Come fight me on Art Fight!
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A musician wakes from a terrible nightmare. In his dream he finds himself in a society where music education has been made mandatory.
“We are helping our students become more competitive in an increasingly sound-filled world.”
Educators, school systems, and the state are put in charge of this vital project. Studies are commissioned, committees are formed, and decisions are made— all without the advice or participation of a single working musician or composer.
Since musicians are known to set down their ideas in the form of sheet music, these curious black dots and lines must constitute the “language of music.” It is imperative that students become fluent in this language if they are to attain any degree of musical competence; indeed, it would be ludicrous to expect a child to sing a song or play an instrument without having a thorough grounding in music notation and theory.
Playing and listening to music, let alone composing an original piece, are considered very advanced topics and are generally put off until college, and more often graduate school. As for the primary and secondary schools, their mission is to train students to use this language— to jiggle symbols around according to a fixed set of rules:
“Music class is where we take out our staff paper, our teacher puts some notes on the board, and we copy them or transpose them into a different key. We have to make sure to get the clefs and key signatures right, and our teacher is very picky about making sure we fill in our quarter-notes completely. One time we had a chromatic scale problem and I did it right, but the teacher gave me no credit because I had the stems pointing the wrong way.”
In their wisdom, educators soon realize that even very young children can be given this kind of musical instruction. In fact it is considered quite shameful if one’s third-grader hasn’t completely memorized his circle of fifth.
“I’ll have to get my son a music tutor. He simply won’t apply himself to his music homework. He says it’s boring. He just sits there staring out the window, humming tunes to himself and making up silly songs.”
In the higher grades the pressure is really on. After all, the students must be prepared for the standardized tests and college admissions exams. Students must take courses in Scales and Modes, Meter, Harmony, and Counterpoint.
“It’s a lot for them to learn, but later in college when they finally get to hear all this stuff, they’ll really appreciate all the work they did in high school.”
Of course, not many students actually go on to concentrate in music, so only a few will ever get to hear the sounds that the black dots represent. Nevertheless, it is important that every member of society be able to recognize a modulation or a fugal passage, regardless of the fact that they will never hear one.
“To tell you the truth, most students just aren’t very good at music. They are bored in class, their skills are terrible, and their homework is barely legible. Most of them couldn’t care less about how important music is in today’s world; they just want to take the minimum number of music courses and be done with it. I guess there are just music people and non-music people. I had this one kid, though, man was she sensational! Her sheets were impeccable— every note in the right place, perfect calligraphy, sharps, flats, just beautiful. She’s going to make one hell of a musician someday.”
Waking up in a cold sweat, the musician realizes, gratefully, that it was all just a crazy dream. “Of course!” he reassures himself, “No society would ever reduce such a beautiful and meaningful art form to something so mindless and trivial; no culture could be so cruel to its children as to deprive them of such a natural, satisfying means of human expression. How absurd!”
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a painter has just awakened from a similar nightmare...
I was surprised to find myself in a regular school classroom— no easels, no tubes of paint.
“Oh we don’t actually apply paint until high school,” I was told by the students. “In seventh grade we mostly study colors and applicators.” They showed me a worksheet. On one side were swatches of color with blank spaces next to them. They were told to write in the names. “I like painting,” one of them remarked, “they tell me what to do and I do it. It’s easy!”
After class I spoke with the teacher. “So your students don’t actually do any painting?” I asked.
“Well, next year they take Pre-Paint-by-Numbers. That prepares them for the main Paint-by-Numbers sequence in high school. So they’ll get to use what they’ve learned here and apply it to real-life painting situations— dipping the brush into paint, wiping it off, stuff like that. Of course we track our students by ability. The really excellent painters— the ones who know their colors and brushes backwards and forwards— they get to the actual painting a little sooner, and some of them even take the Advanced Placement classes for college credit. But mostly we’re just trying to give these kids a good foundation in what painting is all about, so when they get out there in the real world and paint their kitchen they don’t make a total mess of it.”
“Um, these high school classes you mentioned...”
“You mean Paint-by-Numbers? We’re seeing much higher enrollments lately. I think it’s mostly coming from parents wanting to make sure their kid gets into a good college. Nothing looks better than Advanced Paint-by-Numbers on a high school transcript.”
