Hey all, an update...

RayofSun · Mar 13, 2012

Lissa <3 said:
That is wonderful news. I am very happy for you!

I think it's great about incorporating African American literature into school curriculum. I never believed it should be reserved only for February (Black History Month). There are many things to be learned.

It's strange/funny/sad how that happens, eh?

And Kev! Now this is a proper CF update! Congrats on all the wonderful things, people and opportunities in your life.

Sapphyre · Mar 13, 2012

Oh that is wonderful Kev! So happy for you!!

K9_Trainer · Mar 14, 2012

Lissa <3 said:
That is wonderful news. I am very happy for you!

I think it's great about incorporating African American literature into school curriculum. I never believed it should be reserved only for February (Black History Month). There are many things to be learned.

Me too! I don't see why literature only must encompass English lit. A bit of cultural appreciation will do the kids some good.

kevlite2020 · Mar 14, 2012

Life never fails to surprise me. I would figure if y'all would debate any of my research, it would be the LGBT issues, not literary curriculum lol...

Anyways, thanks for the kind words y'all! I'm just so glad I have really good, exciting news to share with you guys!

traingosorry · Mar 14, 2012

She is SO BEAUTIFUL!! High-five, Kev!

traingosorry · Mar 14, 2012

(totally creeping your FB page RIGHT. NOW.)

kevlite2020 · Mar 14, 2012

traingosorry said:
She is SO BEAUTIFUL!! High-five, Kev!

traingosorry said:
(totally creeping your FB page RIGHT. NOW.)

I laughed sooooo hard!!! You creeper!

And yes, she is beyond gorgeous. More beautiful than I ever thought I would be with! It's still hitting me that she is my girl.

K9_Trainer · Mar 14, 2012

kevlite2020 said:
Life never fails to surprise me. I would figure if y'all would debate any of my research, it would be the LGBT issues, not literary curriculum lol... Anyways, thanks for the kind words y'all! I'm just so glad I have really good, exciting news to share with you guys!

Does seem kinda off for this place doesn't it

Either way, I personally think both your projects are great projects and I truly do hope they will make a positive change in schools

My masters thesis is on the phylogenetics and phylogeography of a species of legless lizard!

Lord Of The Forest · Mar 14, 2012

K9_Trainer said:
Me too! I don't see why literature only must encompass English lit. A bit of cultural appreciation will do the kids some good.

kevlite2020 said:
Life never fails to surprise me. I would figure if y'all would debate any of my research, it would be the LGBT issues, not literary curriculum lol...

High school is the place to get a rough overview of the basics of education; college is the place to specialise and study in-depth.

I have nothing against African literature, I just don't think it is the best use of a school's resources or a student's time to study it in high school*.

* And this includes Australian, Japanese, German, and Icelandic literature too. If a student wants to study it independently, that's their own choice, and should be encouraged.

trentlogain2 · Mar 14, 2012

kevlite2020 said:
Well she was raised in a traditional Hindu family, and when she came to America (she was very young at that point) she was brought up in private Catholic schools. It makes it very interesting to me because she has really melded a lot of the theologies and really held on to the things that are similar between the religions.

i guess i'm not the only one here wondering about the whole unequally yoked thing. i don't have anything to lose here by saying if you are a Christian yourself then you have no business with someone who has not been truly born-again.

hey, your call in the end.

K9_Trainer · Mar 14, 2012

trentlogain2 said:
i guess i'm not the only one here wondering about the whole unequally yoked thing. i don't have anything to lose here by saying if you are a Christian yourself then you have no business with someone who has not been truly born-again.

hey, your call in the end.

Really?

You don't have any business publicly calling him out on something like that in a thread that's obviously meant to update his friends about his life. You don't know the woman or the relationship Kev has with her enough to judge them. Couldn't you have PM'd him if you're really that concerned?

Blank123 · Mar 14, 2012

traingosorry said:
(totally creeping your FB page RIGHT. NOW.)

I totally creeped on it too =)

kevlite2020 · Mar 14, 2012

K9_Trainer said:
Does seem kinda off for this place doesn't it

Either way, I personally think both your projects are great projects and I truly do hope they will make a positive change in schools My masters thesis is on the phylogenetics and phylogeography of a species of legless lizard!

Thanks! This is just initial small stuff. Hopefully I get into the doctorate program and get a shot at doing a dissertation but for now these are just smaller projects that if I'm lucky, may end up in teaching magazines or something of that nature.

Sounds like you have an interesting thesis! I have no idea what phylogenetics and phylogeography means but you are over my head with a lot of things!

You and your mega-intelligence!

Lord Of The Forest said:
High school is the place to get a rough overview of the basics of education; college is the place to specialise and study in-depth.

I have nothing against African literature, I just don't think it is the best use of a school's resources or a student's time to study it in high school*.

* And this includes Australian, Japanese, German, and Icelandic literature too. If a student wants to study it independently, that's their own choice, and should be encouraged.

