author: Frances Wall
name: Rebecca
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2007/09/01
date added: 2007/10/31
shelves: i-own, manga
review:
Oct 312007
author: Kaori Yuki
name: Rebecca
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2007/10/01
date added: 2007/10/31
shelves: i-own, manga
review:
This one does a great job of connecting the last dots and wrapping up storylines. I only hope Cain can keep his promise to Mary Weather.
I don’t recall who shared this link with me originally, but this letter to teachers is just dead on.
Let’s start with the obvious: children are not short adults. A child’s job is to have fun, to learn everything they can, and to make mistakes in a safe environment. They have some valuable life experiences, but they are still gaining them. Many of them haven’t had many opportunities to find out what they can and can’t do yet, because they’re children.
The person they are in kindergarten is not the person they are in fifth grade is not the person they are in middle school or high school. Like adults, children change as they go through their life. Like adults, they may try on different hobbies and attitudes until they find the one that actually fits them.
When a child says, “Hey, I want to try something,” and it’s outside what they’ve done in the past, a parent (or teacher) trying to protect the child from failure often talks the child out of it. But why? Maybe that new direction is the one that will lead the student on to the path that will make them a successful adult. Why not let the child experiment while the parent (or teacher) is there to help them learn to handle either the resulting success or failure?
Children are not short adults. They should be given the chance to experiment within safe boundaries. Give a child a chance. Let them make their mistakes. Let them surprise you with their successes. Be a guide, not a bunker.
The future deserves that much.
The next time you think about telling your math teacher you can’t add 14 and 35 without a calculator, think about the ancient people who handled their Base 12 math system without anything more than their fingers.
You can read how this fascinating system (that permeates our modern-day lives) was most likely established and worked. Or you can try to figure out on your own how to do it on your own hands and check yourself!
Crazy how much math you can do with a little creative thinking! (And my middle school and high school students can count on having this thrown in their face every time they tell me they need a calculator to figure out how many times 6 goes into 36!)
Oct 302007
Given that it’s Halloween tomorrow, I thought it would be a fun to share these myth-busting Halloween facts!
However, those said, remember to make sure Halloween costumes allow your munchkin to see and breathe. Make sure to place reflective tape strategically on the costume for those who will be out and about after dark. Travel in groups (while the candy may be safe, people aren’t always).
Most of all, have fun and celebrate the Halloween spirit (or whatever fall celebrating you may partake in)!
Can’t find your own inspiration at the moment, but feeling an uncontrollable urge to create? Try some of these ideas (many of which have been shared on one of the other blogs) to get yourself started.
- Write the next scene after a book, movie, or television episode ends. (This can be particularly fun with an action television series.)
- Write down the first or last line of a book or movie, and build your plot from there.
- Swap two characters and rewrite the story with them in different shoes.
- Pick a favorite song and write out the story in the song.
- Or just pick a line from the song and write from there.
While these are all writing suggestions, adapt them for other purposes.
- If you see a room layout in a magazine that strikes your eye, play with it. Switch the main and accent colors. Go for the color complements.
- Find an element of a motif that attracts you and build something new around it.
- Find a favorite piece of music. Identify the feelings it evokes, and then create to evoke those same feelings. (Remember that exercise in elementary school music class where the teacher would play a piece of music and you had to draw what you heard. This is the same thing, only grown up and without being told your interpretation of the music is incorrect.)
- When you’re looking at something, ask yourself, “What if?” Let your questioning run wild. It’s amazing what come s from playing a little game of “What if?”
It’s a good idea to keep track of lines, songs, and images you find yourself reacting to strongly. Add them to your design notebook. When you get stuck or just need a little burst of inspiration, flip through the pages to find an unsticking point.
Oct 302007
Yesterday, I went to replenish my tea supply. I’m a huge fan of Oregon Chai, and a long-time Celestial Seasonings addict. Both companies are in the process of revamping their look, and I’m not sure I’m okay with that.
Oregon Chai used to sport one or two toned boxes so you could visually tell what flavor you were picking up. The original flavor was in a box with a yellow body and a purple top. Well, not the boxes are their color for the body, but they all now sport a yellow top- essentially the reverse of the original. This one really isn’t that big a deal (except that it looks a bit odd).
Celestial Seasonings’ boxes used to be part of the experience. The company runs out of Boulder, Colorado and had a quirkiness to their boxes that seemed to carry with it that oddness that is patently Boulder. Artwork and quotes covered the box, almost wrapping it in a story. The quotes are still there. The artwork has been stylized to look more 2007 than 1997. The stories are gone, and so is the quirky look. The box now sports a two-toned design- one color fills the majority of the box, and another covers the top.
In fact, it looks a lot like the Oregon Chai design now. Perhaps this is the new packaging brand for teas, and we can expect something similar out of Bigelow, Twinings, and Good Earth soon?
The point of design in packaging is to make your product stand out, not homogenize your niche. I don’t feel like these two are accomplishing that.
I keep reading articles about using number bars to solve problems over at Let’s Play Math, and I love them! I’ve tried to figure out how to incorporate them into the very structured curriculum where I work because I think it would help so many of our struggling students! (I may smuggle it in covertly, anyway.)
To see this techinique in use and why it’s a great method, check out this post on pre-algebra for the third grader. If students could visually see what’s going on in the problem, I think we’d see far fewer students frustrated by story problems.
What’s better is that this technique is good not only for those just learning how to interpret word problems, but I think even my high school students who struggle with word problems would benefit from this approach with some of their work.
It’s not enough to say, “This is how you’re going to run into the math in the real world.” We have to arm students with a means for dealing with problems, starting with a simple concrete approach like these number lines and helping them move on to more deductive, less visual means for tackling word problems.
Oct 292007
When you manage, you learn you have a few resources that you always need to keep an eye on: time, materials, money, and people. The problem is, you have to manage people completely differently from how you manage time, materials, and money.
I realize I’ve written on this before, but I really think this is where managers who are otherwise good completely fall down.
People are people not human resources. You manage people. Living, breathing, feeling, imperfect, lovable, exasperating people. People will enliven you, deaden you, excite you, disappoint you, thrill you, and contort you into many different shapes. In short people will have a profound impact on you. As a leader, always remember you are also doing this to them. (Source )
People are people. Their skills are resources. It’s their time you’re managing. They’re unpredictable. They’re feeling. Many of them try their best against next to impossible odds.
You cannot manage people the way you manage everything else. You have to remember that you’re a person, and that the “resource” you’re dealing with is a person, too. They deserve the same respect and application of common sense that you would expect.
You also have to remember that if you continually forget that you’re managing people instead of one more resource, people can find somewhere to go where they’ll be seen as someone who has a lot of relevant skills as opposed to a number on a piece of paper.
Oct 282007
Last week, I revealed my revelation that I love taking in information and being in the right place at the right time to share what I know.
It turns out that being that person could actually lead to more authentic networking.
The point of networking (amazingly enough) is to build useful connections, reciprocal relationships. This means that you aren’t just looking for people who can help you; you’re also looking for people you can help.
A great way to do this is to keep yourself up to date on your own industry and nearby ones. Read about things that interest you outside your industry. Find ways to connect people you know with what you know.
You’ll feel less smarmy in your networking efforts, and you’ll help people at the same time. Win-win!
