Hard News: Nerd Dad
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One of the great things about my job is that I can have as many wooden pencils as I want. We have a stationery cupboard full of H-love (no HB for some reason). It's absolutely great.
Geek tank moment:
Working replica Rhino APC from the Warhammer 40k universe. Running over cars. -
Nite Owl is the Blue Beetle (not Batman as most people think)
I always think of Ozymandias as a bit Batman-ish. As in, this is what would really happen if you had loads of money, a secret headquarters, and a tendency to think that the ends justify the means.
(Similarly, Doctor Manhattan is a bit Superman-ish - this is what would really happen if you were ridiculously more powerful than humans.)
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So what student centred model/s would be practical which educates those non-standard model kids but doesn't require too much parental energy or expense? And still complies with the Education Act.
My son's in the Manawatu Project Pilot, which essentially supplies learning material from Correspondence School, but students are enrolled at a local school and can partake in classroom learning, when and if that works for the student, can join in sport, cultural activities etc. Kieran's enrolled at QEC, and they run a supervised morning session for the Project kids, who can attend if they wish. They don't have to wear uniforms, cut their hair, or any other conformist stuff.
Kieran does some work from booklets, some on computer, uses powerpoint, communicates with his learning advisers by msn & email (he won't talk on the phone). They are not pressured to do full load of subjects either. He's doing maths, English, computing and may pick up art a bit later. Because they don't have to fit into school timetables, he can work when it suits him and pick and choose what units within the subject areas he wants to do - and is advised in his choices by his Learning Advisers.
It took a lot of my energy initially to get him going and organising his work, I found working alongside him (I'm doing uni papers) was useful. He's a lot more self-motivated now, especially as its dawned on him that being out of school hasn't left him behind intellectually.
Apparently, the Project was so successful last year in linking up the lost and alienated students that it has been expanded.
It's not the whole, or even an ideal answer, but it's a jolly good start. I was once told that you can't get a student back into school after a year away from it - wrong. The wrap-around support from the school and TCS made a huge difference - it's very student-centred and dwells on the positives not the negatives.
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I think that DC barring Moore and Gibbons from using old, already existing characters turned out in the end to be an advantage. Captain Atom, I gather (I've never been a heavy comics reader), was just another superhero, but Doctor Manhattan really gave M & G an opportunity to examine people's reactions to a 'real' demigod - and that being's own development.
The perennial nerd question is "who would win in a fight between X and Y?" In this case, Superman would win by default because Doctor Manhattan wouldn't bother to turn up.
Never thought of Ozymandias that way, but yeah, definitely...
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The perennial nerd question is "who would win in a fight between X and Y?"
Nuh-uh. The perennial nerd question is "are you a real girl?"
Or possibly "have you got sheep for wheat?".
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Further on the reggio-style education. i read they are physically built around piazzas, so there is a communal area in the centre of the learning environment. It reminded me that when I did my art education in the late 80s, we also had a purpose-built building, designed by John Scott, which was a series of large connecting rooms with a kitchen and dining area at the centre. We had a lot of communal meals and visiting artists to stay, marae style, a lot of learning exchange was done informally. And plenty of outside verandahs, and working space for sculpture etc. Our mentor was Para Matchitt, who had been an education adviser for art in schools, along with several other senior contemporary Maori artists. Para didn't believe in academic education for art - no exams, theory or essays for us - he believed you learnt by osmosis, by working alongside practising artists, absorbing their ways of working, using all your senses make artworks. We met and worked alongside many of our best artists - it was a very hands-on, communal experience.
I found it hard to come to terms with the no-theory thing, but I believe he was right. Now I'm at proper university, I find it very uncreative.
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Or possibly "have you got sheep for wheat?".
I totally LOLed.
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Dave Gibbons' artwork was an evocation of the artwork of 'silver age' comics, as the characters themselves were based on characters of that time. Rorschach is the Question, Nite Owl is the Blue Beetle (not Batman as most people think), Doctor Manhattan is Captain Atom and so forth.
Thanks Kracklite. While I always found Rorschach one of the more interesting characters, I wasn't aware of the Question/Steve Ditko connection until I came across it in a Moore interview some years after reading Watchmen. There's certainly a touch of Ditko's bizarre Ayn Randian Mr. A about Rorschach. He's a great portrayal of someone stuck in a sort of perpetual libertarian ideological adolescence.
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The perennial nerd question is "are you a real girl?"
