• 0 Posts
  • 32 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: July 1st, 2023
  • iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.orgtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•Do you decorate for holidays?
    0·
    1 month ago

    I’m really big on Halloween. I decorate the interior of my classroom and my house (sometimes a little outside of my house like cobwebs over the gate and fencing and a tombstone or three, but we had painters working this year, so that stuff stayed in the garage).

    My partner decorates hardcore for Christmas/Yuletide, but it’s all very secular and interior with just a wreath outside on our door, so it’s nice to not have to put up lights lol.

    I don’t do any other holidays, tbh. My grandmother gave us so much stuff for Easter and 4th of July, but we don’t celebrate either.

    We decorate for seasons, generally, and have like spring/summer/fall/winter decor, but that’s mainly just swapping out pillows on the couch and little flower arrangements or a few knick nacks. Some of the Easter stuff was useful for our spring decorations, and, thankfully, my aunt ended up snagging a bunch of the other Easter stuff because she has fond memories of those decorations when she was a child.

    A lot of the other stuff that wasn’t trash worthy (most of the chintzy 4th of July stuff) was scooped up by others in a garage sale, so it was nice to see some other people enjoy those things.

    My grandma has always loved setting up garage sales and she was super sweet to everyone who showed interest or bought her old decorations. It was really nice for her to see these keepsakes go to a new home and know that they were valued.

    She’s mellowed a lot in the last ten or so years and I was a little surprised with how gung ho she was about throwing the cheaper stuff away lol she was acting like the amazing hostess she has always been and saying things like “This is my last garage sale, so only the nice things make it to the tables for sale!”

    I know that’s kind of a tangent, but I really have enjoyed helping her downsize and move into a smaller space near my parents, and thought this story would probably apply to a lot of others’ experiences with family decorations and memories.

    Edit: It was also pretty cute how my grandma was giving things away to people who really liked things. She’s always done this, but this time seemed a little more special and personal for her. She had so much stuff that she made a decent amount on the furniture anyway, but that was definitely not the goal for any of us lol.

  • iltoroargento@lemmy.sdf.orgtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Effort require Effort
    7·
    3 months ago

    Not sure if you meant it this way, but this comes off as a pretty flippant take on humanity’s evolutionary history and psychology as applied to a middle school classroom. There’s a lot more going on than just humanity’s supersocial nature.

    Of course, we’re social animals lol but within that reality, we have largely been able to communicate effectively and engage in learning. What the original commentor is saying is that those kids, apparently one third of each class, are severely lacking in any functional communication skills and framework.

    Throughout our species’ history, we have developed efficient ways of communicating and learning. These kids mentioned are not trained to consider (or, in some cases, are completely oblivious to) how their communication and behavior is perceived by peers, teachers, and concerned parents and bystanders. As was stated by @radicalautonomy@lemmy.world, many kids think/care only about how their actions and words are perceived by their target audience. That has always been part of the learning process, but I see it has become more prevalent and somewhat louder/more pronounced in older kids than it has been in the past.

    I see a lot of factors feeding into this, but I think most of them boil down to the increased isolation and anxiety experienced by teens and preteens, today, and the lack of exposure to/familiarity with efficient, substantive, respectful, and effective communication.

    Growing up is confusing and frightening enough, and, now, these kids are exposed to a lot more information that’s increasingly curated into smaller and smaller sound bytes and memes designed to highlight outrage, anxiety, and disillusionment.

    I think a lot of the “brainrot” culture we see today stems from young people wanting to communicate nonsensically as they are desensitized by the sheer amount of similarly coded content and communication they are exposed to. I grew up with other ways to shut off my brain and deal with the anxiety and inherent loneliness that comes with growing up and finding more of a sense of self, but these kids don’t have the same breathing room as I did.

    To your last point about education systems fighting against social behavior, I actually see the opposite. A massive amount of studies and practices have been implemented on how best to utilize the double edged sword of our social nature. Nearly every professional development training or meeting I go to deals with encouraging positive social interactions and discourse. I think if you look to schools and districts that actually walk the walk of education, you’ll see a lot of progress.

    Edit: I also want to say that a lot of these kids are really searching for ways to make sense of their confusing world and when they are presented with alternatives to unwind and even learn communication skills, a lot of them absolutely LOVE it. I run a biweekly D&D group for my 7th and 8th graders and one of them even refers to it as his “therapy” lol one of the best compliments I’ve been given and all the more meaningful considering kids are often such harsh critics.