Category: Education

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Subliteracy: Mass-Man’s Pernicious Influence

Writers trying (and failing) to fake literacy and their tendency to misuse words they _think_ they know the meanings of simply manage to spread subliteracy. Today’s misused word (out of MANY by noon, despite the fact that I have not been on the Interwebs longer than 20 minutes today before now): utilize. No, it does not simply mean “use” in more (unnecessary) syllables. It either means a chemical process wherein the uptake of a nutrient is effected or to effectively use a thing for a purpose for which it was not originally intended (Thus “utilize” is often proper referring to redneck reengineering of common items for new, and often unique, applications. 🙂 ) At least, those were _once_ the very useful distinctions between “use” and “utilize,” but as subliterates spread their “mass-man” (TY, Ortega) influence to other subliterates, a once very useful word is becoming simply a pedestrian means of distinguishing between literates and subliterates.

Oh, and an annoyance to anyone who wants to genuinely master English.

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From Lovely Daughter’s “Sixth Grade Lines” Collection

From a collection of “juvie book quotes,” this:

“Why do they do all this freakin’ paperwork for no reason? I just want to be with my dog.”

I can relate. When I was a kid, I always thought school was too much “busywork.” Got in the way of my reading (in class, at least; I generally just didn’t do my homework *shrugs* I had other things I deemed to be more important. I was a very bad boy. Until high school, I generally got away with this. 😉 ).

Learning is fun, but quite often school is a boring waste of time.

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Nothing to See Here; Move Along

Just a passing shot. . .

Reading a bio of Lance Armstrong and ran across:

“. . .diagnosis of his symptoms, including coughing up blood and a swollen testicle.”

Coughing up a swollen testicle?!? THAT’S SERIOUS!

*heh*

OK, so Armstrong’s cancer was serious, but that lack of a comma was amusing.

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Had to *SMH* in Amazement

Saw a comment that was only moderately “gabberflastering” on a forum that shall go unnamed. Guy said he had to write in thew sharps and flats that were in the key sig to remind himself when he played through a piece.

Say what?!?

Whenever I taught music or directed volunteer music groups, I generally taught beginning music readers to use the “STARS” system or a variant that is even simpler, for those in volunteer choirs whose music reading chops were. . . only slowly emerging:

S – Sharps or flats in the key signature
T – Time signature and Tempo markings
A – Accidentals not found in the key signature
R – Rhythms ; silently count the more difficult notes and rests
S – Signs , including dynamics, articulations, repeats and endings

Every class session or rehearsal included using something likethe “STARS” system before reading every new piece. *shrugs* Regular exercise of “reading” through a new piece (or reviewing one not seen in a while) really aided in sight reading. Of course, “STARS” is just an extremely simplified version of score study any competent conductor does, but it seemed to be enough to alleviate the “write in the sharps/flats for reminder” issue. . . especially since each freakin’ line in a score begins with the key sig. . .

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Math. It’s Not Just for Homework

Lame. Of course, from available evidence (ballot box, successful entertainers, best selling novelists–I’m looking at you, Dan Brown–etc.), most people can’t (or refuse to) think well enough IRL to be _able_ to use math in ways that would enhance their lives. JMO, of course, but I’m right.

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Dewey Was a Great Man (No, Not That One. Not That One Either. *heh*)

The Dewey Decimal System is an extremely useful method of categorizing knowledge for cataloging a library, but it is also a very useful system to use when searching out and exploring a topic of knowledge. An understanding of its classifications can yield some few advantages over computer catalogs of libraries for card catalog users, too. And then, just browsing a section, grazing the pages of books from one end of a class to another, can sometimes yield great benefits.

I once spent time “living” any available spare moment in a large state university library as an undergrad (and it wasn’t even the school I was attending *heh*) making such discoveries–especially during one semester when I was taking a course so far off my majors that I had almost NO background, and none of the prerequisite courses (yeh, talked my way ito it because it seemed interesting) in the subject. Result: The professor found my “insights” refreshingly stimulating, much to the disgust of the other seven members of the class who were restricted by having all the prerequisite boundaries instilled in their thinking.

Ah, but of course all classifications of knowledge, especially those which–like the DDS–comprise relatively rigid, detailed classifications, have the basic flaw of placing artificial boundaries between fields of knowledge. But then, it seems to be a basic human trait to connect disparate elements into a whole, even when that “whole” is wholly artificial and even nonsensical. So, the DDS is, in my use at least, most like a box of building blocks divided into compartments by shape, color, size, etc. It can make it useful when searching for just that right building block.