Well my argument in the paper (at a very basic level) is that our schools are a reflection of our society and the goal of our curriculum is to reflect the people we aim to reach. Currently the literary canon only highlights the heritage and culture of European or American descent. As far as African descent, we have around 40 million black people in America, many who identify as African American. Yet we have very little African American literature, and the typical classroom has 0 purely African literature works (even to be available for independent or summer reading). So if we say African Americans make up 10% of our total population, that is obviously a large group deserving of some things in the curriculum that they can relate to and see their roots from.

That being said, the main point of my study in this is, I'm actually going through a bunch of African literary works (not African American, I mean works from Africa), and showing how different common core standards can be met using these works just as easily as they can be met using Euro-American works. African literature has just as rich and influential a past as European literature. They show the same themes and literary elements... There's no real down-side to having some African literature in the curriculum, or at least in the optional reading.

trentlogain2 said:
i guess i'm not the only one here wondering about the whole unequally yoked thing. i don't have anything to lose here by saying if you are a Christian yourself then you have no business with someone who has not been truly born-again.

hey, your call in the end.

Thanks for the warning. And yes, while she may believe most of what she has read in the Bible and is very influenced by Christianity, she does identify as Hindi. I will say, she is having more of a positive impact on my faith in Jesus than any Christian woman ever has. She loves getting me in church, and loves it when I pray and when I talk about issues of faith. Even if she doesn't believe exactly as I do, she certainly encourages my faith in Jesus and wants me to keep growing in my faith. She is looking forward to me getting more involved in church once my school schedule settles down.

I guess the important thing to me at the end of the day is to be with someone who builds me up and who cares for my happiness and for me to grow as a person and as a believer. She brings me closer to God and gives me constant support in that area, so I am totally satisfied with that aspect.

K9_Trainer said:
Really?

You don't have any business publicly calling him out on something like that in a thread that's obviously meant to update his friends about his life. You don't know the woman or the relationship Kev has with her enough to judge them. Couldn't you have PM'd him if you're really that concerned?

No worries D

I never post something on the internet that I don't mind people picking at and saying things about. That's the nature of the internet. In the end, if you have tough skin, it's only helpful. Comments like that help me evaluate where I'm at which is never a bad thing. They also may open someone's mind to something that they didn't think they would be okay with previously. Who knows!

kevlite2020 · Mar 14, 2012

lafillecherie said:
I totally creeped on it too =)

Suddenly, creepers... Everywhere!

Also, as another update, that lovely little three word phrase definitely came out today for the first time

I'd say things are going well!

K9_Trainer · Mar 14, 2012

kevlite2020 said:
Thanks! This is just initial small stuff. Hopefully I get into the doctorate program and get a shot at doing a dissertation but for now these are just smaller projects that if I'm lucky, may end up in teaching magazines or something of that nature.

Sounds like you have an interesting thesis! I have no idea what phylogenetics and phylogeography means but you are over my head with a lot of things! You and your mega-intelligence!

Idk about mega-intelligence, just a specific kind of intelligence that goes over others' heads

Your projects sound like you, and they require strengths that I definitely don't have!

Phylogenetics is basically genetic analysis with the intent of forming a sort of family tree or ancestral tree. How the different species are related. My lizard is found from the San Fran Bay area all the way down to Baja Mexico. For a long time, all of them were considered one species with the exception of one little population in Baja. My advisor did a study on lizards from the entire range and genetically, there are five species, not one. Three of them are obviously different. They look different. The other two, it's sorta iffy. I'm doing a genetic analysis on the "cryptic" two to determine what's going on. ARE they the same? How genetically different are they? Are they hybridizing? It's basically a continuation of my advisor's study that looks more specifically at the two lineages that reside in the same area. These two might have diverged more recently than the other species.

I'm doing that in consideration of a map. Because little is known about these guys and we have only a handful in the database, the range isn't well established. They're legless, they're hard to find, they bury themselves in the sand. So I once I establish what all my samples are, I can plot it all on a map and see if more sense can be made about their range boundary, and whether there's overlapping. That's phylogeography.

No worries D I never post something on the internet that I don't mind people picking at and saying things about. That's the nature of the internet. In the end, if you have tough skin, it's only helpful. Comments like that help me evaluate where I'm at which is never a bad thing. They also may open someone's mind to something that they didn't think they would be okay with previously. Who knows!

Glad you're ok with it

kevlite2020 · Mar 14, 2012

K9_Trainer said:
Idk about mega-intelligence, just a specific kind of intelligence that goes over others' heads Your projects sound like you, and they require strengths that I definitely don't have!

