Blogging Around

First I commented on Jamie's blog post about how asking for student input is good. I agreed.

Albert X said...

Hi Jamie,
Loved your post and agree 100%. Giving us choices and asking for student input helps make our lives a little bit easier. It gives us a bit of control over our school work, and that little bit of control can help us feel better about our situation. Even though this little bit of control isn't much, as they say, it's the thought that counts. (yay cliches)

Next I commented on Mitchell's blog post about the idea of something coming from nothing. He wrote an interesting argument that I found... interesting.

Albert X said...

Mitchell,
I enjoyed reading your post. I like your analysis of how people think about the concept of something coming from nothing, and try to rationalize divine forces. I like how you make the distinction between how humans think of the physical world and how humans think of their own ideals. I liked your argument for how you believe the "something from nothing" idea came into existence (though I may or may not agree with it)
-Albert

Metacognition: Poem

First draft: I had no idea what to write about, so I chose a 78% random topic, just like how I chose a 78% random percentage just now. Then I started writing. As I was writing, I was thinking to myself "Hmm.. this reminds me of a place for people to drown themselves in their own misery (and drink)". So I shifted the focus of the poem slightly to try to depict that. I was thinking about how to put some of the poetic elements in the poem as well, so that it would fit the criteria.

Second draft: I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing, so I added some lines on to try to make the implications in my poem more obvious.

Third draft: I rewrote the entire thing making everything concrete.

Best of Week: 7 minutes

We didn't really do all that much last week, seeing as how we only had 3 days of English. Nonetheless, there were several topics I could have written this about, but I ended up choosing 7 minutes. Basically, Mr. Allen gave us 7 minutes of time to work on "Same scene, different setting" (almost?) every day. While 7 minutes doesn't seem like much, and it actually became even less since we had to get our stuff organized before we could actually get anything done as groups, the time accumulated and was helpful. We actually got stuff done that we definitely would not have otherwise. Because if not for that time, I doubt we would have even thought of the project, let alone work on it. But because of that time, we started working out our setting, our lines, our memorization, our mode of communication, basic stuff like that. Bravo, I hope we get more time to work on this project. Good stuff.

Connection: King Lear and "Get Smart"

*Spoiler alert... maybe*
*Note, I don't remember this movie too well, so I won't remember some names.
In the movie "Get Smart," Maxwell Smart is distrusted (and detained) by his superiors because he made their agency look like a bunch of fools. Max had found and hit a building which he thought was a stronghold for nuclear weapons (or something like that.) However, when the agency went back to check the place, there was no sign of nuclear radiation. So they assumed Max had made a stupid mistake, and detained him after a few events. However, Max really was right, and that place really was a stronghold for nuclear weapons (or something like that.) So, the agency replaced Max with another agent, who happens to be a spy/worker for the antagonist party in the movie. This is like how Lear distrusts Cordelia and trusts Regan and Goneril. The spy-agent goes on to almost destroy San Fransisco's piano (or something like that) along with the agency, but Max saves the agency (and the piano... or something like that). This is like how Regan and Goneril tried to kill Lear, but failed (partially due to Cordelia's help, except that Cordelia's (France's) army loses a battle and Cordelia and King Lear get captured anyway). Except in the movie, the agency survives, and in King Lear, Lear dies anyway. So we can see that the themes that Shakespeare uses in his plays are used by modern directors/playwrights/authors, and can be found in many works of literature throughout history. This revelation doesn't pertain to and/or affect me in any specific and/or profound way. The only way this really affects me is that I can use this knowledge to choose a location for our Shakespeare skit project, and I can use this knowledge as a tool to worship Shakespeare.

TED Presentations

Pretty much all the work was done during the last two or three days. Some people didn't even try to edit the site until the second to last day (I found this out when people emailed me telling me that they couldn't access the site, most likely because they tried creating a Google account with an email other than the one I had invited them onto the site with.) Even so, we managed to get all the work done. Our presentation went smoother than I expected; I attribute much of this to Acadmites being able to "wing it" more than anything else, although there was obviously some preparation. Although I don't think any of the groups really rehearsed the presentation, save perhaps on Thursday morning, some groups seemed more prepared than others based on how well they handled the technology, i.e. videos. Overall, the speaking parts of the presentations seemed reletively well rehearsed, although once again, I attribute a good portion of of this to our ability to "wing it".

