Motivation... bleh

Motivation is one thing that I've never had.  In fact, quite a few teachers have told me that: "I'm not lazy, I'm just very unmotivated." Which translates to: "Stop procrastinating till the last minute and do the damn assignment!!!"  Alas, this response is, unmotivated and frankly, played out.  But it's always been this way; I never had to struggle in any of my classes (except math, but we'll get to that), and despite sometimes going out of my way to NOT learn (more on this too), I've got by with mostly A's and B's in high school.  After football/tennis/skiing, I would go home, hang out with my friends until late, then played video games, watched tv and read until way later.  Then I would wake up late, get to school late, do my English homework in math class, do my History homework in English, do my Biology homework in History, and never do my math homework.  And this is how I sluffed by.  And no one called me out on it besides the math teachers, and who cares about them? (Again, math people, don't worry I'll address this momentarily)  I don't think I wrote a "second draft" until a few years into my college career.  As soon as the test was over, I forgot all the names of cellular construction.  Once the names and dates were memorized and linked together with very specific word clues, they were stored for emergency pop-quiz retrieval only.  I never once analyzed all this data that was coming at me, being processed by me and finally regurgitated back out.  I never once thought about two hydrogen molecules, somehow, miraculously colliding with an oxygen molecule to create water! How did I never ponder that scenario!?

I was always the kid getting into trouble.  Literally, always.  Even if it wasn't me! (though to be fair, more often than not, it was).  What can I say, I'm a "[social] peacock, captain! You gotta let me fly!"  I blame it on the ability to make friends with anyone that was sitting next to me, and I wouldn't let a little something like having my desk be at least 10 feet away from all my neighbors stop me, I'd just get louder.  This is all true.  I once had a science teacher first, switch my groups on a bi-weekly basis, then he moved my desk away from all the other students, and finally, in an act of desperation, he put me in his office where he kept storage and gave me the lecture notes.  If only that had worked.  One day he caught me after I had set up an elaborate slinky staircase with the many boxes he kept in the in the room.  In my defense, it was HIS slinky, how could I not play with that?  Anyway, long story short when he queried: "What the hell are you doing!?!", I was all but forced to respond by pointing at a few other nick knacks I had found in the room, including a small propane tank and a grill lighter, and ask a question in return: "Should you really keep those two things in the same room?"  Well, apparently that was the last straw since I spent the rest of the year in the hall outside his door.  Well, technically wandering the hall or playing outside.  I think what really destroyed him though was that I got an A- in the class.  All of that is true, and looking back from where I am now, I honestly feel sorry for him.  As far as I know he either transferred school or retired after that year.

Ok so math.  When I moved from Ohio to Utah, somewhere along the way I missed a step in mathematics that has forever marred the subject in my eyes.  And I think I've finally narrowed that step down to fractions.  Fractions are my bane, fractions if used with wanton abandon from a teacher, will leave me in a crumpled, weeping mess of self despair.  Fractions suck.  We were going along fine, doing stuff that I was just breezing through: Decimals, no problem.  Negative numbers, give me a break.  Long division, Kachow! Gonzo.  And then suddenly we were dividing, but not really, because the numbers didn't evenly distribute into each other.  And then we were adding the divisions to each other, and at one point the second was flipped and now inexplicably we're timesing! Wait, what!?  And then, as quick as they had come, those devil numbers were gone and we were on to something else.  But I was never as confident about my math skills as I was from that point... and then they added letters.  Now by this point, I'd become pretty comfortable with letters.  They created words, which in turn created books, which in turn created movies like Jurassic Park.  But now it was like I was at a party with letters, but letters didn't tell me they had also invited numbers over, and it became a "Hey dude, I'm friends with you, and I'm also friends with these guys, so we should all be friends together" situation.  But the thing is, I didn't want more friends.  I can break my math classes down into a timeline, starting with 7th grade: Pre-Algebra :: Algebra :: Geometry :: Algebra 2, but then got kicked down to Algebra :: Math 1010 (or the equivilent of another college Algebra class I took senior year) :: COLLEGE :: Stats 1040 X 5.  Seriously.  It took me 5, FIVE, tries to pass Stats 1040 in college.  The second Algebra made math a curse word in my books, so that 5th Stats attempt was literally, the worst thing I've ever gone through.  Math was the one subject I actually had motivation in, because I wasn't good at it.  Well, that's how my attitude in higher math began, anyway.

Now you're thinking, but Brian, what does this have to do with motivation?  Well, If I had ever been motivated, like, actually motivated, not by grades or threats, but by the pursuit of my own knowledge and self satisfaction, I would have cared more.  Instead, I'm virtually useless when it comes to the curriculum of the hard sciences.  And not only that, I now have zero motivation to learn any kind of math.  I hope I marry a gal that's good at it, or at least knows how to use a calculator.  Because sometimes educational motivation is like a pair of skis.  You can use 'em year after year, on fresh powder and on crude, and never worry about maintenance. And you can love 'em.  But one day that base is going to be chewed up beyond repair, and no amount of waxing can bring it back.  That base is gone forever.  I know what it feels like to be giving something your best effort and always coming up short, and a teacher that doesn't know anything about motivation, or how to motivate on an individual level is a teacher that probably shouldn't have a job.

Halloween Appropriate Blog (sort of)

I started out reading.  Or, more accurately, I started out being read to.  I loved hearing about the adventures of Corduroy Bear, Babar, Curious George, and that lovable, antisocial misfit Max.  I'm told I could recite Where the Wild Things Are long before I could read.  There are still boxes upon boxes of Little Critters and Bearenstein Bears books somewhere in my parent's house. 

