Blonde Moment
I am still being amazed by the blondeness of some blondes. Today the blonde, freshman girl I cast as the lead in the play I'm directing asked me, in all seriousness, what time I meant when I said "quarter of five." I had to tell her it meant 4:45. She told me telling time was not something they taught her at her middle school. (I didn't think to let her know that this is a skill she should have learned in kindergarten or first grade, NOT middle school.) So being the consummate professional educator I am, I patiently gave her an impromptu lesson on telling time. (I could have just mocked her, but then she might never learn the skill, which would be even sadder than her current lack of knowledge is.) She said she always got confused with the quarters, that she usually thought quarter of five meant 5:45. I'm not sure I succeeded in teaching her much, but at least I tried. Then during rehearsal, she delightedly exclaimed (seemingly oblivious to the fact that it's not the sign of great intellectual acumen) that she knew what time the script meant when it said "half past six." And she was right, it means 6:30! (Just thought you needed clarification on that fact...)
You might be wondering how one of so little apparent intelligence can pull off being a star actress. Be at ease, I still have faith in her. Ever heard of Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences? This girl is living proof of it. Her logical intelligence may be lacking, but there's plenty of artistic/kinesthetic ability. Thank goodness!
You might be wondering how one of so little apparent intelligence can pull off being a star actress. Be at ease, I still have faith in her. Ever heard of Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences? This girl is living proof of it. Her logical intelligence may be lacking, but there's plenty of artistic/kinesthetic ability. Thank goodness!
posted by redsoxwinthisyear at 9:51 PM
9 Comments:
Maybe she is from the south. We're simple minded folk so we don't usually do the "half past" or the "quarter of" thing. It's simply "oooh..6 o'clock give or take a few."
That is in line with what I have come to call "southern time". If someone is scheduled to show up at 9 am Monday, one might assume that means within 24 hours of 9 am. on some day in the future.
Wow, God works in mysterious ways indeed!
The title of the post made me chortle with glee, because I thought maybe YOU were admitting to have had a blonde moment, and I would have loved that... but alas... :)
Maybe you could get her to sign a contract to act in a commercial emphasizing the importance of home-schooling! But then again, I guess blonde is blonde no matter where you're educated! (Just look at--whoops! That was close!)
And yet not learning to tell time? Methinks that never would have slipped by unnoticed outside public school.
I remember struggling with telling time in the second or third grade. I HATED those clocks in the A Beka Math book. I remember my mother helping me with my homework and trying to convince me of the importance of telling time. My argument against it was that I would always keep digital clocks around the house OR...have my children tell me what time it was...Yikes.
To give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was confused by the "quarter of" expression. Probably half a dozen people have given me grief about that expression in the last month. They understand "quarter till" or "five to," but not "of." If I say, "quarter of five," they think I mean "5:15." I don't know if it's a northeast thing or a Fairwood thing or what to say "of," but I have had very intelligent people recently ask me the meaning of "quarter of."
Also, may I take a moment to vent on your blog about how CharacterLink just recently started blocking the word verification feature on blogs, so I can ONLY comment on blogs that don't have word verification! I wanted to remind Craig that I "gave" him "Land of the Free" (after Joy "gave" it to me). And I wanted to say something on someone else's blog, too, but I couldn't. Ah well, I may be able to get my settings fixed if I can figure out the appropriate person to e-mail.
Hahahahahahaha! down with that evil wident!!!!!
Hi Chad,
Young people these days...that was a pretty funny but sad story...Over here, people sometimes say half six meaning 6:30...Hopefully she'll never pay a visit to the UK, or she might get really confused.
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