Captured Thought: Physics

Recently, I haven't had any "Oh, NOW I get it" moments. Nothing really awesomely pertinent, important, and insightful has given me this kind of feeling. The closest thing to this feeling that I got recently was when I was taking a physics test.

The question was that if there was a 64 newton force applied to the first of two barrels, which weighed 13 ad 6 kgs, respectively, how much tension was in the chord connecting the two barrels if the coefficient of friction for the barrels was .329. Basically the way we had been taught to do it was to find the acceleration of the entire body as a whole, and since the acceleration would be the same for both the first and second barrels, we could take the acceleration and multiply it by the mass to get the net force. Then we could calculate the force of friction (.329 * 6 * 9.8 for the smaller barrel) and add that to the net force to get the forward force of tension. During the test, I started playing with variables and started cancelling terms out. I realized that there was a much easier way to do this that our teacher hadn't taught us; we could take the ratio of the mass of one of the barrels to the combined masses and multiply that by the applied force to get the applied force on each barrel. So basically, I confirmed for myself WHY this type of problem works the way it does.

Change of Mind: TED Project

My mind has changed a lot (quantitatively, not necessarily qualitatively) on the TED Project. At the beginning of the year, when we learned we would be doing this again, I thought that this would be almost as rushed/unorganized/confused as last year. However, when you told us we would be revising it and everyone would know what they were doing, I felt as if it might get better. We revised it, and I liked many of the revisions. However, I still felt as if the actual goal/end result of the project seemed unclear, even though it was right there on the TED project presentation page. Maybe that's because I felt the goal/end result of the project was kind of vague.

A little while into the project, after nobody had been working on it, I had several realizations. First of all, the goal of the project, and how we were to reach it, was as vague, or perhaps more vague, to others in my group than it was to me, so we were in the dark as to how to start. Another realization was that some teachers felt that it just plain was not possible to give us homework time due to schedule constraints. The third realization, which wasn't really a realization since I had known this since last year, was that because most of us hadn't met face-t0-face, collaborating would be difficult. It's hard to work with people you don't know at all.

During our face-to-face meet, I realized that many of the students were unmotivated because their teachers didn't have as strict requirements for the project or hadn't informed them of what they had to do. Afterwards though, I felt that we could get more accomplished.

And here I am, waiting for my mind to be changed again.

Blogging Around

Before the actual blog, I want to point out that I find it amusing that Thomas's blog has three s's in a row in the URL.

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Mitchell B's post was about God (or lack thereof). It was a long rant about ideas about God and applications of religion to the real world. My post agreed with him on many points, pointed out some flaws in how the post was constructed, and argued one small detail in his post (because other than that, I agreed with him).

Albert X said...

Mitcheeeeellllllllllll

I was thoroughly amused by your post. Nice atheist argument, I agree with most of it. You didn't touch base with all religions, but that's fine, since not all religions have "God." I did find it interesting that you touched base with Buddhism though. The first paragraph reminded me of last years social studies (yay Mr. Williams) and the second paragraph reminded me of a joke you were telling >_<.

Onto business. Jon already mentioned this, but this is a pretty one sided 360... which doesn't work, sadly. Setting that aside... I just wanted to say that I found the statistic that 1/3 people said that line A wasn't the same length as the exhibit A line funny and interesting, although at first I wasn't sure how that tied in to your blog. I liked the points you made in the blog, and the support you provided for the points. There's just one thing I want to take issue with: the "time" thing. Now, I'm taking on side on whether or not the big bang may or may not have occurred, or whether or not the universe had a beginning, but I DON'T think that by saying that you can perceive time as infinitely small, you can say that time is infinitely long in both directions. I'm not saying that time isn't infinitely long in both directions; I'm just saying that what you provided isn't exactly proof of that. For example, all values from 1 to 2. There are an infinite number of values from 1 to 2, but there is still a beginning and an end (that is, [1,2).) Granted, this might be a bad example since numbers do go on forever in both directions. But numbers are concepts, in application to real life, there are no "negative" numbers. You can't hold a negative number of apples. Negative numbers are simply the removal of positive numbers. If viewed like this, 0 is the lowest number. If you still don't like that example, then take a physical object, such as a piece of paper. In theory, you could measure it with infinitely small units of measurement; but that doesn't change the fact that the paper doesn't stretch on forever.

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Alli S's post was about homework. My 360 was about homework as well. Basically, I agreed with her on many points.

