Comments on: Cognition Prints

By: Dad

Dad — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:08:29 +0000

Having some recent viewings of wildlife I think Percy missed the animal trait of marking one’s territory for whatever purpose.

By: Gardner

Gardner — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:52:22 +0000

@Janet Two very fine sources here. The poem is especially poignant, and is new to me. It’s deeply, deeply resonant. I’m grateful to know of it.

@Intellagirl I couldn’t agree more. Sometimes what looks like narcissism really is narcissism, but more often it’s just as you describe it: a call into the universe to see if anyone answers. I think teachers do that calling too–but much of school obscures our need to connect. Strange and upsetting.

@Happy How wonderful to know that you’re carrying on the Percy tradition! Great use of the Percian POV in that assignment. Your fondest wish is mine as well–and I miss you too, just as greatly.

By: Happy

Happy — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:28:49 +0000

Ah, Percy. My advanced writing students are currently assuming a Percian POV to write about Maxine Hong Kingston’s “No Name Woman.” Let’s hope there has been some learning at work in the class; let’s hope I can see the thing as it is; and let’s hope that none of us are truly alienated. My fondest wish is that my students have been as enriched by their experience in my class as I have been privileged to guide them, hold them up when they stumble or falter, and to push them further than they believe they can go until finally they stand alone. Gardner, I see your fingerprints everwhere I look and miss you greatly.

By: Janet

Janet — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:00:31 +0000

Thought you might like this one:

. . And sky-bound mores in mangled garbs are left
Like mighty giants of their limbs bereft
Fence now meets fence in ownersâ€™ little bounds
Of field and meadow large as garden grounds
In little parcels little minds to please
With men and flocks imprisoned ill at ease . . .

. . . Each little tyrant with his little sign
Shows where man claims earth glows no more divine
But paths to freedom and to childhood dear
A board sticks up to notice â€˜no road hereâ€™
And on the tree with ivy overhung
The hated sign by vulgar taste is hung
As thoâ€™ the very birds should learn to know
When they go there they must no further go . . .

FROM THE MORES, JOHN CLARE, 1812â€“31
via Rosemary Bechler’s Unbounded Freedom
A guide to Creative Commons thinking for cultural organisations.

By: Intellagirl

Intellagirl — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:02:58 +0000

I love the metaphors here. They strike me as “true” in my experience. I think there’s something important in the ideas of fingerprints, graffiti, craving your name in a tree. Many of the communication tools we now use (and refer to as web 2.0) are so ephemeral. My Twitters don’t last. My blog could disappear with a click. My email isn’t being archived any where. And yet, I think we all want to make an impact, a difference, just know that someone somewhere is listening. It’s not exhibitionism, I think, that drives someone to express via their Facebook profile, that they’ve broken up with their significant other. Rather, it’s a shout into the void that they’re in pain with the hope that someone will listen.
Now, you’ve got me thinking….
Sarah/Intellagirl

By: Janet

Janet — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:38:31 +0000

Doyle’s Science Teacher blog feels like it is covering similar questions about something like ecological intimacy – awareness of our impact on context. http://doyle-scienceteach.blogspot.com/