Well, blogging has not been at the top of my agenda this week, clearly. I have been very unusually tightly focused on the goings on of my digestive system, having just endured a short bitter bout of flu.
Nothing says enjoy your good health like a day trip to extreme Nausea-land (South of Smal-land). And hey, while you're there, a side trip to scenic Clogged Main Sewer Line Drive is a lot of fun! I have a theory that if I wait till I just can't take it one more second, and then start thinking that I can't even remember what it felt like to be well, as dramatically as possible, that I'll get well faster. The key is to wait to have the thought until you just can't stand it any more. All the concentrating on not having the thought is very much like not thinking about Zebras when someone tells you not to, but it keeps me occupied when I am incapable of even knitting. (To those of you who know me, that's saying something.) Of course, I've thankfully never been seriously ill, so I really know not of what I speak. I am normally possessed of the complete inability to hurl a bad oyster even if I want to.
I returned to work on Tuesday, after the jury duty lapse. Tuesdays I shepherd about 150 children through various forms of electronic interaction with the world. Probably the darling little germ vectors had nothing to do with my ensuing debilitation. I've been told by the old timers that the first year working with kids is really killer on your immune system. Parenting pre-schoolers is apparently not vaccination enough.
As long as I have brought up my job (computer lab docent at an elementary school), I'd like to make a request: Would you people with elementary school age children allow them to make their own time-consuming and cringe-worthy mistakes occasionally? Honestly, this is a group of kids with learned helplessness like I cannot believe. I literally spent the first three weeks of lab time explaining to them that mistakes are the best way to learn, that I could fix anything they could possibly break. Because I had first graders who were unwilling to make a single mark on a digital paper in KidPix for fear of making a mistake. Just for fun, no purpose, just have at it and enjoy yourself.
They froze like deer in headlights. That is so sad. I had to take the eraser tool away. Then, somehow, it wasn't their fault if it was "wrong". Sigh. Like kid art is ever wrong.
We are planning on these people growing into self-determining adults, right?
Nothing says enjoy your good health like a day trip to extreme Nausea-land (South of Smal-land). And hey, while you're there, a side trip to scenic Clogged Main Sewer Line Drive is a lot of fun! I have a theory that if I wait till I just can't take it one more second, and then start thinking that I can't even remember what it felt like to be well, as dramatically as possible, that I'll get well faster. The key is to wait to have the thought until you just can't stand it any more. All the concentrating on not having the thought is very much like not thinking about Zebras when someone tells you not to, but it keeps me occupied when I am incapable of even knitting. (To those of you who know me, that's saying something.) Of course, I've thankfully never been seriously ill, so I really know not of what I speak. I am normally possessed of the complete inability to hurl a bad oyster even if I want to.
I returned to work on Tuesday, after the jury duty lapse. Tuesdays I shepherd about 150 children through various forms of electronic interaction with the world. Probably the darling little germ vectors had nothing to do with my ensuing debilitation. I've been told by the old timers that the first year working with kids is really killer on your immune system. Parenting pre-schoolers is apparently not vaccination enough.
As long as I have brought up my job (computer lab docent at an elementary school), I'd like to make a request: Would you people with elementary school age children allow them to make their own time-consuming and cringe-worthy mistakes occasionally? Honestly, this is a group of kids with learned helplessness like I cannot believe. I literally spent the first three weeks of lab time explaining to them that mistakes are the best way to learn, that I could fix anything they could possibly break. Because I had first graders who were unwilling to make a single mark on a digital paper in KidPix for fear of making a mistake. Just for fun, no purpose, just have at it and enjoy yourself.
They froze like deer in headlights. That is so sad. I had to take the eraser tool away. Then, somehow, it wasn't their fault if it was "wrong". Sigh. Like kid art is ever wrong.
We are planning on these people growing into self-determining adults, right?
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