Albert X said...

Alli,

Thanks for the comment :P Just to answer your question about how homework can have negative effects, I'm talking about time constraints (in my case, specifically band stuff), sleep problems with some people, and grading issues (although grading issues mostly shouldn't be a part of it, since if your don't NEED to do the homework, that imply that if you did it, you would do well). Basically, stuff you've mentioned in your blog.

Onto the blog itself; I found it amusing that we did the same topic >_<. I agree with you on all points. Especially on the last part about having less homework. Ideally, if that were to happen, teachers would have to give out less repetitive work in order to touch bases with all things learned in class, and give assignments that require you to use what you learned in class. (In short, less work but more thinking.) In addition to that, perhaps giving students summaries of what was taught in class or examples of more complicated concepts via a website, a textbook, or a handout would help students understand what they were doing so that they wouldn't feel as swamped. Separate from that, what our math teacher does is a good idea in theory, but it can have negative consequences. Since you're learning new concepts, if you don't do your homework, you might not understand what the class has learned come test time. Responsible students would keep up with the class by doing homework when necessary, even if it doesn't count for a grade (I applaud you for that). Sadly, not everyone is responsible, so what our math teacher doesn't isn't always possible. Moreover, that method probably wouldn't work in a class that deals with more abstract concepts (English) or a class that requires you to learn outside of class (social studies). An ideal method of homework distribution to maximize learning and minimize work would be personalized homework, but as Ali said, that just isn't possible yet. (Wow, you actually read all that? Nice :D)

360 degrees: Homework

Homeowork: Anything your school assigns you to do after school hours.
Specifics: Marching band, homework. And I have no clue where this will go.
In my opinion, practice can be good. If you apply yourself, you can get better with practice. For example, if you do your math homework, you will better understand what you are/were learning in class, allowing you to succeed in the class. Another example would be band. You can practice your music and get better at it. You can go to rehearsals and practice your marching, helping you remember what to do where and when while you march.
However, when you're part of a large group, practice can only go so far. My math teacher understands this; some people need to do their homework to keep up with the class, some simply don't have to do it. Thus, she makes the homework optional for people getting good grades. If the "group" were smaller and/or more select, then more people (who wouldn't have had to do homework in the larger class) would likely have to do homework. If you eliminate everyone but yourself, essentially having a 1 on 1 learning experience, you would have to do homework every day, since your lessons would be taught at your own pace. One of the TED videos talks about this (the one with the pirate shop.) A good example of having a 1 on 1 learning experience and needing to do "homework" every day would be taking private lessons in piano. If you don't practice, your teacher will notice because you are the only one your teacher is teaching while you're in your "class". As such, you pretty much need to practice every day to get better. However, school does not give students the 1 on 1 experience in class (you can go to a tutor for that, though). Thus, some people will be ahead and some people will be behind in the class. Those who are behind will definitely need to practice; according to most teachers, those who are ahead will also need to practice... Why? In my opinion, in many cases, once you fully understand the material being taught in class, any practice after that is just repetitive work. It's not helpful (and can be hurtful in different ways). Of course, I'm not saying that I don't need to do homework in most of my classes; there are only three or four classes that I feel I wouldn't need to do homework in because I'm ahead of my classmates, those being math (which, luckily, I don't actually have to do any homework in), physics, band, and occasionally chemistry. Honestly, if I didn't have to do homework in these classes, I feel as if I could actually get a lot more done. Especially band.
In all honesty, I don't like to work. There aren't that many people that do. But man, marching band does have a ton of work. And for me, only about 1/3 to 1/2 of that work is actually helpful. We spend 50 minutes in class each day learning music. Now, I can't really complain about that, since it's in class work. Although we aren't really learning anything new most of the time and are just practicing, it really isn't that bad. What I do dislike is the 3 hours we spend Tuesdays and Thursdays (and the 4-5 hours we spend during football games) standing outside in the cold, causing damage to our instruments, doing repetitive work, and essentially accomplishing... (a lot for some people, but little to nothing for people who either work hard and already know everything they have to do or for those who don't work hard and don't care, making any work they do useless anyway.) As our teacher says, if one person is out of step or is in the wrong place, everything looks bad. So why not make that one person get in the right place, as opposed to making everyone else do nothing different. I feel as if the people who need to practice marching (in the eyes of the band directors, that is) should practice marching, and those who don't need to should have to option not to go. I feel like that time could go to a lot better use. Of course, it's not as if this practice goes to waste; we got second place at a competition yesterday. Horray. But I feel as if the marching band system could be much more efficient.
In the end, I just want to see less homework for those who don't need to do it. Or perhaps less homework in general, and more tests so that those who don't understand the matieral without doing the homework have to go ahead and do homework of some sort to understand the material anyway.
I'm also curious as to why teachers assign so much homework and make it worth as much of our grades as they do. Our grades should reflect how much we learned/understand, not how much busywork we can do. The incentive to do homework shouldn't be to get a grade, it should be to learn.

