I started school again yesterday, it's nice to only be taking once class though, yay! Unfortunately, it's a math class. Oh, well. C'est la vie. I might also take an art class on saturdays cuz I still need a couple lower division art classes but saturday art classes are 6 hours long which isn't fun cuz then my whole saturday would be shot. And I don't get financial aid till I start the university so I dunno if it's worth it. I can always take 'em there but the more I get outta the way before I transfer the better cuz I can't apply to the BFA program until I take all the lower division stuff.

Speaking of education, I was watchin' Oprah yesterday and she had some guy (Dr. Mel Divine, author of A Mind at a Time) on there talkin' about kids and how some kids can't seem to learn but it's not cuz they're dumb it's just cuz their brains are wired different. That's probably what's wrong with my brain when it comes to math, cuz I don't have trouble with anything but algebra but algebra makes me wanna whack my head against the wall. Being almost ambidextrous doesn't help either cuz I don't think cuz my brain can figure out which side to use. And I notice as I get older I do more and more stuff with my left hand instead of my right. Who knows, maybe I'm really left handed but was forced to be right handed, but I know my adoptive parents didn't do that to me, so it musta been before I was 3 1/2. Or maybe my brain is just weird, I do know I have this weird ability to do both creative stuff (like art and music and writing) and logical stuff (like computer programming and puzzles), and I get odd looks when I take personality tests cuz I defy the usual "norms".

Anyway, this guy on Oprah was talkin' about new techniques to use in schools and it sounded kinda cool, it'd be nice if public schools adopted his ideas. One problem with public schools in this country is that they cater to the lowest denominator and that they kinda institutionalize education, rather than individualize it. I was pretty fortunate in that my parents taught me to read really young and I think that helped me a lot in school when I was a kid (and I am a victim, erm ... product of the California public school system) but a lot of kids in my classes had a hard time and there was no one to tutor them and stuff, except other kids like me. I remember helping teach my classmates how to read when I was in the third and fourth grade (the teachers used to have the good readers go out in the hall with a couple of kids having trouble and tutor them.) That's about as specialized as it got back then. It might be better now, I dunno.

And a lotta teachers in schools only need bachelor's degrees to teach, that freaked me out when I heard it, cuz I was thinkin' teachers needed at least a master's degree. But I know now that even in some colleges you don't even need a master's degree to teach. No wonder our kids can't read or write or spell or whatever. I feel sorry for teachers though, I could never be one cuz all the rules and the little hoodlum children would drive me nutso. And then there's parents who sue the schools cuz their kid failed or something, like that teacher they had on Oprah who had her class sign contracts saying they wouldn't plagarize but then when some did, she failed 'em and the parents whined so the district basically threatened to fire the teacher but she quit (yay for her for having ethics!) and so did a bunch of other teachers and the prinicipal (yay for them too!) So, teachers are basically screwed, and they don't get paid much for it either. ;)

[ 1:03:00 PM ]   Posted at the speed of blight by NONOBADKITTY!