Greek Study Notes, Page 17,

     Multicolored light, more colors in sentences with lots of pen switching, and some really uninteresting videos that go with this outdated text book.  There is a much better set of free PDF transcripts (with English translation) that go with videos (or was it podcasts as mp3s?) from the Hellenic American Union, if only I had been able to tell my classmates about that site.  Also, trying to take notes in several languages is generally a no-go in an in person class, and although almost all of my classmates claimed to speak Spanish, the idea of using a few Spanish verbs when learning our verbal groups, rather than, or in addition to writing the English translation, also went over like a lead balloon. (If you do speak Spanish, btw, I think I have already mentioned the free YouTube series by Jaunjo Fantoso covering a good deal of Greek, not to be confused with his later Academy videos, which I think require payment, but I’m not sure…)  It’s a shame, because the class really could have been much more interesting.  The way, in fact, that the highly entertaining free Esperanto language teaching series, Teoria Nakamura, on Lernu sets up all of the lessons is both hilarious and highly effective at getting the language (Esperanto, in this case, but the technique is applicable to any language) learning moving quickly and keeping it really fun.  In fact, Esperanto takes a few ideas from Greek, as well as from Hebrew, and even from Turkish, or at least from the Altaic language family, so it is a very interesting language.

     Coming back to modern Greek, on the flip side of this notes page, about my horrendous attempt at drawing a dollar sign to represent money (which is lefta = λεφτά ),  I will admit that this particular word did not stick until a Greek friend used it in a sentence while speaking with me, and then reprimanded me for forgetting the word, since it is such a basic word, and he knew that our class had already (or ought to have) learned it by that time.  That worked.  I was so embarrassed that I never forgot the word after that, when I heard it spoken!  Nevertheless, this is not a tactic (embarrassing a person in order to teach vocabulary) that I would recommend using for language learning.  Stories give enough exposure to words in context that reading or watching videos really helps.  Like watching Sihirli Annem on Turkish Tuesdays (sorry, some of my older Greek friends, I do love that show, and no, Greek friends, you will *not* catch fire and burn if you watch an episode of this show, even in Turkish!!!) helped make Turkish language learning a lovely experience for me.

Still, pretty neat.

Shira

*****************

Click on the main menu, above this article, and follow the sub-menus to pages with more links to other articles on learning in various ways, all related to Project Do Better as an umbrella project for the Abolition movement, to find ways of learning for citizenship and for sharing:

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews,

or

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing as a means of learning languages, thanks to a character of mine, Sally, who wants to learn “the Grecian language” in order to read the New Testament in the original written Ancient Greek of the Septuagint ( and this Historical Fiction Writing posts page also links to my series of articles on novel writing, and also links to one of my novels still in progress, including my prequel series in honor of

A. M. Weems,

Ann & Anna:  …)

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider sharing with the #ProjectDoBetter  about how you most enjoy learning languages, or other subjects, and how that learning helps you to become more compassionate, and maybe even more empathetic, over time.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

aka Shira, or:

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Greek Study Notes, Page 16, Impersonal Verbs, and Colors?

     This is a surprise, looking back on these notes, that we seem to have gotten to colors only on page 95?  Generally language classes start off by learning colors.  So these impersonal verbs seem very much like the same set of verbs into which I translated these notes in Spanish: debo should have been ‘tengo que’ to be more precise.   Not it is becoming very clear why learning new languages within the same language family, or on the same language family tree, is much easier than learning across language trees, as with a native English/French/Spanish speaker learning a Semitic or Altaic language.  This is so cool!!  🙂  Oh, right, back to colors.  So, while we got to the colors rather later than I would have expected, it was kind of fun, if a bit tiresome switching pens constantly, to write out all of the various colors in the appropriate color.  Some words, like Polychromos/i/o (at the very bottom on the left of the page, as if you couldn’t tell by the polychrome letters…), were pretty obvious.

Still, pretty neat.

Shira

*****************

Click the ShiraDest site menu, above, for:

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews,

or

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…).

And, then,

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider sharing with the #ProjectDoBetter  about how you best learn languages, or other subjects.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

aka Shira, or:

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

A Language For Adding Bus Stops, er, Words?

