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audreycritter · 3 years

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how do you balance creating fan works with juggling your responsibilities? I've been struggling with finding the time/motivation to write what I want.

First, my creativity output tends to come and go in waves. Some weeks I’m writing 1-3k a day, some weeks I don’t even open documents at all. Some weeks are in-between, where I open stuff and poke around and do a few hundred words here and there, but not much more. The “off” times I’m usually reading, playing games, watching movies or shows, talking to friends, and thinking about stories or scenes. Sometimes, this isn’t even anything I’ll ever write! Sometimes, I don’t think about stories I’m writing at all. It’s more whatever pops into my head and less structured. Part of me wants to be Disciplined and write every day, but the reality is that unless it’s a very tiny limit like 100-200 words, this really isn’t doable for me. I have kids I homeschool, I have a house and a husband and a dog and there are times in life when I need to deep clean a bunch of rooms, or plan out school stuff, or go on hikes, and I still have to have time to recharge. Writing sometimes is that recharging, but I can’t afford to force it when it isn’t.

Because the reality is that to find that time, you have to give up something. There isn’t a version of the equation where “finding time” involves creating more time than you already have. The things I can afford to cut out to work on writing are the things I do in my own entertainment time-- I write instead of doing those things at all, or as much. So, I tend to write when it’s the thing I want to do, and enjoy doing, because otherwise it would be an emotional and mental drain I couldn’t afford. When I’m writing a lot in a day, it means I’m not really reading fic or novels, I’m not watching much TV, I spend way less time chatting online, I don’t really scroll tumblr as much, I’m not playing video games. The things I usually do in the bit of time in the afternoons or evenings when I have a chance to just do something I want to do, that’s what I give up to make room. (Sometimes, I give up sleep, but I don’t recommend doing this often. I can’t say I fully regret the times when I’m on a roll and stay up super late, but this really isn’t healthy or sustainable long-term because I’m not in a position to sleep in late-- if you can afford to sleep in late, that might be different.) Two caveats: This is a fact, but not always a conscious decision. Sometimes, I might actually think, “Okay, so I’m not going to have time to watch this tonight after all,” but that’s pretty rare. Usually, if I’m giving up stuff to write, it’s just the natural consequence of really wanting to write and enjoying it and focusing on it. The same as if I’d gotten sucked into a really good book and spent the evening/night reading-- I’m not consciously deciding “I will give up other entertainment options for this today,” as much as I’m just doing the thing I want to do. The second caveat is that I have ADHD! Wanting to write and getting started can be two different things because of my difficulty switching tasks or starting a task. The rule that tends to help me the most are on the days I want to write, or think I want to write, and have stuff I’ve been thinking about writing, but keep not getting started, I give myself ten minutes alone with an open document. A timer, ten minutes, the document, and nothing else. No app switching, no scrolling, no background chores. Those ten minutes of boredom don’t always kickstart writing, but they give me the chance to determine if writing is the thing I actually want to do that day. I get going and I’m on a roll and I ignore the timer when it goes off, or I poke around, maybe write a few words, and the timer beeps and I’m free to go do something else because it’s not a good writing day.

I’m not always the best at balancing, to be honest. Sometimes, I give up sleep, or put off minor chores. Sometimes, I forget to eat. I do not recommend these, but I think it’s okay if you’re WORKING at balancing and sometimes realize you’ve made an error, as long as you scramble to catch up and give yourself some space to learn. Because my responsibilities are centered around tiny humans, I have a framework of school and meal times I can’t ignore; if your responsibilities are more “quiet” and easier to overlook (like homework, or self-care, or work from home) you might need to just teach yourself to not even open documents until you’ve done certain tasks. Jot down notes if you’re afraid you’ll lose something! But don’t buy into the myth that a “real writer” is completely controlled by impulse and whim. Will there be rare days when you ignore everything else to write for four hours? Maybe! But that shouldn’t be the goal, or the norm, because unless you have a household staff and responsibilities that cater to your whims, it’s really not realistic or healthy.

