My elder (of 2 girls) went a bit vain and grunty at 12 1/2 - and at 15 she's generally good company. I don't know if there'll be a '2nd wave' of gumpiness. The younger one is... 12 1/2
Mine are 30s and they are lovely people. The things which caused them to be unlovely were mostly not their faults. Like puking in my mouth and projectile shitting diarrhoea (on different occasions with different children). Did you know that projectile diarrhoea rotates clockwise as it leaves the butt cannon? But do stay out of the way.
Year 8 girls are ... at odds with themselves and everyone else. That's age 12-13 in the UK.
We had a little gaggle of girls finding it difficult to negotiate life generally and together recently at the after school club where I work. On asking it was confirmed that yes, they were year 8 girls.
Previously, in a mainstream school setting, the school counsellor ran a social group to try and persuade a similar group of year 8 with a slightly different group of year 10 girls to stop attacking each other so viciously. One of the proposed names was the Peer Mentoring Support Group because we quite liked the PMS group as a name.
Mine are 30s and they are lovely people. The things which caused them to be unlovely were mostly not their faults. Like puking in my mouth and projectile shitting diarrhoea (on different occasions with different children). Did you know that projectile diarrhoea rotates clockwise as it leaves the butt cannon? But do stay out of the way.
Interesting question Basso.
I'm on the other side, but there is no way I am going to try and find a sick child to see for myself.
I'm on the other side of the line also, and have eased two kids through that particular part of their lives - I have to say, on any occasion when I was confronted with a poo-nami, any interesting physics that might be observed were the furthest thing from my mind...
Ugh. In today's episode of home education, I was forced to wade my way through some (yes, quite elementary) algebra that is nonetheless at the very limits of my memory/ understanding, given I last looked at this shit thirty years ago, in order to help the oldest one with her maths. Imagining a caterpillar that doubled in length for every week of its life, we plotted y=x^2.
Me: Does this curve remind you of anything? (Thinking: All those graphs of coronavirus cases we keep seeing.)
Sulking kid: Yes. It looks like your tummy.
Ugh. In today's episode of home education, I was forced to wade my way through some (yes, quite elementary) algebra that is nonetheless at the very limits of my memory/ understanding, given I last looked at this shit thirty years ago, in order to help the oldest one with her maths. Imagining a caterpillar that doubled in length for every week of its life, we plotted y=x^2.
Me: Does this curve remind you of anything? (Thinking: All those graphs of coronavirus cases we keep seeing.)
Sulking kid: Yes. It looks like your tummy.
Umm... hate to break it to you but doubling every week would be y=2^x, not y=x^2.
Meh. Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to. The point was kind of the insult. The kid will do fine. Both my kids have a much better native understanding of mathematics than me*. Good for them, it's probably more useful than my kind of smarts - (or, at least, it pays better).
*But hell, I know plenty of adults who can't work with 24-hour time. How are they helping their kids with maths during these peculiar times in which we live?
My parents - ie 2 and a half generations ago had no idea of "x", let alone 2x, let alone Higher Powers (apart from God)
I know people today who can't understand The World Clock (which I had mastered by age 9 thanks to a Big Map on my Bedroom Wall and my mother having a friend in England (who went to bed when we left for school). Or even an analogue clock
Keep everyone back a year, I say. Or even 2 years (if it takes that long).
Even A~NZ and Australian radio schooling ( a remarkably successful educational achievement in itself) usually stopped after age 12 and the kids went "to town" as "boarders"
Analogue clocks aren't that straightforward for some people. My dyslexic daughter can't read one, finds it impossible to sort out too and from the hour, but is fine with the 24 hour clock and digital. Why force analogue when most of the world (phones, computers) comes attached to digital clocks?
Analogue clocks aren't that straightforward for some people. My dyslexic daughter can't read one, finds it impossible to sort out too and from the hour, but is fine with the 24 hour clock and digital. Why force analogue when most of the world (phones, computers) comes attached to digital clocks?
Because the position of the hands on an analogue clock map to the flow of time in a physical way, whereas numbers on a digital clock are just numbers? Because clocks are a useful device with which to imagine angles and phases? To distinguish clockwise from anticlockwise? Basically, I think teaching kids to read a clock has almost nothing to do with actual clocks. (My kids all learned digital first, because the majority of clocks in our house are digital, so it's what they saw. I learned analogue first, because we didn't have a digital clock in our house when I was a child.)
I'm curious - can she read a sundial? Is it juggling the hour and minute hands that gives her trouble - does she do OK with something like a mechanical stopwatch with a single hand, or does her dyslexia mean she has trouble with clockwise and anticlockwise as after and before even with a single pointer?
