aleph_c's recent activity
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Comment on Why do multiple meanings of words so often map across languages in ~humanities.languages
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Comment on Living nonbinary in a binary sports world in ~lgbt
aleph_c Link ParentBecause the antecedent is clear from context, I think the writing works fine. I'm reminded of this video discussing BMO from Adventure Time which similarly switches between he/him and she/her...Because the antecedent is clear from context, I think the writing works fine.
I'm reminded of this video discussing BMO from Adventure Time which similarly switches between he/him and she/her throughout. As a bonus, the idea in the video can also help explain how using someone's (multiple) pronouns can be an expression of accepting their identity.
In the case of the article, if the reader has to process that "he", "she", and "they" are all referring to same person, so much the better: that processing hopefully helps internalize an understanding of that part of who Clarendon is.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~humanities
aleph_c LinkI should caveat this by mentioning that I was incredibly fortunate to go to schools that were actually wonderfully flexible about these things and were populated with students that weren't the...I should caveat this by mentioning that I was incredibly fortunate to go to schools that were actually wonderfully flexible about these things and were populated with students that weren't the stereotype of absolutely awful tweens and teens. So bear that in mind if the school staff or students might actually be unwelcoming.
- Others mentioned skipping a grade, and I think it's fairly useful and it's one of the easiest solutions to accommodate (even if there's often resistance). I can't speak much to the counterfactual of my experience, but I think there's likely to be social difficulties staying at the current grade or skipping up, so erring on the side of providing some challenge seems worthwhile. At age 11, I don't know that I would recommend trying to do more than one year, since the looming effects of adolescence are likely to be more of a social issue the larger the age gap is.
- One thing that I think was very useful for me was additional targeted acceleration, e.g. taking just one or a few subjects at an even higher grade level (in classes already being taught). It provides more challenge, but can help maintain a primary social group with students closer to his age. There's also some potential social benefits from spending some time with more mature students, though this could be a matter of luck.
- Relatedly, don't be afraid of allowing some of his classes to be easy. Some of that is just allowing more mental energy to be put elsewhere, some of that is sharing in the social experience of those mandatory classes that are made for all students, and some of that is to build some habit of doing work even when it's boring. (Presuming it's not excessive.)
- Mentally engaging extracurricular activities. I think I might recommend encouraging options that have some sort of an actual measure of success, e.g. programming, chess, academic competitions, etc. Which is not to say that other hobbies aren't valuable, but when he's expressing a lack of challenge, something that presents an actual possibility of failure might help with building good habits more than learning something in an undirected manner.
Often this sort of occurrence is a type of calque, where the word takes on a new meaning in one language, and then that meaning carries over into other languages through a direct translation. That Wikipedia articles gives "(computer) mouse" as an example, but my favorite is the one that made me really notice the phenomenon—English's "right" vs. Spanish's "derecho" vs. Russian's "правый"/"право", meaning: correct, the opposite of left, and as in "trans rights are human rights".