I was immediately struck by the same thing as colospgs. That font is very distracting and it implicitly lowers standards thuswise: If the workbook or homework has a zany informal typeset, why should you (pupil) take this homework seriously? It is similar to the many egalitarian-minded graduate student TAs at universities who try to fraternize with the small groups of undergrads they often lead by doing things like casually wearing in class.
Granted, this appears to be a worksheet for a small child, but this general style has worked its way up the ladder of education.
I’m not really sure what else the test was looking for. But I thought of a few possible answers from the child most likely to become a …
1. Future nurse: Go to the restroom, wash off your knee, and get a colorful Band-Aid for your scrape.
2. Future lawyer: Get Daddy to sue the school for not having repaired the cracks in the cement, which caused you to trip and severely injure your leg, possibly for life, not to mention the emotional distress.
3. Future press secretary: Deny that anyone actually fell down. Call for an anti-pushing rule.
4. Future local politician: Get signatures from all of your classmates on a petition to have recess in the grassy fields in the park down the street from the school, instead of in the parking lot. This will require a bus driver.
5. Future politician in Washington: Get signatures from all the parents of your classmates to ban recess in all of the schools in the school district.
6. Future rock star: Write your initials in blood on the sidewalk.
“I wonder why they mix upper and lower case letters on the sheet.”
This isn’t an editor making random capitalization choices. The bold-faced type is in all caps, but the font chosen handles the different letters in a idiosyncratic way.
In this font, the upper-case version of some letters (like a, e, i, and n) is merely a full-height version of the lower-case letter. You can tell because the same letters appear to be lowercase everywhere they appear, and yet they are full height in the “caps” usage. Note in the question itself that the lowercase “u” is about half again as tall as the other lower-case letters. The choice of font is probably supposed to add a note of unintimidating whimsy to the exercise.
I somehow doubt that the student is impressed with the staff’s implied estimation of him or her.
And we wonder why children can’t read and write when their worksheets are typeset like this. I have difficulty reading the typeset, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to a child you is learning or mastering English. Anyways, the kid’s answer is good.
“It is similar to the many egalitarian-minded graduate student TAs at universities who try to fraternize with the small groups of undergrads they often lead by doing things like casually wearing in class.”
When I was a TA, I wore what I always wore. Why should a nerd change his socks (yeah, yeah, hardy har har…)? Really, how does wearing a suit and tie or jeans affect the outcome of an experiment? Now, some of my female students wear pajamas into the lab. I can’t throw them out, even though it is disrespectful, because, unlike regular clothing, pajamas have to be flame-retardant by law, so, technically, they are safer than regular street clothes :( If a TA showed up dressed like that, well…
Of course, I would have written in the blank,
Future Mathematician: “I have a truly marvelous comment to make, but the margins in this box are too small to hold it.”
Future Doctor: “Does the word, hemophilia, not mean anything to you guys?”
Future Scientist: “I. really, cannot comment on this because they situation has not been reproduced.”
Future Marine: Never mind me, call an ambulance for the other guy.
Comments are closed.
SHOPPING ONLINE? Please, come here first!
Your use of my Amazon affiliate link is a major part of my income. It helps to pay for insurance, groceries, everything. Please remember me when shopping online. Thanks in advance.
“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
I'm taking Mass intentions right now. Also, I regularly say Mass for my regular benefactors and special Roman Sojourn Donors. HERE for the form I use.
YOUR RECENT COMMENTS
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf on Daily Rome Shot 1238: “monstrance: Yes, the onion rings were excellent. The non-stop. Yes, for a while now I’ve been stopping for a day…”
jaykay on ROME DAY 25/01 11: Time to go. My View For A While: “Prayer offered for your safe journey, Fr., and thanks for all the wonderful Roma pics. Looking forward to a liturgical-archictectural-social-…”
Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
St. John Eudes
Federated Computer… your safe and private alternative to big biz corporations that hate us while taking our money and mining our data. Have an online presence large or small? Catholic DIOCESE? Cottage industry? See what Federated has to offer. Save money and gain peace of mind.
I am an affiliate. Click and join or at least explore! If you join, I’ll get credit.
“Until the Lord be pleased to settle, through the instrumentality of the princes of the Church and the lawful ministers of His justice, the trouble aroused by the pride of a few and the ignorance of some others, let us with the help of God endeavor with calm and humble patience to render love for hatred, to avoid disputes with the silly, to keep to the truth and not fight with the weapons of falsehood, and to beg of God at all times that in all our thoughts and desires, in all our words and actions, He may hold the first place who calls Himself the origin of all things.”
To donate monthly I prefer Zelle because it doesn't extract fees. Use
frz AT wdtprs DOT com
Donate using VENMO
GREAT BEER from Traditional Benedictine Monks in Italy
CLICK and say your daily offerings!
A Daily Prayer for Priests
NEW OPPORTUNITY – 10% off with code: FATHERZ10
Fr. Z’s VOICEMAIL
Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.
WDTPRS
020 8133 4535
651-447-6265
Good coffee and tea. Help monks.
I use this when I travel both in these USA and abroad. Very useful. Fast enough for Zoom. I connect my DMR (ham radio) through it. If you use my link, they give me more data. A GREAT back up.
Help support Fr. Z’s Gospel of Life work at no cost to you. Do you need a Real Estate Agent? Calling these people is the FIRST thing you should do!
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
Don’t rely on popes, bishops and priests.
“He [Satan] will set up a counter-Church which will be the ape of the Church because, he the devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the anti-Christ that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. In desperate need for God, whom he nevertheless refuses to adore, modern man in his loneliness and frustration will hunger more and more for membership in a community that will give him enlargement of purpose, but at the cost of losing himself in some vague collectivity.”
