Day 6 at SI

Day 6 at SI Today we begin with a daily write underneath the topic of ‘marking.’ We are given a poem by Linda Pastan called Marks. It’s a neat little piece, and it brings the idea of grades into other aspects of life. On one hand it shows how ridiculous grading is, on the other hand I really want to start getting grades in other areas of my life so that I can strive for something and just have an idea of how I am doing at everyday things. How’s my driving? I’d imagine an A-, probably a mid-B for going a little too fast, but some extra credit because of creativity and adherence to turn signals and not cutting in line. My cooking? Definitely needs improvement, but shows promise— I’d get a sympathy passing grade for dealing with mild Celiac’s disease and a lactose intolerance, but sighs from the teacher. I’m on “Find Five” duty today- I finally have to figure out what that means. I think it is finding five other teaching writing groups and posting into their conversations; I wonder if I’m supposed to do this after class or during? I suppose I will wait seeing as how my electronic devices are not quite up to par. I have this desktop at home that I can do anything on and here all I have is a lab top I can write on but not connect to the internet, a tablet I can connect to the internet but only tablet text on, and my I phone. It is odd that I have three electronic devices and yet none of them are really great for what I need in this class. There is a writing marathon from 9 am to 1:30 pm on Saturday, which sounds lovely. I hope I can find the motivation to get up that early on a Saturday to join. Ashley begins her presentation, in which she focuses around a quote: “Never before have we had so many forms of writing at our disposal, and never before has our sense of loneliness and alienation been so profound” Johnathan Martin This is an interesting quote. It is impossible for me to compare to other times of loneliness, because I have grown up in this technological world. I can compare when I was a child and played outside more often to when I started playing video games, but that’s about it. I do miss everyday conversations with real-world people, but that’s just because we are moving so fast, and doesn’t seem to have as much to do with technology as much as America moving too fast. Other developed country’s day to day lives seem much more warm and slow with communication – like it is important when you are talking with someone face to face. The profound sense of loneliness would seem just as great during the Great Depression or other eras to me, although we may talk about it more now. Here are some quotes and random passing thoughts from my day: We tend to look at our society as “the most something always” Nick Dearmas. How different are you online than you are in person? What about phone conversations? Who teaches this? What ever happened to them, should we use them in the class? There is no consensus on whether or not technology changes communication for the better or worse, but the conversation is certainly vibrant. After lunch we have our second demo— Second Demo! Jenny Jenny Jenny Jenny is a teacher at Monastery school. Her kids are from 3-6 years old, so she has a difficult environment for sharing in a circle because of the huge difference in age level. I think this would be because they are at such differing reading and writing levels. Her presentation is refreshing. It is nostalgic of a time when learning was a lot more fun, and with much less pressure. It makes me want to revisit early education and pull from it to make my classroom less stressful and kinder to students.