rather than simply consuming it. Further, many Book People likely either have access to or want access to ARCs (advanced reader copies) from publishers and part of that deal is writing an honest review in exchange for the free copy of the book. So that would be them holding up their end of that deal. I am uncertain if Mang takes issue with goodreads in particular or with writing reviews in general.

and read book blogs: People that are active within a hobby often seek out other like-minded individuals. And beyond that most book bloggers are reviewers. Meaning people may be seeking reviews of a book to help them curate their reading selection.

and use the hashtag #amreading when they are reading: another example of Mang’s dislike of internet culture. People use hashtags to help get their media piece to others that may enjoy it or find commonality with it. They are using this form of metadata as it was intended.

They have TBR (to be read) lists: I think non-serious readers have TBR lists as well, but I think they tend to be more unconscious in nature. For example, a non-serious reader may vaguely know that there are some classics that they want to get to, or maybe the latest hyped general fiction novel. Book People are hobbyists, and if we used Stebbins’ model, they are serious hobbyists. They take their chosen leisure pursuit seriously and as such it is on their mind a lot because they intend to spend a significant amount of time pursuing that activity. So, it seems only natural that they may want to organize the content that they want to consume. It appears to me that Mang is more upset that this hobby group has formed in-group vocabularies. This means that only people residing within the group will understand some of the words or phrases used. This is a natural progression of language. You need words to succinctly capture the meaning of something. In this case, many readers have lists of books they want to read, rather than saying all of that it gets shortened down to TBR.  

and admit to DNFing (did not finish): Are we saving books from not being fully read? Many of the books that Book People are reading are for enjoyment. If you are not enjoying something, why would you continue it? Do you watch the entirety of a season of a tv show that you are hating? No. Finish a snack that is making you want to vomit it back up? No. Same logic for books. To suggest you must complete a book simply because it is a book is more like Book Snob behaviour. This seems so common sense that I am again inclined to point to this as evidence of Mang’s distaste for in-group vocabularies more than the idea of not reading a book.

They watch BookTube and BookTok: This is further example of the community and social world that readers are setting up on the internet. People typically like making connections and further, making connections over something you share in common is natural. The internet made this easier, and social media has made it easier still. This is just evidence of readers seeking connections with other readers.  

They love a stuffed shelf but don’t reject audiobooks and e-readers; to a Book Person, reading is reading is reading: This line is fascinating. Because following this, Mang’s article takes a turn toward a conspiracy about how Book People are trying to save the book-as-object since ereaders have threatened the physical book. And yet here, as part of her definition of Book People, she disparages Book People for finding value in ebooks and audiobooks. Mang herself becomes the Book Snob here, rejecting other book formats. Ebooks are convenient, you can have access to hundreds of books from your chosen device (I like to use my phone personally not an ereader). And audiobooks are great for when you are performing another task such as chores or driving. Both formats also allow people with disabilities better access to books. Audiobooks are perfect for people with visual impairments or who struggle to read. And with ebooks the size of the font can be changed to allow the book to be turned in to a large print book as needed and can even allow the font to be changed into a dyslexic-friendly font. To suggest that ebooks or audiobooks are not real books or don’t count as books is just blatantly ableist.

Let’s get to the conspiracy now. Mang claims that reading became an identity and a culture in response to the decline of interest in reading. She also continues on to say that not only is reading threatened by other media and diversions, but that ebooks and audiobooks distract from physical books. And so with the book-as-object threatened by television and alternate book formats, physical books became more precious. She even goes as far as to say books are fetishized. And then Mang says, “This could be why those arguing that classic books alienate young readers suggest 21st Century titles as substitutions: if we want to keep the book alive, we have to read, and more to the point buy, the books being produced now” (Mang 2021).

So let’s make this clear. According to Mang, Book People are people who have made reading an identity and revel in book culture. And Mang also already said that Book People “love a stuffed shelf but don’t reject audiobooks and e-readers; to a Book Person, reading is reading is reading”. But then Mang changes her argument and says that all of this is about the physical book. So, the people that complain about classics they read in high school on twitter, some of which are Book People, are all actually attacking classic literature because it may turn children off reading which would be bad because that would mean that less people are reading books regularly which is bad because then it means that less people are buying books which is bad because the book-as-object is precious and must be protected and perpetuated.

Riiiiight. I believe Mang conflated Book People with Book Snobs partway through this essay. They are not one in the same and by Mang’s own definition, Book People see any format of book as worthwhile. Meanwhile a Book Snob would uphold the physical book-as-object as the supreme format. So saying that Book People are behind this conspiracy simply does not hold up under scrutiny. Not that this conspiracy should carry much weight at any rate.

But then Mang wipes that argument away, saying that Book People are not that practical. That actually their purpose in complaining about classics books on twitter is solely to revolutionize American schools’ text selection policy. Further Mang seems to think that people ranting about their least favourite classic novel on social media is all about putting pressure on teachers and public education to shape their students into model human beings. When in reality, sometimes one simply needs to whine about a bad book, even if it’s a classic.

At the end of all of this, I am left simply confused about this essay. Firstly the title: “We Have to Save to Save Books from the Book People”. What books are we saving from Book People and how exactly do we go about doing it? Are we saving classics? Or are we saving the current school reading list books? Or physical books? Or ebooks? Perhaps it is that books are somehow being ruined by those that worship that book-as-object? I propose that Mang just thought it sounded good, especially seeing as how it does little to pertain to the wandering argument of this essay.

Secondly, I am also confused about what exactly is the point of this essay. The three main conclusions reached at the end of it seem to be that 1) arguing about classics on twitter does not impact text selection policy in schools, 2) teachers bear no responsibility in encouraging their students to make reading a habit, and 3) that books are not sacred objects. So what?

While I disagree with Mang’s essay, I do still find value in some of the points she brings up, and in her definition of Book People. I have been casually curious about the leisure studies, and where committed readers fit within leisure studies, for the last couple of years. Mang may not understand what she sees before her, but she did see something. It is that insight that has finally spurred me to dig into the social world of committed readers, or as Mang calls them, Book People.

[forestwater87]

A big box o’Gwenvid AU ideas: A is for "Aww” and “Angst” and “AAAH”

This post is fucking rad as balls, and I started thinking of fun AU ideas . . . until I remembered that I already have approximately 2 billion WIPs already and don’t necessarily know if any of these have legs as actual fics. But it was fun to think about, so here we are! This is the first of . . . presumably 26 of these? Who knows, but this post we have:

Accidental Marriage AU

In which Campbell convinces incredibly wealthy investors known for their focus on “family values” that the Camp is a sweet family business run by a husband-and-wife team of counselors. The problem, of course, is that it isn’t sweet and its head counselors aren’t married. Campbell only has enough booze to fix one of those situations. 

He’ll figure the rest out in the morning. He thinks better with a hangover, anyway.

(Yes I think this one would be awesome in Campbell’s POV. You cannot change my mind on this.)

Actor AU

Okay, real talk this would just be @whiskyarts​‘s gameshow AU. Because I kinda love the idea of Jerk!David who just pretends to be a sweetheart for the cameras. Except I would cover it with my filthy Gwenvid hands and make it shippy in that antagonistic-hatemance-eventually-turns-into-something-resembling-feelings. There would be lots of angst and snark and sparkly clothes and I would love it and probably no one else would.

Alien AU

An Interplanetary Anthropologist, Gwen, manages to land a position on the Campbell after years of education and networking and plain old hard work. She is an employee of the most impressive warship in the galaxy -- sure, it’s gone to seed a little bit in the last few decades, but it still has its shine if you look at it sideways and squint a little -- and more importantly, it’s work experience! Paid work experience . . . as a janitor.

When the Campbell picks up a POW that the ship’s commander plans to (illegally) sell to the highest bidder, Gwen decides to treat it as an opportunity to build a real-life case study on one of the universe’s rarer life forms while it’s within arm’s reach. But the more she learns about the strange, sunny alien who was his platoon’s only survivor, the more uncomfortable she is with letting him disappear into her captain’s nefarious dealings and -- 

Oh fuck, this is The Shape of Water, isn’t it? I mean, I’ve never seen The Shape of Water but I’m pretty sure that’s what this is. Fuck. Goddamn it. Fuck.

Amnesia AU

David takes a rogue bus to the . . . well, everything -- something that’s more or less routine by now -- and hits his head hard enough to knock him out for almost a full day. When he wakes up, he’s the same cheerful David the camp is used to . . . except for three strange new things:

He doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing -- doesn’t, in fact, remember anything after some vague memories of childhood.

He’s completely terrified of the forest, and especially of Spooky Island.

He has no idea who Cameron Campbell is, but he’s quite positive he hates him.

Android AU

Actually @ciphernetics​ and I put this idea together a little while ago! Basically Camp Campbell has a state-of-the-art off-brand helper android named David, who is a perfect camp counselor, childcare provider, and comes equipped with the finest Forest Survival software Cameron Campbell could find for free online in half an hour.

Gwen, the new (requisite human) hire, hasn’t ever really interacted with androids, and doesn’t especially want to now. David is used to the distrust, even outright hostility -- very few of the campers seem to like him, and he knows that his presence can be unsettling to humans, and look, it isn’t a D:BH AU okay? It just looks like one, and acts like one. And is one.

Angel/Demon AU

Um the perfect Angel/Demon AU literally already exists, but they only wrote one chapter back in 2017 and never updated, and that makes me absurdly sad. Regardless, David being very bad at being a demon and Gwen being very bad at being an angel is the ideal setup for this kind of AU, in my humble opinion. 

However, David being an angel trying to reform his fallen ABFEL (angel buddy for eternal life!), who probably became a demon over something stupid and probably horny, also sounds extremely cute. They’re still friends, even though that is against literally all of the rules, and they secretly meet and hang out. David is convinced he can bring her around, and Gwen insists that she hates having him hanging off her nonexistent wings all the time. 

Honestly, probably neither of those things are true. Gwen wasn’t cut out for heaven -- and probably, neither is David.

Apocalypse AU

Cameron Campbell was probably doing something dangerously stupid in the hopes it could make him money. That, or the Quartermaster was doing something dangerous for reasons only he could ever understand. Hell, maybe that’s what that weird Daniel guy’s cult was trying to do. Whoever was doing what, they ripped a hole in their dimension at the bottom of Lake Lilac, and all sorts of awful things start creeping through.

There were signs, of course -- that weird fish-monster certainly didn’t come in through customs -- but an inopportune explosion, or wayward firework, or the rumblings of Sleepy Peak Peak, or something ripped a hole in the fabric of reality big enough for Lovecraftian monsters to start crawling through. There’s no stopping it. Really, there’s no chance of even fighting it. 

The second the rift opens, the story becomes one of just trying to stay out from under the Elder Gods’ feet.

Arranged Marriage AU

I think the easiest way to make this one work is by making either David or Gwen Campbell’s actual biological child -- maybe an heir, albeit to a highly illegal fortune and a mountain of credit card debt. But Campbell gets in trouble, the kind of trouble where he’s gambled everything and the only collateral he has left is a kid he got saddled with because their mother had better lawyers. A kid he’s been more than happy to put to work for the last 20-something years, who happens to have caught the eye of a ludicrously wealthy magnate -- not for her own sake (though Campbell would’ve been open to that too) -- but for her child, one she loves more than anything and keeps carefully shut away until the Right Person comes along.

His kid isn’t necessarily the right person, but for the first time in his life Cameron Campbell has a genuine treasure on his hands.

And, like all the fake treasures he’s passed off over the years, he just has to find a way to shine them up and make him a fortune.

Artist AU

Gwen is a starving artist living in a rat-infested hovel in the city, scraping by on a series of uninspired landscapes she paints on postcards and the goodwill of friends, family, and significant others. One day, a bright young man bounces up to her “studio” (it’s a cardboard box outside the park) and tells her excitedly that he’s been looking for her for weeks; he thinks her postcards are the most beautiful things he’s ever seen, and he would like to know if she’d be interested in moving down to a cabin by the lake. He runs a summer camp, he explains, and he knows they’d all be honored if she would teach them art lessons -- and of course paint in her spare time! The views are indescribable, and he’s sure she’ll have no shortage of inspiration.

She weighs the cost of what little artistic dignity she has remaining against room, board, and a steady paycheck for three months, and takes the job immediately.

Art Student AU

Put them in an art college -- maybe condense the ages so that the campers are like, younger students? -- and have Gwen as the Serious Art Student who cares a lot about theory and form and doing things right, and she’s constantly irritated by her classmate David, who sits at the same table as her and has declared them art buddies, and is convinced that the point of art is just to have fun and do your best! Maybe force them to do a group project together and really see them clash.