“Why do colleges care if you can fill in numbered regions with the corresponding color?”
“Oh, well, you know, it shows clear-headed logical thinking. And of course if a student is planning to major in one of the visual sciences, like fashion or interior decorating, then it’s really a good idea to get your painting requirements out of the way in high school.”
“I see. And when do students get to paint freely, on a blank canvas?”
“You sound like one of my professors! They were always going on about expressing yourself and your feelings and things like that—really way-out-there abstract stuff. I’ve got a degree in Painting myself, but I’ve never really worked much with blank canvasses. I just use the Paint-by-Numbers kits supplied by the school board.”
Sadly, our present system of mathematics education is precisely this kind of nightmare. In fact, if I had to design a mechanism for the express purpose of destroying a child’s natural curiosity and love of pattern-making, I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as is currently being done— I simply wouldn’t have the imagination to come up with the kind of senseless, soul- crushing ideas that constitute contemporary mathematics education.
Everyone knows that something is wrong. The politicians say, “we need higher standards.” The schools say, “we need more money and equipment.” Educators say one thing, and teachers say another. They are all wrong.
The only people who understand what is going on are the ones most often blamed and least often heard: the students. They say, “math class is stupid and boring,” and they are right.
—Introduction to "A Mathematician's Lament" by mathematics educator Paul Lockhart. Full essay here:
Me taking my hypothetical children to pride:
See that man in the dog mask? He's playing a game of make believe with his friends to have fun, just like we do! See how his tail is wagging?
See that man with a gun? He's part of a violent institution that serves the ruling elite and upholds white supremacy. Fifty years ago he would have been raiding all these bars and arresting us all. He could shoot you in the face right now and probably not even lose his job. If he tries to talk to you, remember to say, "I won't speak with you unless I have an attorney present."
for the first time in years, miniskirts are back and better than ever!
not only do these minis have the same deep pockets as our midi skirts, they also now have a longer back panel as a literal CYA measure.
these minis come in sizes XS-7X
Sharecropping.
FYI if your employer does this, if they have done it for a long time especially, you and your coworkers could be owed huge amounts of unpaid wages and it would be an easy suit if there is a paper trail like this and your employer is placing strict requirements on your behavior while not at work. Employment lawyers generally work on contingency. Just food for thought.
Previews have dropped on the Sideshow Collectibles site of the Caleb, Caduceus, Nott and Yasha statues!
candystrippers-deactivated20190
I had a very young kid with a hereditary heart condition come in today to be seen. My colleague excitedly told him that I play “that ‘dungeons and dragons’ game just like you do!”
The kid deadpans me with “I DM for 8 people who keep splitting the party, I think that’s why I’m really here.”
Relatable, kid, relatable.
Out of Touch
HAPPY ONE MILLION NOTES OUT OF TOUCH THURSDAY
OP is still active with people reblogging a 1m notes post once a week
They are the true hero
have y’all checked out our new solid color skirts?? 👀👀
they’re made out of ecovero viscose, which is a special kind of viscose made from ethically sourced tree pulp. the cellulose fibers are biodegradable and compostable in your home compost!
Source: store.mayakern.com
Every single craft has been paying “The Passion Tax” for generations. This term (coined by author and organizational psychologist Adam Grant) — and backed by scientific research — simply states that the more someone is passionate about their work, the more acceptable it is to take advantage of them. In short, loving what we do makes us easy to exploit.
If the phrase “vocational awe” isn’t part of your lexicon yet, stop scrolling and read Fobazi Ettarh:
Vocational awe describes the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique. I argue that the concept of vocational awe directly correlates to problems within librarianship like burnout and low salary. This article aims to describe the phenomenon and its effects on library philosophies and practices so that they may be recognized and deconstructed.
I see it in every field I’ve ever worked in: publishing, open source software development, higher education. It describes pretty much every industry that relies on creativity, altruism, or both.
I want to make this absolutely clear to kids: children didn't used to be stuck inside the house like you are today. There used to be public places you could hang out. It used to be fairly safe to walk around because trucks weren't designed to kill children. You didn't need a car to go anywhere so kids without a license weren't trapped. There weren't 24/7 cable news networks constantly scaring parents with anecdotes even as crime was at all time lows and the biggest danger comes from adults kids know not strangers.
