blackspot WhiteGhost Enters the Beyond Times

[WhiteGhost]

3 minutes ago, PaulG said:

Lap cheong lasagna?! LAP CHEONG LASAGNA.

Not sure what the closest thing we have to Lap Cheong is because I don't know that one.  I will look it up and see if anything we have approximates that.

 

Edit: Oh, that.  Funnily enough that is one kind of sausage we don't have right now.  I think I can substitute something else, though.

[Mad Hatter]

Aaah too much to read already, so I'm just going to sneak in and pretend I was here all along.  

[iatetheyeti]

I'm glad to hear you slept better last night, and that adventure lunch looks pretty good!

 

[KB Girl]

Ahh the joys of being an adult and eating whatever whenever you want

[raptron]

🌊

[Scaly Freak]

On 9/8/2020 at 5:52 PM, Wobbegong said:

I'm never sure what the protocol is on sharing e-books. On the one hand, they're so easy to copy and widely distribute, it seems like sharing them might automatically be a form of piracy (unless like a library you have some kind of time limit programmed in) but on the other hand it's not like I don't share my physical books with my friends, so it seems unfair that such communal sharing of reading material should be prohibited... is sharing physical copies of books equally wrong?

 

In the USA: Free sharing of an ebook you have purchased is legally considered a form of piracy unless the author/publisher has given you permission to distribute the book.

 

Take from that what you will...  

[WhiteGhost]

On 9/10/2020 at 2:07 AM, Mad Hatter said:

Aaah too much to read already, so I'm just going to sneak in and pretend I was here all along.  

Didn't I see you around here the first day?  

 

 

On 9/10/2020 at 2:18 AM, iatetheyeti said:

I'm glad to hear you slept better last night, and that adventure lunch looks pretty good!

 

I'm a huge fan of adventure lunches.  They are super easy to throw together and I totally feel like an adventurer when I have them  

 

On 9/10/2020 at 2:30 AM, KB Girl said:

Ahh the joys of being an adult and eating whatever whenever you want

If it wasn't for perks like these, no one ever even become an adult  

 

On 9/10/2020 at 2:52 AM, raptron said:

🌊

Not gonna lie, it took me more than a few minutes to figure this one out    I blame sleepiness

 

12 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

In the USA: Free sharing of an ebook you have purchased is legally considered a form of piracy unless the author/publisher has given you permission to distribute the book.

 

Take from that what you will...  

Thanks

 

---------------------------------------

 

Yesterday a long day

 

As soon as I got back from dropping Ghostlet off at school I had to head over to the building where we have church (we rent a floor of an office building) because we needed to get it ready for starting meetings this week.  It took me almost 90 minutes to get there, which was frustrating because it only takes me 20 minutes on Sunday mornings when there isn't rush hour traffic.  I got there and got the  cleaning folks working on everything and holed myself up in a storage room while they did their thing. 

 

While they were doing their thing, I got set up and had a D&D session running my Phandelver campaign.  I was worried that it wouldn't work but except for a few minor technical difficulties it ended up going really well.  I may have let my players get themselves a little overpowered because they were absolutely dominating every single encounter but they were having fun so we'll go with it.  I was really enjoying the role playing that was going on.  At one point they had to kill some wolves and the ranger was literally raised by wolves so after the fight had had to get out of the cave and get deal with the emotional trauma while the rest of the party went back in to rescue a key NPC. I had another adventure lunch right after the game.

 

 

After the D&D session was over, I set up all the chairs in the building to meet the social distancing requirements and reported in to the leader for our area.  He was of course appreciative, but apparently there have been a lot of members complaining about returning to in person meting because they don't feel it is safe (in the news it seems like many of the outbreaks are coming from church gatherings) so they have pushed back restarting in person meetings until they can address more of the issues that the members raised.   

 

By the time I got home, Ghostlet was already out of school ( he got out an hour early for Teacher's Day) so I ordered up some McDonalds because it is fast and then took him to his evening class.  When I got back from dropping him off, our display cabinets for the living room arrived so I got started on assembling those until it was time to pick up Ghostlet.  I spent the entire rest of the evening finishing the cabinets and then went straight to bed.