(Alternatively, there is the infinitely more shameless route of one being an art student and the other being a newd model for figure drawing. I am obviously much too classy to ever insinuate such a thing, but if someone was really looking for a way to write smuht . . . it’s sitting right there. On a table. nekkid. I HAVE TO CHANGE THE SPELLING TO MAKE THIS GO IN THE TAGS ARE YOU KIDDING ME)

Athlete AU

There are 4 major ways this one can go, I feel like:

Basically HSM: Gwen is a small part in her school’s musical (techie, maybe, or the orchestra) and lanky jock David -- which is the most hilarious phrase ever but he’s probably a runner or tennis player, something light on muscles and heavy on speed and springiness -- who’s well-mannered and cheerful but not the brightest, is put into the show as an extra-credit way to bump up his GPA so he can keep sporting his sports, and it turns out he’s both very good at and super enthusiastic about it.

A little like HSM, but as grown-ups: Gwen is the head of the drama/art department, which has just faced heavy cuts to support the superstar sports program, and she furiously storms over to the head coach’s office to let him know exactly what she thinks about him and his stupid meathead jocks. Of course, when the man who opens the door is a sweetheart beanpole with big eyes who already knows her name, she finds it hard to keep up her righteous indignation. And when it turns out that he was completely ignorant of the hit her department took from the budget cuts (or maybe not ignorant, just terminally oblivious) and is almost as upset as she is to hear about it, she’s forced to reconsider everything she’d assumed about Coach Greenwood; maybe he’s not the enemy after all, but someone with whom she can formulate a new battle plan.

Reporter/Famous Athlete AU: Either Gwen is a professional sportsball person and David is the shy, bumbling photographer eager to prove himself, or she’s the plucky, intrepid reporter and David is a good-natured professional athlete who she’s determined to interview.

Teammates AU: Professional or amateur sports team, and they’re just trying to scrape their way out of the bottom of the league without killing each other. 

Author AU

There are a lot of potential interpretations of this AU, but my personal favorite is Gwen as a novelist with two distinctly differing careers: as G. E. Santos, the high-concept writer whose books are critical darlings in the maybe 3 publications that care about such things but whose sales can’t quite crack the triple digits; and as Annabelle Elizabeth, whose steamy erotica regularly tops the bestseller lists and is reviled by all of G. E.’s colleagues as “populist genre trash.” 

The only person alive who knows about her Jekyll-and-Hyde author personas (besides her older sister Audree, who plays the part of charismatic and sensual Annabelle flawlessly) is her editor, David. He’s an odd choice, as her colleagues in both fields have pointed out -- reading her romance novels with his pen in one hand and the other covering his eyes, peeking through his fingers to write tremulous notes in the margins; stumbling through her ponderous literary works with a dictionary in his lap and his tongue between his teeth, poring through them like he’s learning a new language -- but he’s the only person Gwen will allow to touch her writing. 

Maybe it’s because he always seems like her biggest fan. Maybe it’s because she’s known him since they were at a summer camp together years ago. Maybe it’s because he believes in her in a way no one else does -- in a way she absolutely doesn’t believe in herself.

David is, for reasons she’s not entirely sure how to explain even to herself, the only person she trusts.

Avian (Bird People) AU

Centuries ago, it was said, avians were a rarity, an aberrant mutation to be locked up and intently studied but never trusted. Some people thought they were antichrists, a sign of the end times, when all normal humans would be destroyed and only the strange bird-people would remain.

In a way, maybe they were. Because when the earth’s crust ripped open and flooded the planet with magma and boiling water miles deep, avians were the only ones who could take to the sky.

Not all of them, certainly. In fact, most were locked up in detention centers and laboratories when the Swamp formed, and were unable to escape in time. Considering the people who could get to high enough elevations to escape the deluge, there were decades afterwards where the decimated human population outnumbered the avian one. Those were periods of tension, outright war and tentative alliances -- even romances, the kinds of great love stories that dragged both avian and human populations a few generations along when one or both of them should’ve died out.

That was over two hundred years ago, however. Now the Swamp is a murky expanse of scalding water and the boiled remains of civilization transformed into unrecognizable muck, with islands of “land” cobbled out of what remains. This is where the avians live, now. And humans don’t live anywhere, not anymore.

At least . . . that was what they thought.

[emmahvn-blog1]

hello <3 i am diana of house gay™, first of her name, mother of cats, lana del rey stan, lover of all things pink. akhdksd anyway,,, u can call me di or diana either works !! i am nineteen yrs old, go by she/her pronouns, and reside in the est timezone !! somethings u should kno about me...i am a girl group stan first and a human second ( stan loona stan twiceblackvelvet stan fromis 9 etc ). i am a sansa stark enthusiast ( sansa hive please interact ) and a libra askdhdkh. that’s basically all there is 2 me, so now let’s move on 2 my girl, emma han !!

- ̗̀ ❛ muse 14, jang yeeun, she/her. ❜ ̖́- did you hear about the monaco trip? it’s legendary at ucla. emma han is going, i’m so jealous. their instagram makes it seem like they’re pretty coy and they’re all about peach colored blush & fresh cut flowers. can you believe they’re only twenty and they’re going on a free trip to monaco for the summer? hopefully they don’t let their unappeasable side show too much on the trip. ( diana, she/her, est )

okay where do i begin...let it b known i am winging this as i write it,,, so if it’s messy n i ramble i am SO sorry

let’s take it back 2 the beginning,,, emma was born on a lovely autumn morning in new york city ( let it b known she’s a libra ). she is the first and only child to her parents, and her mother named her after her favorite jane austen heroine, emma woodhouse

even at a young age, emma much preferred being in the company of her mother. she was kind, affectionate, and wise beyond her years. her father, on the other hand, had a colder disposition and wasn’t too keen on showing emotion. he wasn’t necessarily a bad person, but emma often felt like she was in the presence of a stranger around her father

emma and her mother were inseparable. her mother taught her to always be kind and reminded her to be humble. in a world so cruel, her mother was like a beacon of light, and emma wanted to be just like her

she had a picture perfect childhood. for a while, it was just her, her parents, and the family cat, luna. despite not being particularly close to her father, she admired the love her parents shared. it was real and pure. the two were opposites who brought out the best in each other

soon, emma learned that her perfect little life wouldn’t always be perfect. caught in the midst of a winter storm, her mother fell victim to a tragic car accident. at just eleven years old, emma’s life was changed forever. her life was beginning to mimick the heroine she was named after, who also lost her mother at a young age

after the death of her mother, her father went stone cold. he completely shut emma out, leaving her to mourn her mother’s death on her own. unable to cope with the loss of her mother, emma began making up stories about the whereabouts of her mother when people around her began to ask. one week, her mother was vacationing in the bahamas, and the next she was visiting family in the hamptons. emma grew into the habit of making up stories about her mother, though it wasn’t long before she began to lie about other things as well

her lies were mostly harmless, at least she always intended them to be. unfortunately, their were times people got tangled into her stories and were hurt in the process. much like an addiction, lying was a habit she couldn’t quit

after living in new york for a few more years following the death of her mother, her father packed them up and they moved to the sunny city of angels, LA, for a fresh new start

emma looked at the move as a way to start again. she decided to leave her pain behind in new york, as her mother would have wanted. emma vowed to remain kind and honor her mother’s memory by being the person she always taught her to be

at school, emma worked hard. she completed her high school education in the city of love itself, paris, france. before entering high school, her father became president of ucla, guaranteeing she would always have a spot at the school, but emma refused to rely on what was given to her. she wanted to earn it. emma was at the top of her class in high school, taking on challenging classes and becoming student body president. 

during high school in france, emma discovered her passion for design. she spent her free time making clothes and donating them to women’s shelters

while in france, she also found herself wrapped up in a love story with a french boy...or two. emma loves love, however, she has never been one to settle because she is never satisfied. she thought she was in love with one boy up until she met another who stole her attention. emma desperately wants to be in love, and she has been a few times, but nothing has ever lasted

after her french excursion, she returned back to LA a changed woman, almost unrecognizable to her father. she was certain about what she wanted to do with her life, which was fashion. she began studying fashion marketing and design at ucla

her cat luna is still alive btw and she is a proud cat mom

personality wise, i would describe emma as someone who can be extremely sociable, but tends to be more reserved unless put in a situation that encourages her to open up. she’s free-spirited and her head tends to always be in the clouds, probably daydreaming about love and her future success in the fashion world. she’s extremely idealistic, which may also be the reason shes never satisfied. overall, aesthetic wise i would describe her as classic and chic, inspired heavily by french fashion and living. emma can sometimes be a bit of a narcissist in the sense that she truly believes she’s like a modern-day jane austen heroine destined for something great. she can be a bit snobby at times, but her intentions are never bad...if she’s ever angry/annoyed i feel like she’d be super passive aggressive like the type of person who expects u to kno u fucked up without actually telling u anything ajdjdhkh (rip). she gives me pisces moon vibes but i havent decided for sure yet ajshddhkhd 

anyway !! plot w me please <3 my discord is give me a fromis_9 comeback#5522 if ur on discord and u like this post, i’ll message u for plots !!! i’m so excited to get started ahh

this is random but i’m rly down for a step sibling plot if it fits with anyone’s backstory. i feel like it would be sooo interesting seeing emma’s reaction to her father moving on and also to not being an only child

omg how did i forget 2 mention,,,, emma is bisexual

me when i saw how long this post is:

[cazort]

I want to chime in on this thread to disagree with something said WAAAY above, this:

the purpose of learning to read is not to foster a life-long love of reading. it is to learn to read. that is, to learn to parse a text for meaning. you don’t have to enjoy it, but you do have to interact deeply with it and analyze it, which you are forced to do because you are being graded. enjoyment is only needed if the class isn’t hard enough and students aren’t properly forced to engage with the text, which they should be.

There’s so much I disagree with in here.

For one, this thread is about reading classics, which as later comments point out, are often written in marginally-archaic to highly-archaic language which is not an effective tool for teaching the basics of reading, or even more advanced reading of the type that is going to be necessary for most people in their lives.

But for two, enjoying reading is actually important. If you force kids to do something that they find unintuitive or inaccessible, many of them will resist it and put little effort into it, and those who enthusiastically dive in and put effort into it will often get little out of it.

For three, grading is a terrible motivator, and it often kills or at least diminishes kids intrinsic motivation. Most kids want to learn to read in order to access information. I’ve seen kids delve into stories they love, technical manuals way over their head because they want to build or fix something, or historical or scientific texts just because they find the material interesting. Kids also often want to get on social media and websites (including ones they might not be legally allowed) where they start reading and writing to engage with topics important to them.

Even people who don’t necessarily love reading for its own sake, already have a lot of motivators besides grades, like wanting to get a job, wanting to be able to function in society, wanting to have their skills and intellectual abilities respected by others, and perhaps the most important, wanting to be able to communicate effectively, be understood by others, perhaps even wanting to be persuasive in writing.

Also, “forcing” kids to do work doesn’t work. I have teaching experience in college, which is similar to high school in some ways. Kids can and do cheat and plagiarize. And it is simply not possible for teachers to catch all examples of this. Also, kids can and do fail. Furthermore, what is even much more likely is for kids to “slide by”...their heart isn’t really in the work so they do the bare minimum, or they do a half-assed job good enough to get maybe a B or C, and the school moves them on because it’s just not realistic to set high enough standards that would fail half the class, even if few of them are actually getting what is intended out of the class. This sort of thing is even more common in primary and secondary schools than in college.

I personally think there is no need for the average person to ever read “classics”. If someone wants to, then great. They can choose to take a class that focuses on it. Or a mandatory class that gives students choice of what to read, can give them classics as an options. The school can make them available in the library. And teachers can provide tools to help people to understand archaic terminology and constructions, as a way of making this stuff more accessible to them. There are a lot of ways a school can encourage people to go down this route, of their own initiative.

The essentials of education though, are being able to read and write things of the here-and-now, being able to communicate in writing in the ways that are expected of most people. There are so many things that are more important than reading classics, that are omitted from most education, things like reading and understanding the basics of legal contracts (how many people sign leases? loan contracts? employment contracts? agree to terms and conditions of websites? pretty much everyone in our society) or navigating the terminology of government websites to file taxes or apply for various government benefit programs? How about interacting with people on social media, in various formats where conciseness of language is important? What about corporatespeak and work emails, and the languages of HR and cover letters and job applications and the responses to them?

We hammer kids with stuff not relevant to their daily lives while omitting huge portions of the language that is critically important to function, and then we wonder why people struggle so much and get depressed in their 20′s.

Yeah no. I wholly disagree with the attitude expressed in the above comment. We need educational reform. We need education that is more relevant, and we need education that works with, rather than against, people’s intrinsic motivation.

