Sunday, August 28, 2005
NOT JUST LION AROUND ( WARNING ! NON-SERIOUS TOPIC! )
A bit of personal trivia.
Blogging was light today due to a special family outing to take The Firstborn of Zenpundit to see " The Lion King " - which was absolutely amazing. The costumes and set design in particula exhibited aesthetic brilliance. The Firstborn, like the rest of the children in the theater sat entranced at the performance.
Well, almost. Naturally, seated directly behind us was what I can only describe as a multigenerational, matriarchy in motion of Suburban hillbillies who seemed unaware that the performance was not taking place in their living room. Either that or being unfamiliar with the theater they just went went with the standard etiquette of the Friday Night Open-League Bowling tournament.
I could take the non-stop,whiny, running commentary of the anemic five year old, her mother's automatic and duly ignored attempts at idle-threat " discipline", the occasional " I'm bored" announcement from the petulant 14 year old boy and the miscellaneous antics of the rest of the brood showing evidence of being sired by more than one father. That's nothing you can't see at any given mall. Or at least at a convenient passing carnival.
No, what grated on my nerves was the behavior of the grandmother. For a woman of some advanced years, she could give out the most violent guffaw - and did so regularly with each and every punchline. And then she repeated the punchline out loud to the brood and surrounding audience who had just heard it 3.5 seconds earlier- just in case the joke had escaped anyone - and guffawed again. Louder. She was like Max Cady in a fanny pack.
We shhhed. We asked for quiet. We glared. I finally made a rude remark of my own( it began with " Ignorant" and was well-seconded) but the only sustained peace we received was after the intermission when continued talking would have interfered with their rapidly consuming a hay bailer of popcorn and several pounds of candy apiece . I was kind of amazed at how a group so socially inept could have had the economic means to purchase about $600-700 of tickets and probably close to that much in junk food. Oh, the topper was the five year old reaching into Mrs. Zenpundit's hair - which Mrs. Z. wisely did not tell me about until we were in the car and on the expressway.
The Firstborn however saw none of this nonsense. She was in the world of The Lion King and was completely oblivious and raved afterward about how wonderful everything was.
That made the day :o) ¶ 9:00 PM
A bit of personal trivia.
Blogging was light today due to a special family outing to take The Firstborn of Zenpundit to see " The Lion King " - which was absolutely amazing. The costumes and set design in particula exhibited aesthetic brilliance. The Firstborn, like the rest of the children in the theater sat entranced at the performance.
Well, almost. Naturally, seated directly behind us was what I can only describe as a multigenerational, matriarchy in motion of Suburban hillbillies who seemed unaware that the performance was not taking place in their living room. Either that or being unfamiliar with the theater they just went went with the standard etiquette of the Friday Night Open-League Bowling tournament.
I could take the non-stop,whiny, running commentary of the anemic five year old, her mother's automatic and duly ignored attempts at idle-threat " discipline", the occasional " I'm bored" announcement from the petulant 14 year old boy and the miscellaneous antics of the rest of the brood showing evidence of being sired by more than one father. That's nothing you can't see at any given mall. Or at least at a convenient passing carnival.
No, what grated on my nerves was the behavior of the grandmother. For a woman of some advanced years, she could give out the most violent guffaw - and did so regularly with each and every punchline. And then she repeated the punchline out loud to the brood and surrounding audience who had just heard it 3.5 seconds earlier- just in case the joke had escaped anyone - and guffawed again. Louder. She was like Max Cady in a fanny pack.
We shhhed. We asked for quiet. We glared. I finally made a rude remark of my own( it began with " Ignorant" and was well-seconded) but the only sustained peace we received was after the intermission when continued talking would have interfered with their rapidly consuming a hay bailer of popcorn and several pounds of candy apiece . I was kind of amazed at how a group so socially inept could have had the economic means to purchase about $600-700 of tickets and probably close to that much in junk food. Oh, the topper was the five year old reaching into Mrs. Zenpundit's hair - which Mrs. Z. wisely did not tell me about until we were in the car and on the expressway.
The Firstborn however saw none of this nonsense. She was in the world of The Lion King and was completely oblivious and raved afterward about how wonderful everything was.
That made the day :o) ¶ 9:00 PM
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An unrelated tangent:
In TA orientation, one of the presenters went on and on about the difference in generational learning styles. Used to such rants since a young age, I listened politely with no expectation that bromides like "Generation Y are consensus-builders" would actually appear.
Well, I was wrong. The difference in style between the incoming class and my old classmates is astounding. These new students are extremely pleasant and team-oriented. Today, on the second recitation for a unit, I gave the assignment and walked out (supposedly for a "trust excersize" -- at least partially due to exhaustion from walking a long ways ;) ).
Anyway, I come back ten minutes later, and see that (a) roll has been taken, (b) placed on my desk, (c) the article has bene read out loud, (d) placed back on my desk, and (e) a lively group discussion over the material was taking place.
I cannot imagine this behavior from my classes, even the advanced ones. In those clases with able and motivated students, you would have had a class discussion about something worthwile and interesting, but not assigned reading.
What I guess I'm getting at, in my meandering method of contributing something to the blogosphere, is that this combined with your comments makes me think about generational rule-sets. The new generation seems to have a tighter horizontal rule set while simultaneously being horizontally empowerd by technology.
It's an amazingly hopeful development, and one I wish I understood.
-Dan tdaxp
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In TA orientation, one of the presenters went on and on about the difference in generational learning styles. Used to such rants since a young age, I listened politely with no expectation that bromides like "Generation Y are consensus-builders" would actually appear.
Well, I was wrong. The difference in style between the incoming class and my old classmates is astounding. These new students are extremely pleasant and team-oriented. Today, on the second recitation for a unit, I gave the assignment and walked out (supposedly for a "trust excersize" -- at least partially due to exhaustion from walking a long ways ;) ).
Anyway, I come back ten minutes later, and see that (a) roll has been taken, (b) placed on my desk, (c) the article has bene read out loud, (d) placed back on my desk, and (e) a lively group discussion over the material was taking place.
I cannot imagine this behavior from my classes, even the advanced ones. In those clases with able and motivated students, you would have had a class discussion about something worthwile and interesting, but not assigned reading.
What I guess I'm getting at, in my meandering method of contributing something to the blogosphere, is that this combined with your comments makes me think about generational rule-sets. The new generation seems to have a tighter horizontal rule set while simultaneously being horizontally empowerd by technology.
It's an amazingly hopeful development, and one I wish I understood.
-Dan tdaxp
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