 

For those who were following the discussion in my last challenge about the placement tests for Ghostlet's class, I was talking to him in the morning and I have a pretty good theory about what they did.  It turns out that his class has some really smart students and some really stupid ones.  My guess is that they used the placement tests to make sure there was an even distribution of skill levels among the classes.  One of the kids in his class has already been nicknamed 混子 (Hunzi or "the mixer") because he seems to be trying to blend in with the real students.  For the past two weeks they have been teaching inverse numbers and absolute values and this kid just can't seem to grasp the concept.  They had their first English test and 25% of the class got 100% while about 10% of the class scored less than 20%.  Ghostlet has been complaining that he hasn't learned a single new thing so far and they are covering stuff he learned a long time ago.  He really looks forward to his evening classes because he can actually learn new stuff.  I am really starting to see the upside of the old system where they divided classes by skill level.

[iatetheyeti]

3 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

I'm a huge fan of adventure lunches.  They are super easy to throw together and I totally feel like an adventurer when I have them  

 

I'm thinking that I might just see if I can find a good adventure lunch combo for my days at work. Being easy to put together is a major requirement for that, and I like the bonus of feeling like an adventurer!

 

[Mad Hatter]

1 hour ago, WhiteGhost said:

Didn't I see you around here the first day?  

No that must've been my evil twin. 

 

1 hour ago, WhiteGhost said:

Ghostlet has been complaining that he hasn't learned a single new thing so far and they are covering stuff he learned a long time ago.  He really looks forward to his evening classes because he can actually learn new stuff.  I am really starting to see the upside of the old system where they divided classes by skill level.

This is so tricky. On one hand I completely agree and I myself suffered a looooot of boredom in school because it was all one level. But when your level completely dictate your life prospects and when there's virtually no mobility between levels it's really problematic.

[KB Girl]

3 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

This is so tricky. On one hand I completely agree and I myself suffered a looooot of boredom in school because it was all one level. But when your level completely dictate your life prospects and when there's virtually no mobility between levels it's really problematic.

Some mobility would be good yea.. and not dividing too early perhaps? 
But not dividing at all leaves you with bored kids and kids feeling absolutely stupid and nobody wins. 
In NL we divide around 11 years old into 3 levels, and re-evaluate at 13... but it’s still problematic, it’s still hard to move.. working hard or not working hard can change your level but also just intelligence and then you’re still stuck with kids who learn very differently.. parent involvement sometimes pushes kids higher than they should be and they struggle, meanwhile there are still kids bored out of their minds. And it’s not like the same problem doesn’t exist before they’re eleven. And there is a lot of time and effort and money put into not letting any kids fall behind, but in the mean time kids who simply learn faster or different get tired and bored with school this early (imagine having to wait 2 years for your classmates to learn to read when you’ve already finished the school library). 
Oops sorry wall of text. It’s my subject of interest atm. 
it pisses me off and saddens me to think how much potential the world is missing out on because the smartest kids end up with fear of failure or completely burned out on learning or thinking they’re stupid and weird. (Not to mention the way schools stamp out any creative thinking!)

[Mad Hatter]

1 hour ago, KB Girl said:

it pisses me off and saddens me to think how much potential the world is missing out on because the smartest kids end up with fear of failure or completely burned out on learning or thinking they’re stupid and weird. (Not to mention the way schools stamp out any creative thinking!)

So much this! Btw have you made any decisions re home schooling yet? 

[Scaly Freak]

5 hours ago, KB Girl said:

In NL we divide around 11 years old into 3 levels, and re-evaluate at 13... but it’s still problematic, it’s still hard to move.. working hard or not working hard can change your level but also just intelligence and then you’re still stuck with kids who learn very differently.. parent involvement sometimes pushes kids higher than they should be and they struggle, meanwhile there are still kids bored out of their minds. And it’s not like the same problem doesn’t exist before they’re eleven. And there is a lot of time and effort and money put into not letting any kids fall behind, but in the mean time kids who simply learn faster or different get tired and bored with school this early (imagine having to wait 2 years for your classmates to learn to read when you’ve already finished the school library). 

 

From my perspective on working in adult learning in a corporate environment, this is fascinating because for us it's this is anathema and basically not allowed to happen.

 

In my learning environment, the instructor/teacher has the goal of teaching a group of employees a specific skill, and the goal is met when everyone in that group has learned the skill and can apply it to their daily job. If there's a person in the "class" that is way smarter than the others, or one that is far behind and really struggles, the instructor's job is to make sure the smart one is interested enough to pay attention and learn, while also at the same time keeping the stragglers engaged and help them catch up and learn what they need to learn.

 

Basically, the group's job is to operate Widget X in order to speed up production of Gadget A. When Widget X is replaced by Widget Y, everyone has to become fluent in operating Widget Y. Nothing else matters, and our job as instructors is to make that happen. Corporate honestly expects us to do whatever we have to do to get to that point, and as long as it's legal, and on deadline, the only time they ever care about our methods is if they cost money.