The advantage of analogue dials is that you don't have to take time out to read them unless you need a precise number. A peripheral glance towards an analogue clock or speedometer, for example, gives a usable reading without taking your eyes off the road. I used to enjoy calculating trip times by dead reckoning using the car clock and speedo. The essential information is "How much?" and the brain - even what's left of mine - can do with a lot with that.
@Leorning Cniht - I've just asked her and she scrambles clockwise and anticlockwise so none of your other examples are helpful to her. She mixed up 2 and 5, 6 and 9, p, q, b and d for ever.
She's not the only dyslexic I have met like this, most I met in schools various did the same too. She can, however, see maps and schematics or assembly drawings in 3D and if she concentrates, in 4D, ie moving with time.
I grew up with analogue clocks and I prefer them because I can see immediately that 10.45 is 15 minutes to 11. I am not at all mathematically inclined, having once ordered some stones for a narrow strip beside my driveway then having to amend the order because my brother told me I would have had enough to cover most of my yard. 🙄. I was so glad I didn't slaughter him when he was an annoying little brat.
She's not the only dyslexic I have met like this, most I met in schools various did the same too. She can, however, see maps and schematics or assembly drawings in 3D and if she concentrates, in 4D, ie moving with time.
When my grandson was three, I gave him an analog clock, that had a monkey face with eyes that rolled and a tail that moved like a pendulum. He was very interested and quickly learned to tell time.
When my grandson was three, I gave him an analog clock, that had a monkey face with eyes that rolled and a tail that moved like a pendulum. He was very interested and quickly learned to tell time.
My grandparents gave me
the cat version of that clock, and it stayed in my bedroom for years. Mine was black, and I loved it.
When my grandson was three, I gave him an analog clock, that had a monkey face with eyes that rolled and a tail that moved like a pendulum. He was very interested and quickly learned to tell time.
My grandparents gave me
the cat version of that clock, and it stayed in my bedroom for years. Mine was black, and I loved it.
I had one of those black cat clocks, and I loved it; I had it until it mysteriously disappeared during our move to Chicago when I was in high school. A generation later, I sought one out for my Senior Child's bedroom when she was of an age.
Analogue display is elegant because it can simultaneously convey with clarity both instantaneous state and rate of change.
Clocks don't have rate of change, by definition. So your visual constructs of appreciating are just the baseline stupid human trick of thinking up justifications for promoting that which is familiar (and therefore comfortable and safe).
I hope all you sheeple choke on your endlessly-regurgitating thought cuds.
@Leorning Cniht - I've just asked her and she scrambles clockwise and anticlockwise so none of your other examples are helpful to her. She mixed up 2 and 5, 6 and 9, p, q, b and d for ever.
She's not the only dyslexic I have met like this, most I met in schools various did the same too. She can, however, see maps and schematics or assembly drawings in 3D and if she concentrates, in 4D, ie moving with time.
I am dyslexic and don’t know (never have known) my left from my right. My wedding ring is on my right hand - but it takes time to think ‘which is my right? ah yes - this one’ which doesn’t work when driving and being given directions!
With clocks it’s the same - I can confuse the time. I can use analogue clocks but there is a lag while I think it through.
Yes - I see the ‘big picture’ in all sorts of situations very easily, often in 3D. I can make very quick connections too. Some people seem v e r y slow to me because my brain connects things at 1000 miles an hour.
Lots of pluses with dyslexia - but we are often the fish who are made to climb trees. A good example is being forced to use analogue clocks.
Stop making us climb trees and put us in water and we are quicker than the rest.
I'm not sure left and right are connected with dyslexia. I read somewhere that only half the population get them right reliably; I always have to stop and think.
I'm sure it's connected. But it's complicated, as facebook puts it.
I've never had trouble reading, but the left-right reversal described is me all over. Many times I've done something like wake up, glance at the clock, and gone screaming out of bed hollering "shit I'm late how did I do that" and jumped into the shower to get ready for work. Only to discover that it was 3am and not 9am. (Nevertheless, I strongly prefer dial clocks to digital.) Left/right and east/west are confusing too.
One thing that's bitten me on occasion is being unable to get the computer to behave until I realized that I was using one hand to type letters that belonged under the fingers of the other.
It's weird, because I'm perfectly competent with analog clocks and far-more-than-average when it comes to the cardinal directions, but I am utterly crap at left and right (read: Seriously, LC? seriously?!!!!), and routinely pick a book up the wrong way (learning Hebrew didn't help matters). I can also write mirror and normal simultaneously at normal speed out from a middle point, without thinking about it.
I put it down to being not neurotypical, though I have no idea what would link all this freak stuff. I'm also left-handed, have perfect pitch, a near-eidetic memory for some things (until recently, alas), hyperlexic and have a couple/three types of synesthesia. And we have some bullshit form of OCD that attacks people in my family in childhood and turns to generalized anxiety in our twenties or so. Also familial cases of autism, ADHD, and dyslexia. And personally I've got absolutely no physical coordination at all, and no sense of time--I am forever hopelessly late and can't estimate time for a task to save my life.
