Question of the day:

Why do some little kids love to kick other kids so much?

Topic: The motivated student

One of my roommates made a comment a while ago about what students learn in school.  “They learn whatever they take away.”  I liked this idea, because it puts the spotlight on the motivation and ability of the student.  As a teacher, I am just beginning to develop an understanding of students’ motivations and abilities, and am trying to use that understanding to help my students.

Yahoo news had a lead article that begins “college degree worht $23,000 extra a year.”  I’ve come across this type of statement before, and the quotes that come it about the inherent financial benefits of getting a college degree.  My problem with articles like these is that it perpetuates the idea that simply going to college and graduating will result in financial and professional success.  This is misleading, obviously, because your salary is linked to your job and profession, and your getting that job is related to what your skills and knowledge, which is related to your motivation and ability to learn things.  So, what is ultimately imiportant in earning that extra $23,000 a year, is that you are a motivated learner who takes away what is necessary to obtain your desired job. 
I don’t underestimate the necessity of a degree in many professions, especially those requiring a subsequent masters degree.  But individuals would likely benefit more from headlines saying, “students with purpose and motivation most likely to succeed in school and earn more,” than simply equating college with money.

-cheers

Topic: If I write

If I write for a few minutes, I know something will happen. I’ll think about things. My mind will drop into my chest, which will warm and feel comfortable except for the fact that the sensation is confusing. I lie in bed, music on, and I am the center of the world, and the only thing I don’t love is the cold water of reality. I think I want to think and write about changes in my life, and also this constant experience of reflectiveness, lost in my chest.

I haven’t journaled in a while, certainly not the daily writing that consumes me when I travel, or that I use to unburden me when the days of my life have stretched out in gray color. But I want to capture this sensation that has defined my life. I am actually not as comfortable as I used to be writing reflectively, perhaps because I now see much of my previous writing as confused babble, full of fantasy and uncertainty.

For example, only two years ago my life was literally consumed with my personal educational and life experience, and my ability to objectively look at anything in life was nil. Cars were signs up man’s disconnect from exercies, offices were prisons, money was something I had little of and therefor was for the materialistic and those devoid of meaningful lives. My world was confused and often tortured by these thoughts.

I can now counsel that person. I recall the struggle and sense of purpose I had, and it has been redirected into a whole new life. 25 years old now, apartment in Brooklyn, teaching in Red Hook, taking each day in stride. Such a new life and rather than the confusion that might have accompanied it in the past, is a sense of “finally…I can breathe.”

Topic: I need a day

I need a day to finish so many unfinished books
I need a day to go running, hiking, camping, and general outdoors playing
I need a day to see all my old college friends
I need a day to re-read all my old xanga posts about education
I need a day to re-take all my college courses that I was apathetic towards
I need a day to see the rest of the world
I need a day to find Mrs. Right who gets me and can help me with my days
I need a day to sleep and do nothing
I need a day to unload my life on someone
I need a day to figure it all out
I need just one day