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To: jttmab who wrote (99)	9/5/2006 2:11:04 PM
From: ~digs	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149

Pooh-Poohing the Purists, a Scholar Revels in Netspeak Message 16790694

To: jttmab who wrote (99)	9/11/2006 12:03:32 AM
From: GPS Info	Respond to of 149

Having children focus for 45-50 minutes would be a major accomplishment. I’ve experimented on kids (nieces and nephews, etc.) to see how long they can focus on a subject and have witnessed a wide variety of results. I bet my niece $5 that she couldn’t focus on her homework for more than one hour. With that enticement, she had no problem sitting in front of me doing her homework for that exact hour. However, I could not get her to initially take the bet at $1. Money is one incredible motivator. My nephew had problems in elementary school to the point where his parents took him out of public school to home school him for a semester to allow him to catch up with the class. Before this, he could easily charm is way through a class. I once told my aunt that he’ll be charming the pants off of girls in high school. During a visit, he and I played a computer game setup between two PCs. After a time, I noticed that my back ached and realized that we had been playing for 2 ½ hours. I told him that I needed a break and that we should save the game for later. He told me “oh, but we’re almost done,” so we played for another half hour. After this, I was ready for a break on the couch. However, he was ready for more and asks “what do you want to play now?” I see this devotion to video games that last for hours – as long as the adrenaline and the bladder will last. The trick would be to give children an engaging interaction with a teacher who could handle a little noise during the lecture. I was shock to learn recently that my nephew is now an A- student. I asked him why he was doing so much better. He said “I guess I care about what I’m learning now.” That seemed to make a lot of sense to me. So, how do we make children care about what they’re learning? I’m sure they’ll learn how to fake interest when needed. A recent study looked at creativity in the context of teams. Teams result in less creativity [innovation]. If you want creativity go with the individual. I tend to agree with you, but I think the effort was to enhance the ability to function in meetings. I definitely don’t have this ability. I still struggle to listen to fluff and evasions during meetings. I tend to become hostile or flippant. This is probably the reason why I find new jobs after awhile. When I was a teacher’s assistant in graduate school, the math department grouped the freshman classes into “teams” that could pool their efforts to do the homework assignments, or collectively answer quizzes in the TA classes. The big tests were still done on an individual basis. And what do we conclude about the emerging English language of "c u for dinr?", or just "dinr?". You have to wonder what dinner conversation is going to be like in 20 years. Do you also hear “I wanna” or “I’m gonna” or “I gotta?” I had never seen these written out until reading the closed captioning on TV. I also see people writing “kinda.” I think that in some case, we are meant to understand the relaxed informality of our spoken words. I would not like to see this become formal English. Best to you