Ban grades. And ban the mandatory teaching of anything that is not essential so that we can free up the resources to teach people what they actually need to have in order to function in our society.

Anyway unpopular opinion probably but the school system (and general book snobbery) fucks up by trying to force kids to read "classics" before they have the mental and emotional development to appreciate them.

This post is me telling you to consider revisiting that classic book you read in the 7th grade that you hated because the ability to understand a lot of literature gets unlocked later, for reasons a lot to do with emotional maturity

[neetpreviousyearquestion]

Online Schooling, can it be the future of education?

Online Schooling, can it be the future of education?

Online learning is education that takes place over the internet. It can also be referred to as e-learning. As the world is transforming itself into a digital world, education itself is transforming as e-learning. E-learning can be provided to every student anywhere, anytime. E-learning is essentially a form of electronic learning which derives education through the internet.

E-learning is itself independent and does not require a specific place or time to study. The flexibility makes education more accessible to people that may not necessarily be able to commit a large amount of time to attend classes. Nowadays, every student has access to a quality of education anywhere in the world. E-learning is all about accessibility and inclusivity. Digital tools can deliver personalized instructions based on learning. We all know, technology has become an integral part of our society in the past couple of years. So transforming education as digital learning can be successful for students as it saves more time and makes students understand more at their own place and time.

In critical times of pandemics, such as COVID-19 that has brought the world to an almost complete lockdown., online education is turning out to be the savior in these tough times. Online learning is also enthusiastically adopted by companies. Companies providing services like e-learning have been the most helpful one for our coming youth. Zigya is one of them that provides free e-learning services for students of class 8th onward and other competitive exams like JEE, NEET, etc. They provide the best resource material for students to understand and learn better. Students can even appear for free mocks to enhance their performance. They have designed their pattern in such a way that they build self-reliance among the students.

Visit: www.zigya.com

E-learning has been on the rise in recent years, largely due to the convenience, cost, and accessibility the system offers compared to traditional learning. The five most promising features of online learning are as follows:

•          Online Learning Offers Convenience And Pliability

•           High-Quality Student-Tutor Interactions

•          More Students Can Enroll At Once

•          Web-Based Learning Will Grow In Popularity

•          Better Learning Experience

Learning online has countless advantages which are contributing to people choosing it over more traditional education. It also allows you to teach yourself and can take all of the time that a student needs to grasp ideas before moving on. E-learning will continue to grow and become popular amongst students.

[jennymusictherapy-blog]

3 Things About Being A Music Therapist That Others Don’t Tell You About

1) It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to become a board-certified music therapist. 

“The education of a music therapist is unique among college degree programs because it not only allows a thorough study of music, but encourages examination of one’s self as well as others.” -American Music Therapy Association (AMTA). 

Although the required coursework vary from school to school, completing my music therapy requirements at Berklee College of Music was challenging. Every semester I had an average of 8 courses/semester (Berklee goes by semesters, not years) and each class consisted of 1-2 credits, at most 3. These classes included music theory, arranging, conducting, ear training, music technology, psychology, private lessons, ensemble, music therapy, development seminars, electives, and general studies. Courses specific to music therapy included 5 levels of supervised practicum fieldwork in facilities that served individuals with disabilities in the community. I was assigned to work at a school setting with children diagnosed with cerebral palsy for my first practicum, and this was my first direct hands-on client experience with music therapy. I was then placed at a nursing home for my second practicum that focused on geriatrics in which I served groups of elderly who were diagnosed with depression and Alzheimer’s disease. Then I got to work with homeless women in my next practicum, adults with developmental disabilities in the one after that, and children and babies in intensive care units during my final practicum at Boston Children’s Hospital. Courses in addition to each practicum focused on specific areas, such as P1 (practicum 1) in Special Education, P2 in Geriatrics, P3 in Research, P4 in Psychiatry, and P5 in Medicine. Although you’re required to work for about 7-8 weeks at your chosen facility (1-2hrs once a week) and that may not seem like much, having to balance studying, completing research, doing homework assignments, practicing instruments, preparing for concert recitals, recording music, attending meetings, memorizing songs, and overall figuring out my life as both a musician and a music therapist was very challenging. Although my main focus was music therapy, I still needed to focus on vocal performance as I was graded for my musical skills, not just for my clinical work. There are numerous amounts of documentation and clinical writing involved as well, and each practicum is paired with courses related to what you’re learning and dealing with in that specific practicum. Music therapy courses at Berklee require not only sitting at your desk listening to lectures, finishing up tasks and passing exams, but they require active participation such as public speaking, group work, role playing, advocating, and playing instruments. In other words, it’s about practicing and developing skill through action than just having mere knowledge about each course. Meditation and self-care practices are also taken place inside classrooms where you get to be in an open and vulnerable space with others, tap into your own personal thoughts, emotions and feelings, and focus on self-awareness and awareness of others. There is a lot of individual attention that you get from professors who have high expectations of their students (Berklee’s student-teacher ratio- 11:1), and because I got to learn in such small, inclusive classroom environments with direct patient contact at fieldwork, I grew massively in my musical and clinical knowledge and abilities. Because I was pushed to actively participate and throw myself into uncomfortable situations, I’ve grown immensely through my learning. It’s great that we get to apply what we learned in class directly into practice at our practicum sites and receive feedback from our supervisors on site who are also professional music therapists. Classrooms feel like workshops, and practicums feel like small unpaid internships. It’s challenging to be seen and trained as a musician, professional, and therapist inside classrooms when we’re still students and sometimes don’t feel mature enough to handle the ups and downs of social and emotional experiences throughout the whole process. But real growth happens when you’re out of your comfort zone and that’s how Berklee was like for me and for many others who are currently music therapy students. We are constantly pushed to feel uncomfortable in our learning. 

Then after you’ve completed all of your training at school which usually takes about 4.5-5 years, you graduate (hurray!) and then go search for an internship to receive your degree. This is the last step you need to complete before receiving your official diploma and becoming a professional music therapist. My internship took place at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) in which I worked 40 hours/week, unpaid, for 6 months. Although there are some paid music therapy internships, most are not and require you to work 6-9 months depending on the site. Then once you complete your internship, you are finally eligible to sit in for the certification exam. Once you pass the exam, you are finally acquired the credential Music Therapist-Board Certified (MT-BC). 

2) Therapy > Music. 

I say music therapy is 70% therapy and 30% music. We are using music as a tool to reach non-musical goals. So it’s not just about performing and entertaining patients/clients and wowing them through your musical skills, it’s about using music purposefully and intentionally through the connection and relationship you build with your patients/clients to help them reach their goals. We do music WITH the patient, not just TO the patient. It doesn’t mean you have them to follow you, you adapt yourself to follow them. This is also the main difference between music education and music therapy- while music education focuses on musical knowledge and skills that follows a standard, rigid curriculum with no adaptations to meet the patient’s specific needs, music therapy adapts the music to meet each patient’s specific goals and needs. Music therapists are trained to see the needs of patients with disabilities and special needs on a deeper level, and therefore know how to use effective strategies to target those specific needs through music. Here is an example I can provide from my internship- I’ve worked with several cancer patients at CHOC and at the time, many were undergoing stem cell transplants and chemotherapy. Going through treatment can be extremely stressful and scary for kids, especially when their family isn’t around to keep them company through challenging times. Kids need to be in supportive environments where there is structure, autonomy/independence, and relationship support. In order to target these three elements, my main goals for music therapy were to provide structured and predictable environments, increase their autonomy and control, and build rapport. To provide structure, I used familiar music for predictability and songwriting scripts; for autonomy support, I allowed patients to make their own choices about lyrics, melody, how they wanted the song to sound like; and for relationship support, I focused on building rapport through discussing about the content of the song, brainstorming ideas together, and interacting throughout the overall songwriting process. Providing specific music interventions that are tailored to their experiences helps create a safe space and allows them to drive benefit from music and be successful in therapy. So music therapy isn’t just focusing on the musical elements- rhythm, melody, harmony, timbre, pitch, dynamics- but it’s focusing on the musical elements to be used clinically in purposeful ways. It’s more about the interaction, the connection with the patient/client rather than the music itself. Because our main focus is therapy, music therapists utilize a variety of methods and don’t necessarily have a traditional, fixed way of doing things when providing music and playing instruments. I’ve used the back of my guitar as a drum once, the side of my guitar as a slide for stuffed animals, boomwhackers to slide eggs through the tube rather than whacking them on hard surfaces to make sounds (which is how you would “normally” play it), the back of a floor drum as a pot to cook pretend soup with kids, xylophone blocks as cake for dessert, a drum mallet to strum the guitar, and I can name other ways where I’ve used music creatively, thinking outside the box for patients. You have to think what are the GOALS you’re trying to reach, and how are you using music as a TOOL to reach those goals? Music therapists use music both traditionally and non-traditionally to reach non-musical goals. Unlike a traditional music educator who plays guitar to teach students how to strum and has everyone to follow, music therapists could use a guitar to teach how to strum, use it for play using toys, move it around in different positions and be flexible with the overall use of the instrument that follows the patient and their response to music. Music therapists are aware of how to utilize music to engage and target specific needs of individuals from the moment-to-moment experience. 

3) You never know what to expect as a music therapist. 

There are no fixed answers to anything. We need to let go of expectations and assumptions about various situations and circumstances, especially during sessions. I remember my supervisor who is a board-certified music therapist with almost 20 years of experience with music therapy, telling me he still gets nervous to this day walking into patient rooms, because it is a new experience for him each time. It is crucial that we remain open to whatever happens, to lean onto discomfort, to let go of the need to control and to simply go with the flow. I had one patient at CHOC where, when I went to check-in to ask if he was in the mood for some music, he responded with an enthusiastic “yes!” and gave me a huge smile. He seemed to be feeling a lot better than the last time I saw him when he was undergoing chemotherapy, so I got excited and started thinking to myself what songs would be good for him and which instruments I could use for those songs. I told him I’d be right back with my instruments which only took 5 minutes and walked right back to his room, only to see he was now crying after his mom refused to feed him chicken nuggets. He was not allowed to eat before his procedure, and he looked at me and shook his head. I had no choice but to put aside the session plan I had for him and adjust myself fully to that moment. I decided to pull out an ocean drum and strum relaxing chords on my guitar to provide relaxation and calm his emotions, and matched my humming to my guitar. I had no idea how the session was going to go after that and what to expect out of it, but I trusted my gut in that moment and decided that that was what was best for him. Then the next day, I walked into his room again to see he was feeling a lot better and was bursting with energy throughout the session so I matched myself to his energy level and provided that high stim he needed. Being a music therapist means you’re constantly having to deal with fluctuations (fluctuating referral calls, fluctuating moods of patients and families, fluctuating health conditions) and overall spontaneity- so it’s crucial that music therapists are flexible, open-minded, and adaptable to various circumstances. The only things to expect as music therapists are to expect the unexpected, expect discomfort, and expect the unknown. 

[condensed-theorem-shop]

Providence

Another glowfic setting.

I have written about Providence previously here and here. The name is @curiosity-discoverer-of-worlds​’s invention; he’s also devising a magic system for it, which I am Very Enthusiastic about.

The following is excerpted/prettied up/expanded from chat logs about the setting.

(cut for length)

<FacelessDude> I'm unsure how people in bad home situations leave?

<Moriwen> It’s straightforward for a Provider: go to college, go get a job, get married. Harder on a Caretaker, but it's not like there's some kind of law against moving out and setting up a household on your own.

<FacelessDude> Maybe they can leave to be part of a new household in a new settlement?

<Moriwen> Yeah, setting up with a group of people in similar situations is totally plausible. Another option might be asking to move in with a connected family group -- your Provider parent's birth family, or a married Provider sibling's family.

<Moriwen> There's also a class of jobs-for-Caretakers, in which you move in with some other family and get given room and board and a small salary in exchange for providing a Caretaker-y service, and those are popular among Caretakers who want to leave their home situation, though uncommon in an absolute sense (overall it’s really uncommon for a Caretaker to have a proper job like that).

<Moriwen> “Live-in aide” would be an example -- something like "help elderly person who has trouble moving around" would normally just be done by one of the household Caretakers, but, like, if you've got a severely disabled kid who needs actually-trained assistance, you might get a Caretaker to move in with you for that.

<Moriwen> A major job-for-Caretakers ("major" being relative, still) is "family therapist,” which means a specific thing in this setting.

<Moriwen> If someone's not treating their kids well, and it doesn't rise to the level of abuse but they're also not shaping up with family pressure, one of the aunts or uncles might report them to family court (which is a whole thing), and a very common result from that is a court order to have a family therapist live with you for a while and help you break out of harmful dynamics.

<Moriwen> Because on the one hand they're really concerned with child welfare, but on the other hand "remove person from family" is considered pretty extreme.