The shorthand in my family has always been, "LC, you're just weird." Which is true of almost all of us.
Many times I've done something like wake up, glance at the clock, and gone screaming out of bed hollering "shit I'm late how did I do that" and jumped into the shower to get ready for work. Only to discover that it was 3am and not 9am.
On a couple of occasions my late ex-husband, who had a serious drinking problem, woke up from a stupor at about 7:00 p.m. or so on a Sunday evening, glanced at the digital clock, and frantically got dressed and drive to work, assuming it was Monday morning. (7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. are often about the same amount of darkish out).
The shorthand in my family has always been, "LC, you're just weird." Which is true of almost all of us.
Weird, but wonderful.
My oldest friends and I often fall into a conversation where one of us says they are the dull, normal one in the group. The rest of us fall into fits of laughter at the thought of their being normal - I'M the only normal person here!
Analogue clocks aren't that straightforward for some people. My dyslexic daughter can't read one, finds it impossible to sort out too and from the hour, but is fine with the 24 hour clock and digital. Why force analogue when most of the world (phones, computers) comes attached to digital clocks?
Strangely my severely dyslexic daughter couldn't get to grips with digital clocks, as she had orientation problems. Which meant that 5 and 2 looked the same to her as did 6 and 9. So she couldn't tell 5.25 from 2.52
Dyslexia is a bit like autism. They do say that when you've met one autistic person you've met... one autistic person. My experience of dyslexic people is similar; their difficulties are quite varied.
Little turdler screamed through a work meeting so much I had to drop off, and now just lost Lego privileges for the foreseeable future. Augh. Isolation is getting to him.
My neighbour’s kids (aged 19 and 12) are ghastly. Last night they had a shouting match at 3.30am (parents intervened around 4am).
I wish their enthusiasm for the Thursday night clap-for-carers would extend to allowing key workers to get a good night’s sleep. They know perfectly well that we’re both working at the moment and that my daughter’s revising for exams.
19 and 12 shouting at each other? That's the same gap as me (19...and a bit) and my sis - we were sort of orthogonal to each other, couldn't bait each other. Two girls? (runs for shelter)...
Today programme at top volume, 7am on morning after, might send a message? Door slams? Borrow a car with a blowing exhaust? (aaarrggghh, my neighbour's intentionally fruity exhaust, early in the morning. But I like him, which helps a lot )
OK. Record the heavy breathing and ecstatic moaning at the end of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin' Je t'aime ... moi non plus, copy and re-copy until you have about half-an-hour's worth, then play at full volume at 3am. Bet they won't complain
We have two young boys in our neighborhood who, at the beginning of the quarantine, would play bagpipes and drum in various areas (at the request of residents), so that they wouldn't drive their neighbors crazy practicing every day. One day they were in the park behind my house, and another day on my street. It's now gotten too hot for them to do so. I hope they're not driving their neighbors crazy!
When I used to live in the south east (UK), there was a guy who used to take his bagpipes and go practice under a motorway bridge over a relatively quiet (in terms of cars passing by) country road.
When I worked in the boarding house of a private school in Edinburgh there was one girl who had reached the stage in learning the pipes that she was told to practice while walking. The boarding house was an old manor with the upper rooms off a corridor which ran right round the grand stairwell. So every morning I would get her up five minutes early and she would walk and pipe the rest of the boarders out of their beds. Never failed to be successful!
The 19 year old and 12 year old are both boys. I think the shouting was X-Box related. Shouting during the day tends to be related to football or cricket; not that our back gardens are anywhere near big enough for either sport, but that doesn’t stop them. I suggested to their mum that they might find cricket easier in the back lane. Her response was “They couldn’t do that, they’d lose all the balls,” to which my response was “They already do, but so far I’ve been throwing them back. I might not have time over the next few days as I’m busy with work and my daughter has an exam on Wednesday.”
It’s been quieter since then, but I suspect after tomorrow the noise levels will rise again.
Comments
We had a little gaggle of girls finding it difficult to negotiate life generally and together recently at the after school club where I work. On asking it was confirmed that yes, they were year 8 girls.
Previously, in a mainstream school setting, the school counsellor ran a social group to try and persuade a similar group of year 8 with a slightly different group of year 10 girls to stop attacking each other so viciously. One of the proposed names was the Peer Mentoring Support Group because we quite liked the PMS group as a name.
I'm on the other side, but there is no way I am going to try and find a sick child to see for myself.
Me: Does this curve remind you of anything? (Thinking: All those graphs of coronavirus cases we keep seeing.)
Sulking kid: Yes. It looks like your tummy.
Umm... hate to break it to you but doubling every week would be y=2^x, not y=x^2.