    (rescheduled from June 1st…)   Esperanto uses suffixes and a few prefixes to build many words in easy to understand ways that stick in the memory.  The advantages of agglutinative languages, like Esperanto and Turkish, are that they are highly logical.  Esperanto has no exceptions, meaning it requires less memorization than other languages.

Given the interest that some of my regular readers have expressed over the years on this site, I thought I would share some of my most recent language learning journey here on in the hope that it could help encourage others in similar study.  Once I have found more communities to help handing off Project Do Better, I may come back and rework these notes in my other languages.

Do you, fellow language learners, have any thoughts on how your previously learned languages help hook the new language materials that you would like to share here?

More soon,

and

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels

     Project Do Better hopes that the empathy which studying languages can build, as well as just a little bit more in the way of good examples, via story, could help all of us learn to be more open to the needs, feelings, and wishes of other people with whom we share this world.

…

Hoşça kalın!  Saluton!  !Nos Vemos!  Salut !

Shira

*****************

Click on the ShiraDest menu above this post for pages leading to more articles to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem, Lupin, or La Casa De Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

or

Holistic College Algebra & GED/HiSET Night School Lesson Plans,

           or

 More Nonfiction  & Historical Fiction Serial Writing.

And, then,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading and sharing, or even writing a guest blog post here, about #ProjectDoBetter.  Phase I aims to build empathy for public goods (libraries, transit, healthcare, and education) via language study and story, among other tools.

Shira Destinie A.  Jones, MPhil

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: Chevy Chase: A Home Suburb for the Nation’s Capital, by Lampl & Williams

    This excellent book, part of my reading as I created the singing walking tours of DC which went into my book Stayed on Freedom’s Call,

StayedOnFreedomsCallGoodReads

was coauthored by Elizabeth Jo Lampl and Kimberly Prothro Williams, adn published by Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, the Montgomery county historical preservation commission, and the MD Historical Trust Press.  It covers the history of Chevy Chase, which is the immediate across-the-border neighbor of upper North West DC, as you go up Connecticut Avenue, which is the main drag of the city, as far as I am concerned, since that is where I spent my earliest summers with my Grandma Marie at what we called ‘the old folks home’ -which was really just an apartment building set aside for the elderly by the DC Housing Authority.  Like CC, which is about a twenty minute walk north of that part of Connecticut Avenue, the entire neighborhood, or both of them, rather, are reasonably quiet, but as soon as you cross the city line into Chevy Chase, you get much more shade, from many more trees. It seems that a Col. Belt (for Beltsville, MD?) got a land grant in 1725 (his house apparently stood about 500 yards se of CC circle) for the entire area.  There were three main plantations (CC, No Gain, and Hayes Manor).  It seems that the area was chosen as a suburb in 1885, by the CC Land Co. The breezes made it cooler in summer, which is important in DC.  In 1862, Congress charters the Washington and Georgetown Railway (yes, G’town was part of the District, but it is so hard to get to that even now it feels like a different city…) to run three horse-drawn streetcar lines from the LeDroit Park and Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods up “immediately beyond city limits.”   That gets us the first streetcar neighborhood or suburb.  Then, in 1873, the B & O steam rail line crossed Montgomery county into DC, which opened up Upper Montgomery county to forming the new ‘rail road suburbs’ (which are now near the ends or at the extended ends of the Metro lines, like Takoma Park).  The electric trolley comes along in 1888 to Richmond, VA, then to DC and forms more suburbs in Montgomery County.

     At about this point, behind the scenes over three years, from 1887-1890, Francis Newlands begins secretly buying land, and in June of 1890, the CC Land Co. goes public.  Then, he and architect Frederick Olmstead start planning separate business and dwelling areas with non-grid streets, larger parks, and water so pure that District residents took the street car to bring water home to DC.  [Gee wiz, no change there from our horrible water quality back in the 1980’s huh? -Shira comment]

   The lack of stores was made up for by delivery wagons (see who is benefiting from all the extra transportation infrastructure required by their intentional division of businesses from residential areas…).  Then, the CC Land Co. sold lots with building covenants enforcing restrictions, resulting in upscale residents building expensive homes with mandatory levels of frontage, and banned businesses in all residential suburbs.

   In the 1930s, GM completed the catastrophe by starting to systematically buy up streetcar companies, and replace the streetcars with buses.

Lovely.  So that is how the end begins.

