Hi, James!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AH>  I couldn't get angry with them because they made me
AH>  laugh, but I made them think when I mimicked the
AH>  robots who ate "chicken embryos"....  :-))

JB>  Robot mimicry... "Chicken embryos"?  YIKES!


          I enjoy using humour in the classroom.  Unfortunately I often
find, as you do, that my idea of humour goes over like a lead balloon. 
That's why it was so satisfying to me that I had made these kids sit up
& pay attention!  My point was similar to one which is under discussion
in ABLED at present.  I'd mentioned that the Australian aborigines consider
certain moths to be a delicacy, and they thought the idea was gross &
disgusting.  I wanted to show them that other folks might consider what
*we* eat to be gross & disgusting too.  I don't know anybody who eats
the European brown snails they could get free for the taking from their
garden, for example.  I wouldn't... but only because they may have been
poisoned by a neighbour who regards them as a nuisance.  OTOH, some people
will pay a lot of money to eat them in restaurants where they are known as
"escargots"....  ;-)



JB>  Chemistry, and English were the two subjects I had a
JB>  hard time learning. I really did try, but the synapses
JB>  weren't firing on those cylinders.


          I saw a poster in a school hallway recently with a quote
attributed to Plutarch... something along the lines of "A student is
not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled".  Fortunately, I
had an English teacher who sparked my latent interest in grammar.  I didn't
do too well at memorizing valences & using them in mathematical
formulas... but I can make baking powder biscuits & get red wine stains
off the carpet, so something must have stuck.  And some time later I
realized the differences between protein & carbohydrate are almost
certainly due to the presence or absence of nitrogen.  I didn't get the
info. from a chemistry textbook or a home ec. textbook, but from the GAGE
CANADIAN DICTIONARY....  :-))



AH>  I never expected to fit in with a sports-minded crowd.
AH>  I'm currently gaining further insight into their
AH>  reasoning style, however....  ;-)

JB>  And is that a good thing, or a bad thing? 


          On the whole, I think it's a good thing.  There are some
personalities I wouldn't care to know more about, except perhaps in an
academic sort of way... but I don't see them here.  I'm developing a
greater appreciation of a reasoning style which until lately wasn't
familiar to me.  Although I am trying not to use "psychobabble",
certain technical terms might help to clarify the issue....  :-)



JB>  I was never one for 'team' sport, but when I found
JB>  the aquatic, I jumped in with both feet. Yes, even
JB>  the cold  stuff. <-; I liked the atmosphere better
JB>  than any smelly locker-room. I found the people more
JB>  amicable than any sport coach, or 'team player' that
JB>  I had meet to that date. ...


          Yes, yes, and yes!  That's been my experience as well.  With
regard to "team players"... for years I interpreted the term to
mean doing what the leader said one should do & keeping one's own
opinions to oneself, since that's the way it's apparently used in politics.
 But I see kayakers doing what we do in music, i.e. bringing various
people's skills together in a co-operative effort....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+