Sandra Dodd

I've been asked to arrange for a chat about when/whether/how it can be
good or problematical for a family to use more than one language.

Friday there's a chat planned already. IF Hema in India and Pam in
California can do something an hour or two earlier than that chat,
then that will be the time (an hour or two earlier :-)

Otherwise, Friday's chat will be about bi- and tri-lingual families
and language acquisition and that.

The times in various places are listed here:
http://sandradodd.com/chats/regular

ALSO, if anyone has time and inclination to find things already
written about this (archives of this or unschoolingdiscussion or
unschooling.info or anything), please leave links here so people can
get a head start. Thanks!

Thanks!

Sandra

Pam Sorooshian

I just wrote something on another list:

"Live WAY more in the present than in the future, while knowing that how
you live in the present will largely determine how your children will
live in the future."

And then my daughter, Roxana, sent me this article:
<http://www.livescience.com/culture/090414-smile-marriage.html>

Here is the beginning of the article:

Psychologists have found that how much people smile in old photographs
can predict their later success in marriage
<http://www.livescience.com/health/080205-spouse-negative.html>.

In one test, the researchers looked at people's college yearbook photos,
and rated their smile intensity from 1 to 10. None of the people who
fell within the top 10 percent of smile strength
<http://www.livescience.com/culture/081229-facial-expressions.html> had
divorced, while within the bottom 10 percent of smilers, almost one in
four had had a marriage that ended, the researchers say. (Scoring was
based on the stretch in two muscles: one that pulls up on the mouth, and
one that creates wrinkles around the eyes.)

In a second trial, the research team asked people over age 65 to provide
photos from their childhood (the average age in the pictures was 10
years old). The researchers scored each person's smile, and found that
only 11 percent of the biggest smilers had been divorced, while 31
percent of the frowners had experienced a broken marriage
<http://www.livescience.com/topic/marriage>.

Overall, the results indicate that people who frown in photos are five
times more likely to get a divorce than people who smile.

Sandra Dodd

-=-(Scoring was
based on the stretch in two muscles: one that pulls up on the mouth, and
one that creates wrinkles around the eyes.)-=-

Hema was in a chat the other day and commented on the smile lines in a
photo I had sent a link to (not my chat-registration photo).

She told us that in India people read the lines on people's faces and
can tell what kind of person they are.

Can that be faked? I mean if a person just fakes a smile, will that
improve marriages? I've heard (and don't know) that forcing a smile
changes mood. And there's not much difference between the look of
about to cry and the look of giggling, sometimes (not always, but
there is a crying that looks like laughing).

Here's my guess: there are glands all around our faces with which we
can affect things scientists don't know about. The same way dogs wag
their tails to broadcast an information-providing scent, or stick the
tail between their legs to hide a scent. I think people who aren't
powdered and perfumed would (do) exude information/signals. And I
think this might be THE most hidden/taboo area of instinct in the
western world (and probably other cultures that use scent-masking
perfumy stuff).

But back to the other...
I went through a time when I was 30ish when I was probably clinically
depressed and didn't know it. I pulled myself back out of it with
thought and effort. But during that time a friend of mine told me she
didn't want to hang around with me because I was too negative. I've
never forgotten that moment.

Every two or three years since, I've had a down cycle, which has a
couple of times turned to depression for which I went to my favorite
counsellor and talked, and then to my whichever's on call doctor, and
got anti-depressants. I don't live there. And if the down cycle
comes while I'm mentally strong and alert, I can keep myself
functional and cheery, but during those times I avoid my friends
partly so that I don't depress them too.

Usually I'm zippy and funny and energetic. Feeling what that feels
like helps me induce it later. And I'm wondering if laughing and
singing (which I consciously do when I want to lift my mood) are
physically hooked in to biochemicals that cheer moods. And maybe it
has to do with stretching certain parts of the facial skin and muscles
which affect something... blood flow or teensy glands or secretions
within cells or whatnot.

Maybe the frowning thing is why people don't get better in mental
hospitals; they often get worse. Like prison, if a minor offender
goes, he can come out a pissed off major offender.

Sandra







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

One hour earlier than the stated time, then. I'll go and note that on
the page in a while.

It will be 8:00 a.m. in California and Pam Sorooshian will be there,
whose experience is Farsi and English
It will be 10:00 a.m. Eastern time, and Bea Mantovani will be there (I
hope) whose experience is French and English and something. (Bea,
help!)

Others are encouraged to come. If you know people on other lists who
might be interested, please let them know.

Sandra

Jenny C

> Can that be faked? I mean if a person just fakes a smile, will that
> improve marriages? I've heard (and don't know) that forcing a smile
> changes mood. And there's not much difference between the look of
> about to cry and the look of giggling, sometimes (not always, but
> there is a crying that looks like laughing).

I had heard that forcing a smile will change your mood. I do that. If
I catch myself frowning or being more concerned than usual, I'll smile,
and there is a lightness and lifting that happens.

When Chamille was a tiny baby, I'd rock her to sleep in my arms,
sometimes while nursing and sometimes after she was done. I'd catch
myself frowning, because I was tired and needed to sleep or get things
done before I was able to sleep and I needed my baby to be asleep. I'd
be concentrating on all that stuff and it would cause me to frown, or at
least look concerned. So, I'd consciously put a smile on my face, so
that my little baby would see me smiling at her as she fell asleep. By
doing that, it always helped me relax in the moment and enjoy that small
thing of puting my baby in her bed. It was something that left me
feeling refreshed almost. It had everything to do with smiling!