It's easy to ignore old people talking about "the good ol' days" because a lot of the people saying that shit are racist assholes, but the way society treats kids today really is objectively worse than how kids used to be treated. You deserve better, and you should know that better things are possible. We just need to kill the suburbs and for-profit news.
When I was a kid in the 80s and 90s, I could go for a bike ride or walk with my sister or friends and we could leave after breakfast and not come back until dinner and our parents weren't worried. We lived on the edge of town, so we could turn left into the woods or turn right and go downtown or go straight and go to a friend's house in the neighborhood. I went to a park or the community pool or went out for ice cream alone from a young age.
I also regularly walked to and from school alone from as young as first grade (so, about age 6). And I'm not saying I walked three miles uphill in snow both ways, but I checked a map and it was over half a mile and crossed at least one street that people drive pretty fast on. And that was normal.
All the same for the ‘60s.
I think it wasn't till I was 10ish, but I used to cross several major roads on my bike to get to the library, a mile-ish away. I was able to walk the mile to the local bank that had my savings account by myself. The grocery store was also on the way to the library and I would go get a gallon of milk on my own many times. There wasn't really a park or playground nearby (or at least that was more interesting than playing in the woods), but we had a big back yard that backed up onto even more forest and we wandered around back there by ourselves all the time, playing in the creek, climbing logs, all the good shit. We went down the street to our friends houses by ourselves. There was a lot of freedom to leave the house alone in the 90s.
Kind of a late post but I made a Minecraft coloring page! This was super fun and I will definitely be making more in the future!
Feel free to print out and color, just tag me if you post it, and don't share for profit!
Welcome to the future, where you don’t own anything and the stuff you rent stops working once your phone has no signal.
App powered car? 🤦♀️
I wish people remembered the age old wisdom that if something doesn’t absolutely require an Internet connection to function, it shouldn’t be connected to the internet - same goes for apps.
WHY IS A CATFOOD DISPENSER CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET
Sometimes I’m glad that I’m too poor for my “cool future stuff” monkey brain to be set loose to buy stupid shit like this.
please please please do not buy into the Internet of Things. Digital displays for appliances are one thing, but you shouldn’t need the fucking internet to do your laundry or use the fridge.
So obviously furries exist but the Tories and the British media trying to whip up a culture war frenzy about “Kids in schools identifying as cats” runs into one major problem…
Kids fucking love to wind adults up, especially those in positions of perceived authority.
Imagine sitting in class, knowing if you say something funny that it could end up on national news because your head teacher is a frothing culture war bigot.
Imagine all the other kids going along with it and backing them up.
If you are so well-known as a strict asshole that you are noted as "Britain's strictest head" in a headline, I absolutely promise you the kids are not only always fucking with you but inventing new ways to do it.
Well done ireland
Oh look, surprise, not being exhausted, running yourself ragged and stressed is actually good for everyone! 🫢
The company I work for has been doing this for about a year and a half and we are definitely happier and more productive. Can't see myself going back to a 5 day week any time soon.
here at the sandwich shop, we’ve started to notice some people who are new to sandwiches aren’t used to meat and cheese between two slices of bread. they find this practice strange and confusing. that’s why we’ve decided to cut the bread out all together. from now on, we’ll just serve slices of meat and cheese on a plate.
we know that many of our loyal sandwich shop customers have been coming here for years to buy our delicious sandwiches. but some people don’t “get” sandwiches, and we need to try and appeal to them with an easier-to-understand meal format. we will no longer be serving sandwiches. all of our food will just be cold cuts on a paper plate. we love our customers and appreciate your understanding <3
Yes we know Craig's Cold Cuts down the street does cold cuts better than we do and has millions of customers. That's why we need to switch to cold cuts, to get their customers. We hope that our long-time sandwich loving customer base will be patient in this transition to cold cuts and welcome the certain influx of Craig's Cold Cut customers who will surely come here to enjoy our worse cold cuts with you, our sandwich-deprived customer base, whom we value so much.