Digigran

Or La Plus Ca Change

I have noticed that my colleagues have suddenly become very serious about their BLOGGING. See Dr Kate's post here and Dr Joolz's here. (Go to Joolz on May19th- I can't navigate round her new BLOG yet- it doesn't seem to work like Blogger.)

Then I realised they must be conscious that the students on this course which they run (See the Module 3 choices) have recently been asked to BLOG and would probably be reading theirs as examples. Which raises the question of how far BLOGs are constrained by the known identity of the BLOGGER.

I, for one, am missing the regular fix of narrative from Ruffield, tant pis!

Joolz however continues to divert with images of Trois Tetes looking wet. See

Anyway decided I had better do a more "seious" post myself, just in case any of them logged on to mine. Do let me know if any of you do...

SERIOUSLY THOUGH...

This post was stimulated by the wonderful images of the Chrysler Building that Dr Joolz brought back from NY. I was inspired to look up more facts about it and its construction only to find an ongong debate about the loss of authenticity in creativity and craft.

See

The trouble with all the talk about the decay of artisanship
is that it is true. It has always been true. It was true when the last
wattle-weaver died and they took to building houses of brick. And it will be
true when the tools and machinery of the contemporary arts are replaced by atomic explosions...

The master-workmen of our time drive steel to steel with
hammer strokes of air. But they still depend upon the judgment of hand and
eye. And their necks are still breakable" (27).

I was reminded of Plato and his anxiety about the loss of human faculties consequent on the introduction of writing:

If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their
souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is
written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by
means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory,
but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but
only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you
will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and
as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a
burden to their fellows.
(Plato, Phaedrus 275a-b)

Which brings me to the latest example of the Luddite in the surprising guise of

Susan Greenfield, who one hoped might have known better.

Does this mean young people are acquiring or will need different skills? v Memory, for example, may no longer be as essential as it was for those of us who had to learn reams of Latin grammar, but with everything just a click away, perhaps we are at risk of losing our imagination, that mysterious and special cognitive gift that until now has always made the book so much better than the film.

Books better than films, always? I suppose this book has been found to be better than this film . But so what. There are good films and bad films, good books and bad books. Sometimes they deal with the same story, sometimes they don't nut they have different affordances and satisfy different tastes and desires.

For more on Greenfield's views on issues of creativity and the digital see http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/comment/story/0,,1760235,00.html.

Then let me know what you think.

I for one will only be teaching Alexander Latin of this order:

Ceasar ad sum iam forte

Pliny et erat (Ah, ah! Please note subtle segue into main meme of this BLOG.)

So perhaps we can enjoy this from here together. Long before he is 15, though, I hope.

Could you see me as:


OR:





Just done a Muppet Personality Test taken from here: http://images.blogthings.com/themuppetpersonalitytest/gonzo.jpg ,
which I found on Dr Rob's blog and which provided admirable relief from the boredom of proof editing the NATE journal. However, not so happy with the result, especially as Rob's profile also came out as Gonzo.
Rob, of course, managed to get both image and the test itself on his BLOG. I failed miserably at this, hence the URL.


But can we both be Gonzo's, I ask? I know I could never be Miss Piggy - much too slim - and anyway that soubriquet has been earned by someone else in the school of education (not, of course, Joolz or Kate) but surely there were other female characters in the Muppet Show I could be? Would even have settled for Kermit, as in one school the kids decided to call me thatbecause of my taste in green silk stockings, amongst other colours. (When I was young I was much influenced by Ursula in Women in Love, See.)
But Gonzo!!!!! Surely not.
What do you think, hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, frere ou soeur ?
Gonzo is however slightly preferable to the granny shown here:
















Ah well, proof reading calls.

This is a flightless cormorant. I snapped it (my photos remain at the level of snaps whatever the context) on my visit to the Galapagos. For more information about the bird see: http://www.nature.ca/notebooks/english/galapa.htm.
It seems a perfect analogy for the kinds of young teachers we are currently producing. Just as the cormorant flew into a habitat where the stocks of fish were so rich and the competitors so few, it evolved to develop its swimming and diving at the expense of flight, so young teachers enter departments, which after ten years of a National Curriculum, abound with resources, schemes of work and predigested reading materials - all photocopy ready - so that they see no need to devise lessons of their own. Moreover there is far less competition for jobs and so fewerof them need to be anything other than a confident deliverer of ready-made schemes of work and as a result many of these young teachers, but thankfully not all, appear to be losing the power of flight. By that I mean the ability to create a magical lesson from the classes' own interests that allows both teacher and taught to soar above the everyday.
As you can see, I have been thrown back into my old identityas educationalist, by a round of visits to school to assess the performance of new entrants to the profession. I was impressed by the young teachers' enthusiasm and obvious warm relationships with their classes, but also more than a little dismayed by the abundance of pre-prepared, departmental materials in use.

A system that subjects everything to measurement, that sets minimum standards for practitioners and expects a particular kind of performance from the pupils will always have this effect. As one of the tutors remarked, as I described a particularly dire condensation of Jane Eyre to small chunks of text which omitted the whole Lowood experience, what the children reaaly need is more narrative, less textual features. I can agree with that. With my other hat on, I also hope Alexander's life will be full of stories- some of them about Edward.

Hi
Have lost the plot a bit with blogging the Edward stories. Fot those of you who haven't yet met him this is Edward.
Still intend to write stories for Alexander but have decided they are bit boring as a post- unlike Dr Kate's serialised Fieldnotes which are compulsive reading. Instead, will return to the life and its ennuies.

Visited digibaby yesterday unannounced; this is against the advice of more experienced grannies See but on this occasion it was OK. Was admitted only to to find that he had been left sleeping in the garage. His parents obviously are more enlightened than the d-in-law of my friend Jane. See post for 20/04/06.
Anyway, all were surprisingly happy to see me. Alexander soon woke up and was ready for play. He is amazingly active for a five month old and wants to bounce and sit up as you talk to him. I began to perform from my repertoire of songs suitable for little-ones, forgetting that his dad, once he got to an age when he could express an opinion, had begged me neverto sing to him again. It is a very sad truth that although I have a wonderful memory for lyrics of all kinds from The Marseillaise to Eleanor Rigby , but my ability to hold a tune for any more than a few seconds is minimal. I had given my best rendition of all the verses of The Wheels on the Bus and was a good way into I love little Pussy simultaneously stroking Leonard, the cat, when my son suggested Alexander might prefer arendition of Motorhead.
He then took the boy on his knee and they bounced up and down together, his dad making loud rhythmic noises and Alexander gurgling. This was Motorhead, I guessed. Something that up to now had passed over my head. SoI went to the Official Website and discovered that my grandson is being exposed to the loudest rock music on the planet! The iconography is a bit daunting too .
See this:


And:


A bit different from:

Reading through the group's history I realised thatwhen they began producing records in 1975 I had been busy tunelessly singing other kinds of songs to my sons. One went like this:

While riding in my limousine

What to my surprise

A little Bubble Car was following me

About one-third my size

The guy must have wanted to pass me out

As he kept on tooting his horn - beep beep!

I'll show him that a limousine

Is not a car to scorn.

Beep,Beep,Beep, Beep,

His horn went beep,beep,beep.

Full version here.

On refelection though, I see the principle behind each of our choices is much the same. -lots of action and exciting noises. I remained a bit unsure about the skulls.

Of course this time I heeded my Good Granny's Guide and said nothing.