“Endeavor, first, to broaden your children’s sympathies and, by satisfying their daily needs, to bring love and kindness into such unceasing contact with their impressions and their activity, that these sentiments may be engrafted in their hearts.”
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827) as Quoted in The Teacher and the Taught (1963)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
“When did the Iranian government condemn writer Salman Rushdie to death? Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death sentence against the author of The Satanic Verses on February 15, 1989. Rushdie has been in hiding since.”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
[Over the years in my classrooms, it was hard to miss the fact that students who struggled with reading, particularly the students of Asian Pacific descent I served, would nonetheless exhaust my school library’s supply of anime. In researching this post, I learned that Bakin’s best-known book, Hakkenden, has been adapted to anime. For that reason, I have tagged this as high-interest material.]
“Kyokutei Bakin: (1767-1849) Japanese fiction writer of the late-Tokugawa period. Bakin was among the most gifted writers of his time, and succeeded in establishing himself as a serious writer in an age dominated by the lowbrow entertainment genre of Gesaku. Bakin is best known for an extraordinary tour-de-force, Hakkenden (1814-1832), whose title translates, improbably, as “Eight Canine Biographies.” This high-flown historical romance of noble vengeance, with its thickly applied Confucianist morality of virtue rewarded and vice punished, ranks as Japan’s longest literary narrative. Hakkenden has retained its popularity in contemporary Japan, albeit in abridged modern editions.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Chronicle (noun): A chronological record of events or facts, especially a historical narrative or register without interpretation or comment; account; story. Noun: chronicler; verb: chronicle.
‘The Franks, as a family, came to an end, and, fittingly enough, thought the diarist, so did her chronicle of their effort to go sensibly on as themselves, in spite of everything.’ Philip Roth, The Ghost Writer.”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“Work Ethic: The idea of productive labor, or work, being valued in and for itself for those who do it, encouraging them to invest greater effort than could be achieved by social pressures, incentive payments, or other devices developed by employers to extract maximum output from their workforces. The concept is a unique product of Western European culture; other cultures rely on different social, religious, and political ideologies to encourage productive labor and the fulfillment of social obligations. The idea was derived originally from the protestant ethic, which presents work as a religious and moral obligation, and is now widely used as a simplified popular version of that concept, especially in the context of explanations for low or high productivity and economic growth. The relevant American and British research in sociology, psychology, economics, and political science is reviewed in Michael Rose, Reworking the Work Ethic (1985).”
Excerpted from: Marshall, Gordon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged philosophy/religion, professional development, term of art
“Nine has always been respected by the Chinese, for it has tonal resonance with ‘long lasting’ and was also associated with the Emperor, who had nine dragons embroidered on his robe and ruled over a court divided between nine ranks of courtiers who could gain nine sorts of reward. This respect for the power of 9 led to many social listings of 9, often charged with an observant sense of humor, as well as the more serious concept of how individuals were bound ninefold to their family, clan, and community.
Here are the 9 Admirable Social Habits:
*Relieving tension * Courteous attention. * Discreet
Mention * Tenacious retention * Assiduousness *
Wise abstention * Calculated prevention * Truthful
Intervention * A sense of dimension
The 9 Virtues—as defined for the near legendary Emperor Yu (2205-2100. BC) by his chief minister Kao-Yao:
*Affability combined with dignity * Mildness with
firmness * Bluntness with respectfulness * Ability with
reverence * Docility with boldness * Straightforwardness
with gentleness * Easiness with discrimination * Vigo
with sincerity * Valor with goodness
The 9 Follies:
*To think oneself immortal * To think investments are
secure * To mistake conventional good manners for
friendship * To expect any reward for doing right * To
imagine the rich regard you as an equal * To continue to
drink after you have begun to declare that you are sober
* To recite your own verse * To lend money and expect
its return * To travel with too much luggage
The 9 Jollities of a Peasant:
*To laugh * To fight * To fill the stomach * To forget
* To sing * To take vengeance * To discuss * To boast
* To fall asleep
The 9 Deplorable Public Habits:
*Drunkenness * Dirtiness * Shuffling * Over-loud voice
* Scratching * Unpunctuality * Peevishness
* Spitting * Repeated jests
And the 9 Final Griefs:
*Disappointed expectations * Irretrievable loss
* Inevitable fatigue * Unanswered prayers
* Unrequited service * Ineradicable doubt
* Perpetual dereliction * Death * Judgement”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged asian-pacific history, literary oddities, numeracy, readings/research
This is the fifth of five posts on origami; as I said in the last one, blink, of you’ll miss it. I scanned the documents in these posts from two different origami books I bought for use in my classrooms. None of this intellectual property, needless to say, is mine to give away. Desperate times call for bold measures, which is why I’m here putting up one more of these posts.
First, here are the folding terms and directions for the documents in this and the previous (i.e. Origami IV) post. And here are the directions of the origami figures themselves:
origami 42 magnolia blossom; origami 43 rose; origami 44 leaf; origami 45 swan; origami 46 butterfly; origami 47 crane; origami 48 frog; origami 49 chinese wheel; origami 50 koi.
Here is a wikiHow article on how to make origami paper. Finally, once more, here are a trove of videos on origami from YouTube.
“Conjunctive: Indicating joining or connecting, or functioning as a conjunction by linking sentences and clauses, e.g., the adverbs ‘accordingly,’ ‘yet,’ ‘consequently.'”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
“Rotten Reviews: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
‘…unmanly, sickening, vicious (though not exactly what is called ‘improper’), and tedious.’
Athenaeum
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
“Advisedly for Advertently, Intentionally. ‘It was done advisedly’ should mean that it was done after advice.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged diction/grammar/style/usage
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