Mood: elated
Listening to: 'Change' by Taylor Swift
Hungry for: dessert
Have you ever had one of those days where everything just seems to go your way? Like not just little things, big things - big things that changes your life.
I've just had one of those days, after such a long time of restless unfulfillment. Things are finally going my way.
This is a Ben Franklin quote: "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." It's so true. Teachers can lecture, and it'll go in one ear and out the other, and therefore it's really all their fault that we fail. They didn't appeal to our most basic human instincts - the desire to be stimulated, entertained, challenged. If you teach me something, I'll remember it, but I probably won't understand it and I definitely won't be interested in it. A teacher must *involve* - that is the true definition of teaching. These are the kind of people I was working with today. People who are open to other options, value my opinion, and don't think they're superior and that I'm just an insignificant nothing - which is more, much more, than what I can say about most teachers I've worked with. And we've all come to a pretty exciting conclusion - this really is a turning point in my life. I feel like I'm going somewhere, like I have clear, achievable, realistic goals - not fantasies and dreams that have no grounding or sense of reality. Life has meaning again, and my sacrifice - of social normality and security, of friendships and relationships - now seems quite worthy of my cause. It actually seems like a small price, for what I can become and what I am becoming. What I'm working towards - it's bigger than trifle things like flimsy high school friendships and teenage boys. It's my life - and what I give up now is what others have to give up in the future, when problems become bigger and harder to solve.
Have you ever had one of these days? If so, what was it about?
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11 comments:
I remember that saying as a generic Chinese saying:
"I hear it and I forget.
I see it and I remember.
I do it and I understand."
It was on one of my Grade Objectives in 1989 or 1990.
(Yes, that does seem like a million years ago now).
Now the question about the turning points:
Probably the one most relevant to my current career was a day in October 1999. It was some days (a fortnight) after I had sorted out (or begun to) some major psychiatric and educational betrayals that had underpinned the twelve years prior.
(And, yes, these did have to do with social normality/normalcy and the rest which you mention).
The thing about these turning points is that you decide again and you commit again. So that they may have some meaning in the rest of your life and not derail it, as they may tend to do.
Franklin had another great saying: Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. It was actually by Richard Jackson.
It probably sums up some of the dilemnas.
There are probably very few authenticated Franklin quotes, especially as he was a distributor of knowledge, and loved to use it in a practical way. He was not a man of affairs. Perhaps the American readers may beg to differ.
About Franklin: I actually don't really disagree with you, Adelaide. He did some great things, but he was also a pig(he cheated on his wife and was basically a walking STD). People here in the US seem to think he was the 1700's version of Superman, but he wasn't. He was just a person like you or me.
People now don't realize that because a lot of social studies teachers don't do their jobs well enough. They glorify historical accomplishments without showing us the actual person underneath who did all that stuff.
Many of my fellow students only think history is boring because teachers don't show us that people way back then were basically just like us. They loved, they hated, thaey had perverted senses of humor (shakespeare, anyone?). They laughed, they cried. THEY WERE PEOPLE.
You're right, LR. They need to talk to us, not talk at us. They need to involve us. AND they need to understand that not everyone learns the same way. There's no perfect solution, but they could damn well try harder.
Franklin as a walking STD?
My first memory of Franklin was reading about him in Childcraft's People to Know.
The story which was told about him was how he became Silence Dogood and convinced his elder brother to print his articles.
(This would have been between when he was 12 and 15 years of age).
The elder brother was very upset.
There are similar stories, for instance, about Lincoln (Abraham) and Bach (Johann Sebastian).
The Christopher Bach story is a relevant one for those who are learning music.
Yes, even the breadth of Franklin's activities is vast and probably not well represented in print.
What gets me excited about history are the primary sources and visits to historical places.
And, yes, Shakespeare does have a perverted sense of humour.
I actually don't know a lot about Ben Franklin - here the history in primary school is Aboriginals, convicts, settlers, explorers, goldrush, more Aboriginals, more convicts, more settlers, and more explorers, and I'm not taking any history courses at the moment.
Great men don't always have great private lives, I guess.
Oh yeah, Adelaide. I saw this thing on the framers of the Constitution on the History Channel, and it said that when he was the envoy to France, Ben was something of a player(although he was like 70-something at the time. *shudder*)
When's the first time you're taking a history course, Renegade?
I imagine the exploration journey would be different from state to state in Australia.
For instance, Sturt (Charles) wanted to find the inward sea in New South Wales.
I'd like to ask a bit more about Aboriginals, convicts, explorers and the goldrush.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeek history talk! :0
yeah I've had one of those days. everything seems like it's going to work out, and then it gets ruined by the embassy. uh huh.
History in Australia is part of Social Science, and is divided into units - Ancient History, and Modern History, which kind of sucks seeing as I specialize in the Renaissance. At the moment I'm studying year ten Social Science, where you're allowed to take two units - a choice out of Philosophy, Politics, Ancient History, Modern History, Geography and Economics. I'm currently studying Philosophy and Politics and for TEE, which is year eleven and twelve, I'm planning to take Philosophy, Politics, Ancient and Modern History.
The long and short of the very brief Australian history we have is that Australia has been explored by many European nations since the Renaissance, and was finally settled by the British by Captain James Cook. Prisoners were taken out of the overflowing English gaols and transported over Australia, much like they did in America ('transportation' was a common sentence for anything from stealing to rape and other sex charges), and most of the manual labour (many convict-built building still stand today) was done by these prisoners. The British ideas of ownership clashed spectacularly with the Aboriginal belief that everything belongs to the land, and you just take what you need - for example, the British accused hunting Aboriginals, who do not farm, of stealing their cattle, and the Aboriginals could not comprehend how it was any different to hunting a kangaroo. The British enforced their law systems on the Aboriginals, with particularly disasterous results, because the two cultures were just so incredibly different.
Later on, the British decided to take away the children of Aboriginals, as well as children known as 'half-caste' - half white, hal Aboriginal. These children were forcibly taken from their families - some even said that the Aboriginals were like dogs, and would soon forget their offspring and simply carry on reproducing - and grew up in Church-run missions to be servants of the white community. These people are known as the 'Stolen Generation', and is the cause of much bitterness and resentment that still exists between the Aboriginals and the white communities.
Sounds really interesting like that, but seriously, try learning it for seven years at a primary-school level.
Just at the moment, I'm not so concerned with history as with your future, and what I see in that future gives me a gleam in the eye.
I'm sure it's satisfying to you, as well.
Some of the essential elements of the historical narrative include conflict, continuity and change.
And the Renaissance was the beginning of the modern period, depending on how you slice your dates.
The many European nations would include Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands. I don't know if the Germans did a substansive effort, like they later did in Papua and New Guinea.
You missed out the fact there are no more pure aboriginal Australians anymore. All the "aboriginal" people you see today are part white. It was terrible-- also there was mass rape as soon as the first fleet arrived. There were 1000 or so male convicts and then 200 female. It was so horrible a fleet of females was an order-- the ship was known as the "floating brothel".
Haha anyway, that's what you would ahve learned if you stayed in year nine sose.
Mama's a teacher so I have to get all of this stuff "involvement" to help learn.
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