Too true. It's amazing how often I got asked that on the VUW BBS, having deliberately chosen a username that did not signal gender (both to minimise the overt male dominance of that environment, and also because I don't consider it so relevant to my identity). My usual answer, on principle, was simply "What's it to you?".
I'm not quite enough of a nerd to get the reference for the second question though, is that from an RPG?
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Indeed. Also the slightly more disturbing Got Wood for Sheep?.
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I cna haz sheepburger?
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the VUW BBS...
Oh, you're that linger. scfbbs was a while ago, wasn't it... I used to get asked if I was a real girl on the BBS all the time. Mainly by people who'd read the part of my profile that said my name was Susan, but hadn't read the immediately preceding paragraph which pointed out that people lied on the internet all the time and that none of the following statements about me were true.
Of course, I also used to get asked whether I was male or female when I was in China in the mid 90s. This was in midwinter when everyone wore big padded jackets so the only secondary sexual characteristics people could see were my long hair, earrings, and beard. This caused a signal error in some parts of rural China. It's amusing the first couple of times, then you get used to it. One way to meet people.
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The beard wasn't a big hint?
Or was it a really strange part of China?
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Nuh-uh. The perennial nerd question is "are you a real girl?"
Well, I never hear that one.
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I always ask myself if the face in the gravatar is yours or Brian Dennehy's,
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It is Brian Dennehy as Stourley Kracklite in Peter Greenaway's film, The Belly Of an Architect . For reasons I've alluded too (legal issues with former employer, confidentiality, blah blah, but I still want to say what utter bastards they are and if there's such a thing as karma, they'll come back as tapeworms, you might think that but I couldn't possibly comment etc etc), I prefer to use a pseudonym. People who know me in real life have said that they know who I am online, so I suppose that's OK...
Kracklite's just a character I empathise with, warts and all. Fortunately, these days I'm slimmer.
In actual fact I look a lot like Dmitri Shostakovich with longer hair.
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Ah, see, I had forgotten Dennehy's character name in that film. Darn my feeble brain.
One day somebody is going to give Peter Greenaway and Terry Gilliam and Michael Cimino a blank cheque to make a film together. That ought to finish bankrupting the western emisphere so we can get on with being bought out by the Chinese and shelve this nonsense about English as the global language.
In actual fact I look a lot like Dmitri Shostakovich with longer hair.
Excellent.
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Now that is something I'd like to see, even - perhaps even more so - after Tideland (OK, call me mad).
Excellent.
If I disappear and someone called DSCH turns up, you'll know who it is...
You know, the third movement of the Eighth Symphony at 6 AM is great revenge on noisy neighbours.
I seem to be prone to comparison with fictitious characters. I've had students compare me to Hannibal Lecter, Tony Soprano and the Joker (Heath Ledger's interpretation) and in each case they meant it as praise. Make of that what you will.
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5 AM!
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the VUW BBS
Blimey!
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Of course, I also used to get asked whether I was male or female when I was in China in the mid 90s.
Still fucking with people's heads after all these years, Jack? Good onya.
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Everyone has to have a hobby, man. :) These days, not so much, mind.
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Jolisa and Kerry and others - thanks for the comments on educational alternatives. I'm interested in the Manawatu project as I know the Group Special Ed people at the Ministry of Ed up there have been concerned for a long time about those kids for whom normal school doesn't work. The trick is not to separate them too much (and therefore stigmatise them or remove them from their so-called normal age peers) while providing an educational environment that meets their particular needs.
The schools providing alternative type education in the NZ system are either private like the Montessori secondary school in Wellington that has recently closed due to lack of money, or have to be under the governance of the board of a regular state school. So the success of the school can depend on how keen the adoptive school board is to nurture them. (The school for young mothers and the activity centre in Wellington are both governed by local schools on a roster system - which means their fortunes fluctuate).
Re Charter schools in the US. I'm not sure if this is the right model for us. My understanding is that the schools can choose their students (which immediately excludes some), and their teachers are non-unionised (and sometimes not even registered), so open to exploitation.
Those new schools that are being built currently in NZ could do a lot for inclusion just through architecture and design - eg lots of quiet spaces, low sensory areas, small group and outdoor learning environments. But I wonder if they will?
But I've heard that the education select committee at parliament is keen to look at this whole issue of education for the variety of learning needs so hopefully we will all get a chance to have some input.
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You wouldn't drop me a line, Hilary, would you?
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