Let’s Do Better.   Please.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click on the menu above this review for:

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This review is part of my Work, as noted by Toni Morrison on the job of a Black woman writer.   We can bear witness to what has been done to us, but we can also form alliances and cooperate to make things better. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

aka Shira, or:

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: Rules for a Pretty Woman, by Suzette Francis

This book actually surprised the dickens out of me. I thought it would be a silly romance novel that I would skim through in a couple of hours and move on to the next book on my stack, but it turns out not only to be a hard-hitting book with some serious research (and connections to other books, like Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital , Stayed on Freedom’s Call: Cooperation Between Jewish And African-American Communities In Washington, DC, and though the book she mentioned, From Holocaust to Segregation, seems not to be available in print, there are some tantalizing references to such a possible publication: ) even behind it. And, like J.K. Rowling’s Lumos Foundation, this author fights strongly for the rights of children. This book is also a moving story of families and communities like my family of origin, and how we mix and match as we move through society, or some of us, any way, enduring and hopefully eventually changing some of the pre-conceived notions…

  😕 my immediate family, different names, same shit. but I did not have the stomach to keep coming back…”

 “the fumes of her kindness ” nice turn of phrase….”

  private individuals sponsor teen mothers shelters to get the kids??! Now I understand Rowling ‘S Lumos foundation…”

June 28, 2018 –page 174,  54.37%  “Excellent emotional roller coaster. Especially going from the drama of losing a patient, to the Delight of this idea of a Love Scientist. I want a Matchmaker for myself!”

June 28, 2018 –page 204,  63.75%        Nice plot twist.

Wow! Is this what a healthy family looks like?

June 29, 2018 –page 273, 85.31%  Wow, what wonderful connections between neighbors and cultures! If this book, entitled from Holocaust to segregation , a collection of short stories about Jewish people who came to America and taught at Black universities throughout the South, exists, then I must read it, and update and add it to my bibliography in Stayed on Freedom’s Call !”

June 29, 2018 –page 301, 94.06% Wow! It’s like she is regathering the family!! tears of joy in my eyes, silly me…

Learning through story is an important part of Project Do Better’s work

     .

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Dear Readers, share your thoughts on this book, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click on the menu above this review for pages leading to links on articles about:

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Hunger Games #0, by Suzanne Collins

      Thank you for the fan art in the Featured Image, above, by ConfusedChameleon.  This book is actually a prequel to the original series, The Hunger Games, number 1, set sixty-four years before the first book, in which we meet Katniss in book number 1.  We see the hero of this book, or the anti-hero, for most of the story, as the villain from the main series, Snow.   Well before he becomes President Snow, resetting the clock, and destroying the evidence from the 10th Hunger Games.  Very much akin, if different intent to the Holocene Calendar: 10 ADD is year 10 After the Dark Days, also the year of the 10th Hunger Games, with Year 0 ADD being the end of the war/(first) rebellion -I love that she creates a new calendar system, but I cannot seem to find where I initially saw this, as I don’t seem to be able to find it in the book.  And no, when he was president, it did not in fact rain champagne every Tuesday, at least not in any of the Districts.  I read this book several times, and the first time I do not recall liking it, but this time, I loved it.  Must have been the translation.  For Babylon 5 fans, It occurred to me that the young Snow is much like the pre-Eye Londo Mollari (of Babylon 5): both are subjected to trials that will later define their futures by powerful and sadistic forces intent on shaping the world in their images. Both are vulnerable in some way, when found, and then placed in disastrous positions of power, causing tremendous suffering for many years to come. Both even find a sort of redemption, by sharing some level of truth with change-makers who will use it to help win a different future.

Interesting parallels, and interesting how vicious down-on-their-luck narcissists can be, and how they can be directed by ruthless powerful older others.  Not that this excuses either of them, in any case.  Even when guided by horrid examples like this:

“… operated by Avoxes —
tongueless workers made the best workers, or so his grandmother said…”

     This book is even better upon reading again. I will have to incorporate my new reading updates soon. I do admit to being a little skeptical at first about this prequel, Collins has done an excellent job developing sympathy for a protagonist that we know later on, decades later, is a ruthless villain. What I also particularly appreciated about this book is how she shows the horrors which a civilian population goes through during wartime. And she also shows how authoritarian leaders justify their cruelty. An excellent surprise ending as well. Maybe not surprising come to think of it but it was an excellent twist ending.

