[email protected]

I hope this isn't distressing or personal to anyone in New Jersey who might know people involved, but there was a small ground plane crash this morning, and I have comments not on that but on the article AOL has on their website.



-=-''Usually we see them lift off, but this one just went straight and started scratching the ground. There were sparks shooting out all over the place,'' said Joseph Massaro, a psychologist who lives nearby.-=-

How might it matter that he's a psychologist?
Would they have identified him as a janitor? A waiter? A Volvo mechanic? A registered sex offender?


''He said as they tried to airborne before five minutes past (7 a.m.), they just lost control and they couldn't airborne the plane. They went straight through, 100 miles per hour,'' Sosa said.
-=-

That second part was an account of what the pilot said. Would a pilot really use "to airborne" as a verb??

If it's going to irritatingly and unnatural become a verb, at least it should be "to airbear." And still, the air is doing the bearing, not the plane and certainly not the pilot, except for bearing his own hot air which won't get a plane off the ground.

So this is the state of professional writing, and that's fine. I'll die before long and it won't matter to me anymore.

Kirby showed me his essay, before he dropped the class (online, from his own bedroom, and "that was too easy," he said).

For content, 40 points, a B.
For mechanics, an F.

These weren't grammatical mechanics, nor what is known as "the mechanics of writing" (punctuation and such). It was the spacing of paragraphs, fewer than 100 words per paragraph, and not having underlined his thesis sentence.

"You write well, but that is only half the battle. You must follow assignment directions YOUR OUTLINE IS EXCELLENT, but your essay must match it. And to lenghten--you need to use more specifics."

So wrote the teacher who gave Kirby's first school assignment a D. Will I survive? Yeah, I guess. <g> I was spared such trauma for thirteen years before that. Nobody's ever given Marty or Holly a grade either.

Here's some consolation, I suppose. Kirby's actual writing (the words, the ideas) were B work, in her estimation. Kirby, who had never been in an English class for a minute before two and a half weeks ago got one of four Ds. Of those fifteen others who had been to school for years, three others also got D's. Four poor souls got Fs.

Again, I'm sorry to go on about this. I'll recover. I will airborne myself, perhaps. <g>

Sandra

mamaaj2000

--- In [email protected], SandraDodd@a... wrote:
> ''He said as they tried to airborne before five minutes past (7
a.m.), they just lost control and they couldn't airborne the plane.
They went straight through, 100 miles per hour,'' Sosa said.
> -=-
>
> That second part was an account of what the pilot said. Would a
pilot really use "to airborne" as a verb??

Dh thought maybe the word "get" was missing before "airborne" but
that only explains the first one...

Emile Snyder

On Wed, 2005-02-02 at 09:00, SandraDodd@... wrote:
> Again, I'm sorry to go on about this. I'll recover. I will airborne myself, perhaps. <g>

No, airBEAR, airBEAR ;)

> Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/2/05 1:04:51 PM, unschooling@... writes:

<< > Again, I'm sorry to go on about this. I'll recover. I will airborne
myself, perhaps. <g>

<<No, airBEAR, airBEAR ;) >>

You're right, than you.
I stand corrected, on the runway, thinking lovely thoughts.

mamaaj2000

You were thinking in the passive pluperfect again, weren't you??

--- In [email protected], SandraDodd@a... wrote:
>
> In a message dated 2/2/05 1:04:51 PM, unschooling@t... writes:
>
> << > Again, I'm sorry to go on about this. I'll recover. I will
airborne
> myself, perhaps. <g>
>
> <<No, airBEAR, airBEAR ;) >>
>
> You're right, than you.
> I stand corrected, on the runway, thinking lovely thoughts.

Cyndi

Again, I'm sorry to go on about this. I'll recover. I will
airborne myself, perhaps. <g>
>
> Sandra


Aargh...I hate college writing courses. They should call
them "mechanical writing"...if you plug in the formula, you're
guaranteed to pass. Unfortunately, "success" in other college
subjects that require essays rely on knowing that formula. I'm glad
I don't have to think about that now, we're about 6 years away from
worrying about college.

This post really touched me though because it reminded me
of "seahorses" or why we started homeschooling ALL of our children.
I don't post much, I just wanted to share this for some reason so I
hope you'll bear with me!!

When we started homeschooling (mind you, before our transition to
the unschooling lifestyle), we started out hsing our eldest dd, then
in 5th grade and bored out of her mind (and sick of the BS). We
didn't plan on taking our 3rd grade dd out...she was happy and doing
well (6yods was at home already). But slowly she, too, became
interested in hsing, but I put her off because I felt she was
a "better fit" for school. Again, this was in the beginning of our
hsing journey, before all the little epiphanies about education,
lifestyle, etc. started happening.

What changed my mind about hsing all my kids was the
infamous "SEAHORSE" report.