The big things are to figure out how to be hard on yourself and how to be gentle with yourself. If you’re too tired, really want to watch a show, overwhelmed by work, just need to talk to a friend or chat server for an hour, it’s okay to just do those things and not feel guilty. Unless you are writing fulltime as your job, it is a hobby and you don’t “have” to achieve a certain level of productivity to be valid as a writer. The times to be hard on yourself are when you know you want to write, and are enjoying the actual process, but your brain isn’t trained to focus on it for stretches of time-- when you’re writing and think of something to tell a friend, wander about a random fact, want to check tumblr when you pause to think about a sentence, that’s when you sternly tell yourself “no, give it thirty seconds before you jump away from this task” and see if you end up getting unstuck with that little breath of boredom space. If you’re really disengaging, that’s okay, but your brain might just need to build the muscle of staying focused on the structure of creative output. It’s a muscle! You might WANT to do fifty pushups, but if you haven’t made your body stick out five for a while, and then ten, and built up, it’s probably not going to cooperate and you’ll feel miserable and broken and useless if you just try to get to fifty the first time. But...building to fifty requires not getting distracted and wandering away when you’ve only done 2 of 5 the week you’re working on sets of five. My only other recommendation if you haven’t done a lot of writing before is to not fall into the editing trap. Unless you just REALLY LOVE EDITING and it engages and charges you to write more, don’t get stuck in the loop of opening a document or a notebook to write and spending all your time editing the few paragraphs you already have. A lot of the first draft stuff will probably suck. That’s okay. Just finish the thing. You know the cake analogy in fandom? “Write that hurt/comfort, it’s just more cake!”? Getting stuck editing the first bit of a story over and over until it’s polished is sort of like looking at a bowl of three ingredients of a cake recipe and going “This doesn’t look much like cake, maybe if I add more flour...” until you have a bowl full of something that really isn’t cake and isn’t anything closer to cake, no matter how pretty you’ve made those three ingredients look in the bowl. Maybe it’s a very lovely color and has pretty sprinkles on it! Still not a cake. You’ve wasted your limited time, and worn yourself out, and you know you still don’t really have anything closer to a cake to pull out of the oven and show off. The time to edit is when the cake is done and cooling, and you’re making icing and picking out trimmings and cutting up fruit and shaving chocolate or whatever. And then the next cake will probably be better because you practiced doing the whole thing and have a better idea of what to do and not do the next time. Then, opening a document or grabbing a pen and notebook can be a new, engaging chance to create instead of “oh it’s this same stale bowl of aesthetic half-batter.” (Again, if you find editing as you go super recharging, ignore this-- some people are just very good at tweaking batter as they go without stalling completely-- just give yourself the time to figure that out.) I hope this helps! Feel free to send follow-up questions or clarifications if I misunderstood something or you want a differently structured answer or just MORE INFORMATIONS.

#writing #chiropterancreed

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lesbiancouplescounseling · 3 years

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#relationship coaching #Online Coaching #Lesbian Relationship Coaching

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buildingthetreehouse · 3 years

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PLAY

Play was the literacy that I expected to use the most coming into the project. Jenkins describes play as “the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving” (2006). I was able to latch onto the concept of this literacy fairly easily; to me, it literally involves “playing around” in the environment and seeing what happens, while being open to the possibility of failure and what we can learn from it.

When I first came into Minecraft, I expected that the game would offer some sort of a tutorial – most games do! Instead, I found myself dropped into the blocky little world without any indication of controls, game mechanics, or goals. This meant that my first day in Minecraft involved a lot of play as I tested out how the game worked.

For example: what happens when I fall off a cliff? This happened a lot, both deliberately and not so deliberately. As it turns out, falling off a cliff hurts, reducing your health bar depending on how steep of a drop you fell from. Who could have guessed!