<Moriwen> I picture the family therapists as being kind of like Supernanny, if you've ever seen that.

<FacelessDude> I have, albeit I was also picturing something vaguely like a "life coach"?

<Moriwen> That too! They do a lot of, like, "so that interaction seemed like it left everyone frustrated, let's work through some better ways to deal with this situation."

<Moriwen> You can hire one voluntarily, too, and it's not that uncommon to do so -- like if you just can't get along with your in-laws, or Aunt Bertha keeps undermining everyone's parenting, or something.

<Moriwen> Providence is super pro-child-rights, partly because the combination of "spanking is super illegal and your extended family will so report you" and "you can TRY taking away your kid's x-box for talking back but if your sister-in-law thinks your kid was speaking truth to power she can invite him over to her suite and give him candy" means that Earth-style discipline does not so much function.

<Moriwen> So your options are kind of "express disapproval, hope that your relationship with kid is good enough for them to care" or "talk to kid, explain convincingly why you want them to do a thing."

<Moriwen> You can try to, like, refuse to let your family near your kid, but (a) hard when you live in the same building, and (b) they can take that to family court, and unless the kid expresses not wanting to be around them or you can make a really good case they're subtly abusive, the judge will be Super Unsympathetic.

<Alicorn> Or you can convince extended family that consistent discipline is indispensable.

<Moriwen> Right, yeah, so if you can get the whole extended family in on it, you can manage discipline, which for most families means that you can do punishment but only in really clear-cut situations (no dessert, you hit your sister).

<Moriwen> Obviously it's possible to get an entire extended family who are just awful but it's harder, especially because Providers aren't going to be super excited to marry into that family.

<Alicorn> With regard to that: in the same way it's good to have lots of caretakers come up in your household, is it worrying if your caretaker kids move away?

<Moriwen> Yes, definitely -- like, obviously there can be explanations ("they're super noise sensitive and just could not tolerate the family size") but having it happen more than once looks really bad.

<FacelessDude> Comparable to someone changing their gender behavior just to leave the bad situation?

<Moriwen> Comparable in some ways! Maybe some kind of cross between that and "young teenager making serious attempt to run away from home," in how unusual/worrying it is.

<Moriwen> There's not mandatory schooling -- most people do homeschooling, with various family members available to tutor specific subjects, and it's not government-regulated.

<FacelessDude> Do they have any sort of centralized testing?

<Moriwen> No, except for, like, SAT-equivalents for applying to colleges/jobs. So if you want to teach your kids absolutely nothing, and your kids are fine with that, you can get away with it.

<Moriwen> But there are public schools, and it's super illegal to prevent your kid from going to them. (Few enough people use them that they can be largely individual-tutoring-based also.)

<Moriwen> So a few super poor people send their kids there, or people who just happen not to have the resources in their family for tutoring. But also, if at any point your kids decide they want an education, they can show up to school and say "I want to go here now" and someone will sit down with them and help them figure out an education plan.

<Moriwen> (And if they thinks they’re going to get in trouble for that, they can tell someone there, and that's the sort of thing that gets a serious investigation and maybe a court-ordered family therapist.)

<Moriwen> So you get a mix of different kinds of students in the public schools. Some of them go there full-time -- kids from really poor families, or from families who just weren’t giving them an education, or who just showed up one day and said "I hate my family's teaching style just teach me."

<Moriwen> But you also get teenagers showing up being like "I love my family okay but can you please teach me about evolution now" and coming every afternoon for a week to have evolution tutoring and that's it for their public schooling. Or maybe they don’t have anyone in their family who can teach them music, so they just come for one period a day to learn that.

<Moriwen> It’s not even that unusual to have a kid show up at the public school saying “I brought my work from home, the baby’s fussy and I can’t focus,” and they have quiet study rooms for just that sort of thing, and the tutors will help you if you have questions and otherwise leave you alone.

<Moriwen> Or to have a whole family of kids showing up in the morning saying “hey, our family’s getting ready to move, the whole house is in chaos with packing and no one has time to teach us, they sent us here just for the next couple of days -- we’re supposed to be learning about adding fractions and parts of speech, here’s the lesson outline they had prepped,” and the tutors will work with that.

<FacelessDude> One thought on worldbuilding is that the family setup makes exploration/settling in other continents harder. Like, not impossible, but ... I’m thinking of how being sent to the Americas and Australia was a punishment?

<Moriwen> Yes, it makes sense for there to be more of that. And, like, I'm sure you still get "entire family picks up and moves to America to escape religious oppression.” And the occasional "well, this sucks, but we're brutally poor, so the two of us are just going to have to go move out to the frontier and start a new family.”

<FacelessDude> Yeah, but it's a bigger production. And it also makes it much harder to do "send one and then they will pay for the rest to go along." Not impossible, and you still have a version of that but with provider groups. But it does not make it easier.

<Moriwen> Yeah. Still happens, but harder and less frequent.

<FacelessDude> Yeah, there’s more inertia. Possibly some people will decide to start the household before going to the new frontier too.

<Moriwen> ...ooh, actually, I bet a lot of historical settlement is less messed up in Providence! Because if you're a Provider and really want to go explore a new place, "move there, marry native, integrate into culture" starts to look really appealing.

<Moriwen> Like, historically, some of the less messed-up settlement seems to have happened when people just intermarried with the native population a bunch, and I can see a ton of that happening here.

<FacelessDude> This also leads into the other bit of worldbuilding, which is the shape of their urbanspace. I was thinking their cities are not necessarily denser, but they are definitely more sprawled? Because while "move a day’s walk away from your family" might not be the same sacrifice as moving to another continent, it's still a sacrifice.

<Alicorn> Adjoining apartments.  When new people move in, plaster over the doors to any apartments they don't want included. You can still live in skyscrapers like this, it's just a bit harder.

<Moriwen> Yeah, I think cities are probably bigger both horizontally and vertically.

<FacelessDude> Yeah, and I also think they are more likely to be interconnected by inhabited bits? Like -- they still have wilderness, but it's easier to avoid, because City B and City A have more villages in between. And there is more regular public transportation between cities, and it's safer.

<FacelessDude> I was also imagining that the inventions of new ways of transport and communication were a bigger deal. And maybe they got the concept of "video letters" earlier too? Basically things that amount to "make me feel closer to home through better communication" were more widespread.

<Moriwen> Yes, this seems right. And I imagine they're really big on public transport, yeah. There’s the population density, and the fact that it's hard to figure out how many cars you need for a household like that (if everyone wants to go different places at once maybe you need a dozen! but that's silly most of the time), and the fact that they're big on children having freedom of movement.

<FacelessDude> And also I was thinking that movie projectors became -- kinda like a typical household appliance? At least until TV was invented. And public theaters are still a thing, but one way they could be different is the possibility of "family sized" rooms or something. With nice seats, maybe also meals, because it’s like a "family night out."

<Alicorn> Like karaoke rooms but for theater.

<Moriwen> Yeah! I like that.

<FacelessDude> If people found out  about Jeandad in Providence, would he be burned at the stake?

<Moriwen> Ha. Not literally but, like, if everything came out there would probably be people agitating for him to get the death penalty.

<Moriwen> That wouldn’t actually be the case in our world. Nothing he does is even potentially a capital crime in the US. Heck, the odds are very good cps wouldn't even end up doing anything, given that they're a nice middle-upper-class family and Jean will insist very convincingly he is ~so happy~.

<Moriwen> But in Providence the lines are much brighter -- any kind of corporal punishment is go-straight-to-jail-do-not-pass-go illegal. And people in Providence take relationships with inherent power dynamics seriously. The classic cases are considered to be parent/child, teacher/student, doctor/patient, and officer/soldier; aggravated physical or sexual abuse by the person with power in any of those relationships can potentially be a capital crime.

[jon-newcomb]

Jon Newcomb Visits Austin’s Thinkery Children’s Musem

Part One of ‘Jon Newcomb Austin Reviews’ Series

Parents and kids alike love Austin's hands-on children's museum where science, innovation, engineering, arts and math (STEAM) exhibits get families finding out and chuckling. Thinkery is Austin's version of a children's museum. The environment itself challenges your mind (and some may call it a bit too crowded at times). Jon Newcomb visit Thinkery all the time and has quite a bit to review about it.

Thinkery is an effective method for kids to establish analytical skills, crucial thinking, and curiosity about the world around them. The exhibitions and programs motivate children-- along with their caregivers-- to fix imaginative obstacles, check out a range of products, and to establish brand-new ways to complete unknown jobs. Through these activities, children get the tools and confidence to grow and establish into enthusiastic, innovative, long-lasting STEAM learners and thinkers.

The Many Benefits of Thinkery

Children find out through play-- whether it's a child-led expedition of the connections between water and sound in Currents; together with an adult directing your own Stop Motion Animation Station motion picture in Innovators' Workshop, an exploration of experiences in Kitchen Lab; experimentation with motion in a Move Studio barrier course; diving into fictional worlds during Storytime; or checking out an idea with new products making your own cardboard production in a Spark Shop making activity. Play helps develop the ability to envision, perceive, factor, and issue solve while developing a foundation for a life time of learning.

Build Knowledge

Kids start to establish an understanding of STEAM concepts as infants. To support this, Thinkery offers enjoyable, engaging, high-quality STEAM experiences that cut across disciplines and set the phase for how they approach learning into adulthood. Thinkery kids check out cause and effect with electrical power and switches throughout a Scribble Bot Birthday Party, have fun with patterns manipulating colors in Light Lab, test structure and function developing a catapult in Camp, and examine the size and function of tiny structures at Micro Eye.

While all kids are born with an innate sense of interest about the world around them, they require grownups to cultivate, guide and enhance their interests in STEAM. By offering chances for caregivers and moms and dads to share in a cheerful, positive STEAM finding out experiences and to see themselves as crucial parts of their kid's early learning, it sets children up for future success.

Cultivate Curiosity

Nurturing clinical thinking is necessary for developing curious, bold and innovative long-lasting STEAM students and thinkers. Thinkery utilizes the process of query to promote clinical thinking. We "hand the reins" to kids and adults to explore what they discover curious-- which leads to asking concerns, making discoveries, and screening those discoveries in the search for brand-new understanding.

Promote Positive Adult-Child Relationships

Thinkery supports grownups in the vital work of parenting and caregiving. Adult engagement within a free-choice learning environment is multi-faceted and necessarily varied. Thinkery supplies multiple entry points for adult engagement, incorporating opportunities for grown-ups to observe - a child to produce a work of art at Paint Wall, help with-- an enhancement on a co-designed bridge at Build Landscape, and collaborate with-- creating a temporal "household portrait" in Frozen Shadows.

History of Thinkery

Austin Children's Museum was founded in 1983 by a grassroots group of teachers and parents who wanted regional kids to have more cultural and educational chances. At that time, it was a "museum without walls"-- the founder drove tabletop exhibitions around town in her station wagon and provided activities and programs in schools, parks, libraries and, yes, even shopping malls.

In 1987, they settled into their first brick-and-mortar home-- a 5,000-square-foot building on W. 5th St. For the next 10 years, they presented exhibitions, experiences and curricula for local kids and households. Throughout this time, they established exhibits that traveled to other kids's museums around the country, acquiring rather a track record.

By the mid-1990s, Austin was flourishing, and they had outgrown their home. Fortunately, the community acknowledged the significance of the organization and supported an expansion project. The outcome was the 1997 relocate to downtown Austin's warehouse district. Transferring to the 2nd St. center through a 10-year, rent-free lease was a huge action for Austin Children's Museum, however they understood when they opened the doors that Austin was growing and we 'd eventually need to expand.

In December 2013, Austin Children's Museum became Thinkery and opened at its brand-new location-- a 40,000-square-foot facility in the Mueller neighborhood. Thinkery delivers its mission through a variety of displays and programs that concentrate on science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM). Museum activities focus on academic experiences led by personnel, so each visit is various from the last!

My Review

Today I'm excited to tell you all about our current see to Thinkery. Tess likes going to the interactive museum and I love enjoying her expand her mind in numerous ways. Whether it's through art, building with logs, designing airplanes, or pretending to run a farm-to-table dining establishment.

Area

Thinkery is located in the Mueller location, which is simply east of I-35 near Dell Children's Hospital. The entrance to Thinkery is a few steps away from Mueller Lake Park's Playground.

If you're headed there on a weekend early morning or weekday early morning after traffic wanes, you can arrive in about 25 minutes from the Four Points area. With traffic, however, it could be closer to 45 minutes.

Parking

Thinkery visitors can have up to 3 hours of parking validated in the McBee Street District Garage which is ideal across the street from (but behind) Thinkery With children in tow it can take about 5 minutes to obtain from your car, however, so strategy accordingly.

