one more six from 2012

Six 2012 images courtesy of intrepid Elf.

Explore. Discover. Dance. Dream. Create.

six from 2012

Six images Orphan enjoyed in 2012.

Two monks at a wat and The Tree of Life, Luang Prabang, Laos.

On the street - boys and wedding Siem Reap, Cambodia.

 

Music man plays for an audience of 1, Trabzon, Turkey. Red balloons.

 

Cold Turkey

Yes, it's true, said a free spirit in a free world. You have to break down before you break through.

The difference between the sense of hearing and the skill of listening is attention. Good lesson, said a listener. 

Tell us a story about Cold Turkey.

It may interest you to know Turkey has the highest number of journalists in JAIL or PRISONS than any country in the world. More than China or Iran.

Sounds like a great place to speak your mind free from fear.

Yeah, free speech is cold in Turkey. Colder than leftovers.

What happened to open your head, open your heart and open your mouth?

Speaking free has it's risks. You can say that again. Censorship is alive and well. Best served cold.

Who cares? We can always go shopping.

Amnesty International.

nothing behind. everything in front.

He went to Turkey for 51 moments. 

He explored a 4,000 year old Roman city on the Black Sea. Citizens were hospitable. Strangers came and went.

He wandered to Sumela, a Greek monastery (386 A.D.) in the mountains. Murals covered fall changing colors.

It reminded him of Mesa Verde (600 A.D.) in Colorado. Cliff dwellings. Isolated. Peaceful.

 

He returned to Trap A Zone, photographed street life and attended an English teacher training class.

You have to complete a unit in 53 minutes, said the female administrator. Ryhmes with see you later alligator and procrastinator.

The economic fact she did not enunciate was the language school's objective:

PROFIT BEFORE PEOPLE

We enroll them, take their money, give them a textbook with a fancy CD and their class time. Your job is to push them through. One class means finishing 3 units in 3 hours.

After nine weeks, presto! they complete one level, we take their money and they advance toward a higher standard of living filled with past continuous verbs, fresh tomatoes and black olives garnished with hazelnuts.

Does Hazel have nuts? To be evaluated. 

A native speaker from O-Zone asked a question. Are students all the same level?

Close enough, she said. They know grammar rules like nobody's business. They lack vocabulary. They are afraid to speak. They are robotic victims of the educational system well trained to keep their mouth shut, read and memorize. You have no freedom to create fun, interesting, student-directed activities.

Just do the book. Everyone's happy, especially the accountant.

Thank you for your attention.

push them through teol school

One of the tyrannies of formal education, said Orphan, is how it takes 12 tedious ominous years to beat creative curiosity out of a child. It's a tortuous Byzantine procedure of endless suffering.

I agree with you, Elf said in simple English. Take Turkey for example. It's all dumbed down grammar text-based learning dulling the mind. By the book. Keep your mouth shut, warn teachers conditioned by the machine using fear to control and maipulate.

Yeah, they know the grammar RULES for taking exams. That's it. Past simple, present continuous and NO SPEAK.

They love RULES.

They need vocabulary and the confidence to use it. Open head, heart and mouth. Risk.

I eat my sorrow with fresh yogurt, said a woman opening her creative notebook to a blank page. She wrote. She drew. She danced colors, dreams, rainbows, the Black Sea, caricatures of friends, flowers, gardens and butterflies.

I feel free, she laughed.

Use it or lose it, said a silver spoon dancing around brown tea leaves dissolving a white sugar cube. 

Clink, clink, clink.

Do you want a verb to get going, asked a tea man.

On the side please with fresh tomatoes, kasher cheese and black olives at Hagia Sophia in Trebazon.