Minecraft itself seems to really encourage the play literacy in particular. As I interacted with my environment, testing out the key commands and their effects on the world around me, the game offered new “recipes”, allowing me to build tools that would improve my experience. This of course is directly related to the absence of a tutorial. Without a set of instructions, the game is essentially forcing you to interact with it to progress, and to take challenges as they come.

Pictured above: one of many, many deaths

This meant that for the first little while I died… a lot. Often times I would spend hours collecting resources or attempting to travel to the group meeting point only to be ambushed by enemies when night fell. I turned to forum posts and how-to articles, searching for tips to survive through the night. Most suggested digging a hole or crafting a bed to wait things out, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not seem to work fast enough to make these strategies work. If I made myself a fort, a Creeper inevitably blew it up. If I dug a hole to take cover in, it just meant I was trapped when a spider found me. I could not seem to find a sheep in order to craft a bed – necessary for skipping over the night.

Pictured above: An unsuccessful attempt to survive by hiding in a hole - note my already depleted health bar

This was initially frustrating, it forced me to re-evaluate my strategy. Eventually I figured out that when I disconnected from the server, in-game time continued to pass. It was an epiphany! The next time the sun began to set, I simply logged out of the game and waited, checking back every few minutes to see if night had switched to day.

In his paper on gaming literacy, Zimmerman argues that the meaning of “gaming” is twofold: it applies both to the act of playing the video game, but also to the act of bending rules or cheating the system (2013). By skipping over the night then, I was “gaming” the server’s day/night system… and although I probably would have eventually built up enough skill to progress the “right” way, that little cheat really contributed to my enjoyment and my success.

This experience supports Zimmerman’s own definition of play as a gaming literacy, wherein he specifically references breaking and bending rules to play WITH the structure of the game (Zimmerman, 2013). I would agree that the ability to “game” the system is an important aspect of gaming literacy, and I would also argue that it ties directly into Jenkins’ play concept as well.

After all, the process went something like this:

That follows Jenkins’ definition of play almost to the letter!

These are just a few examples of how I used play throughout the game. Since Minecraft was a new game for me, MOST of my experience over two weeks could fall into this category, from craft, to travelling, to building – but to recap every task completed over the entire two weeks would become redundant. What really matters is that I came out of the game with a stronger fluency in play, and an understanding of how it exists in a wider context of digital literacy.

For example, my experimentation and subsequent problem solving directly informed me about Minecraft’s world system, another of Zimmerman’s gaming concepts. Through play, I learned about the game’s rules, the tools available to me and how to use them, and the world build itself (ie: the travelling merchant). All of these aspects come together to form the game’s unique system. Contrary to my original hypothesis, it was not enough that I was fluent in a different game’s system, as I thought it would be. Although there’s some overlap in goals and window dressing between Minecraft and Animal Crossing, the two systems are vastly different. Unlike Animal Crossing, Minecraft provides no guiding hand to its players. Even when the goals align (use tools to collect resources, use resources to craft customizations for your environment), Minecraft is decidedly less structured, leaving the player to fend for themselves in an environment that is oftentimes hostile.

Pictured above: Animal Crossing offers clear instructions to new players and provides NPC support, contrary to Minecraft’s “fend for yourself” system. Image reposted from Animal Crossing World, 2020

This was a valuable lesson, and one that I believe is broadly applicable. It isn’t enough to have an abstract idea of a problem or environment. To really understand what you’re dealing with (the system and/or a problem), you need to be able to get your hands dirty. Sometimes that means failing multiple times before you get it right, sometimes it means trying something out just to see what happens.

A recent example of this skill carrying over is the creation of this blog! While attempting to complete this Critical Unit Assignment, I kept finding myself getting stuck – I was unhappy with my writing, didn’t feel like I was communicating clearly, and was becoming uninspired. Looking back over the assignment instructions, I realized that there were a million formats I hadn’t even considered trying. So, I started experimenting…. I wrote out my main points in bullet form and transferred them into power point. Then I tried rewriting with a more casual tone. That felt better – I was unstuck! Once I had settled on the blog format, I was able to experiment with the more creative aspects of it by searching up layout templates and tweaking the HTML of them. Although this was a different version of play than the one in Minecraft, the concept remained the same. I was able to successfully carry the play literacy over to a different environment.

