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Melissa Stewart posted the link to this YouTube to the New England SCBWI listserv with the subject "How 21st Century Learners Look at the World."
I certainly would agree with Melissa that 21st Century Learners take technology for granted. But I noticed a number of things about the video that weren't mentioned in any of the commentary nor in the video itself, things that made me pause and reflect more widely.
1. The video contrasts the iPad to a magazine, implying that print media was what the child would find boring. But it is not simply print media that the child is not going to be able to make do something--it's TV as well. Touching a TV screen is not going to make anything happen.
2. The way the child was touching the magazine pages was exactly the way I remember my daughter first encountering magazine pages twenty-ish years ago. My daughter didn't have any expectation that something would happen, because at that age she didn't have any electronic games (those came later). Part of what very young children do is explore same-different, as part of figuring out how the world works. Some kids--probably most--will decide like the cutie in the video that the fun of having something happen when you touch a screen is more enjoyable than what happens when you turn the pages of a magazine (interesting, too, that these were the pages of an adult magazine, not something like Babybug, which might have made more sense to the child). But there will also be children, like my daughter, who prefer what happens in the pages of magazines, because they can slow down and study them and move back and forth simply, and not have a wrong button to print.
3. The biggest thing about these kids is that they will take technology for granted. Right now, we don't. We've fetishized it. We think it's amazing that kids know how to work these things. It's not. They're doing what human beings have done for thousands of years--adapted. We, as creators of art for these kids, need to adapt right along with them, and that's what so many of us are doing--and that's great and as it should be.
4. What's not so great is our middle-class lack of concern for the digital divide we are digging so deep. It's lovely for children of privilege and the middle class to be able to leave print media behind for the wonders of digitalia, but what will happen to those who can't afford it? As it is, early childhood educators are concerned about children whose preliteracy skills aren't where they should be in order for these children to enter school at age 5, ready to read and write. Now we've added not only exposure to books, but exposure to the digital world, and the price of digital is much, much higher than the price of books, that it seems to me we are digging ourselves into a Grand Canyon of difference, only this canyon ain't so grand.
What are your thoughts about kids and technology?
"Make Good Art"
Commencement Address
University of Arts, 2012
Neil Gaiman says so much that is good in this commencement address that if you haven't seen it, I urge you to do so. Now.
You'll have to visit the link, because I can't embed it, but that's okay. You have to watch this. The Whole Thing. I'll wait.
Done?
Made of awesome, right? Not only because it's Neil *insert expletive of choice* Gaiman, but because it's advice I think all commencing artists should hear and heed. (Future senior portfolio students, you will be watching this.)
Especially important to me: the idea that making good art is what you commit to, in good times and in bad. It's what you do because of who you are. It is how you live your life.
For years, if I felt crappy, I didn't try to write. And with a young child and some health issues, and all those commitments that you have when you have a young child, that meant I didn't spend a lot of time writing. But when I started commiting to writing on a regular basis, even if it wasn't every day, not only did my writing improve, but I felt better. When I felt better, so did everyone else in my family.
The other great line from this commencement address: " "If you don't know it's impossible, it's easier to do." Oh, yes! It's so good, I'll even forgive the people who took out the apostrophes before they retweeted. (Yes, I care that much about punctuation.)
- Mood:
creative
Thanks to Mrs. McCuin's/Ms. Johnson's (no relation) first grade class for being terrific listeners and discussers of picture books. Today was my last time with them this year. We read Margot Zemach's The Little Red Hen and talked about the dropped story stitch and several of them shared what their enrichment group has done to pick up that stitch in a play they were doing based on this story. We also read Leo Lionni's Fish is Fish and The Extraordinary Egg, because they are going to be starting an author unit on Leo Lionni.
It may sound odd, but I'm also thankful I seem to have a pulled muscle in one knee. That pulled muscle means that instead of going to yoga this morning, I am staying at home. After yesterday's round of meetings (four, which kept me on the go from 9 am - 8:30 pm), time and an empty house are very welcome.
And lastly, this week, two projects I'm thankful for and am supporting:
K.L. Going's Fat Kid Rules the World has been made into a movie.
Now there's a KickStarter campaign to help the movie get distribution. If you believe in the importance of getting great book-to-movie adaptations into the eyes of a wider audience, I hope you'll consider joining me.
Eddie Izzard is running 27 marathons around South Africa in honor of the 27 years Nelson Mandela spent in prison and to raise funds for organizations supporting disadvantaged people in South Africa. You can read about the run here and, if you'd like to donate (in pounds sterling), that is possible here.
What are you thankful for this week?
Of course, there is then pressure to get it right in revision, but who says you have to do it all in one round of revision? A story takes as many rounds of revision as it takes. Trust the story (Mantra Monday, April 16) to tell you how many rounds that is.
The freedom that comes from allowing it all to be a draft no doubt changes when a book is under contract and a deadline looms. But I'm not in that situation yet. So for now, I try to keep the pressure off, and remember what
Now, it's time to get to that new story that's been calling.