[KB Girl]

5 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

So much this! Btw have you made any decisions re home schooling yet? 

Somebody said something smart to me that made it a whole lot less daunting/scary.. she said that we didn't have to make any big decisions for the rest of our kids lives, we could just re-decide each year if they're going to go to school or not. Ever since it has been easier to discuss between us. For now we've decided that at least until 6 no school, but it's looking more likely we'll stick with that until they're old enough to have their own say. 

 

1 hour ago, Scaly Freak said:

From my perspective on working in adult learning in a corporate environment, this is fascinating because for us it's this is anathema and basically not allowed to happen.

 

In my learning environment, the instructor/teacher has the goal of teaching a group of employees a specific skill, and the goal is met when everyone in that group has learned the skill and can apply it to their daily job. If there's a person in the "class" that is way smarter than the others, or one that is far behind and really struggles, the instructor's job is to make sure the smart one is interested enough to pay attention and learn, while also at the same time keeping the stragglers engaged and help them catch up and learn what they need to learn.

 

Basically, the group's job is to operate Widget X in order to speed up production of Gadget A. When Widget X is replaced by Widget Y, everyone has to become fluent in operating Widget Y. Nothing else matters, and our job as instructors is to make that happen. Corporate honestly expects us to do whatever we have to do to get to that point, and as long as it's legal, and on deadline, the only time they ever care about our methods is if they cost money.

That's the stickler isn't it? Try achieving that when you have 30 children in a class, for I don't know how many subjects with I don't know what kind of problems. And most importantly- who haven't chosen to be there. All the solutions I can think of require at the very least a whole truck load of money. 

[Scaly Freak]

Just now, KB Girl said:

That's the stickler isn't it? Try achieving that when you have 30 children in a class, for I don't know how many subjects with I don't know what kind of problems. And most importantly- who haven't chosen to be there. All the solutions I can think of require at the very least a whole truck load of money. 

 

Don't bother trying. It's not possible with only one teacher for those 30 kids.

 

If my training department was run like the majority of school systems, we would all be fired for consistently failing to deliver results while costing a ton of money. But since we'd all be paid garbage level money and be forced to work lots of overtime, we would probably be happy to leave. 😛 

[Scaly Freak]

45 minutes ago, Scaly Freak said:

Don't bother trying. It's not possible with only one teacher for those 30 kids.

 

I should add that this doesn't mean that it's impossible to do anything good at all or to teach effectively, in the environment @KB Girl described. My quoted statement here is specifically referring to the situation where all 30 have to be taught how to operate Widget Y at the same time, by one single teacher who only has one opportunity to get the job done.

 

Silly written word limitations. 😛 

[KB Girl]

Doesn't it though? I think you should also define anything good at all  and teaching effectively

 

[Scaly Freak]

Anything good at all = One or multiple students learn from the teacher. This is the bare minimum of acceptable outcomes, and is not an acceptable goal for an instructor

 

Teaching effectively  = Trainees learn the knowledge they are taught, retain it because they understand it, and successfully apply it to the task the instructor wanted them to learn.

 

That's from my work environment, not from a public school system, but it still applies to a classroom with 30 students and a teacher covering multiple subjects. Also, where I work, my definition of "teaching effectively" is the only acceptable outcome of scheduled training.

[dancezwithkittehz]

How are you already on page two?! HOW?! Haha. Following as always!

[PaulG]

All this talk about the failures of the entire world's education system is depressing, because it reminds of both my borderline-ADHD childhood ( @KB Girl) and my corporate drone adulthood ( @Scaly Freak).

 

For what it's worth, I think most adult education approaches work only because most adults who wind up on the "smart student" end of the curve have made peace with the fact they'll need to spend a good chunk of their time in the classroom pretending they're dead. Mentally playing dead is an underappreciated skill in any classroom environment.

 

The trouble with kids is they haven't yet learned that crucial, but difficult, skill. From the age of eight until I left the public school system, you could have walked in and handed me a spike to drive into my skull and I would have used it happily. Learning as part of a large group, with a wide diaspora of learning speeds, just takes a much higher social/emotional IQ than I think most children have.

[Scaly Freak]

1 minute ago, PaulG said:

All this talk about the failures of the entire world's education system is depressing, because it reminds of both my borderline-ADHD childhood ( @KB Girl) and my corporate drone adulthood ( @Scaly Freak).

 

Sorry about that.