Sometimes, though, one wants to just dump the box out and scramble up the pieces to see what serendipitous connections one might make. That’s the Internet.

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Déjà Vu All Over Again?

AFAIK, I’ve read everything David Weber has written, even the insane book where Dracula saves humanity from an alien invasion. A laugh riot, for sure, though I’m not sure Weber intended it as such. And for the past ten books or so, every time I pick one up, I ask myself “Why?” Whole swaths of dialog and descriptive narrative seem unnecessarily repetitive (and of much of the “banter” dialog, the less said the better. Actually, the less written and even less read the better).

And would SOMEONE please get through to Weber (or someone–anyone–with a red pencil that works at Baen and/or Tor) to correct his sadly illiterate misuse of “temporal” in his descriptions of civil (secular) officials and clergy gatherings as “lords secular and temporal”? All the phrase does is MISdescribe the group as “lords secular and secular.” #gagamaggot

temporal =
a : of or relating to time as opposed to eternity
b : of or relating to earthly life
c : lay or secular RATHER THAN clerical or sacred : civil lords temporal

Ah, but skipping over the unfortunate babblegab in Weber books does come as the price one pays for otherwise not badly told stories with moral/ethical questions dealt with in ways that are at least somewhat edifying in the end. Maybe that’s why, oh, once every 300-400 books read, I’ll pick up another one by him.

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Let the Passing Scene. . . Pass

The (social) democritization of publishing has resulted in some good things, while at the same time resulting in an ever lower lowest common denominator. For example, it’s kinda cute (where values of “cute” include “pathetic”) the way some 20-something subliterate wannabe writers try to emulate “adult” speech by using words of which they wot not the meanings. *heh* Cute but sad.

(Examples abound. Just check out a few “freebie” self-pubs on Amazon. 80% or more of them are written by “participation/attendance award subliterates” who really should not be self-pubbing. The other 15%-20% often come close to or surpass material published by trad-pub houses, which means that maybe a third of them are worth reading. *heh*)

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Addicted to Books

“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a [library] for?” (with semi-sincere apology to Robert browning)

I have been “buying” anywhere between seven and 30-something books a week for years (larger numbers once ebooks became necessary when I ran out of space no matter how diligently I purged my personal library). I only read about seven books a week (down from the 20-something I used to read when I was a lad), but I do find I discard more ebooks after partial reading than I have ever discarded hardcopy. Writing and editing standards have slipped terribly.

Still, having all my hardcopy classic collection backed up in multiple formats, media, and locations (and adding to it) is a Good Thing, IMO. Sadly, my non-fiction Kindle is out of storage space, now.

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Yeh, Sorta, but Not

The Myth of ‘Learning Styles’

Are “learning styles” theories all they are cracked up to be? No. But are they myths? Absolutely not. Despite the fact that folks almost certainly do not have ONE “style” of learning that is hardwired into them, folks do seem to have preferred modes of learning, often different for different endeavors. The most basic classes of “learning styles” (actually, in this case, “modalities”) most often pout forth are kinesthetic, auditory, and visual, with many different variations and combinations and terminologies offered as theoretical possibilities using the basic “modalities”.

A preference or preferences, however, don’t mandate that a person cannot effectively learn in different ways. This is where the writer of the article and I part ways. Labeling learning styles a “myth” isjust silly. She even hints at the fact of the non-mythical nature of learning styles with the elliptical “admission against interest,”

“. . .a lot of evidence suggests that people aren’t really one certain kind of learner or another. . . ”

(implying, of course, that there are different ways of learning, just that, as anyone who’s ever taught OR LEARNED anything knows, different tasks may call for different ways of learning something).

Some things I learn best and most quickly by simply reading (and actually studying) text. Others, I learn best by simply observing elements closely and then getting hands on. Others seem to almost require visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modalities together to master (yeh, I can hear a piece of music and reproduce it, either in manuscript or via an instrument of my choice, but seeing a piece of sheet music, hearing it “in my head” in preview, then performing it–thus rehearsing–what I previously heard “in my head”), cementing them for me. *shrugs* Other things don’t seem to require all that much involvement for me.

But actual learning that lasts always takes one thing: doing what I have “learned,” putting it into practice, using it, reifying it, if you will.

I think that may be universal.