“…human beings? Because who we are determines the type of governing we need. Later on, I hope you can reflect and be honest with yourself about what you learned tonight.” Dr. Gaul began to wrap his wound in gauze. “And a few stitches in your arm is a cheap price to pay for it.”

Right.  I can now understand even better why the Bible prohibited making children pay for the sins of their fathers and vice versa.  No, this is not correct: who or what we human beings are determines not the type of governing we need, but rather, the type of education we need in order to be compassionate.  It’s fascinating to see how in this series and in Harry Potter, children are made to pay for their ancestors ways of being, good or bad.  And she does an excellent job at entertaining while also setting atmosphere, as it feels like the author is setting us up for the protagonist to lose his closest Ally fairly early on.  Also from earlier pages, I really feel it’s important the way the author is showing us how it feels to be a population used to all of the best comforts, Whose homes have now been turned into a war zone.

I find it odd that Snow lacks the mental flexibility to imagine other ways to control the chaos of human nature, like using education to get buy-in to a decent social contract upholding Human Rights. He is clever, and is being taught to use his cleverness in the service of narcissism, rather than the Common Good. But he could have Done Better.

     Project Do Better offers some ideas on that.

     Phase II.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Dear Readers, share your thoughts on this last, and first, book in The Hunger Games series, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click on the menu of the ShiraDest website, which is at the top of this book review, to see pages leading to links to articles for:

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: Mockingjay, Hunger Games #3, by Suzanne Collins

     First, thank you for this wonderful Fan Art By David Beauchene.

     Second, I guess I should summarize:  In the first two books, Katniss finds herself in the Arena as a Tribute to an infernal system designed to keep the twelve districts in line to the Capitol.  Now, she is the face of the revolt against that system.  And she is only a teenager, still.

     Now, the review:  I can see, now, why people all over the world are remembering the hope inspired by the symbol of a young person refusing to surrender.Reminds me of that young man in Tianamen Square.About halfway through, I can see how her earlier comment about exceptional people being alone makes sense of something a person said years ago, and this line about a good meal

“reminding them that it’s not a mistake to go on living”

is excellent.

     With the advanced technology they have, why no issue communicufs and use them to have a Direct Democracy, rather than a Republic, or at least write that possibility into the legal framework for the next generation, once schooling has improved for all of the Districts.

     Project Do Better offers a plan that might be able to help us avoid situations like that of this series:

     Phase II.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Dear Readers, share your thoughts on this first book in The Hunger Games series, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click on the menu above for:

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: Catching Fire, Hunger Games #2

     First, thanks to Fan Artist  AMClaussen, for posting this work of fan art in today’s Featured Image.

I have read The Hunger Games books, all except for the new prequel, now, in several languages, but it is still a good read and a great listen.  Particularly in the original, even if I normally try to avoid reading anything in English, as I have a hard enough time keeping up on my other languages, and don’t want to waste what little spare time I have reading in English, but this series is definitely the exception.  And the series makes a fantastic commentary on what childhood ought to be, versus what it is when stolen from people.  Because even those who never go into the Arena still have had their childhoods stolen from them, by virtue of having to go through the Reaping every year from 12 to 18.  I must remember not to read books in translation. This book had much more impact in English than in French, moving me to tears at several points, especially connected with the combined memories of Prim and Rue.  This is the second or third time I’ve read this book, but my first time listening to it in English. But still a very moving and worthwhile read, again.

I enjoyed the series, moderately, when I first read it three years ago (2011).
Now, in 2023, the book is even better upon reading again.  Listening to this again, early on in the book, it hits saddeningly close to home, today. Again, this one is also written in first person present tense, as I read them again in English rather than translation, and find it much more moving.

This second book continued the critique of the Bread and Circuses system, shown in the first book, that pulls resources from the Global South (i.e. particularly Districts 10, 11 and 12) to the developed former colonizing nations (Capitol), still portraying the USA as imperial Rome.

