Andy scrobe:
>
>But the money relation is an incredibly "impersonal" one. We doubtless
>don't regret the demise of the form of domestic servitude known as
>marriage, but every other sort of solidarity is also under threat.
i personally favor big statements like this - and my doctoral advisors
jump all over my case when i say such things -
> And the
>further one's work gets away from meeting real human needs, the more money
>you earn. Must be hard to motivate kids for a world like this one, eh? How
>do you do it?
>
a serious question - a serious answer ...... perhaps it helps me that i
don't believe in motivation - i think that the term is an explanatory
principle used to label activities that please us, and we wish to take
credit for them - so we can announce that we motivated them - as well,
it is a term that can be used to attack people - again, if activities
displease us, we can assert that the motivation was bad, or that someone
else didn't properly motivate the agent into proper behavior.
that said - a world like this is the only one we got to work with -
and so one of my most primary intentions as a classroom teacher is
attempting to figure out how the child wants to work with this world, and
if the child likes the outcomes of that work. so, simple and stupidly
vague - and recognizing this, i agree that yes we're all fallible and
make multiple mistakes and blunders and even the best sort of
behavior/activity causes pain somewhere somehow and finally how does one
work out personal relationships that are successful - all these words
that i've used which are not quantifiable - hardly defensible in a
rational discussion it seems, because rational eschews emotions yet
emotions are our guide our light our sensibility in life -
sorry - i could rattle on and on.
phillip
* * * * * * * *
* *
The English noun "identity" comes, ultimately, from the
Latin adverb "identidem", which means "repeatedly."
The Latin has exactly the same rhythm as the English,
buh-BUM-buh-BUM - a simple iamb, repeated; and
"identidem" is, in fact, nothing more than a
reduplication of the word "idem", "the same":
"idem(et)idem". "Same(and) same". The same,
repeated. It is a word that does exactly what
it means.
from "The Elusive Embrace" by Daniel
Mendelsohn.
phillip white
third grade teacher
doctoral student http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~hacms_lab/index.htm
scrambling a dissertation
denver, colorado
phillip_white@ceo.cudenver.edu
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