The system conspired to humiliate her with her own disability. I choose the wordas carefully.
There is education, and then of course there is the educational system. It is part of any system that it must define its onjects. However broady and laterally those aims are defined, the process of transferring the act of education into a defined goal must reduce it in some measure. What is not specifically included is specifically excluded. It is impossible for definitions to be otherwise.
Targetting is the process of identifying the next goal. Targetting allows you to narrow the range of achievement and so attain more readily the specific target. In the best education systems, successive targets are set laterally to each other, so that each successive goal works to broaden the previous pathways. In the most successful academic systems targets are set in a vertical sequential order leading one from the next. It leads to rapid ascent along a narrow line, the viability nof which become unquestionable after a short period - it becomes the only available route and so beyond criticism. Narrowing the aims of the educational process allows easily measured gains and as far as possible the informed bending of the rules, to make the specific target more easily attained within the specific environment that has been defined. In many cases the achievements have no value outside the confines of the chosen definition. Possibly at this point it is worth noting that all roads lead to Rome, or rather all paths are equall - fast and specific or slow and general, and both are needed within a complete education, but they are appropriate at different stages and for different material, and the problem is that the target setting system tends to be exclusive of other material, and manages in some sense to invalidate it. That is an attitude that will be a problem later in the process when all new information has to be validated by reference to another authority instead of assessed againstb accumulated experience.
The car mechanic says he has fixed the car and he should know so the strange noise must be my imagination.
It is innate in targetting to have to define clearly a target, that allows other useful development to be excluded in the cause of the aim.
In the sun the snow that fell last night has slid from the roof. The new skylight in the roof sheds its pile of snow directly over the back door.
in the bright wet sunshine I realised that this generation has been provided with information on all subjects. There is no room for simple wonder any more. There is no longer any need to work answers out for yourself, all the answers are available. Even emotional problems are ringed around with counsellors to provide solace and solutions. There seems to be no room for personal understanding or simple wonder. Those things have been removed. The answers are now all available. There is no need to stop and think. There is no need to question. So everything has sped up. All neccessary answers are provided. Or perhaps it is the other way around. Everything has sped up, there is no time to stop and think. No time for simple wonder. The self creative aspects of education have been removed from the programme of events. People do not have time to develop themselves they only have time to collect answers. And it struck me that the only real form of escape available, the only real form of relaxation to this generation was ignorance. Short sightedness, narrow mindedness, bigotry, prejudice, all forms of ignorance are now the only form of relaxation from the pace of the information technological world. Ignorance is the only real form of relaxation available to this generation.
The skylight was a lot of worry to me that it should somehow not work, and be ineffective, and even now I am uncertain of it, though it seems to be perfect in every way. It is just a lack of confidence in my own structural design and implementation. And now I find that when it sheds its snow it all lands exactly where I will one day build a porch for the back door. It is a very strange feeling just when I was relaxing with the ideas of success.
Who was it? I think it must have been Lucy. I said I lived alone and she said I didn't I had all the dogs, and that irritated me because I knew it was not valid, but for a day or so I couldn't see that she had failed to draw a distinction between people and dogs.
Dogs are dogs, people are people. And I felt very self righteous when I had explained to myself why I had been uneasy with the statement. Dogs are dogs and I don't anthropomorphise. I walked downstairs to make a cup of coffee and the doga danced for attention at my feet, and got out a mug and for a moment I felt I needed another to make coffee for the dancing dogs and then snapped to attention. So I don't think I have anything to be smug about in anthropomorphisation.
I have been buying ferns in pots from supermarkets. It started witha cristate Nephrolepis from Safeway and seems to be continuing. I have four now, I can at last see the subtle textural satisfaction of ferns. I have known for a long time that it is there. Im part for me it is the texture of the leaf litter around established plants. Certainly it is as much environmental as taxonomic. Also I think I am escaping. For the first time in a long while I am interested in a new group for their own sake. I think I have retreated into ferns because I can get the pleasure of growing things for me again, because I know how few people will be able to follow and pester me. I think that is why I have retreated into ferns.
Colour or tone seems to be much easier to express in paint. It is possible to colour a whole work in one tone. In text that is much more difficult. The words all have to be different and new material is constantly being put in place altering slightly the tone. In paint each stroke can be a repetition without repeating, simply adding to the area. In written text repetition changes things. In written text repetition changes things. In written text repetition changes things. In written text repetition changes things. They change in strength. It adds or subtracts.