#critical analysis

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lauramalchowblog · 4 years

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How I’d Change School

Almost no one’s happy with school these days. Kindergarteners are sitting in front of devices for 4-5 hours a day. Teens are dreading daily online meetings and getting prescriptions for “Zoom fatigue.” Some of this is growing pains—kids, teachers, and parents are being asked to completely change the way they do school on a moment’s notice, and change like that doesn’t come easily. But that’s not the only reason.

There just aren’t many great options left. Parents don’t want their kids stuck on the computer all day, nor do they want them in class masked up and unable to touch or play with their peers. There are big problems in every direction.

Change is in the air. People are fed up with the new way of doing things and realizing they don’t like the old way all that much either. I don’t have kids in school anymore, but I do have a grandkid who will be in school soon. Besides, everyone who lives in a country has a stake in the school system of that country. The schools shape the people who become the adults who shape the nation. That affects everyone. Something needs to change.

If I could wave a wand, how would I change school?

Here’s what I’d like to see:

Later start times

8:30, 9 AM. This would give kids extra sleep. Everyone needs sleep, but kids need it more than anyone. It helps them consolidate memories and recently learned skills.1 Even the CDC has called for later start times2 for schools. as kids especially need a lot of sleep. Kids are staying up later and later than ever before. Particularly in studies using teen subjects, delaying school start times by 25-60 minutes can increase total sleep duration by 25-75 minutes per weeknight.3 That’s up to more than an hour of extra sleep a night, five days a week. That’s a huge ROI.

There’s more beneficial fallout that the studies don’t address. When you push the start time back, the mornings are less stressful for everyone. Instead of giving your kid a ziploc bag full of dry cereal, you’re scrambling eggs, slicing apples, and frying bacon. You’re not worried about being late, you’re taking your time. Hell, maybe there’s even time to walk to school.

Stay on track no matter where you are! Sign up for our Primal and Keto Guide to Eating Out

Better food

Just go full whole food Primal with a macronutrient-agnostic bent:

Full-fat dairy

Real meat and eggs and seafood

Fruit and vegetables

Starchy tubers

No seed oils or gluten or refined sugar

That may sound strict. You may think “kids would never go for that.” It may be overkill. And you couldn’t control what kids ate at home or brought for lunch, and not everyone would participate in the program. But just imagine: We’d finally see what could happen if you removed most of the processed seed oil-and-sugar-and gluten-laden junk from kids’ diets—on a national scale.

A nation of kids eating eggs and fruit and kefir and potatoes cooked in butter for breakfast, a burger patty and yam for lunch with a side of full-fat milk. You’ve seen what getting some good protein, fat, and clean carbs in your kids for breakfast and lunch can do. Imagine everyone else’s kids eating the same thing. That could change the world.

Walking to school

I used to run to school every single day. That’s actually how I got into cross country running at an early age: I realized I could beat the bus to school if I just ran. So I did. Those daily runs to and from school introduced little bouts of pure freedom and adventure into my life that made me who I am today. Until several years ago, kids weren’t even allowed to show up to school alone. They needed to be dropped off or accompanied by a parent or guardian. I’d go a step further. At my ideal grade school, the default would be arriving alone. If a parent wanted to drop their kid off, they’d need a permission slip and doctor’s note.

I’m kidding, of course. But kids these days need that freedom and adventure more than ever, however they can get it. There’s not as much to go around.

