26 Comments
Oct 30Liked by Phisto Sobanii

I am among your admirers over these last 5 posts. Your intellectual knowledge of all thing's social studies and your emphasis on learning and thinking vs. knowing persons places and things are admirable. My educational frame of reference was on the later and I am wondering do the state academic standards affect your curriculum? Again, keep up the good work.

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The state academic standards do affect my work.

Thankfully, there are well suited to my focus. Unless someone really wanted to make it an issue, in which case no standards would save me anyway, I’m in the clear for sure.

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Curious, how many thought he made Christianity the official religion of the empire, instead of a couple Emperors later? It's something I grew up thinking, until I educated myself on the actual history, and learned it was Uncle Theo.

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Most had never heard of the guy. Those who did had no idea what he was really famous for.

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Oct 28·edited Oct 28Liked by Phisto Sobanii

Nice. Clean slates then. I have too many weird people out here then, that are wrongly taught improper facts in their Churches. It's harder to teach people something they've been wrongly though there, then anything. Ran into these types while still working for others, before I was able to work for myself

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Oct 27Liked by Phisto Sobanii

Wow- so so true re the bird singing. It’s the bird’s life and the bird’s voice. Punishment and force are the very opposite of learning / singing.

Keep that grey matter thinking about what and when they may want to sing. Every school year (31 years so far homeschooling 11 kids) I pull out a few favorite memoirs or autobiographies of teachers or wise persons to put me in best frame of mind for the year and to remind me of the students as individuals, that it does not work to recreate public school at home and that it up to me to adjust and adapt as I wait on the bird to sing.

I hope you will write a memoir that I can add to that shelf. The examples of your interactions with your students (and my perpetual question each time, “What if they knew of his shitposting?”) create the best mental picture of the teacher / high school freshmen relationships.

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"What if they knew?"

They likely never will. But I may tell some select graduates, once they're old enough to appreciate it. Haha!

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Oct 27Liked by Phisto Sobanii

Good outlook on teaching. Kids should enjoy life and not have too much pressure, they will learn eventually.

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I really enjoyed learning the parable about Tokugawa and the bird that wouldn't sing.

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Oct 27·edited Oct 27Author

I'm glad. It’s one of my favorites.

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My ancestor paternal grandfather and grandmother arrived in separate families on the Endeavor from England on September 29, 1683. They married in 1692 after he completed his indentured service. Yes. Slavery. By any other name.

My Maternal grandfather arrived in Quebec from France to serve in the kings army as a mercenary to fight against the Penobscot and Mohawk tribes. His children immigrated to the United States in 1865.

Most people have zero clue of their origins. That’s dishonorable to their family name and ancestors.

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Oct 28Liked by Phisto Sobanii

I'm always baffled by people who can trace their lineage back so many centuries. The oldest surviving information in my family is a murky picture of what may be relatives from the late 1800s, but who they are and what they did is lost to time. Then there's just a giant gap in info until WWII.

So for all I know, I just spontaneously manifested from the void!

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Lots of information can be found in census records and believe it or not, family bibles. Also cooperation with others that have some research in blogs such as ancestry. I knew my mothers side. Pretty much straight French and all the way into the states after the civil war. Large Catholic families needed the kids for farming not war so they immigrated late from Canada. My fathers side I used the help of a geneology professional to join the Sons of the American revolution. That side was harder to trace and I needed to do some homework. How they all lived? The American experience I suppose. Followed the land and money south and west and fought Indians, British, French, and eventually each other.

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In my case Pilgrims kept great records. In 1908 an ancestor wrote several volumes on everything he could find.

Mom’s side is oral history, but we know some of our cousins in Ireland.

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I am envious of you both (you and Ph Sobanii) having such lengthy roots here. You are legitimately indigenous people. In my case, not so much, which often makes me somewhat resentful since it is hard to really anchor myself in an authentic ethnocultural mileau, although I do feel 100% tied to a European (Greco-Roman?) heritage. My father was an immigrant from Spain with his own deep roots there, from the northern parts of primarily Visigothic, Basque and/or Carolingian influence, both genetic and cultural. My mother was 1st generation Canadian whose family was eastern Slav with no traceable ancestry other than that of "peasant" (a term used in a non-derogatory way) from the Poland/Russian/Austro-Hungarian border land, today comically misnamed as Ukraine.

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It’s a dogs breakfast isn’t it!? You honor them by knowing their history

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Stop the inappropriate, “At the end of the day” phrase! The proper phrase is, “In the end!”

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I've never heard that before. What makes you say that?

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Because that’s proper English. Only in the last 15 years has the stupid “At the end of the day” been perpetuated on the American people. People being followers like sheep, started using it. Even Bill O’Reilly talked about it on his old show The O’Reilly Factor.

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Oct 28Liked by Phisto Sobanii

Utter bullshit. I have a degree in English literature and you are completely off your chum. Your point is that of a pedant with a total lack of appreciation for the fluidity of language and the role of *idiomatic* speech. Cambridge defines the phrase as an idiom, and the OED marks its entry into the popular parlance from the early 1970s. So, not only do you lack credibility as an English speaker, you fail to acquire such as a language historian. Maybe sit the next one out.

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She will. When I ban, it’s for good.

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Oct 28Liked by Phisto Sobanii

Oh, but wait!! You'll lose out on links to a private blog defining the language for its loose affiliation of pretentious twats!

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You're really grumpy, aren't you?

At the end of the day, language changes. Not much to be done about it.

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You sound Grumpy! 😂😂😂

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Between this and your irritation at my using the word "fuck" I'm going to do us all a favor and ban you.

If you don't like what someone writes, try not reading it. Bye!

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