 

3 minutes ago, PaulG said:

Learning as part of a large group, with wide diaspora of learning speeds, just takes a much higher social/emotional IQ than I think most children have.

 

They also don't have the external motivation someone in my corporate environment does, where we all are very well aware that once a decision has been made and the training is coming, it is really in your best interest to learn this, from a job security point of view.  In a best-case scenario, I'm also dealing with trainees who are invested and actively trying to participate in the learning process because they want to learn and believe it will be worth their while.

 

But a lot of children don't have that either, and the few who do, don't waste it on the public school classroom  

[WhiteGhost]

Wow, I leave this place for one day and I come back to this ^^^

 

This is why you guys are the best ❤️

 

 

On 9/11/2020 at 2:02 PM, iatetheyeti said:

 

I'm thinking that I might just see if I can find a good adventure lunch combo for my days at work. Being easy to put together is a major requirement for that, and I like the bonus of feeling like an adventurer!

 

My standard is 1 kind of preserved meat (sausage, jerky, etc.), a cheese, some nuts, some fruit (dried or fresh), and maybe something salty (pickles, olives, etc.)  I include the last item, just because I like them.     Some people like to add in some kind of carb like bread or crackers, but I prefer to skip those.

 

On 9/11/2020 at 3:50 PM, Mad Hatter said:

This is so tricky. On one hand I completely agree and I myself suffered a looooot of boredom in school because it was all one level. But when your level completely dictate your life prospects and when there's virtually no mobility between levels it's really problematic

Yeah, there really aren't any easy solutions.

 

On 9/11/2020 at 7:09 PM, KB Girl said:

In NL we divide around 11 years old into 3 levels, and re-evaluate at 13

China used to divide at 4th grade, 7th grade, and 10th grade.  The problem was that the adjustments were only one way.  Kids that couldn't keep up any longer would drop down to a lower level, but it was virtually impossible to go from a medium to a higher level class.  In order to help students progress, the after-school private education business really flourished, and parents were paying through the nose to try and make their kids as competitive as possible.  It got so bad that they started having serious problems with student suicides which was the driver behind the current reforms.  Turning a ship the size of the Chinese education system is not easy, though, so progress is coming slowly.  Hopefully they can come up with something that works better.

 

On 9/11/2020 at 7:09 PM, KB Girl said:

Not to mention the way schools stamp out any creative thinking!

This statement is extremely fascinating to me, because in China the biggest draw of sending kids overseas to learn is the focus on fostering creativity.  To you they may seem to be "stamping out any creative thinking" but I guess it is all relative.  

 

22 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

From my perspective on working in adult learning in a corporate environment, this is fascinating because for us it's this is anathema and basically not allowed to happen.

At one point in my career I was responsible for creating and implementing our company's employee training programs.  We didn't have a lot of trouble with this because we only hired from the top pool of students so we didn't really have any spread between learning abilities.   Even if we had, it was pretty explicit that you either learned the stuff or found a different job so the motivation to keep up was very high.

 

17 hours ago, dancezwithkittehz said:

How are you already on page two?! HOW?! Haha. Following as always!

 It's a side effect of posting every day I guess  

 

10 hours ago, PaulG said:

Mentally playing dead is an underappreciated skill in any classroom environment.

It is a dangerous habit to develop, though, because once you get into a competitive workplace you really have to work hard to break the habit (I say from experience).

 

9 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

But a lot of children don't have that either, and the few who do, don't waste it on the public school classroom

True

 

-----------------------------------

 

OK, so I have a couple of days worth of updates to do.

 

Yesterday I was feeling really dead so after dropping Ghostlet off at school I went back to bed.  I couldn't sleep well, and drifted in and out of sleep until about 11am.  I was off for pretty much the whole day.  I am sure I will get used to this schedule eventually but until then this is going to be rough.  In the afternoon, Ghostess asked me to pack up some stuff for an overnight trip to the great wall.  She left work early with her whole crew and come back to pick up Ghostlet and I and we drove 2 hours up to a section called the Lakeside Great Wall.  We had dinner there and then stayed p until after midnight playing Uno and Super Mario (the original 1985 version).  It has been a long time since I played Super Mario, but my skills came back pretty quick.  It was fun to show off for the kids there, who thought I was some kind of computer game god  

 

This morning we slept in which was sooooooo nice.  I wish I didn't automatically wake up around 6, but it was nice not to have to get up and I was able to get back to sleep for another couple of hours.  We stopped off at a local farmer restaurant for lunch.  Most farmers in China, especially the ones around the city, don't have huge farms like you have in the US.  Instead they have enough land to run a restaurant so it is extremely popular for the folks in the city to drive out and have lunch or dinner at one of the farmer restaurants around.  The food is always super fresh and usually very tasty.