This second book brings into relief the details of the Roman Gladiatorial system, which readers and viewers may not identify with modern life. Perhaps football players and ballerinas ‘ruining their bodies for the entertainment of others’ comes to mind, similar to the most popular gladiators in Ancient Rome.  And, I’d almost forgotten that along with the games, winning gladiator worship, and the salute from

“We who are about to die”

before the games in the arena, Suzanne Collins also got the Vomitorium into the books. Wow

But, the revolutionary scenario neglects the difficulties of persuading the elites and semi-elites, Districts 1 and 2 being like some developing countries in terms of rising access to resources, and Gramscian alliances with the Capitol to prevent revolution in the first place.  Hierarchy gives protagonist something to lose, and then threatens to take it all away unless cooperation is given. Works for people and for countries, apparently.  And then these parts are simply fantastic:

“Prim … Rue … aren’t they the very reason
I have to try to fight?  Because what has been done to them is so wrong, so beyond justification, so evil that there is no choice?  Because no one has the right to treat them as they have been treated?

 …

That is brilliant, Fulvia… We Remember propos,

…
“Of course,”

says Fulvia, obviously mollified by the response to her idea.  Cressida has smoothed everything over in the creative department with her gesture.”

This is brilliant.  This recent rereading was even more instructive, for both the way the book helps build empathy and for the way in which it’s written.

Overall, while appreciating the references to PTSD, I found the second book more of a thriller than the first book, and a bit less interesting.

And once again, this book stuns me, and is even better when listened to again in audio format.  At regular speed.  🙂   And as prescribed in novel writing, the Protagonist takes the initiative, right about the halfway point.  And she puts in empathy building comments where she puts herself in the shoes of others and changes her perspective on those people… Excellent.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

or,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…).

And, then,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.   

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest   Publications, and Shira Destinie Jones’ work here on this blog is usually licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

   I really enjoyed the second reading of this book, The Hunger Games, which is the first in the Hunger Games series, (well, I enjoyed reading it the first time, but it was even better in the original English, the second reading around), and this cool fan art placed in the Public Domain by a kind artist, Cor-Sa, whose original page appears to be gone, now, via Wikimedia Commons.  This is the second or third time I’ve read this book, but my first time reading it in English. While I appreciated the first person narrator as a close and even warm voice, there were times when I felt jolted by the vocabulary Katniss used, as I found myself wondering whether a poorly educated huntress would know certain words. But still a very moving and worthwhile read, again.   Early on, this book had me wondering: is there anything that people won’t bet on?  Collins is careful to back up the abilities and the privilege level of both protagonists by showing how they gained those abilities through parents who had had access to more resources, or to the cultural capital, like using cutlery, from those parents early backgrounds. Makes sense in terms of a character being able to do what that character can do and why.   By page 311, 83.16%, I was dying to ask a  question: why, unless there’s no understanding of how to prevent it, do people in the districts choose to have children??  This book had much more impact in English than in French, moving me to tears at several points, especially connected with little Rue.  Listening to this book rather than reading it, again, reminds me of all of the nuances in the story left out of the films.

Excellent examination of power, hegemony, alliances, and human nature.

And even better when listened to again in audio format.

I read this one again for my WiP comps, even though it’s not historical.

     Project Do Better is designed to imagine ways that we human beings can prevent such dystopian scenarios from becoming reality, while working, at least to start, with the tools that we already have right to hand, in the here and now.  Childhood related issues pertain especially to the next phase, which is

     Phase II.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Dear Readers, share your thoughts on this first book in The Hunger Games series, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click on the ShiraDest site menu, above this review, for:

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: Herland, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

This book really took me by surprise, when I read this for Dr. Christy Hammer’s MAT course back in 2002, and have never forgotten it.  As a woman just coming out of the IT world to become a mathematics teacher, I was surprised by the ideas in this book.

While clearly not an inclusive utopia, I loved Herland’s ideals of harmonious living. This classic introduced me to both utopian writings and feminist thought when I began my MAT. The ideas she introduces persuaded me that Constructivist teaching methods could be more useful than traditional teaching pedagogical methods. I loved the concept of all adults and children as a community of learners. Even though ‘the sargents’ were the de facto leaders.

While not all of the ways of thinking shown in the story are entirely healthy, many of the examples she shows of ways of teaching, or of allowing learners to learn in ways that are best suited to them as individual students, are still rather new for many teachers, apparently.   Yet this concept of independent and learner-led learning forms the bedrock of Project Do Better’s     Phase II.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Dear Readers, share your thoughts on this book, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

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Click on the ShiraDest site menu above this review for:

Learning through story:

                                                   Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin,  La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.