And I
> think this might be THE most hidden/taboo area of instinct in the
> western world (and probably other cultures that use scent-masking
> perfumy stuff).

Chamille has always been hugely perceptive of this stuff, body language,
scents, all of that, and the ways that people hide things.


> Usually I'm zippy and funny and energetic. Feeling what that feels
> like helps me induce it later. And I'm wondering if laughing and
> singing (which I consciously do when I want to lift my mood) are
> physically hooked in to biochemicals that cheer moods.

I think you are onto something with that! I think we can tap into that
consciously! I give myself pep talks sometimes. I do that with my kids
too.


> Maybe the frowning thing is why people don't get better in mental
> hospitals; they often get worse. Like prison, if a minor offender
> goes, he can come out a pissed off major offender.


If someone is mentally injured, I think one of the worst things that
person could do, is to be around other mentally injured people. They
stay in that place, instead of being inspired out of it. That's not to
say that all mental injury can be changed like that. I'm thinking more
about people who end up in mental institutions because they've tried to
commit suicide, or some other tragic thing.

My oldest cousin, was part of the first wave of the three strikes and
your out, in CA. He was young and needed help and did something minor
and stupid, but the legal system used him as an example as a first timer
of that three strikes law. He never recovered from that. It left him
scarred, and feeling like a criminal, and he lived up to that for the
rest of his life.

Sandra Dodd

-=-I will try to be there let me know what time.
We are bilingual and I used to moderate a group about multilingual
children.-=-

Wonderful. I'll make a separate page of this so I can keep a
transcript.

http://sandradodd.com/chats/bilingualfamilies

If anyone sees problems with that page, please let me know.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Mary Hickcox

I can't make the discussion but I live in Costa Rica and we are all mostly builingual (Spanish-English), especially the baby:)  If anyone has any questions or any thoughts please feel free to ask or share with me offlist.  Thanks and have a great chat.

Mary mama to Dylan (10), Colin (5 1/2) and Theo Benjamin (born 8-28-07)
"Be who you want your children to be."    Unknown   "Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

--- On Wed, 4/15/09, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:

From: Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...>
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] Families in which more than one language is spoken
To: [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2009, 1:44 PM

















-=-I will try to be there let me know what time.

We are bilingual and I used to moderate a group about multilingual

children.-=-



Wonderful. I'll make a separate page of this so I can keep a

transcript.



http://sandradodd. com/chats/ bilingualfamilie s



If anyone sees problems with that page, please let me know.



Sandra



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]































[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hema A. Bharadwaj

I'd love to make it... 9:30 pune time is fine. Earlier may be tougher. I'll
keep an eye out for which time gets selected.

We speak English, Kannada, Hindi and some Marathi. And my husband can also
speak Telugu. These are all, believe it or not, separate Indian languages!
However Kannada and Telugu share the same script. Hindi and Marathi share
the same script too... but again otherwise completely different. And I can
read and write Arabic.. I've lost the vocabulary though.

So ya... lots of languages here.
hema :-)

--
Hema A. Bharadwaj
http://thebharadwajknights.blogspot.com/


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=
http://sandradodd.com/chats/bilingualfamilies-=-

This chat is about to start (unless you read this much later, in which
case never mind).

For those without the need to discuss multiple languages in the home,
come in after a while, at the regular Friday-chat time or halfway
through that, and we can commandeer it unless they're really involved
in important things.

http://sandradodd.com/chats/regular

The room is
http://sandradodd.com/room

and the password is
goodidea

(good idea)

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bob Collier

>
> Overall, the results indicate that people who frown in photos are five
> times more likely to get a divorce than people who smile.
>


What???

This assertion is from the self-reporting (dodgiest possible
information gathering method) of people about whom we know nothing
except they constitute less than 0.02% of the population of the
greater Detroit metropolitan area (is that representative of the world
at large to begin with?), based on answers to two simplistic questions
and an unspecified possibly subjective method of rating smiles from 1
to 10 in whatever old photos happened to be available, and no
consideration of other factors that could reasonably be expected to
contribute to the success or failure of a relationship?

No wonder I regard "social science" as an oxymoron.

Bob

Sandra Dodd

-=-> Overall, the results indicate that people who frown in photos are
five
> times more likely to get a divorce than people who smile.
>

-=-What???-=-

I figure what it meant was happy people are happier than unhappy people.

I don't think I've seen anything damage unschooling or parenting or
marriage as much as negativity does.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

This idea is intriguing for me as a unschooler. A smile is an
experience, or an experiment if you will, that serves as a great
personal information gathering opportunity. How does one create
learning if not through such things as smiling and frowning, giving and
receiving, going away and arriving, and associating the effects on
oneself and others? To me, that's much of what unschooling is all
about.

~Katherine


On Apr 17, 2009, at 10:42 PM, Bob Collier wrote:

>> Overall, the results indicate that people who frown in photos are five
>> times more likely to get a divorce than people who smile.
>
> What???
>
> This assertion is from the self-reporting (dodgiest possible
> information gathering method) of people about whom we know nothing
> except they constitute less than 0.02% of the population of the
> greater Detroit metropolitan area (is that representative of the world
> at large to begin with?), based on answers to two simplistic questions
> and an unspecified possibly subjective method of rating smiles from 1
> to 10 in whatever old photos happened to be available, and no
> consideration of other factors that could reasonably be expected to
> contribute to the success or failure of a relationship?
>
> No wonder I regard "social science" as an oxymoron.
>
> Bob