thoughtjunkie

**This is purely my opinion, based on first-hand observations. If anyone has any interesting reading material on this subject, or disagrees, I would absolutely love to hear it!**

Western society (okay, I can really only speak with any authority on American society) does this weird, horrible thing, where it vilifies single mothers, and champions single fathers.

The really disgusting part of it is that I think it's just a symptom of a larger issue: the idea that fathers have the choice to be in the picture or not. So, when a woman has a baby, and the father runs away, she made a bad character judgment on who to have a kid with (which also brings in medieval non-science, like the idea that women have absolute control over when they have a child, what gender of child it will be, etc).

I think we (the societal-we) ought to have some pretty strong negative emotions in that situation-- but they ought to be directed at the father and only the father (well, I say 'father' but what I really mean is 'guy who had sex and then is nothing resembling a father').

To the outside observer, there's no way of knowing who he is. A lone coward shirking responsibilities, on the street, looks the same as any other single dude. Cowards are cowards-- they hide.

Sane and reasonable people don't aggressively campaign against single mothers. No, the discrimination comes on casually: tutting, and behind-the-back 'my, what a mess she's made of her life.'

Most heinous of all, widows (or, functional widows-- I think one has to be married to technically be a widow...) get caught in the judgmental crossfire, and no one seems to notice or care.

This injustice happens largely at the periphery of the mother's social circle-- acquaintances, or estranged relatives, or the guy at the fish market-- since most people won't judge their best friend or daughter so callously. The problem persists on the social circles just too far to offer assistance: it's armchair stuff.

I don't mean to say that we as a society should drag the value we place in a single father's efforts down. Be it a father or a mother, parenting (especially alone) is an awesome effort (which may or may not be the single most obvious thing ever uttered in the English language). I just think that we should pull our collective heads out of our asses and see the nobility in people, even if they don't have a penis.

Requested by my good friend Kris, here's the rundown for my Magic: the Gathering inspired game (yes, I realize exactly how nerdy that sounds), for 5th/6th grade EFL students. I prototyped the game today with my 5th and 6th grade class, and was STAGGERED by how well it worked. They used English-- a LOT of English-- in varying ways: drawing the sentences to show understanding, writing the sentences out to practice forming the letters, and of course reading the sentences aloud. Both classes were disappointed when they had to leave. My 5th graders, I had to force out by picking up the cards, and the 6th graders stayed 20 minutes after to continue playing.

Play isn't a waste of time-- what an absurd medieval idea! Play is just learning married with fun.

This entry is simulcast on my Livejournal: floraldeoderant

The Basic Game Rules:
-Each player starts with 5 cards in his or her hand.

-Each card has a word on it-- mostly nouns and verbs, though there are a few adjectives and adverbs. Articles etc, are not in the game as cards: we will get to that in a moment.

-The objective of the game is to move your piece along a gameboard till the end.

-You move your piece by making sentences with the cards in your hand. After you make a sentence, you roll a 6-sided die. You move that many steps ahead.

-You add 1 additional step for every word beyond two your sentence contains. If you roll a 4, and have a three word sentence, you move your piece 5 steps ahead. Four word sentence is +2, etc.

-Every time you make a sentence, you draw that many cards.

-7 is the most cards a player can have in his or her hand. If a player has more than 7 cards in hand at the end of his or her turn, that player loses cards, down to 7.

-Used or lost cards go into a discard pile face-up.

-If a player can't play on his or her turn, that player loses a card then draws a card (of his or her choice) until he or she can play. Then, that player's turn resumes as normal.

-If the draw pile runs out, shuffle the discard pile and it becomes the new draw pile.

-Roll a die at the start of the game to see who plays first. Then, the game proceeds in a clockwise rotation.

Card Abilities:
-Many cards have different abilities on them.

-Cards with abilities have either an 'and' or an 'or' written on them as well.

-An 'and' card uses the ability whenever you use that word in a sentence. These abilities are relatively weak. As you can see in the examples below, the card names are also related to their abilities. Run makes you go a little faster, sleepy makes someone sleep through their turn, dice uses dice, etc.