Exploring Thinkery.

Immediately kids love climbing up all over the lock ness beast at the entrance. Lake Mueller Park Playground will interest kids of any ages. It can get crowded!

When you first walk into Thinkery, you'll immediately find a huge train table, an electronic camera for taking silly images (which then get blown up on the wall-- the kids like to see themselves up there), and a giant block table.

Ongoing Exhibits

The Thinkery routinely updates their permanent displays and each is created for hands-on learning. Here are some favorites that kids will love to explore:

Currents

Currents functions hands-on water activity stations for households to explore fluid dynamics and discover the connections between water and sound. The museum offers smocks and hand dryers however load a modification of clothes or a towel in case you are worried about your kid getting too wet!

It can get crowded, however it's extremely nice that there is a confined "baby" space in the middle for parents with both older and more youthful kids. Genius! So moms and dads can wait their infant however watch on and engage with their older kid( ren) at the very same time.

Trigger Shop

Next we headed to the Spark Shop where kids can find out all about aerodynamics. You can also design your own gliders and launch them in the air in this space.

Light Lab

Light Lab allows families to investigate the impact of color, light and shadows. Visitors can draw with light, freeze shadows, and build light structures utilizing mini and magnets blocks with LEDs. On this wall, you could push on the various pressure zones to get it to alter a variety of colors.

Our Backyard

Our Backyard is an amazing outside play area that welcomes museum goers to scale the heights of an accessible, custom-made climber, or rest under the branches of our native elm tree. This is Thinkery's outdoor play area. There you will discover a separate water play area, a huge playscape (tailored towards older kids), a location where kids can construct with foam noodles, and more.

Let's Grow

Upstairs you'll discover the Let's Grow Exhibit which includes a farmer's market, a play space for more youthful kids (0-3), a reading nook, and more. Kids LOVE the farmer's market.

Repeating Events

Every Wednesday, the museum remains open late for Community Nights from 4-- 8 p.m., admission is by donation. There is likewise a Bilingual Storytime on Wednesdays beginning at 6 p.m.

For households with children ages 4 and up, Think Lab allows for expedition of intricate procedures and usage of real scientific tools. Inspect their website for the schedule.

Toddlers take control of the museum during Baby Bloomers, when the museum is open just for visitors ages 0-- 3 years and their households. Held Mondays (9 a.m.-- noon) and Saturdays (9-- 10 a.m.), the program is produced for the earliest students. Saturday Baby Bloomers activities are restricted to the second level of the museum, so other ages can still access other locations of the museum during the event.

Every Winter, The Thinkery uses Gingerbread Workshops where families utilize fresh gingerbread and sweet treats to construct gingerbread houses. Make your appointments in advance.

Plan Your Trip to Thinkery Today!

Okay, so if you can't tell, we enjoy Thinkery. My review didn't even cover half of whatever they provide. I want I could but there are still areas of the museum we have not hung out in, and as the kids age I'm sure we'll start to find even more.

Admission

General admission to Thinkery is $10 for anybody 2 years old and up. Thinkery provides wonderful subscription bundles for households and I completely suggest getting one. Although we can't make it to Thinkery as typically as we 'd like, we probably happen as soon as every two months and it's nice to not need to pay anything each time! Plus, members have numerous other advantages, consisting of early gain access to on a couple Sundays every month and a discount rate at the present shop.

[shirlleycoyle]

Long Lost ‘Zork’ Source Code Uploaded to GitHub, But Few People Understand It

In 1977, four members of MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science Dynamic Modeling System started writing a seminal work of interactive fiction. Published later in three parts by Infocom, Zork (along with Zork II and Zork III) is one of the earliest text adventure games, and the start of Infocom’s legacy in interactive fiction. The games told stories using a choose-your-own-adventure style. You reach the end of a hallway. Which way do you choose? The player types their answer to continue the story. But beyond simple commands, Infocom’s games were able to understand more complex sentences, which gave it a depth other games of the era didn’t have.

Infocom was eventually bought out by Activision in 1986, but was quickly shut down a few years later. There are more modern collections of Infocom games available, keeping the spirit of Zork alive, but the source code, which could teach us how Infocom managed to create such a sophisticated game at the time, had been deemed lost. That is, until this week, when internet archivist Jason Scott uploaded a collection of all Infocom text adventures and interactive fiction games’ source codes to GitHub, including the Zork games and Infocom’s video game adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“They are the source coded and formulas to make some of the best-selling computer games of the 1980s,” Scott told Motherboard. “Infocom games were always in the top 10 for years, and well-regarded at the time.”

But while source code is historically significant, few people will understand how it actually works.

All of Infocom’s games were created using the Zork Implementation Language (ZIL), which is based on another old programming language called MIT Design Language (MDL), which itself was based on a the programming language Lisp.

“[ZIL] is written to create adventure games in an environment people haven’t used commercially in over 25 years,” Scott said. “And even then, it was about 15 people.”

Most people will probably parse through the code at a surface level, with “a passing interest in seeing how the adventure games they played as kids were defined by this code,” Scott added. But for a niche group of programmers, it’s a collection of information that’ll propel their research forward. The “ZIL – Zork Implementation Language” Facebook group, created two years ago by ZIL enthusiasts Jesse McGrew and Adam Sommerfield, has been teaching and supporting the language, but has struggled to find original ZIL source code to use as a reference. Sommerfield told Motherboard that for the ZIL and text adventure communities, the source code files are a huge discovery for enthusiasts.

“Aside from the historical value in being finally able to look at the code, understand the thought process, [and] maybe even get a glimpse into the minds of the Imps—Infocom Implementers—you have the fact that resources and reference material for learning ZIL has received a massive shot in the arm,” Sommerfield said.

Infocom developer and one of the MIT students who created Zork Dave Lebling is part of the Facebook group, too, Sommerfield said, and sometimes “provides guidance” to users. Steven Meretzky, another Infocom developer, has also reached out in support, thanking the group for “keeping the [ZIL] torch lit.”

Using a compiler created by McGrew, the ZIL Facebook group is now testing the code—and it’s working. One user has got all three Zork games to compile. This leaves things open for ZIL enthusiasts to tinker with the code and test it in-real time, packing on additions and modding existing games. But the licenses here are tricky; Scott noted that these were given to him anonymously and “not considered to be under an open license,” he wrote in the repository notes. That’s because Activision owns the IP.

Scott had previously uploaded “a collection of digitized scans from a large cache of documents” in 2015 related to Infocom, “The Infocom Cabinet.” It’s got notes, journal entries, and forms collected by Meretzky. In 2017, Scott published Infocom: The Documentary on YouTube. But the preservation of the source code is key in documenting the historical importance of these games. “Ten years ago I was handed the image of a development hard drive for Infocom,” Scott said. “It was thought this was all lost, but obviously, it wasn’t.”

Scott wrote in the GitHub documents that the files “represent a snapshot of the Infocom development system at time of shutdown,” but that there’s no way to compare the files available to the official games, which means the source code files are “canonical, but not necessarily the exact source code arrangement for production.”

“This collection is meant for education, discussion, and historical work, allowing researchers and students to study how code was made for these interactive fiction games and how the system dealt with input and processing,” Scott wrote.

But for those only interested in browsing the source files, there’s stuff in there for you, too. Scott told Motherboard that Infocom enthusiasts will enjoy peeking at the in-jokes typed into the code—”Game over is listed as JIGS-UP,” Scott mentioned—and to relive each game’s puzzles and variables, parsing the built-in secrets of their designs.

Long Lost ‘Zork’ Source Code Uploaded to GitHub, But Few People Understand It syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[zipgrowth]

‘Prohibition Will Get You Nowhere’: Writer and Activist Cory Doctorow’s Message to Schools and Educators

It’s not unheard of for an instructor to tee up a YouTube video for a lesson, only to have the content blocked by the school or district’s censorware. And while administrators might have good intentions when they decide to use censorware, censorship is often only effective for those who play by the rules.

It’s one reason why writer and activist Cory Doctorow thinks schools and educators should rethink their approach to surveillance and censorship. In science fiction novels like “Little Brother,” he has explored the implications of mass surveillance, and on the popular blog Boing Boing, he has written on topics such as net neutrality, open access and user privacy.

EdSurge recently sat down with Doctorow in San Jose, Calif. at Worldcon, a science fiction convention, to get his take on everything from surveillance in K-12 schools to open access publishing in higher education.

To listen, you can subscribe to the EdSurge On Air podcast on your favorite podcast app (like iTunes or Stitcher). Or, you can read highlights from the conversation below, which have been edited and condensed for clarity.

EdSurge: Schools today expose students to technology in a variety of ways, be it through Minecraft or an iPad. Do you think that the way schools are exposing kids to tech is helping them be creative, or are those ways too stifling?

Doctorow: The promise of technology is its ability to provide individualized interactions for the people who use it, and education is clearly not a one-size-fits-all activity. One of the crises of education, especially tech education, is that we try to walk this line between the things that we are afraid of kids doing, and the things that we hope they’ll do. And it requires, or it results, at least, in a high degree of control.

So, I don't know that I have any great answers about creativity. When I think about electronic media and pedagogy, though, the thing that I worry about is how our systems of protecting kids from the real dangers of the internet revolve around surveillance. And [schools] normalize surveillance, so [students] are necessarily incompatible with any kind of self-help measures to understand surveillance and to eliminate or moderate the amount of surveillance [they’re] under.

So, if you are a student whose school is completely reliant on surveillance tools to stop you from seeing genitals or whatever it is they're worried about, then anything you do to learn about how that system works and how to stop it ends running against the school's own core defense mechanism.

We really do need kids to understand and be literate about surveillance. We're in this great global conversation about social media and what Shoshana Zuboff calls "surveillance capitalism," and kids are perfectly capable of understanding that stuff. If there's anyone who understands what it means to be manipulated by people who think they have your best interest at heart, it's kids. And I think we need to re-think the whole program because it can't be grounded in surveillance if we are also going to produce good citizens who understand and resist surveillance.

There's an argument being made these days that there's a need for more surveillance in schools. Where do you stand on that issue? How much surveillance do you think is appropriate?

The reason the debate is hard is because we are talking about short-term instrumental goals and long-term strategic goals. So, obviously, a school's purpose is to produce well-rounded, self-actualizing, self-starting, full-fledged citizens who are capable of participating in a democracy, and being in the workplace, and having good interpersonal relations.

If you took another domain like interpersonal relations, you could say, "Well, bullying is a problem." Bullying is a problem. The problem of bullying could be prevented by just not letting kids talk to each other. That would be a short-term instrumental goal that would absolutely take a real bite out of bullying, but we can understand immediately why it's not a good one.

And so, normalizing surveillance for kids on the one hand ill-equips them to be literate about surveillance in the world. But on the other hand, it means that a lot of the things that we hope that they'll learn to moderate on their own instead gets moderated by extrinsic motivations. Instead of having good interrelations with other people because good interrelations are fulfilling and produce good outcomes, your good interrelations exist as a formal exercise that you engage in for fear of reprisals.

Whenever we talk about education, we struggle with intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. We want intrinsically motivated students, but extrinsic motivation is powerful. It's quick, and it achieves instrumental goals.

So, at a certain point, we say, "Well, we don't care if the reason you're not bullying the kid next to you is because you've realized that bullying is wrong, or you're afraid of being punished for bullying; what we care about is that the kid next to you isn't bullied.” And that is a totally legitimate argument, but it also produces someone who, as soon as the fear of reprisal goes away, may return to bullying.

If we are going to use surveillance of kids to achieve some instrumental goal, it has to be as a wedge to open a space in which we can teach kids to achieve the same goal without that extrinsic threat of retaliation.

You’ve written a lot on the issue of net neutrality, which was recently reversed. How do you think that reversal is going to affect higher education institutions?

It affects higher education institutions as a subset of the way it affects all of our lives because, of course, the internet is like the nervous system that binds together everything we do in the 21st century. Everything we do now involves it and everything we'll do shortly from now will require it.

Allowing cable operators and phone companies to act as gatekeepers means that all the things that we rely on pluralism or competition to promote, are endangered. It's not like they'll be killed, but they'll be harmed, and there's a kind of spiral where the rich will get richer, and the poor will get poorer. The people with a lot of eyeballs will get more eyeballs, and the people with fewer eyeballs will have a harder time getting a foothold on an eyeball. I guess that's kind of a weird metaphor.

I think [reversing net neutrality] is catastrophic for all human endeavor. But I also think it's a mistake to think of net neutrality as being won or lost.

Do you think that higher-ed institutions will be at the forefront of that struggle?