Metacognition: Metacognition Blog

As I started writing this blog, I thought to myself, what projects or essays have I actually done so far in English? I've done a letter to Mr. Allen, I've watched TED videos, and I've made an evidence plan/thesis for a Kite Runner essay (henceforth known as KRe/p). So far, I thought, none of these really fit into the "projects or essays" category. The letter was a letter, not an essay. Watching the TED videos might have been part of the project, but the real meat of the project has yet to come. Same with the KRe/p.

Out of those three, I chose the KRe/p. This was because it seemed to be the easiest to write about, and it seemed to be the closest thing to meeting the guidelines. So while thinking about writing about the KRe/p, I thought about what I thought about while writing the KRe/p . And I realized I didn't really have that much to say about the KRe/p. While trying to come up with a thesis, I simply looked over the guiding questions Mr. Allen had on his website and chose one that struck me; the "What does writing fiction allow you to do that nonfiction can't" one. I took the stance that fiction allowed you to create situations that are improbable in order to give your story more meaning. Specifically, I had Amir's meeting with Assef in the stadium in mind. Mr. Allen helped me sharpen the thesis into "The contrived plot of The Kite Runner undermines its memoir structure." So for the evidence plan, I thought back through the class discussions and through my own reading to find instances of the contrived plot of The Kite Runner undermining its memoir structure. I remembered, I found page numbers, and I wrote.

At this point, I realized there wasn't a whole lot to write about. But I realized that I had thought alot about how to write this Metacognition Blog. So I wrote about this instead. While writing this, I realized that I can comprehend my own thinking. I know. That's amazing. But I realized that my thinking is pretty linear and, at least, I can go back and follow what my thought process was. Although there may not be all that much to follow at times.

Best of Week: Artful Sentences

Our discussions of Artful Sentences have been interesting. I've found their applications to Kite Runner and other literary works to be numerous, which gives me new insight as to how well written works are written. I think the most important part of using Artful Sentences for us as students is to use what Artful Sentences teaches us in conjunction with something Mr. Allen has told us to do; to use our own voices, instead of the generic student voice. I've realized that by doing this, you can make your writing more interesting. More colorful. This is how many writers make their own writing more interesting.
Reflecting on this idea, I've come to realize that almost every (interesting) book I've read has used this. It's possible that they were interesting because they used short sentences. I've never really thought that I had a predisposition to believe that the craft of a story should be written in any certain way, but now I think that it's probable that short sentences, variation of sentence length, and using your own voice in your writing can lead to much, much more effective and interesting writing.
And although I've said all this, I really don't think I'll get around to using this tool too soon. I'm already too used to the way I write. Maybe eventually I'll be able to wear away my old habits and, in their place, write in a style more like the style I've written about above.

Carry it forward: The Kite Runner

Regret. Amir has done many things in his life that he regrets and is trying to bury. He has taunted Hassan, watched Hassan get raped, lied, and been jealous of Hassan due to trivial matters more times than he can count. Now he meets Soraya, who has been through some painful situations herself, but who handles her regret in a better way. Instead of burrying her past, she digs it up, helping relieve herself of her regret. Amir sees that Soraya is a much better person than he is. He regrets his past even more.

Regret is powerful. Having regret can make one a better person, but having too much regret can consume a person. The ideal would be to be able do always act in a way you won't regret, and to be able to regret and atone if you must.

I want to learn from Amir's mistakes, and Soraya's successes. In my future, I hope to act in such a manner that I will not have to regret what I do. I will want to take every available opportunity and be a person who acts in a virtuous manner so that I will not regret what I do. And, if I do do something I will regret, I want to be like Soraya and find a way to redeem myself, to come to terms with my actions, before my past consumes me.