-'Or' cards can be used either in a sentence, OR (confusing, I know) for their abilities. Their abilities are usually very strong. Note that unlike making a sentence, a card used for its 'or' ability does not replace itself unless otherwise specified.

Universal Cards:
-There are 3 universal cards in the game: Draw, Write, Act. These cards are in the deck, just like any other.



-When a player draws one of these cards, he or she plays it immediately and draws another card, then proceeds with his or her turn as normal.

-If any of the Universal Cards is in play, then any time any player makes a sentence, they must follow the Universal Card's instructions. Draw-- he or she must draw a picture of his or her sentence (linking words to meaning). Write-- he or she must re-write the sentence (writing practice). Act-- he or she must act out the sentence, somehow (again, linking words to meaning, but via a different strategy).

-Whenever a Universal Card is played, it replaces the last one (replaced Universal Cards go into the discard pile).

-Every time a student makes a sentence, he or she must read it aloud, regardless of which Universal Card is in play.


*****

That is essentially the game. It seems like it'll be great for vocabulary building, as well as word-recognition and basic grammatical structure. My theory is, review only sucks if you know it's review. If it's a cool game, then all that pressure that normally drives things like word recognition out of one's mind, evaporates.

The other thing is, just in the spirit of M:tG, I can add expansions. I can add cards that change the rules (my idea for conditionals: there are "if" cards and ", then" cards. One by itself is more or less useless, but if you get one of each, you can make one really massive sentence and rack up those bonus points. "If/ the blue/ man/ runs/, then/ we/ kill/ him." = 6 + Die roll. For this lesson, the basic hand-size would have to be expanded to 8, with a max hand of 10 or 11.

Depending on level or lesson, the basic rules can just be modified (flooding the deck with articles, for example, would just be annoying). Instead, every time you make a sentence, you have to say (or write) it with the correct articles, or you get -2 on your dice roll.

The rules of the game change with the cards, and are infinitely modifiable for any lesson.

***

If anyone who stumbles across this would like to try it, just post a comment request for my supplies. I can email the cards I have created in microsoft publisher (the prototype cards look different from the pictures above) or excel formats. You have to provide your own gameboard, pieces, and 1 six-sided die.

I can also email you a blank template, so you can make your own cards, for your own lessons. As you can see, I keep them color-coded for ease of use (nouns are blue, verbs red, adjectives yellow) but if that's too easy for your class, you can print the cards all in white. Please share any new cards, rule ideas, or success/failure stories!

*One pitfall this game runs into: Obviously it's complicated right at the start (much more complicated to explain than to play, actually). You basically need a coteacher with you to translate, the very first time. Then, once the students get the hang of it you won't need teh translator.

**As with most lessons, your students will need your help-- more at the start, and less as things go along (yay! progress!). On days without my coteacher, I open two tabs in Google's translator (I like google translator because it's decent and it translates as you type)-- one tab for English->Korean, and the other Korean->English. My students can ask questions, and I can answer them effectively. If my sentence is complex, I also like to translate English->Korean, and then back again to make sure it's meaning was preserved.

Cheers,
Christian

Authoritarianism and group-think are two of the biggest obstacles to justice and human compassion, today.

Here's a great example of mob mentality fueled by the dangerously unstable and possibly syphilitic minds at Fox.


(found at huffpo)

Yeah. Fuck that.

I just watched a somewhat convincing TED talk on games as a positive force in the world (http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html) and now want to write a game about the morality and mob mentality vs. cooperation. Alas I have no computer skillz. Games seem the ideal platform for such a tale, since it's all about the decisions a person has the courage to make in the face of everyone else saying they're wrong: if someone reads a mob-mentality story, it's easier to say, "I wouldn't react that way if *I* were there." Then, when an actual situation arises, they just go along with the group.

The same is true for games, but if someone is actually making the decisions, the lesson is much more influential.

Also, I like games.

Some Stuff I've Learned:

Don't take yourself too seriously is good advice. But there's a reason the 'too' is there. If you don't take yourself seriously, no one else will either and all your hard work will just be you treading water.

