Petra, the Crashing Vampire Bat

August 21, 2009 at 10:41 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: ,

The latest assignment from my writers’ group involved writing a letter from a fictional character to its creator.  There were several letters to God, and (amazingly) only one letter from Elizabeth Bennet to Jane Austen.  There was also a letter from Sleeping Beauty to A.N. Roquelaure – a.k.a. Anne Rice; was never inclined to read those books, and certainly am not now.

When my children were about 7 and 9 years old, they wrote a story about a small vampire bat who can’t eat properly because she keeps crashing into the animals instead of sneaking up on them.  Vampire bats pee while they eat, so they don’t have to carry the extra weight.  This is a letter from the bat to my kids:

From the desk of
Petra
The Crashing Vampire Bat

Dear Peter and Helen,

How are you? I am fine.

I peed! I peed! It was, like, so much fun! There is nothing better than licking blood and peeing; so much better than munching on furry cat butts.

I think my brother should be more proud of me, and not make so many comments about brain damage. After all, he was born first, so he got Mum and Dad to teach him everything. It’s not my fault I was born second, and that I get everything “second” – second hand, second rate, etc., etc. I’m just a victim of circumstance, like Helen. But now that Dad taught me how to hunt, I’m as good as anyone else. ‘Cepting, I wouldn’t have thought walking was so difficult. To be quite honest, I prefer crashing into my food to sneaking up on it. The cloak-and-dagger stuff is okay if you’re Dracula, but I prefer to make an entrance.

So, now we have to, like, talk about changing the title of the story ‘cause, as you say at the end, I don’t crash unless I’m playing football. Maybe we could have Petra the Formerly Crashing Vampire Bat, or… no, wait… better yet: Petra the Paragon Vampire Bat. Yeah, I like that one. Petra the Paragon Vampire Bat: a Study of the World’s Consummate Vampire. Okay, there we go. Now I’m happy. I can’t wait to show it to my brother. He’s going to FREAK!

I haz qweschun fer u. You didn’t show this story to anyone, didja? I’m, like, kinda concerned that PETA is going to get hold of me. You gotta admit, I was pretty rough on all those animals I was crashing into. I mean, the owl we can pass off as self-defence but what about that cow? And the cat? Then, if they find out about the biting and the blood-sucking, well… I’m not gonna end up with a whole lot of naked chicks on my lawn, am I? (Although, if you can make sure they’re of the poultry variety, I might reconsider ‘cause they’re really scrumptious.) It’s kinda hard to talk to some people about that whole nature-vs.-nurture thing. So, if you can keep a lid on it, I’d appreciate it.

Right, so, now that you two have written the World’s Best Story, you won’t need to write anymore, so don’t even consider writing a story about my stupid brother.

So long, dudes, and thanks for all the blood,
Petra

Leave a Comment

The Third Teacher

August 19, 2009 at 2:36 pm (education)
Tags: , ,

Reggio Emilia is a learning theory which considers the environment to be the third teacher.  I’ve liked this concept since I first heard it.  It seems so logical; it’s brilliant.

Like cognitive learning, learning from the environment is something I was exploring without knowing the name for it.  To a less effective degree, I was also attempting to create a learning environment for my students: books, posters, reading material, etc.

I’m not sure how I feel about artificially-created environments.  When I was “improving” my room at the tutoring centre, it felt a little like applying a band-aid.  Yes, it made the room a little more appealing, but it did not make the room a “learning environment”; nothing was healed or made whole.

Perhaps the onus is on the learner; each person is responsible for learning what they can from the environment they’re in.  My children currently have an interest in hanging around Toronto; my son likes Yonge Street, and my daughter likes Kensington Market.  What interests me is that I would have assumed the opposite: my son is a hippie, and my daughter is considerably more modern and obsessed with fashion.  So, then, why are they each interested in an environment which is different from what they already know?  What are they learning from these environments?  Are they complementing the knowledge they have, or are they deliberately venturing into the unknown?

Now, I wanna watch people in different environments.  Toronto’s a good place, ’cause if you stare at people for a long time they just assume you’re crazy.  Now, can I get my students out of their houses and into Kensington…?

Leave a Comment

Learning

August 14, 2009 at 4:30 pm (education)
Tags:

All day (and all night, it seems), I’m learning.  My brain is getting stuffed, yet there always seems to be more space for more.

Twenty years ago, I left university one semester short of an honours degree, because I wasn’t learning anything.  I thought there was more to the world than what I was being allowed to learn in an organised educational setting.

I was right.

Leave a Comment

I can’t think of a good title

August 8, 2009 at 1:34 pm (education)
Tags: , , , ,

One of my private students – aged 16, inclined to learn facts but not inclined to communicate said facts – is frustrating the hell out of me.  He has the typical Asian attitude toward education: tell me what to learn and I’ll learn it.  Critical thinking is not going over too well with this boy.  So I made him read some John Taylor Gatto.  The student really liked the essays, read quite a bit, and wrote a fairly decent paragraph explaining his opinion.  However, when asked if he was going to start questioning the things he was learning, my student replied that he would start questioning in the fall, when he started learning again.

Uh, your parents are paying me to teach you English every week, boy.

But it’s not real learning.

I didn’t thwack him over the head with “Death Of A Salesman”; I want brownie points.

Like most teenagers, he has been unable to find full-time work this summer, and so his parents have suggested he keep himself busy by educating himself.  Some of this he does by watching the Discovery Channel, and Mythbusters.  When I asked him what he had learned from Mythbusters, he came up with an extensive list and, without prompting, suggested he might explore some of those things this summer… although he couldn’t think where he’d find a good toilet to blow up.  When I suggested that this “learning” was the same as “learning” in school, one of the little hamsters in his brain had a myocardial infarction.  But I guess the other hamsters were in good health, because after a minute I could see the wheels starting to spin again.

This student does have Asian parents, and this will indubitably affect his perspective somewhat, but he has been schooled in Canada all his life.   Why are the schools fostering the idea that learning is only achieved in school?  Why is working with a tutor not learning?  Why is watching Mythbusters not learning?  Why are we giving them take 3 months off school each year, without giving them a purpose to those 3 months?

Humans are learning all the time.  If you’re breathing, you’re learning.  You don’t have to be registered in Ontario’s finest private schools to be learning.  You don’t have to be attending school to be learning.  You could be, say, 40-something years old and working as a tutor and a writer, and you’d still be learning.   Arrggghhh! That’s it: I’m heading off to Scandanavia, and I’m never coming back!

Leave a Comment