More and longer recess

Recess is shrinking. Most grade school kids are lucky to get a single 20 minute block of free outdoor play per day. Some schools don’t even give first graders any recess at all, and a disturbing number of them even hold recess hostage as a punishment for poor behavior or performance.4 This is a travesty, not only because recess (and PE) increase physical activity and step count, but because physical activity improves learning and reduces acting out. In one Texas grade school, implementing four 15-minute recesses a day reduced bullying and tattling, improved focus and eye-contact, and even stopped the neurotic pencil chewing teachers were noticing among their students. The kids are testing ahead of schedule despite less actual classroom time and test prep. Recess improves academic performance, and physical play improves subsequent learning capacity. Give a kid a 15 minute play break for every 45 minutes of book learning and he’ll learn more than the kid who studies an hour straight.

Recess needs to be longer. The absolute daily minimum is 45 minutes (spread across 1-3 sessions including lunch), though I’d like to see the entire day spent outside with movement interlaced with learning/lessons.

Hold classes outdoors

The benefits are immense and irrefutable:

Kids with ADHD can focus better after exposure to green spaces.

Kids who frequently spend time outdoors get sick less often and show better motor skills and physical coordination.5

Kids with exposure (even just visual) to nature have better self-discipline.6

For kids dealing with stress at home (who isn’t?), nature can act as a buffer.7

Kids with consistent daily sun exposure have more vitamin D, better circadian rhythms, and stronger immune systems.

The more outdoor time a kid gets, the lower his or her risk of myopia.

Add to those the general benefits of green space seen in all humans and the outdoor classroom setting looks more attractive.

Ideally, the entire school day takes place outdoors, but even a small daily nature excursion is better than nothing.

Walking classrooms

We’ve all heard of Socrates’ peripatetic school, where he’d lead his students on walks around Greece while lecturing and leading discussions. This is incredible. Who else loves going on hikes with friends not just for the nature, but for the incredible conversations you end up embroiled in? There’s something special about physical movement that stimulates mental movement. Physical flow promotes cognitive blood flow.

The kids could make stops to write and do some deeper work, but class discussions and lectures could easily happen on the move.

More deep work, one subject per day

This isn’t the only way, but I think many kids and teens would thrive on a “one subject a day” schedule that allowed them to really immerse themselves in a subject or project. Imagine reading an entire book from start to finish. Imagine working on an art project all day long. Imagine getting lost in history, going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, following whatever thread tugs on you.

Kids tend to obsess over things. Schools should take advantage of that.

Eliminate almost all rules at recess

Kids should be able to climb trees, roughhouse, leap fences, ride bikes, play tag, play dodgeball, play butts up, and all the other classic playground games that carry a modicum of danger. Kids shouldn’t be expelled for playing cops and robbers or making finger guns. Staff intervenes only if kids request it or injury is imminent. The whole point is to introduce kids to risk. Navigating relatively small risks (skinned knee, hurt feeling, short fall, wounded pride) builds mettle and prepares developing brains to deal with bigger risks. It makes them more anti-fragile. People talk about school as preparation for the meat grinder of “real life,” but most schools eliminate any real prep work because adults mediate every conflict, grievance, hogged sandbox, and stolen dinosaur toy.

Tons of climbable structures and trees

Kids (and adults) need to climb things. It’s fun, it builds strength, and introduces manageable risk and responsibility. You get stuck up in a tree, you get yourself unstuck. You can climb all the trees you want, but you’ll have to get yourself down.

I’m imagining networks of trees and structures all over the playground and campus to the point that a kid could get anywhere without touching the ground. There’s actually a great book about this: The Baron in the Trees, by Italo Calvino. It’s about a young Italian nobleman who runs away from home as a child to live in the trees surrounding his estate and stays there for the rest of his life, never touching the ground.

No busy homework

The evidence for homework is weak to nonexistent.8 Instead of giving five year olds an hour of paperwork to complete or 15 year olds four hours of work, give them open-ended suggestions.

“Read a book with your parents and tell the class about your favorite part of the story.”

“Find 7 leaves, each from a different tree, and bring them to class.”

“Start a business. Come up with a business plan, a product, and marketing materials.”

Enabling deep work and deep learning during the school day would make most “busy” homework pointless.