Jessica is so bright and inquisitive (and from a former schoolish
point of view, she was considered an A+advanced learner), but she is
a messy writer, specifically in cursive. Always has been and
probably always will be! Not illegible by any means, just not
pretty! She prints GREAT, but cursive becomes mandatory for use in
reports in 3rd grade. Her teacher handed out an assignment where
they had to choose an animal of the ocean, write a pretty detailed
report, including illustrations, photos, etc. and assemble it like a
book. In cursive. Jess was so psyched because she loves
seahorses...and likes drawing and creating books...a perfect
assignment for her...she started going to the library and putting
this report together a month before it was due. She read books,
visited websites and wrote a good report that we wrote and rewrote
together (for neatness and spelling as required) several times.
Quite frankly, her zest for it was starting to drive me a little
crazy (but in a good way!). She was really proud of the report and
had a lot of fun doing it!

When the report was graded, she received a C-. Pretty bad for her in
general..she was an A student (although the ramifications of that
grade were on a much more personal level). The teacher told me in a
note that although it was A+ work, Jessica's handwriting was so
messy that it took away from the overall "value" of the report.
Mind you, it wasn't unreadable (and her illustrations, etc. were
great), teacher just felt that a third grader should have better
technical penmanship skills.

I was SO pissed, told the teacher that it was a shame that at the
3RD GRADE LEVEL that form was valued so much over content. She
agreed, but said that was the way it is! Jessica needed to write in
cursive and write well at that. AS IF CURSIVE HAS ANYTHING TO DO
WITH WRITING. But she made it pretty clear that it would affect her
success as a student from that point on, her "unpretty" cursive.
And I believe that to be partly true. At home I tried to downplay
it...tell Jessica that I didn't care about the grade, I was happy
she enjoyed seahorses and thanked her for all she taught me about
them. And I meant it...I was really upset...not about the grade but
about the fact that the teacher put so little value in the learning
that took place (and the love of the learning). She placed more
value in penmanship.

But my daughter was still so upset about the grade. She didn't see
it as the report being graded, she saw it as HER being graded. I
really saw a change in her and how she felt about learning on that
day, in that moment that she received a C-. It's funny how one
significant moment kind of stands out like that. I swear I saw my
dd lose something very important, some part of her innocence maybe,
something intangible. Maybe I'm overreacting, but at the least I
believed that I couldn't hope that she enjoy learning and continue
down a path that doesn't really value the joy of learning. I just
couldn't see how I could do both...encourage her joy and also force
her to be successful by the schools limiting standards. I knew I'd
have to compromise something. And it felt hypocritical to say that
the grade doesn't matter but then send her back to be graded some
more.

So Jess came home the next week. Eventually we all started to
believe in and embrace the unschooling lifestyle (which basically
reflected every other part of our life outside of school). There
are books and games and movies and crafts everywhere. Literally,
there's sh*t everywhere!!!:)) It's complete creative chaos all the
time. My oldest dd finds more relevance in Green Day's "American
Idiot" than she does in a social studies text book, my youngest dd
is constantly cutting up old clothes and making new designs, and my
son (6) is obsessed with Xbox, skateboarding and his electric guitar.

I was going through a box of "memories" the other day, including
many old school projects and papers, and I realized that I was
really selling my kids short before..entrusting them to
school...they are so much more interesting and intelligent and
creative than to be represented by a bunch of xeroxed worksheets
with A+ stickers on them. They were so limited before, to learning
what was necessary and appropriate. Now they learn everything, all
the time, even when we don't seem to be doing anything at all. It's
pretty cool, when you sit back and think about it. I thought about
throwing that box of school stuff out, as some sort of a symbolic
gesture:), but I can't...partly because I'm not into symbolic
gestures...but mainly because I can see my kids grubby little paw
prints on some things..and there were some moments of genuine
happiness in creating or achieving (however misguided) these little
items they handed to me with such a happy shiny look on their faces,
mostly from the younger years when school was still a little fun.
Before they had to grow up and get serious in 3rd grade or so! But
now a lot of our memories are living memories, not based
on "accomplishment", which is a really wonderful thing and doesn't
require a storage space.

Thank G-d for Seahorses! They changed our life for the better!

Cyndi

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/3/05 4:53:51 PM, mermaidcoven@... writes:

<< I swear I saw my

dd lose something very important, some part of her innocence maybe,

something intangible. Maybe I'm overreacting, but at the least I

believed that I couldn't hope that she enjoy learning and continue

down a path that doesn't really value the joy of learning. >>

Having been a teacher, I feel shame.
No doubt I provided some children with those moments of crushing defeat.

I have an apology online that I hope some of my students have found or will
find.
It's here: http://sandradodd.com/gill

-= I just

couldn't see how I could do both...encourage her joy and also force

her to be successful by the schools limiting standards. I knew I'd

have to compromise something. -=-

If a child is in school with the mom saying "I wish you wouldn't" or "you
don't have to do this," I think (I hope) the grades have less power to wound
deeply than they do if the mother says "Go there, do well, make good grades, you
have no choice."

-=-Thank G-d for Seahorses! They changed our life for the better!

-=-

People never know what will change their lives for the better. <g>

Sandra