revised goals for learning

1.  I want to remind students, or help them to realize, that conflict between each other is a very important tool for learning-  Like an African American doesn't want a Caucasian champion and a lower middle class student doesn't want a rich and privileged student determining what is good for them.

2.  I have learned and would like to purvey that is is most important to make decisions that work best for you.  It may be brash, but I would teach students not to make compromises.  If it doesn't work out for you, transfigure it so that it does work out for you.

3.  I want to remind students to stick it out.  There were plenty of times that I was tangled up in administrative hassles or just plain fed up with teachers and lectures and I wanted to break out and work the street at PSE&G or join my friend's painting/ sheetrocking business.  They were making money and providing for themselves on a much larger scale than I was.

However, maybe a year later, after the experience was resolved and tucked away, I realized that I was subconsciously determined to improve my quality of life and it has improved, or is improving, in a direction that I am charting.

Personal anecdote:  It's gotta do with Lakey's book so I guess it's pertinent.  Saturday night I got to bed early because i was boozing at a bbq most of the day.  I had a dream in the future tense where I was leading a studio group through a container building exercise.  On the lunch break, I ate twenty-seven onions and ran laps around the race track.  When the session reconvened I dressed in a yowie suit and hid out in a wide open field.  Then the students were blindfolded and put into groups of three.  Using only their voices for communication and their noses for scenting that had to triangulate my position.

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Alright, some goals:

First off, I want students to understand writing as a tool.  You can use a soldering iron for circuitry or you can use it for wood burning.  You can use a torsion wrench to calibrate your lawnmower blades or you can use it to defend against an animal attack.

Secondly, I want students to realize that they don't have to discard their cultural/social identity in favor of an academic identity. 

Lastly, if things do not work, they need to be able to express what's incongruent and have a communicable  remedy for the schisis.