Wednesday, June 30, 2004

So the seminar on "talking with the future" was really showing off this electronic suit thingy that a teacher had. It was interesting. Then we had to go see a dance concert. Very unconventional. It involved the tennis courts, no music, water, and black spandex, among other things. Then we hung out on the steps for a little. We heard some patriotic music but we just thought it was some geek playing it in their room. Turns out it was a patriotic band playing in the Salem Square. I listened to Stars and Stripes Forever (I had to call my dad to get the name of it) and the National Anthem. It was totally cool!

While waiting for Open Mic night to commence, I decided that I like it here now. I got over my previous freak-outs, and now I am really pumped to be here. I'm taking the classes as individual classes, rather than taking them for what I wanted them to be originally. Then there was Open Mic night. Totally way cool. These kids are talented. There was another parody by the Emo guys, then Eddie and Will played a song that Eddie wrote last week and Elena tapped to it (improv tap). It was totally awesome. Bridgit played another original song- way cool! And Rae and Xan played a song they wrote. They were wearing cool jackets. It was awesome. I know you don't know these people, but I'll just keep talking about them as if you do. Haha.

Today was a normal day, and I finished my power point presentation for Area 1- The Chad's class. It's on abortion. There was this Salem College admissions meeting or something but I just took the ice cream and left because I don't want to go here for college. The boys tried to get in by dressing up as girls, but the admissions officer got really uppity. Then I read some in Jane Eyre and then we went to a Seminar telling us everything that's wrong with our system of schooling. Holy cow. I took really cool looking notes. The Area 3 teacher sitting next to me told me it was the most creative way of taking notes he'd ever seen. I liked it because I could fit everything in one page and it didn't have to follow a certain path. I could add things every which way around it. It was just awesome. The stuff he said was interesting and a nice thought. I just don't see how it's going to happen. It kinda depressed me. But it was very thought-provoking. It makes me want more for my children. And it makes me want to start really questioning to learn, not just to get by in the system. Good Job, Dr. Svi Shapiro, good job. Now I'm going to go to bed because I'm tired and people want to get on the computer.

2 comments:

Sarah Gitt said...

Dr. Shapiro came to GSE last year and spoke. Everyone loved him, but I think he did raise some controversy with one of his vast generalizations about the high achievers and such.

Emma Refvem said...

yeah. those generalizations were a little... well, generalized. some people wrote: "Svi Shapiro is a Communist" on the sidewalks. I'm not sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing.