Category: philosophy

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A Concerned Monkey comments on the Human Game.

thetaxidermistsyoungest

This game the humans play is not fun any more. Here are the basic rules of the game. Human A suffers loss and has pain. Perhaps he lost someone, or he is ill. Human A walks around feeling in pain. Human B’s Game Goal is to avoid Person A’s pain. Human B has several action strategies to avoid sharing the pain of his fellow human. to convince himself that person A isn’t really in pain do something addictive to distract himself from pain to blame Human A for being in pain. to assume that Human A blames Human B for … Continue reading A Concerned Monkey comments on the Human Game.

Autobiography, brain stuff, Education Reform, Lost In Translation, philosophy, teaching2 Comments

half blind and half deaf

thetaxidermistsyoungest

As a language teacher, I know about communicating. I also know how often people think they have communicated, but they really haven’t. I love to play the game of Telephone with my students. We start a whispered sentence in German, and by the time it gets all the way around the circle, it is usually completely garbled and hilarious. Or we play a similar game, except with sketches that get passed around. It shows them how fragile communication really is. “Purple monkey dishwasher” is my husband’s name for the phenomenon in which you explain something to your students, they nod … Continue reading half blind and half deaf