Well, they have been. You have things like WiscNet in Wisconsin, where there are statewide fiber networks—really, really good next generation networking—being done through a combination of an academic project and a kind of self-help measure because Wisconsin is very rural. You have these state institutions that are really spread out. I think that there are lots of educational institutions that are de facto [internet service providers].

I wanted to ask you about OERs. It seems like open educational resources are something that people always think are about to take off, but they never really do take off. Why do you think that is? Why do you think they haven't had their lasting moment?

Well, I think that they have [taken off] in the sense that the fight is over about Wikipedia. Any educator who says, "Don't use Wikipedia," instead of teaching their students how to use Wikipedia is an idiot. You're just doing it wrong at that point because even if you hate Wikipedia, your attitude should be harm reduction—because prohibition will get you nowhere.

In terms of open access [journals] like [Public Library of Science]… they're leading edge. Nobody anymore says, "Oh, a PLOS isn't a real journal." They may say, "Well, in my discipline, I am much more likely to get tenure if I'm publishing in a, you know, Springer Journal." But nobody is like, "I'm going to look down at you because you're in PLOS ONE." Being in PLOS ONE is a big deal.

I think the short-run of open access has been less successful than its most enthusiastic boosters would have hoped. But its long-term trajectory is really obvious because we have such a broadly-indexed set of [articles at the pre-publication stages].

What else should our audience know about the work you’re doing?

I always meet students. When I go and do young adult tours, and I go to secondary schools, I meet students who've read Little Brother, and they're like, "How do I hack my school's censorware?"

I always say, ‘Don't do that,’ because if you do that, you could get expelled. Or you could even be charged criminally under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It's really risky…. What you need to do is do ethnography. Go and ask your fellow students and teachers about over-blocking and under-blocking. And then, ask them about their circumvention methods because the other thing we know is that these tools don't work. They only block people who are playing by the rules, but it's not hard to defect from playing by the rules. So, document the ways in which these are inadequate to the purpose that they're set for.

Then, learn how to use the Freedom of Information Act to find out how much your school board has paid for this censorware. Then, learn how to use stock market filings to figure out who is behind your censorware because they're the dirtiest companies in the world—their primary customers are not corporate America, and they're not schools; their primary customers are repressive regimes in the Middle East, and Asia and sometimes in autocratic African states. And they repackage stuff that's used by dictators to spy on their population to help corporate America and educational institutions spy on their stakeholders, their users. So, find out who the war criminals are who get to see all of your data, who get to offshore every click you make.

And then present it. Present it at the PTA. Present it at the board meeting. Call up local journalists and say, 'Do you know how much my school district paid out of your tax dollars to buy inadequate software from war criminals that everyone knows how to get around, and interferes actively with our education, while letting us see eye-watering pornography that none of us want to see?’

And that, I think, is an exercise that teaches real media literacy and also has a chance of affecting change. Even if it never affects any change, those kids will leave the school understanding how to think in the round, holistically about the economic, technical, social and market forces that surround the technologies they use.

‘Prohibition Will Get You Nowhere’: Writer and Activist Cory Doctorow’s Message to Schools and Educators published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness

[itesfashion]

How come Complete You will Apparent Powerful Verdict?

How come Complete You will Apparent Powerful Verdict?

Did you ever hear which family members gain knowledge of diversely? Well, it truly is true.

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Investigative Composition Summary Recommendations

Area #1: Evaluate your design in concern personally persona around the Hunger Online games series.

The most self-evident methods of concern inside Being hungry Video games may well be Katniss and Peeta, however the smoothness whom personifies pity ideal has been Prim. All through the series, the woman compassion is noted once your lady may keep secrets and techniques with the girl mummy designed for Katniss, whenever your woman rehabs Gale following he becomes whipped, together with throughout earphones conduct yourself involved with her life like this lady pushes to save lots of small children on the Capitol. The lady actually activities Albert Schweitzer’s phrases, “Objective of person’s our life is to help serve, and even to indicate empathy along with the could to aid others.”

Topic #2: So what generated the particular Civic Struggle?

The need for any risk factor for any Usa Municipal Conflict might be discussed, yet what on earth is inescapable fact is always there were various factors which usually brought this Southern region to help secede. Thralldom, says’rights, and also the selection of Abraham Lincoln subsequently with the presidency—though certainly no assert with the Southern region elected for the purpose of him—virtually all led for the war. Even when many experts have roughly 150 numerous years for the reason that Municipal Battle completed, examples of the other part in between North plus To the can still be witnessed in modern day America.

Niche #3: Analyze Facebook’s influence upon Our country’s youth.

Composition final thoughts can be simple once you know the actual framework. A great deal comes all the way down to 3 most important components: a good move as a result of earphones figure passage, a new summary of these thesis survey and principal specifics of this article, and also a closing document this gadgets everything up. Should pretty much all college students was confident this easy supplement, maybe essay creating could well be simplier and easier for the purpose of everyone.

Niche #6: Is there a medical way?

These technological procedure frequently occurs sense. 1st, individuals must have a study thought he expects clarified and also just a little qualifications skills about the subject. Consequently the owner types a good conjecture, or even what exactly this individual says the answer to the research real question is, of which the patient lab tests by having an experiment. Last but not least, the individual might review the data and then attract a good conclusion. Using these services is employed in the not to mention away from methodical nation, assessment many techniques from background that will communal issues.

Subject matter #7: Just what are the reasons homelessness?

Moving by just a dispossessed people is actually normal, specifically in city settings. Homelessness is often caused by several components, which includes task decrease, deficit of family help support, plus the diminishing use of affordable housing. Although it is normally easy for a handful of for you to think homelessness is due to internal difficulties and / or total idleness, there are more elements towards consider. Only if the main style regarding drastically renowned can easily community initiate to think of a comprehensive solution.

Matter #8: What’s the subject matter principal result in of climatic change?

Almost all research workers acknowledge that will wipeout of the earths is due to a swift increase involving techniques fumes as the Business Revolution. And some could possibly conisder that manufacturer farming tend to be the major trigger of around the world and other people will probably articulate it’s always contemporary society’s transportation techniques, the key purpose is clear: mankind.

Plot Dissertation Decision Illustrations

Content #9: Think about what exactly it would be live to be given to the pages of Romeo not to mention Juliet.

Really being launched in the pages of Romeo and also Juliet would are loaded with various customs shock. Gentlemen should be transporting swords and additionally fighting with each other 1 another in your street. Young girls could possibly be having a wedding from 13 many old. Previously had When i the information of an amount turned into within the star-crossed enthusiasts, Appraisal have got informed Romeo who Juliet’s death became a hoaxes not to mention to hang about until your wife woke up. This valuable, keep in mind, will make your take up extremely several, but yet We come to feel going without shoes was in fact the accountability soon after obtaining wasted and so enough time using the characters.

Question #10: A time machines has taken an individual back up in interact with your chosen article author (Edgar Allan Poe from this case). Develop that meeting.

Since Edgar along with That i were discussing the everyday styles in addition to dim imagery from an individual’s is effective, your server cut off us. Simply put i hit with regard to the wine carafe, added myself personally any cup, plus instructed in cases where he would just like some.

“Not any kudos,” he said, joking grimly. “All things considered, it usually is poisoned.”

Field #11: Say to around your proudest moment.

Standing just for your little sibling forced me to be find that the type so,who everyone loves with those after-school sitcoms. When i was able to experience the little one who was simply intimidation our small amount of friend without having to use provocations or maybe bricks-and-mortar force. Finally, telling each of the a great open dialogue helped bring them all finer, as well as while they may do not be close friends, not less than they could esteem every single other.

Subject matter #12: Look at opertation which usually made a person what you are today.

My mistreat did not and does not specify my family, but yet We wouldn’t be the identical specific obtained I just not even used it. This got a little while and then there were being difficulties, and yet I’m a much better, further loving human being due to their terrible activities in which happened. I’m hoping many others never have to examine a similar thing Used to do, but once they will, Lets hope they may learn from your case study and discover assistance they should be alter their own issue for any better.

(Learn on crafting narration essays.)

Gripping Composition Final result Ideas

Theme #13: Need to Hermione possess ended up with Harry rather than Ron on the Ravage Potter series?

Ravage may just be the chief temperament about the Harry Potter line as well as J.K. Rowling often have mentioned most recently which perhaps your lady thinks about Hermione not to mention Ravage needs to have ended up being together with each other, even so the individuals are much too similar. That they tend to be organic frontrunners, that will develop a whole lot of romantic relationship tension. Ron, even so, will be Style N in order to amount Hermione’s Model Your personality. Considering that Harry wound up with Ron’s babe, Ginny, the 3 principal roles are actually engaged to be married directly into a similar family. In which obviously will make family vacation get-togethers alot more entertaining.

Matter #14: Needs to advanced schooling coaching be zero cost?

“College student Fiscal loans Wall membrane St Sign” by Funding Zen, Flickr.com (CC BY 2.0)

The level of education loan arrears is an proof which anything is without a doubt mistaken when using the system. However schools will want a salary to survive, buying a school schooling really should also can be bought from not any guide cost you for the student. Free of cost educational background allows just for a lot more professional country as one, them would depart numerous learners with more a chance to do the job further on his or her research projects compared with his or her’s careers, and also it may well promote universities and colleges to obtain additional creative. In the event additional educational institutions accepted the Pay back Them In advance machine, any Usa Affirms may perhaps come to be the most intelligent cities while in the world.

Area #15: Exactly what is the central thing students ought to be understanding however , might not be?

There’s lots of places where people senior high school learning could quite possibly increase, but yet a very important is definitely financial planning. Even though some could possibly claim meant for more suitable diet regime or possibly physical fitness programs, which information is easily obtainable online and even in commercials—and may in fact be taught commencing during basic school. Tougher budgetary preparing curricula would most likely give higher schoolers tips on how to create consumer credit rating, tips on how to spare with regard to retirement living, and how to budget. All of these really are very important to lifetime in the real world although may be filled up with unclear jargoon in addition to selling schemes. By means of Americans getting additional than $11 trillion with big debts, you need to the younger iteration learn the simplest way not really that they are another statistic.

 Niche #16: Ought to children get involvement trophies?

Many Babe Boomers assume that participation trophies function as a sign involving millennials’knowledge with entitlement. The simple truth is, these participation trophy isn’t going to trim sense at all about rivalry or even drive intended for improvement. As soon as there can be performance-based cash incentives together with contribution funds, this magnifying wall mount mirror any real-world whereby average-performing staff nevertheless get payed together with well-performing customers find add-ons, grows, plus promotions.

Argumentative Seek Summary Types

Issue #17: Should atomic weapons wind up being forbidden to all nations?

A result of political trepidation relating to unique nations, it’s not possibly which a worldwide forbidding upon atomic guns might be pursued by almost every earth leader. It is recommended who other nations be prepared to guard theirselves from future disorders together with similarly tough weapons. Even so, even more limitations in tests as well as unveil authorizations ought to be enforced to assure hot-headed frontrunners avoid or perhaps expose most of these unsafe pistols just being indicate with force.

Issue #18: Will be pre-employment medication tests a particular breach for privacy?

However agencies need to have to rent capable, trustworthy sales staff, they must be unable to necessitate everything that their sales staff neutralize comfortableness of their own homes. You can find good ways with determining even if anyone suits a job, such as educational background, earlier business, individual in addition to high quality references, as well as trial run periods.

Issue #19: Will need to criminals need the to suffrage?

Although most people concern the fact that according criminals the right to vote may lead to more enjoyable regulations around specified violations, prisoners are generally a section of the Usa population. A very popular activity may include every one’s sounds, possibly even individuals who have generated mistakes.

Niche #20: Should certainly father and mother end up permitted to spank their kids?

Spanking is actually a particular older in addition to laid back strategy for sticking it to children. Them shows these individuals that may assembly other people’s damaging actions by using wildness can be acceptable. In the event that kids are tall enough to help you realize why they will think you are spanked, these are who are old enough to consider their own harmful behaviour pragmatically plus discover why that it was wrong.

(Learn more details on penning argumentative essays.)

The Previous Concept in Remaining Paragraphs

Since most likely recognized assigned all the different try conclusion recommendations previously, there are a number of the way to absolve a great essay. Often, you’ll encounter any bottom line, nonetheless narrative documents may perhaps take a great exception.

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No matter how you actually understand, it is actually fairly practical to receive effective examples. And then now you undertake, you can find that will completing your essay.

interview essay conclusion examples

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The Disadvantage ‘Gap’ is a Chasm.

From a range of different contexts, working in education for over 30 years, I’ve learned a great deal about the complexity of the community that comprehensive schools serve.  As an acting Designated Child Protection Officer for several weeks, I learned even more.  The scale on the axis of advantage and disadvantage is extraordinary with consequences for learning, aspirations and behaviour that are far-reaching.  Within many schools, there are students who, whilst sharing the same physical space, are living worlds apart.  This is a two-part post.  To begin with, here’s an illustration of the opposite poles – rooted in reality but conflating different factors.  Part 2 looks at solutions.

