Happy Independence Day

Is your life a story?

Essay on AEON.CO:  Some find it comforting to think of life as a story. Others find that absurd. So are you a Narrative or a non-Narrative? (LINK)

says the narrativist:

We story ourselves and we are our stories.

 ... one ‘must be in possession of a full and explicit narrative [of one’s life] to develop fully as a person’. 

says the non-narrativist:

we have at best bits and pieces, rather than a story.

Me?  I like to keep my story straight for others, but I try not to write my autobiography before I live it.  I like the element of surprise.

Sea Chantee - Roll The Old Chariot

Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas

She threw herself out the window to get away from the man who thought he owned her.

She knew the landing would be bad.

No  problem.  Sew yourself up.

Good to go!

No problem?

If you reply "No problem" when someone says "Thank you", you might actually be signaling the potential for a problem.  Some people hear "problem" when others say "no problem."

Kind of like when you hear "No offense, but...."  and it alerts you to the potential of being offended.

Either way, it looks like this jeep driver I saw yesterday often has problems. Bad advertising for Jeep reliability there, don't you think?

World Press Photo Of The Year

LINK TO STORY

Australian photographer Warren Richardson has won the coveted World Press Photo of the Year award – the most prestigious prize in photography.
...
“There were about 200 Syrians hiding in an apple tree farm, looking for a way to get across the border,” he said. “I stuck with them for about four hours and they were playing cat and mouse with the police, being gassed by the police with pepper spray. The police were yelling out: ‘Don’t come to Hungary illegally – if you get here we’re going to arrest you’.

“I knew what they had to do [to cross the border], so when they had to be quiet, I had to be quiet. " ...  I literally had to take the lens up, keep it at a certain distance and just hope for luck to get a decent picture because it was so dark. It was a full moon that night, so the light in the picture is basically moonlight.”

How lovable, my cassia bough

In Imitation of an Old Poem

====================

“How lovable, my cassia bough!”

The lone male bird remembers fondly his old mate.

At year’s end he had changed his roosting place’

Now spring has come, and still they are apart.

The hills and rivers block the long road in between;

The road is distant, cutting off her features and appearance.

“Not that there is now one who could take your place,

But my small heart will never be untrue.”

                                -- Shen Yüeh (441-513)

LINK

"Learning Style" is a myth

You may be surprised to hear "Learning Style" is a myth.

Previously I had been told individual's learning style could vary.  Some were "visual", others were "auditory" and others were "kinetic".

Apparently, this is an oft-repeated myth: "The Learning Styles Myth is Thriving in Higher Education"

Why has this myth persisted?  Apparently "learning style" producers can profit by creating programs and materials that cater to their theory of learning.  Administrators and politicians can skimp on materials and lay blame on  "those narrow, analytic teachers who’ve never heard of learning styles."

So what can anyone who educates apply from this revelation?  Use all methods available.  Illustrate. Talk.  Do.

Vince Lombardi coaching the Washington Redskins