The Importance of Words.

One of the things I would like to impress upon my students is the importance of words. Words are important, right? Communication is nearly impossible without words.

One of the things I always get on my kids about are the misuse of two words: Gay and Retarded. I hate these words when used in the context of "This play is gay." Or "This is retarded, why do I have to read?" Not only is it impossibly annoying when kids ask questions like "Why do I have to read?" But they don't seem to realize what they mean when they say these two words in this context. I try to explain it in terms they might understand.

"When someone does something silly or stupid, how would you guys feel if I said 'Man, that was really Mexican.'" And of course this sets off the whole class, 97% of whom are hispanic. "Well you do the same thing to those people who are homosexual or have mental handicaps." It doesn't change anything. They still say the words and no matter how many times I sit for lunch detention it doesn't seem to stop.

The kids ask me why they can't swear. "They're just words Mr. Snyder." They are right. They are just words. But words have power. Who ever said "Sticks and stones..." was full of it. Words have meaning. Granted, we give them their meaning but isn't that the purpose of words?

Language has been around for many millennium. Created for the soul purpose of organized communication.

Hominid 1: Grunt grunt grunt.
(Hominid 1 points at a tree and makes an eating motion)
Hominid 2: Tree!
Hominid 1: Tree?
Hominid 2: Tree!
Hominid 1: Tree!
(The hominids dance together in celebration)

As humans language can be used in many different ways. We tell stories of the past, our hopes for the future, we can use language to make up either, we can explain, so on and so forth. My anthro professor in college once told me that the English language has a finite number of words, but almost every sentence spoken in the world is a distinct creation unique to the speaker. Think about that! These characters on this webpage placed in this configuration of words and sentence that follow the rules of grammar are a completely unique creation. No one in the history of the world has ever written this exact entry, or spoken these words. That is astounding to me.

---Edit: The stuff above was written on April 13th. The stuff below was written on the day of the posting.

So the whole reason for this entry was...you guessed it...A TED video.



So I watch Lakshmi's talk about words, letter writing, and legacy. First, I thought of my father's journals. Shortly before my father's death, I found a journal that he had written in on a regular basis from February 24, 1987 until December 2, 1987 (my birthday was the topic of that particular entry). It is important to note that I moved to San Marcos in late August of '06 and the last time I heard my dad attempt to speak was September 26. So by the time I had found this journal my dad's major form of communication was written word. The day after my father died we found three other spiral notebooks, all labeled as volumes and with titles.

Volume I - Alias (November 1979 - December 1980)
Volume II - Flora Kydd (December 1980 - February 1982)
Volume III - External Combustion (Febrary 1983 - Febrary 1987)
Volume IV - Dealing With Stress (February 1987 - January 14, 2007)

The titles I'm assuming were band names or album names of his own creation. You can't imagine how enlightening it was to read about my dad's life after it was over. Providence had given me something of my father's legacy. My dad wasn't really a prolific journalist and some of his entries are marred with "I feel bad for whomever finds this and reads this long after I'm gone..." Which mad me laugh because my own journals say the same thing. But even now as I pull them out just for the purposes of writing this, I am keenly aware of the fact that my fathers hands touched these paper books. That the blood coursing through his veins and the muscles in his arm and hands guided a pen and the evidence of those moments are still here.

Legacies are left in words. I had the good fortune to know someone who thought it imperative that I see the movie Big Fish, which I hadn't previously seen. I am immensely thankful that I had not gone to see the movie when it initially came out in 2003. I was able to wholly enjoy the movie so much more after having dealt with my fathers own death. The whole movie is about a legacy left in oral histories. My father's legacy is left in journals and the stories those of us who knew him tell.

No matter who you are, when you die you are at the behest of the words written or spoken about you. Hopefully you don't leave your legacy to those who are left after you die. Start making your legacy now. You don't have to keep a journal or write anything. Just live. Be good to those around you. And hope that those that didn't like you die off before you do, just kidding.

I often wonder what kind of legacy I will leave.

Hmmmmm...

Today has been an interesting day.

In all honesty, today probably hasn't been any more interesting than any other day, it is just that I have pulled into my head and marinated in my thoughts.

I am a random net user. I start with a word, let's say "velcro." Then I go where every good web adventure begins, Google.