There are obviously plenty of risks here – being judgemental, using stereotypes, making generalisations.  No two children are the same and there are multiple variations in every child’s characteristics and circumstances.   It’s hard to capture the complexity accurately and objectively, but, in order to explore the issues, it’s worth a try.  Often, where schools have lots of advantaged students, typically they are the most positive about the school and get the most out of it.   In some schools, the % of students receiving Pupil Premium is so high that, arguably, dealing with disadvantage is the core business and it becomes highly problematic to lump a diverse group of individuals together into the PP category as if their needs are broadly the same.

In this post, I’m not talking about the mainstream of students or even those who only just qualified for free school meals at some point in the past;  any disadvantage is important but I’m talking about the most disadvantaged 20% for whom the gap is a chasm. The difference that exists between students’ life experience at the ends of the spectrum is stark.  Despite the success of schools that have a positive impact on PP students overall, there is usually a definite correlation between students who find school the most difficult (as evidenced by data on behaviour, engagement and achievement) and the extent of the disadvantages they face.

Strongly Advantaged student: 

A sweeping compression of different realities but each one a feature that is absent for other students: 

Well-educated parents; usually but not necessarily university educated; relatively affluent with their own house and a high level of job security. Essentially, money is no object as far as general life and school is concerned.  Highly aspirational family providing cultural capital at a high level. Parents always come to parents’ evenings and attend the concerts. They access the emails and take an active interest in the school’s development, offering constructive, balanced feedback when needed.  Child experiences a positive cycle of inputs and outputs – solid reader, high achiever, receives praise/affirmation most days, motivated to succeed, never misbehaves deliberately or arrives late; is studying in order to meet their own goals – i.e. motivation is intrinsic and school has been a positive experience since primary school.  Not necessarily  a high attainer in every area – but has the confidence to ask for help when needed and turns up to the revision sessions willingly. Parents provide support for learning directly or indirectly by reinforcing routines and expectations at home.

Not passively compliant but accepting of the routines and boundaries of school life; engages in debates/issues – not afraid to voice opinions through an organised group or by raising concerns with teachers/Headteacher.  Definitely aiming for university – just a question of which one.  Will reference family visits to the theatre/museums or trips abroad in general conversation.  Family can make voluntary contributions for full cost of school trips.  Has the social  and communication skills to be heard when problems arise.  Recognises the value of the behaviour and homework systems; works with them with ease; doesn’t allow anything to inhibit them in any way.  Will recognise a raised eyebrow as a meaningful corrective signal; at worst might be chatting  over-enthusiastically.  Has a strong social group where relationships are harmonious, age-appropriate and generally mature. Peer influences support learning – they want to go to university and/or secure high status employment; they all know that homework must be done in between their social gatherings.  There’s a strong tendency for students to associate with other students who share the same aspirations and attitudes to learning.  They push each other up; it’s an upward spiral of mutual support.  When events, activities and opportunities are offered, they hear ‘that’s something for me’ and they step forward. Their advantages give them the tools to seek further advantage.

Strongly Disadvantaged student:  

It’s unrealistic to morph all of the disadvantages together into one student’s experience.  However, real students come to school every day living lives influenced by different combinations of the following:

Low income family: money for everyday items like school shoes can’t always be found – at least, it can’t be taken for granted; parents are stressed by financial insecurity; holidays are rare and optional trips at school and opportunities are beyond reach if any money is required; optional resources are not an option.  Spare kit and uniform or train fares to interviews are problematic.   For some, there is no such thing as a spare £5.

Pressurised home circumstances: this can include multiple siblings sharing rooms in over-crowded accommodation;  single-parent working long hours, awkward shifts or with young children such that teenage children need to be overly self-reliant or shoulder parental duties; separated parents where there are acrimonious repercussions and persistent tensions; parents with a range of physical and mental health issues including depression and alcoholism; insecure or temporary housing with multiple moves; historical or current domestic violence or abuse  – a distressing reality leaving students feeling insecure with negative attitudes to authority figures; family members involved with the criminal justice system making school-level discipline seem trivial; historical or current social care proceedings leaving students feeling deeply insecure, volatile, demotivated.  CP neglect concerns are often indicated by poor supervision of personal hygiene, clothing maintenance and personal organisation.

Barriers to home-learning: parents with poor experience of school and/or low literacy; insufficient space or high-noise environment; low level of spoken English presenting barriers for home-school communication and support for homework; low frequency or no internet/computer access inhibiting use of online systems/resources; an absence of a family culture of learning – no role models for reading, studying, sitting quietly engaged in work, succeeding through academic learning.

Negative community/peer influences: students who spend a lot of time outside school in online or real-life communities  with no moderating adult influences.  The student’s self-esteem and immediate motivation stem from the need for peer affirmation for engaging in self-destructive anti-authority behaviours; a harsh social world where kindness and forgiveness are rarely offered but where loyalty to the group is rewarded; where fear of humiliation or of being ostracised is strong; where reporting concerns is regarded as high-risk.  More generally, this world is often characterised by a lack of emotional maturity and resilience: minor issues become big dramas; laughing things off or adopting a don’t-care attitude to consequences in the school discipline system are well-established defence mechanisms.  On the fringes, teenagers get sucked into gangs where all of this operates at another level, way beyond the influence of home or school.

The impact. 

Students who inhabit a world where a combination of these factors operates are  significantly disadvantaged compared to the students who live free from these constraints.  Very often, you’d never know – because they  have developed strategies to cope that work well; their families provide all the emotional support they need and promote the requisite  values and attitudes for them to thrive at school despite the disadvantages.  Many students break the cycle and, for example, become the first person in their family to go to university.  Sometimes it is humbling to see just how successful students can be when they also have to cope with significant disadvantages.  But, too often, this doesn’t happen; the disadvantages conspire against a child’s successful passage through their education.

This manifests itself in a student’s response to authority, to the boundaries of the behaviour system, to the expectations of completing work in class and in their own time and, significantly, to the dynamics of day-to-day interactions with peers in and around the school; some students find it hard to switch modes from informal to formal or to manage their emotional responses. When challenged the most challenging students can be defiant, seek to negotiate boundaries, test the system by avoiding the sanctions and generally fail to offer the unconditional respect that adults expect from children.  They can’t see the connection between working hard at school and achieving long-term ambitions; they don’t think that the school’s opportunities are for them – they’re for the other kids. The default position is to feel at home in a peer group that gives strong social affirmation but not one where aspirations, sustained effort or learning are the focus. (Of course, this is far from inevitable; it’s a pattern with plenty of exceptions but it’s there.)

Disadvantage manifests itself in parental attitudes to the school, poor engagement at parents’ evenings and low confidence with online communication; it comes through in parents’ defensive attitudes, aggressive responses or their difficulty in accepting their child’s responsibility for actions that fall outside the boundaries of the behaviour code. It shows in a student’s base level of cultural capital – compared to the most advantaged students, there is just so much some students don’t know; things that advantaged students absorb and take for granted. The school is often the only place where formal learning will take place, never mind how firm the consequences or how many calls are made.

The gap is a chasm; children may share a community but they live worlds apart – so what do we do? 

This is the challenge truly comprehensive schools face.  Most schools I’ve known are serious about being a place where every child in the community can achieve great things.  They want every student to enjoy academic success and develop deep knowledge across multiple domains; to experience personal development in multiple contexts; to learn the social codes  and power of speech that will enable them to succeed in any walk of life; to develop the values and attitudes that will make them good citizens.  They want this for ALL of their students.  The challenge is to create a curriculum, pastoral system and school ethos that puts every student on that path in an environment where the boundaries are accepted and respected by everyone.  As I outlined in a recent post, I see this as a shared responsibility between all schools.  Ideally, schools should not have the option to say ‘here’s what we offer, take it or leave it’; they serve a community; they are part of a community – and that should include every child in it.  What schools do has to work for everyone – and that’s a lot easier said than done.

Part 2 to follow explores the ways some schools have approached bridging the chasm.

(This post is an edit  of one written while at my last school to be more general – because the issues are common across the system.)

The Disadvantage ‘Gap’ is a Chasm. published first on https://medium.com/@KDUUniversityCollege

[junker-town]

A day with Hornets assistant coach — and NBA lifer — Stephen Silas

See the intense work that goes into every game.

Stephen Silas, the associate head coach of the Charlotte Hornets, is the ultimate NBA lifer. He was literally born into the league in Boston, where his father Paul, a former NBA star and coach who spent more than 40 years in the league, was helping the Celtics win a pair of championships. Stephen can remember toddling around the Kingdome while his dad completed his playing career for the Sonics under Lenny Wilkens.

While born to a great player, Stephen has always considered himself the son of a coach. More than that, he wanted to be around his dad as much as possible, so he grew up going to practices in San Diego when Paul coached Donald Sterling’s Clippers. Later, he was a ballboy for the Knicks while his father was an assistant under Pat Riley.

Young Silas played games of HORSE on the Garden floor with Patrick Ewing’s son (little Patrick) and mopped sweat while Big Patrick was shooting free throws. He also learned an essential lesson in those years.

“Being on the sideline I knew I had to be quiet when Pat Riley was coaching,” Silas says. “Be seen and not heard was how I grew up.”

That may as well be the essential credo of assistant coaches everywhere. Do your work, stay on top of things, and keep out of the spotlight. Some teams go so far as to keep their assistants completely off limits. The Hornets are not one of them.

They’ve granted me access to Stephen while the team prepares for a mid-November game against the Celtics. I’ll be with him from shootaround through pregame and postgame, with a film session sandwiched in the middle, to document the largely opaque daily world of an NBA assistant coach.

His boss, Hornets head coach Steve Clifford, shrugged when I thanked him for agreeing to the project. He knows what it’s like to toil in anonymity. Silas, frankly, doesn’t need the extra publicity. He has interviewed for the head jobs in Charlotte and Houston and annually shows up on lists of up-and-coming coaching candidates.

If Silas is unknown to the general public, he’s practically family within the larger NBA ecosystem. He worked with the retired players’ association after graduating from Brown with a double major in sociology and management. Later, he cut his teeth as an advance scout working both the college and the pro circuit, where he first met Clifford almost 20 years ago.

When a job opened up on his father’s staff in 2000 with the Charlotte Hornets, friends suggested he hire his son. Paul wasn’t sure. Neither was Stephen, for that matter. Enough people convinced them it would be a good idea and Stephen had his first coaching job at the age of 27, then the youngest assistant in the league.

“To be Paul Silas’ son in the world of basketball wasn’t necessarily something I wanted to do right away, but it was a way in,” Stephen says. “Being my dad’s son has always been great. That’s one thing I’ve just had to deal with.”

Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images

Paul Silas

Father and son stayed together through stops in both Charlotte and Cleveland. Stephen later worked with the Warriors under Don Nelson before returning to Charlotte in 2010, where he’s been ever since.

After almost two decades on the sidelines, the 44-year-old Stephen has outgrown his father’s shadow. His fellow coaches find him to be thorough and meticulous. Players respond enthusiastically to his even-keeled, yet demanding, approach.

“He’s always been around the game,” says Hornets forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who has worked with Silas since his rookie season. “He knows it inside and out. He coached my cousin in Cleveland, Dajuan Wagner. It’s like damn, feel me? He’s old, but he don’t look old.”

In a league that is trending toward more and more toward specialization, Silas’ coaching profile is broader and more diverse. He’s done offense with Nelson and defense with Clifford, two of the game’s great tacticians. He’s worked individually with guards, big men, and wings. He’s coached summer league.

“There isn’t much in the NBA that I haven’t done,” Silas says.

There also isn’t anyone he doesn’t know. As we chat following a practice session at Emerson College, Silas nods toward an Emerson coach. “That’s my guy,” he says. “We met at Dave Cowens’ camp.”

9:30 a.m. Shootaround

There’s something about the cold quiet of the morning shootaround that says it’s time to go to work. There are no frills to be had in this environment, least of all heat. The players and coaches arrive on buses in their workout gear, while the support staff stocks their locker room with uniforms and equipment.

After watching film, the Hornets hit the court at 10 a.m. for a 50-minute walkthrough, which, like all NBA walkthroughs, is closed to the media. There’s 25 minutes of offense and 25 minutes of defense. Everything is planned in advance.

“When I first started, shootaround would be literally, shoot around,” Silas says. “You go and play some shooting games, maybe walk through four plays. And that’s it. Everybody get on the bus and go.”