*But hell, I know plenty of adults who can't work with 24-hour time. How are they helping their kids with maths during these peculiar times in which we live?
I know people today who can't understand The World Clock (which I had mastered by age 9 thanks to a Big Map on my Bedroom Wall and my mother having a friend in England (who went to bed when we left for school). Or even an analogue clock
Keep everyone back a year, I say. Or even 2 years (if it takes that long).
Even A~NZ and Australian radio schooling ( a remarkably successful educational achievement in itself) usually stopped after age 12 and the kids went "to town" as "boarders"
Because the position of the hands on an analogue clock map to the flow of time in a physical way, whereas numbers on a digital clock are just numbers? Because clocks are a useful device with which to imagine angles and phases? To distinguish clockwise from anticlockwise? Basically, I think teaching kids to read a clock has almost nothing to do with actual clocks. (My kids all learned digital first, because the majority of clocks in our house are digital, so it's what they saw. I learned analogue first, because we didn't have a digital clock in our house when I was a child.)
I'm curious - can she read a sundial? Is it juggling the hour and minute hands that gives her trouble - does she do OK with something like a mechanical stopwatch with a single hand, or does her dyslexia mean she has trouble with clockwise and anticlockwise as after and before even with a single pointer?
She's not the only dyslexic I have met like this, most I met in schools various did the same too. She can, however, see maps and schematics or assembly drawings in 3D and if she concentrates, in 4D, ie moving with time.
Glad that one's not just me.
the cat version of that clock, and it stayed in my bedroom for years. Mine was black, and I loved it.
Analogue display is elegant because it can simultaneously convey with clarity both instantaneous state and rate of change.
Clocks don't have rate of change, by definition. So your visual constructs of appreciating are just the baseline stupid human trick of thinking up justifications for promoting that which is familiar (and therefore comfortable and safe).
I hope all you sheeple choke on your endlessly-regurgitating thought cuds.
I am dyslexic and don’t know (never have known) my left from my right. My wedding ring is on my right hand - but it takes time to think ‘which is my right? ah yes - this one’ which doesn’t work when driving and being given directions!
With clocks it’s the same - I can confuse the time. I can use analogue clocks but there is a lag while I think it through.
Yes - I see the ‘big picture’ in all sorts of situations very easily, often in 3D. I can make very quick connections too. Some people seem v e r y slow to me because my brain connects things at 1000 miles an hour.
Lots of pluses with dyslexia - but we are often the fish who are made to climb trees. A good example is being forced to use analogue clocks.
Stop making us climb trees and put us in water and we are quicker than the rest.
I've never had trouble reading, but the left-right reversal described is me all over. Many times I've done something like wake up, glance at the clock, and gone screaming out of bed hollering "shit I'm late how did I do that" and jumped into the shower to get ready for work. Only to discover that it was 3am and not 9am. (Nevertheless, I strongly prefer dial clocks to digital.) Left/right and east/west are confusing too.
One thing that's bitten me on occasion is being unable to get the computer to behave until I realized that I was using one hand to type letters that belonged under the fingers of the other.
I put it down to being not neurotypical, though I have no idea what would link all this freak stuff. I'm also left-handed, have perfect pitch, a near-eidetic memory for some things (until recently, alas), hyperlexic and have a couple/three types of synesthesia. And we have some bullshit form of OCD that attacks people in my family in childhood and turns to generalized anxiety in our twenties or so. Also familial cases of autism, ADHD, and dyslexia. And personally I've got absolutely no physical coordination at all, and no sense of time--I am forever hopelessly late and can't estimate time for a task to save my life.
The shorthand in my family has always been, "LC, you're just weird." Which is true of almost all of us.
Weird, but wonderful.
My oldest friends and I often fall into a conversation where one of us says they are the dull, normal one in the group. The rest of us fall into fits of laughter at the thought of their being normal - I'M the only normal person here!
Strangely my severely dyslexic daughter couldn't get to grips with digital clocks, as she had orientation problems. Which meant that 5 and 2 looked the same to her as did 6 and 9. So she couldn't tell 5.25 from 2.52
I wish their enthusiasm for the Thursday night clap-for-carers would extend to allowing key workers to get a good night’s sleep. They know perfectly well that we’re both working at the moment and that my daughter’s revising for exams.
Today programme at top volume, 7am on morning after, might send a message? Door slams? Borrow a car with a blowing exhaust? (aaarrggghh, my neighbour's intentionally fruity exhaust, early in the morning. But I like him, which helps a lot
Tbh my first thought was
“Is this revenge for something my kids got up to?”
Closely followed by a re run of all neighbourly interactions.
But no, their son was on leave from his regiment & the rest of the street had not warned us of his bagpipe playing......
It’s been quieter since then, but I suspect after tomorrow the noise levels will rise again.