Phylogenetics is basically genetic analysis with the intent of forming a sort of family tree or ancestral tree. How the different species are related. My lizard is found from the San Fran Bay area all the way down to Baja Mexico. For a long time, all of them were considered one species with the exception of one little population in Baja. My advisor did a study on lizards from the entire range and genetically, there are five species, not one. Three of them are obviously different. They look different. The other two, it's sorta iffy. I'm doing a genetic analysis on the "cryptic" two to determine what's going on. ARE they the same? How genetically different are they? Are they hybridizing? It's basically a continuation of my advisor's study that looks more specifically at the two lineages that reside in the same area. These two might have diverged more recently than the other species.

I'm doing that in consideration of a map. Because little is known about these guys and we have only a handful in the database, the range isn't well established. They're legless, they're hard to find, they bury themselves in the sand. So I once I establish what all my samples are, I can plot it all on a map and see if more sense can be made about their range boundary, and whether there's overlapping. That's phylogeography.

Glad you're ok with it

Okay, now that you mapped it out, that actually makes a lot of sense! Very interesting stuff

Blank123 · Mar 14, 2012

Thanks for the warning. And yes, while she may believe most of what she has read in the Bible and is very influenced by Christianity, she does identify as Hindi.

*ahem*

(sorry. the theological/cultural/linguistic geek in me has to get a little overly neurotic.)

Hindi or Hindu? One is a language/people group. The other is a religion

kevlite2020 · Mar 14, 2012

lafillecherie said:
*ahem*

(sorry. the theological/cultural/linguistic geek in me has to get a little overly neurotic.)

Hindi or Hindu? One is a language/people group. The other is a religion

I'm so bad at this haha, she still has a lot to teach me. Hindu, the religion. She doesn't speak Hindi, and while she was born in Trinidad, she has been in America since she was a kid

Lord Of The Forest · Mar 14, 2012

Well my argument in the paper (at a very basic level) is that our schools are a reflection of our society and the goal of our curriculum is to reflect the people we aim to reach. Currently the literary canon only highlights the heritage and culture of European or American descent. As far as African descent, we have around 40 million black people in America, many who identify as African American. Yet we have very little African American literature, and the typical classroom has 0 purely African literature works (even to be available for independent or summer reading). So if we say African Americans make up 10% of our total population, that is obviously a large group deserving of some things in the curriculum that they can relate to and see their roots from.

That being said, the main point of my study in this is, I'm actually going through a bunch of African literary works (not African American, I mean works from Africa), and showing how different common core standards can be met using these works just as easily as they can be met using Euro-American works. African literature has just as rich and influential a past as European literature. They show the same themes and literary elements... There's no real down-side to having some African literature in the curriculum, or at least in the optional reading.

I understand. Looking back, I see I came off a bit stronger than I should have, and I apologise: I am a rather unapologetic literature snob, as many people can attest.

Your comment regarding the rich and influential past.... As you are studying this field, I'll ask you... What is the earliest writer you are encountering? Scanning Wikipedia's (trust your source) list of African writers, the earliest I found was 1841, which, to me, doesn't hold much of a candle to the Middle Ages era of English literature beginning in 450; but since you're studying this, I'd be interested to hear your insights.

Another point, is why we teach literature: do we teach literature for something to which the student may relate, or do we teach literature to equip the student to judge what is or is not good literature?

kevlite2020 · Mar 15, 2012

Lord Of The Forest said:
I understand. Looking back, I see I came off a bit stronger than I should have, and I apologise: I am a rather unapologetic literature snob, as many people can attest.

Your comment regarding the rich and influential past.... As you are studying this field, I'll ask you... What is the earliest writer you are encountering? Scanning Wikipedia's (trust your source) list of African writers, the earliest I found was 1841, which, to me, doesn't hold much of a candle to the Middle Ages era of English literature beginning in 450; but since you're studying this, I'd be interested to hear your insights.

Another point, is why we teach literature: do we teach literature for something to which the student may relate, or do we teach literature to equip the student to judge what is or is not good literature?

Don't worry about coming off strong, interesting viewpoints

As far as African literature is concerned, they have a very deep oral tradition which dates back as far as anyone else. While many of those oral traditions have been transcribed following the 1800's, some of the greatest African literature has been passed down for generations through Griots (which are a caste that is basically a mix between bard and historian) before being transcribed. Written African literature is regarded by many to be some of the most powerful literature out there. They exhibit many styles and literary elements that are effective, in prose and poetry.

So if you really dig around in African lit, you will find books that talk about anywhere from the beginning of the time, to the early centuries, all the way to modern Africa. It's just that they weren't always in a written form.

As far as why we teach literature... I would say it is to promote literacy. Creating students who are capable of dissecting and understanding written information and who will become self-directed in their reading. To do this in the most effective way possible, we need to teach students the literary elements and qualities, as well as introduce them to literature that is meaningful and relevant to them.

That's why you see students in remediation reading courses reading things like Twilight and then having grade increases across the board. You can pound literary elements into a kid's head all day long but if they have no interest, they won't demonstrate an ability to read. (It works the other way around too, if they are interested in reading but have no comprehension, they run into the same wall).

Hey all, an update...

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