@markwardo - Tumblr Blog

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[Dowager Empress Tz'u-hsi] died at about three o'clock. Already draped in her shroud, she dictated her farewell to the Empire which now after the near half century of her regency was in the throes of dissolution. Looking back, she said, she realized that history consists of nothing but misfortune and the troubles that afflict us, so that in all our days on earth we never know one single moment that is genuinely free of fear.

The denial of time, so the tract on Orbius Tertius tells us, is one of the key tenets of the philosophical schools of Tlön. According to this principle, the future exists only in the shape of our present apprehensions and hopes, and the past merely as memory. In a different view, the world and everything now living in it was created only moments ago, together with its complete but illusory pre-history. A third school of thought variously describes our earth as a cul-de-sac in the great city of God, a dark cave crowded with incomprehensible images, or a hazy aura surrounding a better sun. The advocates of a fourth philosophy maintain that time has run its course and that this life is no more than the fading reflection of an event beyond recall. We simply do not know how many of its possible mutations the world may already have gone through, or how much time, always assuming that it exists, remains. All that is certain is that night lasts far longer than day, if one compares an individual life, life as a whole, or time itself with the system which, in each case, is above it.

W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn, trans. Michael Hulse (the second paragraph refers to Jorge Luis Borges's short story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius")

beastsposting

yes... yes! the condor is out!

condor 1215 (tag yellow 15) being released back into pinnacles national from (as far as i can tell) a checkup. she is 3 years old and was wild born to 589 & 569 ("phoebe the forager"). [1]

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Just Walking Around

by John Ashbery

What names do I have for you? Certainly there is no name for you In the sense that the stars have names That somehow fit them. Just walking around,

An object of curiosity to some, But you are too preoccupied By the secret smudge in the back of your soul To say much, and wander around,

Smiling to yourself and others. It gets kind of lonely But at the same time off-putting, Counterproductive, as you realize once again

That the longest way is the most efficient way, The one that looped among islands, and You always seemed to be traveling in a circle. And now that the end is near

The segments of the trip swing open like an orange. There is light in there, and mystery and food. Come see it. Come not for me but it. But if I am still there, grant that we may see each other.

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night-the-starfish

Hunter and prey, markers on paper.

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marianne faithfull 1965

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Mutuals line up I'm giving you all one of these bad boys

epiphainie

why did you bring that dreadful guy 😭😭

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The linked article

lastweekseyeliner

so ive worked in childcare for a bit now. during the pandemic, the place i worked started a day program for kids whose parents needed to return to work. turns out the school district uses memorization and cueing, and when combined with online learning that read all the instructions to them, overwhelmingly the kids aged 5-9 just... couldnt read.

i brought in a bunch of my books from childhood, and we started having one-on-one reading lessons with the littles. then i went out and bought about fifty more books secondhand. first step was covering the pictures so the kids couldnt guess what the words said and had to actually TRY reading them first. second step was making a list of new words for each kid so we could learn about those words, what they meant, and if the kids were old enough, some of the etymology behind them (because if you can recognize latin root words, it's easier to make connections for pronunciation later on eg. unicorn -> universe).

the kids HATED this. reading was previously the easiest class and now it was really, really hard. but reading class had also previously been the most boring class; their books were ten pictures with a single sentence on the opposite page. we got through it by taking turns reading books the kids picked out from my collection- they would read one sentence or paragraph, then i would read the whole page complete with funny voices, then it would be their turn again, etc. it turns out that if kids are motivated to hear the rest of a good story or a lot of information about a topic they love, they're more willing to struggle.

the kids improved so rapidly that i honestly almost cried a few times from how proud i was. one little girl (kindergarten aged) went from being unable to sound out the whole alphabet to reading goodnight moon by herself in two months :'>

all this, though, was NOT my job. my job was to keep the kids on task during their online schooling and prevent them from killing each other or starving. i am not a teacher. the school system was failing these kids to the degree that outside individual reading lessons were necessary, and school systems across the US are still doing this!

if you are a parent or teacher or childcare worker, PLEASE check to see what your kid is being taught. ask to see examples of lesson materials. raise concerns about the importance of phonics over any other reading strategy. join the pta, go to school board meetings, send emails- just make sure your kid is actually learning to read.

pancake-surprise

i would like to add that you don't need to have a child to ask these questions of your local school district. regardless of your status as a parent, it is all our responsibility to care about how children in our communities are being educated. not just because it objectively good to care about and engage with your community, but also because the children of today are the adults of tomorrow.

if this backwards way of teaching reading keeps up, then in the future it is going to create more issues, not only those kids but all of us. if you are in the US, i would encourage any adult to look into their local public school district. some school districts have curricula that can be accessed through their website. if what you find concerns you, then it's time to head to a school board meeting and bring it up.

it might feel weird or uncomfortable, but i assure you, you are as a much of a member of the community as anyone else. it is not weird to care about the community and the school district.

this is a problem that is already affecting all of us and it's only going to grow with time. but there are things we can all do regardless of our status as a parent, childcare worker, or teacher.

(p.s. i think sometimes these things are assumed to be the fault of a teacher, but it is almost always a school board issue. teacher's don't typically get to decide on the curriculum)

i don't know a ton about the right terminology for what we should be looking for within those curricula, but phonics is solid. beyond that, it would great if an any educators out there would weigh in with the correct term? method? of the looking and guessing that is pervasive in education at the moment, that would be fantastic. what are some reading curriculum red flags or green flags?