As the new school year approaches . . .

I prepare myself mentally for the mental landscapes before me. The teenagers I work with have great potential to create interesting cultural artifacts, now I need to ensure that each day is spent learning new things and reinforcing old things. The house building metaphor becomes relevant: start with grading the area clean (make connections with existing knowledge schemata), start a foundation (steady exposure to target stimuli), reinforce foundation (practice new content in meaningful contexts), and so forth. Here is a website that examines planning a curriculum that works toward the acquisition of new knowledge and skill sets.

curriculumindex - Planning a curriculum - resources, etc.

Dancing!

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

What are these humans doing? Dancing. Many humans on Earth exhibit periods of happiness, and one method of displaying happiness is dancing. Happiness and dancing transcend political boundaries and occur in practically every human society. Above, Matt Harding traveled through many nations on Earth, started dancing, and filmed the result. The video is perhaps a dramatic example that humans from all over planet Earth feel a common bond as part of a single species. Happiness is frequently contagious -- few people are able to watch the above video without smiling.