Things change. Under Clifford, the Hornets are known for preparation and attention to detail. Before they get to the Garden, the coaches will have gone through a thorough scouting report that was compiled by one of the assistants.

“Cliff is so detailed,” Silas says. “He’s got it down. If we have an opinion, we’ll give it to him. As the years have gone on he’s leaned on us a little more.”

When Clifford got the Hornets job four-and-a-half years ago, he didn’t even bother to interview Silas. He simply asked him if he’d like to stay on staff. As the number two man, Silas runs practices on occasion and takes the lead in game-planning. During games, he’s responsible for substitutions.

“He can do everything,” Clifford tells me. “It’s healthy for the team to not have to listen to the same voice 82 times. I have so much trust and he’s so thorough and knowledgeable in what he does that I’m never worried. The preparation is going to be as good or better.”

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Stephen Silas talks with Kemba Walker

That’s in addition to his other duties, which include working individually with the wing players. If Silas has a speciality, it’s player development — Clifford was immediately drawn to how Silas interacts with players.

A special education major in college, Clifford notes something a former professor had told him about teaching: “If you gain the right type of communication with your group they will try hard to meet your expectations,” Clifford says. “That’s what he’s very good at. He has a way to gain their respect and establish the right kind of credibility so they know he can help them. There’s nothing more important than that.”

Silas is perhaps best known by hardcore NBA aficionados for his work with a young Steph Curry. He taught Steph his two-basketball dribbling routine and he gets a chuckle when fans come to the arena early to watch Curry’s pregame workout. Their relationship has deep roots.

Silas had known Steph since he was a kid growing up in Charlotte. His niece and nephew went to the same school and Paul Silas had coached Dell Curry with the Hornets. They were both sons of former players and hit it off immediately. Curry would come over on off days and watch games or eat dinner. They’d go to church together or go to the gym and get up shots.

“He’s like the perfect student,” Silas says. “He listens all the time, asks great questions, challenges you a little. You can tell him something and he’ll get better right after you tell him. He stretches you, which was good for me as a coach.”

After the walkthrough is completed, everyone heads back to the bus for the short ride back to the hotel. Now it’s time to think about a future opponent, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

12:30 p.m. Film work

Still in his sweats from shootaround, Silas has a tablet setup on a stand next to his MacBook, where he’s watching film of Cleveland’s game against Houston. We’re in a suite on top floor of the Ritz, where the team is staying. Being the number two man has its perks.

Like most teams, the Hornets divide the scouting work, with each assistant taking 20 games. Silas has the lead for the Cavs, which consists of watching five games worth of film and compiling his notes into the scouting report that goes to Clifford. He’ll then go over the report with the head coach before they present it to the group.

In his early days, Silas would travel with a plastic bag full of VHS tapes. He once spent a lonely Saturday night in a Los Angeles Walmart looking for two VCRs so he could make his edit on the road. Now the team has its own software for watching film.

As with everything, there is a routine. Silas likes to watch two games back-to-back, which helps him recognize patterns. He never watches live so he can skip past commercials and free throws. He keeps the sound on because he can occasionally pick up a tidbit or two based on what they’re talking about on the broadcast.

Once he has his five games he’ll compile the scouting report, which sounds a lot cooler than it actually looks. The report is only a few pages long, but it’s crammed with offensive and defensive keys, matchups, and individual play sets. Silas and the other assistants draw the sets in black ink and make notes in red because Clifford prefers it to computer generated diagrams.

“Our game plans are pretty substantial,” Silas says.

Before he even gets to the video, Silas will have received an email from the team’s advance scout, Drew Perry, who sees each team live at least twice. Perry tracks all the play calls and forwards them to the team’s video department.

The video team then syncs them with the film so they appear on the bottom of the screen. They also catalogue them for the scouting report software they use where Silas makes his notes on the tablet. After watching games all the way through, he can jump back and forth between specific sets, individual personnel, or outcomes.

Perry will also send along a playbook consisting of diagrams as well as his own notes. Silas flips through the diagrams that run on for several pages detailing how the Cavaliers try to score: early offense, secondary offense, post-ups, corner, high posts, Hawk cuts, UCLA cuts, zippers, catch and shoot, loop action and spread, Princeton, dribble hand-off, step ups, horns, middle pick-and-roll, side pick-and-roll, side out of bounds, deep corner out of bounds, baseline out of bounds, ATOs, and crunch time plays.

It’s literally everything you could ever want to know about how the Cavs run their offense in every conceivable situation. Even for someone who consumes a ton of NBA basketball, the diagrams look like hieroglyphics. For coaches, they’re an unspoken method of communication.

“Drew is unbelievable,” Silas says. “He’ll do seven different options on double drag, which is just two picks in transition. It’s a little bit of overkill, but it’s better to have more than less.”

Advance scouts are the true information brokers in this league. They see everything from play calls to player reactions on the bench and in the huddle. Silas learned the art of scouting from his days doing advance work and it was an invaluable apprenticeship. He used to diagram everything. Now, he instantly recognizes actions and traces them back to the root.

“Slice 4 Pop,” he says as the Cavs run through a set. “A Kevin Love play. This is actually a play they used to run for Amar’e Stoudemire in Phoenix where the small will pin down on Kevin Love coming up to the top.”

On the screen, all of this happens in a few seconds. A guard runs toward the baseline to set a screen on Love’s defender that will allow Love to catch the ball about 18 feet from the basket near the top of the key. Within that set are variations, and within those variations are options if the play breaks down. Silas can diagnose all that in less than the time it takes to watch the full clip.

On defense, he’s looking for coverage patterns. Do they shoot the gap on a stagger screen or lock-and-trail? Do they get up in the passing lanes and deny everything or lay back and pack the paint? Always, he is looking for tendencies in pick-and-roll coverage. “That’s the nitty gritty of offense,” he says. “Try to get two guys to the ball.”

Despite all those tactical adjustments, there is a fairly consistent collection of sets and calls from team to team. The difference is philosophy, as well as personnel. Right on cue, as the Cavs bring the ball up in transition, LeBron James waits a half-beat and then hits a trailing Love for an open three at the top of the arc.

“Those transition threes,” Silas says, shaking his head. They will be an adjustment for Dwight Howard, a traditional center in a world that emphasizes speed and shooting.

“Dwight is programmed to run back to the rim,” Silas says. “But with the game changing and more spacing [for centers], he has to be conscious of staying up. So when I do my writeup it will talk about all those aspects. Kevin Love running into that trail three.”

When his film work is done, Silas will have a few hours to himself before heading back to the arena.

5 p.m. Arrive at the Garden

Before every road game Silas will catch a ride with forwards Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Treveon Graham 30 minutes before the first bus leaves from the hotel. Guards Jeremy Lamb and Malik Monk will arrive around the same time, and the next part of the workday will commence.

They are his guys and they run the gamut of experience levels and roles. They all need something different from their coach. Silas is responsible for them and takes ownership over good plays and bad ones. The bad ones linger. Maybe he could have found another clip or talked through a coverage one more time.

“You’re always thinking about your guys,” Silas says. “Every guy is completely different. You can’t approach it the same way. Some guys are better learners on the floor. Some guys need 20 clips, they want to see everything. Some guys want 10 of their good and 10 of their bad.”

Each player gets his own individual time with Silas for a pregame shooting routine and going through more film on the bench on a laptop. The order is set and never deviates.

Graham is up first. The 24-year-old from Virginia Commonwealth caught on as an undrafted free agent last season after a year in the D-League. Graham earned a role off the bench in the absence of Nicolas Batum, but he’s out with a thigh contusion. Coach and player sit on the bench and talk.

“For him, it’s, ‘Are you good? Is there anything you need a little more work on?”’ Silas says. “If it’s a veteran that’s not playing much they’re completely different than a young guy who’s not playing much. They have to know you have their best interests at heart and you understand what they’re going through. If a guy’s not playing much you can’t hammer them all the time because they’re going to hate coming to work every day.”

Kidd-Gilchrist, a low-maintenance defensive stalwart, takes the court next. He always gets exactly what he needs. No more. No less. Before a game against the Rockets, Silas sent him a clip defending James Harden. The next day Silas asked if he got the text and MKG nodded. Silas laughs. “I can’t get a thumbs up, or an OK, or a black fist or something?”

That’s MKG: quiet and dependable. They’ve been together for six years and their connection grows deeper every season. “He’s more than a coach, man,” MKG tells me after finishing his pregame routine. “He’s a friend. He’s a mentor.”

Lamb, a thrice-traded former lottery pick from Connecticut who is off to the best start of his career, is up next. His emergence as a starter in place of Batum has been one of the team’s positive developments. It’s early in the season, but Lamb appears to finally be achieving a breakthrough six years into his career. Then again, it’s not that early. He and Silas spent much of the summer working out in Charlotte.

“It was real this summer,” Silas says. “That’s a win. A good summer is a win and now he’s had 11 really good games. He’s super confident, he works, and is very conscientious.”

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Stephen Silas

Lamb always has to get shots up after practices and shootarounds. They hit the same areas of the floor day in and day out. Devising a routine and sticking with it has been an important part of his development. And he’s always asking for clips. Silas makes it a point to mix in positive plays so Lamb can leave the session feeling good about himself.

“When you do have a coach who cares about you and really likes to develop players and make people better that’s huge,” Lamb tells me. “You don’t always find that in the NBA. People always talk about how hard players work and stuff like that. At the end of the day, they never get a day off. He’s always texting me, ‘What time do you want to go tomorrow?’ Even when I’m late, he’s there. It’s great having a coach that believes in you but also pushes you.”

Because he is a rookie, Monk gets the final pick and winds up with the last shooting slot right as the arena countdown clock gets to 90 minutes. “He got the best time,” Silas says with a bemused look. “Go figure.” Silas has to bring Monk up to speed quickly but not overload with him with too much information. It’s a delicate balance.

“This is completely different than anything he’s ever seen before,” Silas says. “It has to be enough but not so much that they don’t tune you out, which I would have done when I was 19 and someone was showing 20 clips of pick-and-roll protection.”

Monk, who is already getting important rotation minutes, is full of boundless energy and enthusiasm. On our way off the court for a quick interview, he stops to sign an autograph and winds up signing for every person in the section. This is still new and fresh and he’s eager to please. I ask Monk if Silas ever loses patience with him.

“Never. Never. Never. He doesn’t get mad,” Monk says. “You make a mistake, he’s going to tell you and you learn from it. In the tone that he talks. No get mad, no get frustrated, nothing like that. Coach Clifford is the one that gets mad.”

After their workouts, there’s still more time for film and final prep. The crowd is starting to arrive and the Garden is coming to life.

Gametime 7:30 p.m.

The gameplan has been well established since early this morning. On offense, they want to run multiple actions to try and gain an advantage against the Celtics’ switching defense. Any possession that ends with one pass or or one screen is probably not a good possession. On defense, they want to keep the Celtics’ new star point guard Kyrie Irving out of the paint and off the three-point line.

The Hornets catch a break when it’s announced that Al Horford won’t play because he’s recovering from a concussion. That solves one issue since Horford is a mobile big man who takes opposing big men out to the perimeter, and the Hornets prefer to pack the paint. His replacement, Aron Baynes, also isn’t as likely to switch on pick-and-rolls. They catch another break when Irving crashes into Baynes and suffers a facial fracture less than two minutes into the game.

The first half goes according to plan. The Hornets limit transition and dare the C’s to beat them from the outside. The offense runs through multiple sequences and keeps turnovers to a minimum. Even though All-Star guard Kemba Walker struggles with his shot, he still hands out 10 assists in the first half as the Hornets build an 18-point lead.

They’re still up a dozen points going into the fourth quarter, but that’s when things fall apart. Walker is suddenly the only player who can score and the Celtics make an inspired comeback to extend their winning streak to 12 games. It’s a brutal loss for the Hornets, even more so because it’s their fourth straight defeat and they won’t play again for five days.

As I head down the tunnel to catch up with Silas, Celtics coach Brad Stevens pulls me aside and says the Hornets were as prepared as any team they’ve played this season. “Whatever we did, they were on it,” Stevens says.

I relay the complement to Silas, who grimaces. “Great,” he says. “What does that get us?”

The Hornets mood is forlorn, even angry. Coaches and support staff walk by sporting thousand-yard stares. It’s only November, but these setbacks hurt. I ask Silas how he deals with the losses. “Not well,” he says.

He’s got family waiting for him and he’d rather not deal with any of that right now. There are postgame duties to handle on the plane ride home, and he’s already thinking of clips to show his guys. The Cavs’ report is waiting to be finalized when he lands.

The bus is leaving for the airport in 10 minutes, and it occurs to Silas that they’ve been on the road for a week and a half. As he searches for something positive, he says, “It will be good to go home.”