Bring back “tracks”

Only don’t limit these tracks to “academics.” It’s not that you split the kids up by “smart” or “dumb” or “advanced” and “behind.” You allow the kids to establish their own track based on interest and aptitude. You get more specific with the tracks.

Someone wants to just do math all day? Let them focus on that.

Someone shows promise as an artist? Let them draw and paint to their heart’s content.

Someone’s obsessed with video games? Let them learn to make their own.

Obviously, even a math-obsessed whiz kid should also read great literature, but I’m not sure the math whiz kid needs to be writing essays on “Brave New World.” Simply reading it is probably enough.

More doing and playing

Humans learn best by doing. Everyone accepts that we learn languages best by speaking it or being thrown into a foreign country, not by reading language lessons. But learning through doing works for everything. Learning the fundamentals matters, but only if you also practice them. I learned to write by reading and aping other writers. This even works in subjects like math. One American educator, Benezet, showed that children who delayed formal math instruction in favor of natural math instruction (doing) until 8th grade quickly caught up to and outperformed kids taught the traditional way.

You could very well teach simple arithmetic by playing card games like Blackjack or Addition War or Subtraction War.

You could teach (or reinforce) grammar by playing MadLibs. Or just giving kids cool things to read.

What else?

More trades

Don’t just bring back the old woodshop and metalshop. Introduce full-blown apprenticeship programs. Paid ones.

Plumbing

Masonry

Carpentry

Electrician

Agriculture

Automotive

And so on

Name a profession and you can probably figure out an apprenticeship program. Heck, this already exists in many states. Check out the listings for California apprenticeships for an idea of what’s possible. Many high schools can even set this up. I bet there are guidance counselors who currently do it, or have. But is it the norm? No. It should be.

Lots of kids would really benefit.

Teach basic competencies

There are basic physical skills everyone should learn.

Swimming

Self defense

First aid

Physical fitness (running, sprinting, climbing, strength standards)

And other “non-physical” core competencies:

Budgeting

Cooking

Cleaning

Laundry

Bill paying/taxes

Home economics, in other words.

Mixed ages

Segregation by age makes little evolutionary sense (until the public school system arose, children had historically hung out with other children of all ages). As a kid, whenever we weren’t in school I’d rove around my neighborhood in age-desegregated packs. It was all very fluid. We’d have the bigger kids leading the way, the smaller ones tagging along, and because everyone pretty much lived in the same place their whole lives, kids would graduate into different roles and new kids would always be coming up in the ranks. Without age mixing children miss out on many benefits:9

Younger kids can’t learn from older kids.

Older kids can’t learn how to teach younger kids.

Younger kids can only do age appropriate activities. With an older kid’s help, a younger child can accomplish much more. Two 4-year olds throwing a frisbee around is an exercise in futility. Include a 7-year old and it gets a whole lot more productive for everyone.

If any of this sounds good to you, what are you waiting for? No politician is going to make this happen. The Department of Education certainly won’t make these changes. You have to make it happen, either by finding a school that does this or creating your own curriculum at home. If you have the option, consider gathering together with a few other families to form a “pod” to realize your vision.

If that’s not feasible, get together with other like-minded families and petition your district for incremental change.

No one school or parent can enact all these changes. Some conflict. Some are downright impossible in certain environments. But even if you just implemented one or two of these ideas, you could have a positive impact.

What do you think, readers? Parents, kids, non-parents, teens, teachers: what does your ideal vision of early education look like?

What would you change? What you add or take away to the current set up?

Thanks for reading.

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References

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24329882

http://www.cdc.gov/features/school-start-times/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26545246

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23834604

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1012576913074#page-1

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494401902415

http://eab.sagepub.com/content/35/3/311.abstract

http://rer.sagepub.com/content/76/1/1.abstract

http://www.journalofplay.org/sites/www.journalofplay.org/files/pdf-articles/3-4-article-gray-age-mixed-play.pdf

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jesseneufeld · 4 years