When I was able to read more comprehensibly, Two of my favorite genres were adventure and horror.  At the time, Gary Paulsen was one of my favorite authors, With Hatchet and Brian's Winter being some of the best literary achievements in the history of writing (it didn't hurt that me and the main character shared a name).  Being an only child with several acres of woods behind my house, the idea of being lost in the dense Canadian forests, alone and fending for yourself really appealed to my sense of boyish exploration.  Jean Craighead George's adventure tale My Side of the Mountain, about a boy who runs away to live in the mountains and befriends a hawk, was another book that I really dug at the time.  These stories combined the eternal struggle of man vs. nature, and the charm of individualism and self in the face of adversity, in these stories I found the unique question of the reader "how would I react in this scenario"; in a way, the foundation of literary Analysis. 

Horror, on the other hand, simply let me revel in my boyish infatuation with the twisted and macabre.  Does anyone else remember those More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books?  I used to read those by the set (there were more knock-off serieses than I can list, and those were great, but nothing beats the originals).  Those terrifying-yet-un-skippable stories by Alvin Schwartz combined with Stephen Gammell's nightmare inducing illustrations strictly appealed to my early fascination with the unknown.  Did those books have any literary merit? No.  Did they scare the pants off me? Yes.  Did I (do I still) love them? Yes! Yes! Yes!  And for those that may not pay as much attention to Banned Book Week as the English Majors, just a heads up, those books were number one on the Most Banned or Challenged Book list for years.

Let's change gears again and skip ahead to high school. In high school I was fortunate enough to have a teacher that allowed us to choose our own books for book reports.  This was a freedom I hadn't had since elementary school.  Finally able to decide what to read, find something I enjoyed, get away from the drudgery of assigned reading, find new meaning int he written word!  So I started experimenting with authors like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Augusten Burroughs, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Tom Wolfe, Douglas Adams, and a whole cavalcade of authors that caught my interest.  But there was one book in particular that changed everything I knew/know about a narrative.  A book you've never heard of.  Brian Clevinger, internet famed author of 8-bit theater and the comic book series "Atomic Robo".  In his book Nuklear Age, Clevinger tells the story of the goofy, lovable, idiot man-child superhero Nuklear Man and his reluctant and much more intelligent side kick Atomik Lad (Sparky).  This almost 700 page novel goes through the antics (and sometimes mundane) lives of being a superhero.  It's comedic, heartwarming, intriguing, and fun-filled.  *SPOILER*SPOILER*SPOILER*SPOILER*SPOILER*THIS IS A SPOILER WARNING*  But then, after around page 600, the book takes an unforeseeable change; one that turned the way I look at the basic hero narrative on its head.  The unaware main character turns into the most powerful being in the universe, a villain kills half the worlds population in a second, and Sparky's girlfriend, who the reader has come to absolutely fall in love with, is killed off.  And all these changes are permanent.  The hero in a single moment looses the love of his life, and his best friend/mentor.  And the book ends.  But it is one of the most unexpected, satisfying endings to a book I've ever read.  Why? Because it felt real.  The ending came to its natural conclusion, and though it pains me every time I read it (at least once every couple years), it is the only way it could have ended.

So why am I talking about all these books I love to read?  Because I believe, above all else, relateable content that a student can sink their teeth into is the most important part of someone becoming interested in reading.  If you use content that the students are interested in, they will want to read, and if they want to read, it's a good thing.  If a student likes what they are reading, they can begin more steps into high reading: asking questions, analyzing the text, seeking out other books of interest.

What's the Difference Between School and Home?

Nothing when you're parents are teachers.  And especially nothing when your parents have been retired since you were 12 and were home all the time.  Lolzerz.  One thing I love about my parents is that they're always willing to help me with my school-work.  My dad has a Masters and over 30 years of social studies experience, so I still call him when I have problems with a Poli Sci paper.  And my mom was a librarian for the jr. high/high school her last 15 years, and she sends me 2-3 YAL books a month that I "Just have to read and own and put on my classroom bookshelf".  And I try to. 

Anyway, I recently visited the rest of my family in Ohio (both mom and dad's sides) and one thing that I realized is that my dad's side of the family truly knows how to tell a story, and my mom's side does not.  Now let me start with my mom's side; I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but those people can not, for the life of them, tell a linear, concise story.  They end up adding unnecessary and overcomplicated details that throws the listener off, and then they pause at odd times, I suppose to either let you sort the jumbled mess out in your head or to give a response.  They're great people and I love them, but if I had a choice between a three hour car ride with them,m during which my lips were sewn shut, and reading the entire Twilight saga including the Bree Tanner novella; I'd rather take the car ride, but just barely.

Now my dad's side of the family is the other side of the coin.  Apparently, you couldn't get my grandpa to close his trap, even if you paid the cheap SOB (families words, not mine).  And he passed that down to his five children, my dad being the oldest and Nancy (the one I actually got to visit with) the second.  Well ol' dad and me got in the car and drove up to Coschocton (actual spelling), and had a visit with Nancy, her husband (my uncle, you'd know that if you were following along!) and their daughter Jodi.  And I swear, from the minute we sat down, till we left (4ish hours later), there was not a single pause in the conversation.  I haven't laughed that much in a coons age.  A story wouldn't even finish before the laughter started, and someone else would begin telling another, which in turn was followed by laughter and another story.  Partly because we all knew (or could guess) how the story was going to end, partly because we inherently know how to tell a story, and partly because we wanted to tell our tale next. 

There is a rhythm to story telling (and writing) that almost leads you through the telling.  Once you get a feel for your audience, things like pauses, exaggerations, hand gestures, expressions, colloquialisms etc. become naturalistic.  When you get on a roll, you know it, and it's that moment when you have everyone listening (or reading), in the palm of your hand.  You can almost sense when you have obtained the perfect balance of context and cadence, and that moment, is pure joy.  At least, if you're a Clark it is.