So many people have mentioned Where the Wild Things Are or In the Night Kitchen, but for me, the first image conjured by Maurice Sendak's name is Little Bear. The book was a Christmas gift, probably when I was six, because although I was ready to read much, much earlier, the teacher my mother asked about whether she should teach me to read told her not to, because they would do it the right way when I was old enough for school (ah, the educational philosophy of the early '60s!) But by the time this Christmas rolled around, I knew how to read, thanks to dear Mrs. Corliss.
The cover of this book was both promise and affirmation--"I Can Read." I don't remember what other presents I got that year, but I do remember settling down with this book, which was MINE. For me. To read. By myself. To myself. And that is what I did, I remember sounding out the some of the words and checking them against the picture to make sure I got them right.
Most of all, though, I remember reaching the end, when Little Bear comes back into the house one more time, decked out in his hat, his coat, his mittens, and his boots (if I remember correctly), and tells his mother that he is still cold. She takes everything off and sends him outdoors. Because bears always wear their warm fur coats. As Little Bear headed back outdoors, the look of pure satisfaction on his face made the joke even funnier.
I still remember the feeling as that joke sank in. Not only had I read the story, but that is when I found out--books could be funny. That was the moment I wanted to find more books like that. Because although I liked many other kinds of books, from the Littlest Ballerina to The Tale of Two Bad Mice, reading something funny for the first time was an amazing experience. It wouldn't have been the same without Maurice Sendak's illustrations, either. Little Bear is so expressive, from his eager expression, to the drooping sleeves on his coat when he is still cold. (Of course, now I realize that what he wanted was not warm clothes, but his mother's attention.) And his mother is so understanding and patient, both in gesture and expression. It's not a far stretch from these illustrations to Where the Wild Things Are.
So, thank you, Mr. Sendak, for turning bringing the gift of laughter to my reading. I know the words were Mrs. Minarik's, but they wouldn't be the same without your pictures.
- Music:"Chicken Soup with Rice" Carol King (brain radio)
Jane Yolen's parting words to the New England SCBWI Conference still resonate:
It's odd, though, because when we are stuck and don't know where to go, or when we're looking for inspiration or for the next project, often movement is key, whether it's walking, running, cycling, or yoga. But once that idea is there, we have to work with it, and that only happens by showing up to the work, putting our BIC.
I've got a packet deadline Thursday morning, so I'll be applying this mantra a lot this week.
How about you? Does BIC work for you or do you have some other writing mantra?
I am so,so grateful to have lived long enough not to be thrown by some unpleasantnesses that came my way yesterday. It is lovely to have both experience and collegial support.
I am also very, very grateful for the new stack of books I brought home from the library yesterday, both picture books and YA novels.It's going to be a good weekend, even if there is a packet deadline next week.
And now, I need to make that packet deadline a bit less intimidating.
We were talking about various works we had sung and how we had always, somehow, been able to bring ourselves to the level the work demanded. While we had done different works at different times--while I was there, the challenges included Bach's "St. Matthew Passion," Mahler's 2nd, and Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms," as well as the somewhat less daunting "Rejoice in the Lamb" (Britten) and Mozart's "Requiem"--we all had the experience of absorbing these so deeply that even after decades they are a part of us, deep as muscle memory.
As Paul Machlin talked, how much we all trusted each other. Paul trusted in our ability to rise to the music--we trusted in his ability to show us how to get there, to guide us. Our mutual trust was cemented by the process: Paul broke the most massive piece of music down into sections and we worked through them, sometimes phrase by phrase, part by part, until we were ready to to work on the refinements and polishing, paying attention to dynamics and diction.
Listening and remembering, I realized--Chorale was where I learned the process, and to trust the process, so much so that it seems like second nature. I trust the process because for three-and-a-half years (I didn't join the Chorale until second semester freshman year), I lived it in music. Now I live it in my writing.
Briefly, Saturday afternoon, we experienced the process once again, with an open rehearsal, for old time's sake, with "Full Fathom Five" )Vaughn Williams) and "Walk Together Children."
Here's "Full Fathom Five," (by a high school group doing a great job):
"A sea change" - how that resonates...
What about you? What does "Trust the Process" mean to you?
- Mood:
pensive
I'm here this weekend. If home is the place where you grew up, this is home. This is where I found my feet, what I stood for, and where I began to sense what I truly wanted to do.
It's also where I found my voice, literally. That's why I and several dozen other men and women are here--Paul Machlin, director of the Colby Glee Club, now the Colby Chorale, is conducting his last concert before he retires.
This afternoon we had a rehearsal, alumni only. Warming up, working through two songs that we had all sung at one time or another ("Full Fathom Five" and "Walk on Children"), it all came back--the muscle memory, the special sort of listening you do when singing in a group, the attention to The Director, but most of all, the sheer joy that singing under Paul's direction was once and was once more, for an hour.
I can't wait to hear Haydn's "Creation" this evening. Right now, I feel like I have been created anew.
Thank you, Paul.
Sorry it's not a better photo, but the gesture is so characteristic, I had to use it.
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