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”
“The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
- C.S. Lewis
This blog has to earn its keep!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful. Zelle and Wise are better, but PayPal is convenient.
A monthly subscription donation means I have steady income I can plan on. I put you my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I often say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
To donate monthly I prefer Zelle because it doesn't extract fees. Use
frz AT wdtprs DOT com
As for Latin…
"But if, in any layman who is indeed imbued with literature, ignorance of the Latin language, which we can truly call the 'catholic' language, indicates a certain sluggishness in his love toward the Church, how much more fitting it is that each and every cleric should be adequately practiced and skilled in that language!" - Pius XI
"Let us realize that this remark of Cicero (Brutus 37, 140) can be in a certain way referred to [young lay people]: 'It is not so much a matter of distinction to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.'" - St. John Paul II
Grant unto thy Church, we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that She, being gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may be in no wise troubled by attack from her foes. O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy people making supplication unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of Thine anger which we deserve for our sins. Almighty and Everlasting God, in whose Hand are the power and the government of every realm: look down upon and help the Christian people that the heathen nations who trust in the fierceness of their own might may be crushed by the power of thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.
Almighty and eternal God, who created us in Thine image and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful, especially in the divine person of Thine Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, that, through the intercession of Saint Isidore, Bishop and Doctor, during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
I wonder why they mix upper and lower case letters on the sheet.
I was immediately struck by the same thing as colospgs. That font is very distracting and it implicitly lowers standards thuswise: If the workbook or homework has a zany informal typeset, why should you (pupil) take this homework seriously? It is similar to the many egalitarian-minded graduate student TAs at universities who try to fraternize with the small groups of undergrads they often lead by doing things like casually wearing in class.
Granted, this appears to be a worksheet for a small child, but this general style has worked its way up the ladder of education.
The kid with the future probably will “deal with” the “F” he or she will get for being “intolerant” on this particular assignment.
I’m not really sure what else the test was looking for. But I thought of a few possible answers from the child most likely to become a …
1. Future nurse: Go to the restroom, wash off your knee, and get a colorful Band-Aid for your scrape.
2. Future lawyer: Get Daddy to sue the school for not having repaired the cracks in the cement, which caused you to trip and severely injure your leg, possibly for life, not to mention the emotional distress.
3. Future press secretary: Deny that anyone actually fell down. Call for an anti-pushing rule.
4. Future local politician: Get signatures from all of your classmates on a petition to have recess in the grassy fields in the park down the street from the school, instead of in the parking lot. This will require a bus driver.
5. Future politician in Washington: Get signatures from all the parents of your classmates to ban recess in all of the schools in the school district.
6. Future rock star: Write your initials in blood on the sidewalk.
“I wonder why they mix upper and lower case letters on the sheet.”
This isn’t an editor making random capitalization choices. The bold-faced type is in all caps, but the font chosen handles the different letters in a idiosyncratic way.
In this font, the upper-case version of some letters (like a, e, i, and n) is merely a full-height version of the lower-case letter. You can tell because the same letters appear to be lowercase everywhere they appear, and yet they are full height in the “caps” usage. Note in the question itself that the lowercase “u” is about half again as tall as the other lower-case letters. The choice of font is probably supposed to add a note of unintimidating whimsy to the exercise.
I somehow doubt that the student is impressed with the staff’s implied estimation of him or her.
amenamen stole my no. 2.
And we wonder why children can’t read and write when their worksheets are typeset like this. I have difficulty reading the typeset, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to a child you is learning or mastering English. Anyways, the kid’s answer is good.
“It is similar to the many egalitarian-minded graduate student TAs at universities who try to fraternize with the small groups of undergrads they often lead by doing things like casually wearing in class.”
When I was a TA, I wore what I always wore. Why should a nerd change his socks (yeah, yeah, hardy har har…)? Really, how does wearing a suit and tie or jeans affect the outcome of an experiment? Now, some of my female students wear pajamas into the lab. I can’t throw them out, even though it is disrespectful, because, unlike regular clothing, pajamas have to be flame-retardant by law, so, technically, they are safer than regular street clothes :( If a TA showed up dressed like that, well…
Of course, I would have written in the blank,
Future Mathematician: “I have a truly marvelous comment to make, but the margins in this box are too small to hold it.”
Future Doctor: “Does the word, hemophilia, not mean anything to you guys?”
Future Scientist: “I. really, cannot comment on this because they situation has not been reproduced.”
Future Screamer: “Ahhhhhhhhh.”
The Chicken
Masked Chicken, I missed the “s.” I meant to type, “casually swearing” in class.
mshepard85,
Thanks. I thought, “casually wearing,” looked strange, but I went with it. See, God got a two-fer, here, by humbling both of us.
The Chicken
amenamen & Masked Chicken,
Fun! Can I give this a whirl too? How ’bout…
Future charismatic: Gather all of my classmates around and ask them to lay hands on me.
Future “c”atholic: Join hands with all of my classmates and sing Kumbaya.
Future LCWR: Blame the CDF.
Future Catholic: Get up and deal with it, offer it up, then go to Confession!
Future Nobel prize winner: I have a Theory of Everything but the box is too small.
Future modernist artist: Lie down and make a snow angel in my blood.
Future post modernist artist: Make a Performance of it.
Future software developer: Before we can develop a solution, we need more detailed requirements, including a mock-up of the expected user interface.
I heard a story once about a test question posed to students that went like this:
“A priest, an old woman, and you are all on a boat. The boat is sinking – it can only hold two people. Who should be thrown overboard?”
One of the students answered: “I’m not throwing anyone over overboard and no one is throwing me overboard ’cause I have a gun.”
Future Marine: Never mind me, call an ambulance for the other guy.