TubaOrNotTuba

Now that research (for secondary school students) seems to involve mastery of copy/paste from a web page, there are some upset educators in the house. To be fair, in my day Encyclopedia Britannica was used in a similar way; after you’d handcopied several pages of microprint, there was an even chance that learning took place despite your best intentions. Now, the action has become mechanical, and the absorption rate of raw knowledge is much lower (this has not yet been confirmed by independent study OR the editorial staff of EB).

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The degree of planning will separate the veterans from the rookies in most situations. Be it the game of war, or the war of the game, or just a simple trip to visit friends; without some preparation, the train may go off the rails (or lack rails altogether).

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Too much vocabulary needed. Must sleep now. I’ve been caught in the cunundrum of explaining the basics of blogging to someone else. I realize that you can call a dog a cat and it will still chase cars, but if the vocabulary is precise, an explanation is transferable. Right now, my brain feels a wee bit mushy.

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It’s not the letters and spaces; rather, the use of the language that makes all the difference. Particularly in those areas dealing with money and property, which is what the legal system is all about, the words can be poetry or shackles. I haven’t had many occasions to read good legalese, but when you come across the stuff, you recognize the beauty of the thing.

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I’m just back from the hunting grounds. That’s where parents go, at the beginning of each new school year, to try to complete the treasure hunt designed by sadistic educators. Around and around the aisles, dodging others with exactly the same mindset, constantly scanning the edges of counters where the article you need may have been carelessly abandoned by another. All this, to assure that Johnny Who Can’t Read will be able to write, on a wide range of paper types with an even wider range of marking tools. Blood from the parent, included.

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Everyone needs a dream. Proof: someone in proximity just told the world that the “dream of a clean house” is check and mate over everything else in the game. My own dreams are not as practical, but I’m not giving up on them, just yet.

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I’m amazed. This Internet thing is a font of trivial knowledge, with the tap turned on 24/7 just to keep me amused and out of the pool halls (my mother always told me that those weren’t the kind of places I should frequent). For example, I didn’t know until today that the “real” version of Jellystone Park doesn’t have any bears with odd names, but it does have geysers.

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“De-” from the Latin prefix to imply “out of” (among other things). Have you noticed that when the prefix is used in English, the words tend toward the ominous end of the language spectrum. Words like “detoxify”, or “decontaminate”. How about the word for today, “deconfessionalize”. I’ve just returned from a meeting that stretched on for hours, with the set purpose of trying to “demystify” the latest educational direction of our provincial government. Nothing like that happened.

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If I had to create a lexicon for the workplace, I think I’d try to apply foods as metaphors. For example; to describe an occupation that was “predictable”, as in “I know what’s going to happen next”, then the food would be porridge. Porridge from the hand of the holy grandmother. An acquired taste, which I never acquired. One that can be modified with brown sugar and fresh milk, but that remains bland.

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After a certain number of children have passed through the house, a parent develops a feeling for which of the various “rites of passage” come with an acceptable risk factor. My three sons have all gone through a similar formation, that of the concert band, and the big night of the year is the final performance. Not so much the show, but what follows afterward is at the crux of this posting; the famous “after concert” party.

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