Angel Snakes

Follow Your Muse

This from "Cloth, Paper, Scissors"

Click through and read. I could not have said it better myself.

Wings Up!!!

Madilla

"Linchpin" or a Lynching?

The Angel Snakes and Lizards are discussing Seth Godin's latest book "Linchin."

At Location 702, he writes, "The sign in front of your local public school could say: '. . . We train the factory workers of tomorrow. Our graduates are very good at following instructions, and we teach the power of consumption as an aid for social approval.' It's almost impossible to imagine a school with a sign that said: 'We teach people to take initiative and become remarkable artists, to question the status quo, and to interact with transparency. And our graduates understand that consumption is not the answer to social problems.'"

The Lizards see nothing wrong with the first sign. The Angel Snakes are all for the second. The debate rages on.

Wings Up!!!

Madilla

PS: If you have an opinion or observation, leave it in the comments section below.

The Brain in Motion

Click here to go to Dr. John Medina's website. Then click on the video "Exercise -- Brain Rule #1." Take the three minutes to watch it.

He shows in graphic detail that our offices and schools are designed to get the least amount of brain function from workers and students. Hmmmmm. 

Of course, Angel Snakes do not have regular classrooms. We mostly sit in trees and take slithers out to some nice hot rock and visit along the way. Poor Humans.

Wings Up!!!

Nela

PS: If you want to boost your brain power, exercise!!!

PPS: We do hope you are still doing your Super Brain Yoga every day. Gay is. Her quads are also getting stronger.

Getting Our Work "Out There"

We have figured out how to turn on Gay's Kindle and are reading Linchpin by Seth Godin. He says: "And if the ideas don't spread, if no gift is received, then there is no art, only effort. When an artist stops work before his art is received [by others], his work is unfulfilled."

He is saying that "marketing" or getting our work out there in front of people so that it can enrich and change them is as much our artist's work as creating the thing itself. We have to approach it as art too. It is not just something we do to earn a living. It is our work, not optional.

Wings Up!!!

Nela

PS: That is why we have this blog.

Wickedpedia Beats Compton's

Today Demetrius brought the student Angel Snakes into the library with the Human students. Since the Angel Snake students are so used to using Gay’s computer and Kindle, they were not sure what to do with the paper books. Demetrius tried to explain that the set of encyclopedias is really just an antique data base. They were unimpressed. Those encyclopedias were, no doubt, out-of-date when they were taken out of the box—over ten years ago. Beside, we have Wickedpedia now.

Wings Up!!!

Madilla

PS: Hardly anyone looked at the paper books or paper encyclopedias. I wonder why the library even keeps them around? 

Scantrons

  

Even though Gay’s classroom was chilly, she was still sticking to her work—grading her students’ final exams. We saw these cards the students had decorated with little dots and asked about them. We supposed that the work was some sort of creative effort but for the all the world we could not figure out what. Frankly, even though the students must have worked hard coloring in those little dots, the finished products are not very attractive.

When she took a break, Gay explained that these were “answer documents”; nice, but what is the question? It did not make sense to us. Apparently, the other papers had sentences on them which the students had to examine and then report whether there were any mistakes in them.

We asked about real writing and she showed us that part of the test. Some of the compositions were quite good.

The colored dots still bothered Flash. Gay talks a good game about wanting creativity from her students, yet here she is wanting complete uniformity. She even has a machine to check them. Students are penalized if their dots don’t match her dots.

Gay claims that she is teaching the students to punctuate their writing correctly—”the writer’s craft.” Maybe. We still think there must be a better way. Maybe she could just read their writing to see if they get it.

Wings Up!!!
Madilla
PS: Angel Snakes would never do well on a Scantron test. We would always be looking for new ways to configure the dots and decorate the papers. Gay said that would jam the machine. So be it.