 

In the afternoon we went to the Great Wall and hiked around for a bit.  The most famous part of that section is a part of the wall that got submerged when they built a dam nearby.  We spent the whole afternoon there hiking around and taking pictures. 

 

 

We drove back in the evening and then had dinner at home.  Two of her friends came back with us and are having a sleepover.   

 

I had two sausage based meals these two days, one was more hashbrowns but with cheese added and then tonight Ghostess made some steamed noodles with green beans that she bought from the farm restaurant at lunch

 

 

[iatetheyeti]

2 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

My standard is 1 kind of preserved meat (sausage, jerky, etc.), a cheese, some nuts, some fruit (dried or fresh), and maybe something salty (pickles, olives, etc.)  I include the last item, just because I like them.     Some people like to add in some kind of carb like bread or crackers, but I prefer to skip those.

 

That's along the same lines I was thinking, though I'm definitely more of a carb person and less of a something salty person!

 

2 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

We stopped off at a local farmer restaurant for lunch.  Most farmers in China, especially the ones around the city, don't have huge farms like you have in the US.  Instead they have enough land to run a restaurant so it is extremely popular for the folks in the city to drive out and have lunch or dinner at one of the farmer restaurants around.  The food is always super fresh and usually very tasty.

 

That sounds like a great way to work it. We've got a small handful of places like that over here, smallholdings that will have a little cafe or similar. Definitely think more of this and less of the commercial giants are needed.

 

[WhiteGhost]

18 hours ago, iatetheyeti said:

Definitely think more of this and less of the commercial giants are needed.

For sure

 

-----------------------------------

 

Today started out with Zoom church.  We were originally scheduled to resume our in-person meetings today but that got pushed back until next week.  However, they announced today that they still need some approval before we can resume but they don't know how long that will take.  I expect we will be meeting by Zoom for the rest of this month.

 

While Ghostlet and I were doing church, Ghostess had to run into the office for a bit, but her two friends who stayed over made a huge lunch.  After lunch, the 3 of them went to the gym and I spent the rest of the day with Ghostlet trying to get his homework finished.  He had to work hard because we went out Friday and Saturday so he only had 1 day to finish up all the homework for the weekend.

 

In addition to not getting enough sleep recently, I think I am starting to come down with something.  I doubt it is the 'rona, but I have a sore throat and a massive headache so I am probably not going to the park tomorrow.  Seems like a full return to normal is not happening just yet...  I will continue with my ambitious challenge stuff when I am feeling better.   

[KB Girl]

Egh.. hope you feel better soon! Glad you got to enjoy your weekend before it struck. 
 

On 9/12/2020 at 6:32 PM, WhiteGhost said:

On 9/11/2020 at 1:09 PM, KB Girl said:

 

This statement is extremely fascinating to me, because in China the biggest draw of sending kids overseas to learn is the focus on fostering creativity.  To you they may seem to be "stamping out any creative thinking" but I guess it is all relative.  

It really is! And I’m in a position of privilege already, because schools in my country are actually really good, for schools. 

incase you’re interested.
 

On 9/12/2020 at 7:51 AM, PaulG said:

Mentally playing dead is an underappreciated skill in any classroom environment.

 

The trouble with kids is they haven't yet learned that crucial, but difficult, skill.

That right there plays a large role in why I don’t want my kids in school. It’s so sad. 
I’m sure there are schools who do better and where this isn’t a required skill... but even then you’re still required to learn what someone else tells you to learn and muster up the interest for it/ and just when you managed that you have to move on to the next subject. Blergh. 
 

On 9/12/2020 at 8:01 AM, Scaly Freak said:

I'm also dealing with trainees who are invested and actively trying to participate in the learning process because they want to learn and believe it will be worth their while.

 

But a lot of children don't have that either, and the few who do, don't waste it on the public school classroom  

Autonomy is so incredibly underrated. And school aged children have none. Anyone believing in freedom and the right to make decisions about ones own life should be horrified by the concept of school. 

[Scaly Freak]

24 minutes ago, KB Girl said:

Autonomy is so incredibly underrated. And school aged children have none. Anyone believing in freedom and the right to make decisions about ones own life should be horrified by the concept of school. 

 

The concept of school is to make sure everyone has the ability to learn what they need to learn to be able to ge a good education later in life. That's not in any way horrifying.

 

However, the way most public school systems execute when they try to put that concept into action, sucks royally.