20050812

Culturally Situated Design Tools: teaching math through culture

Very cool if you're into elementary math and relating geoblocks/patterns to different ethnicities.

20050810

Gifted males and the "Bartleby Syndrome"

Because, I ask you -- can we ever know enough about genius and gender?

20050806

"Hyena People of Nigeria"

Pieter Hugo's photo series shows that there are more than one way to live tough.

20050805

define:melungeon

OK, watching Weird USA last nite/this morning, I learned the existence of a word of which I'd never heard - "melungeon" - whose meaning seems, to me, a more specific type of mulatto. Googling for a definition brings up a lone Wikipedia entry. Yet another example of serendipity?
  • In May 2005, while looking for who all might be of mixed Japanese-black ancestry because of international nite @ Jordan's school, I bumped into a list of largely known, or safely-guessed-at terms at MixedFolks.com.
  • I have this unattached interest in "invisible" ethnic minorities such as Japan's Burakumin.
All of which connect to my fascination w/ linguistic anomalies as in foreign accent syndrome, regionalisms and translation idiosyncracies as described in "Minority Wonders" and "Lost in Translation".