You don't need anybody's permission to do things, especially not be an artist. If anyone tells you not to make art or not to be you, you tell them to go fuck themselves as part of Newton's First Law of Telling Small-Minded Douchebags What's What. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction: in this case, someone telling you to restrict your art to their tastes is answered by a sturdy and aloft middle finger.

One of the things you need no permission for is taking yourself seriously. Take OkGo, a band whose fame came from just doing some interesting art and putting it up themselves. They didn't have anyone in "the biz's" approval, they just did it. And when they got said biz person's greenlight (signing to EMI's record label), their contract forbade them from making weird videos and putting them online at youtube-- which is exactly why they were so beloved in the first place. They didn't seek permission and they did something cool; they got permission and couldn't do the cool things anymore.

(OkGo recently stepped out of their contract with EMI, to form their own label).

Knowledgeable people always have a specific area or knowledge. If they're on the business end of the spectrum, then they will tailor how they respond towards the end of making money. Even if a knowledgeable person is simply trying to assist you, and has nothing but the most altruistic intentions, they will tailor their responses so that they can be maximally helpful, which will generally limit the solutions they advise.

All this means is that you have to help yourself, and that in a sense, everyone is an amateur. Some amateurs are more well versed than others in specific areas, but everyone without exception is just pawing around in the dark, trying to find a path that'll work for them too.

Don't seek approval; just go for it.

It's everything a tourist trap needs. It's full of beautiful ornate stuff, and spectacle, and bursting with tradition, and the implication of purpose.

Old robed men drone in languages the tourists don't understand, into a microphone hooked up to speakers strategically designed to resonate. Gilt dragons wind around the columns, gripping perfect orb light fixtures, ripped from streetlamps somewhere. You wear pink traditional clothes that look, in the dying light, like pajamas for an enlightenment-themed slumber party.

That's what it is, after all. A slumber party for you and 39 strangers. Two days of photo-opping-- "Hey! Look! I'm doing what real monks do! I'm bowing when he bangs a block of wood! I'm sitting cross-legged and rigid through the entire meal! THIS WILL MAKE FOR ONE AWESOME FACEBOOK PROFILE PIC! *click!*"

It's the tradeoff. The monks work with the slimeball from the tourism board who point-blank tells them he's using them for his numbers. They have to babysit 40-odd foreigners with cameras and a keen eye for "What's neat." They pass out pamphlets that bury their lives and their temple in the past as "a living museum." And in exchange, they get to keep their temple. They get to eat well and add new wings to their buildings anad never worry about Lotte Co. Inc. weaseling their land out from under them.

It all feels familiar: standing and bowing to the golden pantheonic paintings that stretch to the stratosphere ceiling. Listening to old robed men speak words I don't understand. It's just like every other church I've been in (only this time, ASIAN THEMED!) Knowing that I'm supposed to be feeling something spiritual, something transcendent, tethering me to God-- but I don't.

I just spot the calculations; the eight thousand tiny decisions to sell you on an idea: You are in the presence of divinity. The robes-- there's no real REASON for them, not in terms of the religion-- but they do sell us on tradition. The multi-tiered corners-up architecture-- sure it's a symbol of... whatever; but it also looks super-neat and HEY! We should go THERE. And look at the bell and that huge drum, and how about all those tiny Buddha statues behind the glass cases. All that detail work, they MUST be on to something.

They weren't designed to snag tourists and make money. They were designed to snag non-believers and maybe hook them in long enough to get to some actual philosophical or spiritual case. The robes aren't an integral part of the faith, they're a social tool-- at first, they were not that much more outlandish than the other garb of the times, but just a new layer onto the symbolism of a fledgling religion. But that layer froze, and time moved on. Styles adapted, but not the monk-robes. Those stayed the same. They are not for the monks-- a way of bringing them closer to the divine. They are for us-- a way of separating them from the rest of us: "Why's that guy dress the way he does? Oh, he's devoutly Buddhist? Oh, well I'm picking up on so many social cues right now that influence my superficial perception of him and Buddhism."

And that's what this whole experience was: We weekend Buddhists only get the trial version, with ads made of grave men and big echoey rooms, and the implication of grand, arcane wisdom.