My Google Search

Of course the Wikipedia page is the first entry in my search queue.

As I read through the history, invention, and application on Velcro, I undoubted get to the bottom of the Wiki page and find the suggested links.

"Biomimicry" What the heck is that? And so on and so forth.

This leads me on an Alice and Wonderland type journey and ends somewhere, probably bed time, with no real resolution or conclusion.

Let me back up a little bit...

I suppose today's jump into my head started last night. I was reading through my friends blog and came across a blog that she reads. Just reading the entries there made me think about what it is that teachers do and what that means. I ultimately came to no conclusions but it pulled me behind my eyes.

So today three out of six of my classes were held in a computer lab. In between monitoring my students, taking roll, and other responsibilities, I started to look for stuff. During class I found nothing of note, but at lunch I found something. I found this:



If you don't have the twenty minutes to watch this video, then no big deal. But listening to this talk made me, the already introspecting "what does it all mean" person, think about my own life. Do I move to fast? Am I moving to fast? Could I use a slow down? How does this apply to my teaching? Has this year been frustrating because I am rushing through material (I should note that this year has only been mildly frustrating compared to last year)? Where else could my life use a slow down? Slowing down is relaxing. Whether I really need it or not, I am going to slow down and watch the world as it slowly passes by. Right now as I write this I am watching the orange stripe of sunlight be consumed by the blue of night. I gotta say I like it. Although I don't know that this multi tasking counts as a slow down but I digress.

I want to write more but I will save it for tomorrow.

The Importance of Words - Tomorrow.

Continued distraction

Instead of working on what I'm supposed to be working on, I decided to do some more laundry and see what is going on on my friends blogs. I am not surprised but kinda sad to say that no one from college is still posting in their usual college-era blogs. How am I supposed to keep track of you if you don't blog?!?

I'm not going to mention that this is two in a row...

So I looked up the thesis outline I am supposed to follow and I feel a little better about what I need to do. What the hell is an abstract? Why would you put a summary in the front of your paper? Doesn't that short change the whole purpose? The reader could just as easily read the abstract and my references and get the same idea. Anyone out there write a thesis paper ever? Am I supposed to break it up into chapters? Grrr... Now I am a little frustrated again.

I keep doing things so I don't actually have to focus on what I should focus on. For instance, right now I want to go running. Which is a good thing except that I just want to go running to get thesis out of my head. I'm not going running. I'm going to write three pages today.

Gotta have goals.

Constant Distraction

I have to keep myself in a position of constant distraction, which is awesome because no one can distract me better than myself. So here I am writing here when I should be writing my thesis. The problem is that I don't know how to write a thesis. Well, I know how to write a thesis, I mean I get the mechanics of it and what its supposed to look like in the end. I just don't know a good way to manage my research. You see, the more I read about thesis writing I've found I've done it all backwards. I have piles and piles of valid, wonderful, research but nothing for that research to comment on yet. So now I need to just write as much as I possibly can about "Online Collaborative Professional Development for Teachers" and hope that something clicks. But, I sit writing here.

That reminds me...

I wish I had some writing habits. As witnessed here I am no good at keeping a schedule for writing. I do a fair amount of writing everyday but not on one thing, more like on everything, paper, hall passes, notes, emails, walls, occaisonally here, in my private diary.

Brandon sits at his desk writing furiously in a notebook

BRANDON (VO): Dear diary, a lot has happened since I last wrote in you. I hope no one finds you and reads you and then all of my secrets would get out. Anyway, Jaime told Mikey...

What does it take to establish GOOD writing habits? I have always fancied myself a writer but to be honest I think I just liked the image that other writers had and wanted some of that. I enjoy writing though, it never winds up a priority.

I read a book that says that there is almost no such thing as genius. Behind every piano or violin virtuoso is 20,000 or so hours of practice. Now, knowing that how do I get myself to sit down and write for 20,000 hours? Does that even translate to writing?

What the crap?

I, really, like, commas...

Thesising...

Musical Opening

Tomorrow my musical opens. This makes me nervous, excited, and truly proud. My kids are rocking this musical which is fitting since it is a rock musical, at least by name.

This year followed the same pattern as last year. I freaked out two weeks before the show. Now I think they're ready. They're ready. Kids always have a way of surprising you. Always.

Here we go!