Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers

By William Deresiewicz

It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him.

Read the full article here. It’s about the US, but I couldn’t help but see similarities to Singapore as well.

The head chef at my favorite local diner was once a mobster.  The first time I ate there he showed me the scars on his chest, arms, and back. Most of them were from his final night as a member of the mafia – a night that ended in a horrific battle with another mob group.  He was stabbed multiple times and then beaten mercilessly with a steel pipe.  Both of his lungs were punctured and a knife was lodged less than a centimeter from his heart.

Continue reading.

[ source: Marc and Angel Hack Life ]

New Nicaraguan sign language shows how language affects thought

It’s clear evidence that our spatial reasoning skills depend, to an extent, on consistent spatial language. If we lack the right words, our mental abilities are limited in a way that extra life experience can’t fully compensate for. Even 30 years of navigating through the world won’t do the trick. And they may never catch up, even though the language they invented has advanced – after all, some studies with American Sign Language suggest that people who learn spatial terms later on in life never master them.

[ source ]

(via BoingBoing)

To say Twitter is colloquial is putting it lightly. “Brother,” for example, occurs in Twitter data during the week of May 10-17, 2010 with an average frequency of once every 7,338 words, not too distant from its frequency in its closest cousin, the Corpus of Contemporary American English (once every 9,405 words). The difference for “bro,” however, is much more dramatic: in the Twitter data during that same period, it occurs once every 5,833 words (more frequently, in fact, than “brother”), while in the COCA it occurs once every 757,575 words – two orders of magnitude less frequently.

[ link ]

The next concert is two weeks away. I feel so unprepared, so under-rehearsed. I would like another month of rehearsals. But Jenn says this is the way she wants it. So we will be alert on stage. So we will be active, and engaged, and actively engaged when we sing the music, and not just go through motions our bodies have remembered. So our singing will be alive. And I believe her. And I agree, on an intellectual level. But I have grown up trained to believe that correctness is to be achieved, at all costs. The notion that technical accuracy is the ultimate and absolute goal has been ingrained, and it makes me uncomfortable to go against this teaching, even though I know, think and believe what we’re doing is right, and it is what we want to do. And I think that all of us struggle with this to some extent, and it heartens me to know that I am not alone.

So, our next concert. What are we singing? A Middle English carol, a Gregorian chant, an almost pop (but not really) composition by this rather cute and talented Norwegian composer (who has his own Myspace page and YouTube channel), and, of course, our eponymous piece which I don’t really know how to describe other than say it’s so fun and I want to sing it again and again and again (but Jenn won’t let us for reasons stated above. Boo). And if you had a better grasp of music history than I (which is not too difficult), you can probably identify why the other pieces we’re doing are interesting too.

So, here are the details of the concert:

Unicornis Captivatur
Esplanade Recital Studio, $25
27 March 2010,  8pm (approx. 80 mins, no intermission)

I know this blog doesn’t get much readership, and most of you who read it aren’t in Singapore. But if you happen to know someone who might be interested in what we’re doing, who’s going to be in Singapore on 27 March and looking for something to do on a Saturday evening, let them know about this. They can call me for tickets, or email me, or the choir at tickets@syc.org.sg.

Come give us a try. It’ll be fun, I promise.

Promises to keep: To respect the time set aside for music. To call on my friends. To eat well and exercise regularly. To sleep well.

I hope that somewhere out there, you’re doing better too.

You put on your classroom smile
and ask them how they’re doing
and after a while
they go back after you’ve wished them all the best

Then you realise you’re still smiling
fifteen minutes later at your desk
and that it wasn’t
a classroom smile back then after all

. . .

I like the grace and elegance of poetry carefully crafted and penned, but there’s a special place in my heart for poetry with a message to be read strongly aloud. Thanks to Yi-Sheng for introducing me to poetry slams. Here’s one that I found today that I’m putting up.

…

[Just an Edit to say that the poetry mentioned in the title was in no way a reference to the post itself, but the video, which inspired the format of what came before it.]

My definition of art contains three elements:

1. Art is made by a human being.
2. Art is created to have an impact, to change someone else.
3. Art is a gift. You can sell the souvenir, the canvas, the recording… but the idea itself is free, and the generosity is a critical part of making art.

By my definition, most art has nothing to do with oil paint or marble. Art is what we’re doing when we do our best work.

*     *     *

I am not a marathon runner. I am a sprinter. And so I am a poor fit for schedules which demand strict pacing across long periods of time like a year, schedules like the one my current job demands.

*     *     *

Some gems from my classroom:

Me: Takai means expensive. You can use this to help you remember. Takashimaya is takai.
Student: But not really what.

Student: Konnichiwa. Watashi wa (name withheld) desu. Kyuujuu-sai desu.
(Hello. My name is ___. I am 90 years old.)

It seems that students remember new words better when they are introduced with a cute picture. The cuter the picture, the faster the acquisition of that vocabulary.

校風というもののせいだろうか。

先輩に聞くと、この学校の生徒は殆ど暗いらしい。
今日は初めての授業なのに、目が死んでいる。

昨日のクラスとは大違いだ。
昨日の学生が通う学校は、イメージと噂によると、
生徒はどうも暗くて反応がなくて、
その学校のクラスを苦手とする先生も多いらしい。

私の経験では、そうでもなかったのだが。

先輩は、それはきっと校風がまだ移っていないからだ、と言っている。

あのクラスの生徒たちがこれから暗くなったり
死んだ目をするようになるのが、悲しい。

ずっと、子供心のままで勉学に励めばいいのに。

ここだけは、キミたちが楽しく明るく元気よく勉強できる場所だよ。
初心、忘れるべからず、だ。

キミたちがずっとそのように、
火曜日のクラスのみんなもこれから心を開いていくように、
祈っています。

そして、それができる教室を作れますように、
頑張っていきます。