Metacognition

 April 12 Word of the Day: Metacognition

 

At lunch today it was reported, via the most reliable sources, that our universe has as many as two trillion galaxies. It’s ours, but in what sense do we own it? Another word that floated into view over mushroom quiche was metacognition, which is to say thinking about thinking. Teachers need to be in possession of such things, the current shape of our universe and thinking about how we are thinking, in advance. As surely as day follows night, the classroom is ready to manage. There are pupils of all ages who, even today, are happy to believe there is at most, one galaxy and maybe a few others. They could care less about pushing the boundaries of the Milky Way. They are tacit learners. If a stargazer told them there are maybe two trillion and that’s just in this universe, tacits would take on this knowledge with equanimity and possibly never think about it again. After all, one galaxy or two trillion, there’s nothing we can do about it. Then there are aware learners, aware that is they are standing on our unique planet gazing out at immense star patterns, many of them so far away they are invisible. Awares might put down their knife and fork for a moment to ponder how that is possible, especially as the universe moves at sensational speeds even as it looks perfectly still in the night sky. Awares think about this in the way we wonder randomly how the ancients joined the dots ‘up there’ to make a scorpion or a lion. Pupils each must have their own drawing board. Then there are strategic learners, good whether at testing a hypothesis or setting the table and cleaning up afterwards. Their metacognitive skills wish to devise ways of finding answers to questions such as why stop at two trillion, if there are more universes then where do we stand in relation to them, or sit down to lunch even, and why weren’t we told this earlier? Together strategics figure out these and other conundrums, soft and hard, with the same doggedness and verve. Fourth, though presumably there are fifth, sixth, and seventh levels of metacognition given there are two trillion galaxies just for starters, is the reflective learner. As the word says, they are not only strategic but reflect on their thinking, monitor their strategies and change them accordingly. They may observe the correspondence between the only life we know on Earth, numbered in the trillions but all different in mode and appearance, and the burgeoning of galaxies up to and including the trillions likewise ‘out there’, many of those galaxies invisible even to the eye of the reflective. They will write a corresponding poem by way of illustration, or a record-breaking symphony eventually, or a group sculpture by the seashore.       

 

 

Wazz

 April 11 Word of the Day: Wazz

 

Listening to an acceptance speech by my brother Mick to a mixed audience in a St Kilda venue, an unknown word (unknown to me) emerged from the high talk. Concerned (if that’s the word) that some attendees may not be interested in everything he had to say, Mick seemed not to care if the disinterested chose at some stage to go have a wazz. Being myself an Australian of a certain age and travel experience, this wazz word was way out of orbit. Furthermore, my Californian spellchecker underlines wazz with a red squiggle.

 But it’s not an error, not West Coast, and is related to the gravitational orbit of the Earth, being British slang (apparently) for urinate. The venue, as is law, had some excellent facilities available for this natural function. Online generally keeps the definition to the straight and narrow, though wazz hazz been known to refer to other bodily functions from time to time. The OED claims that its first recorded use is in 1984. It claims, in its celebrated formal manner, that there are fewer than 0.01 occurrences of wazz per million words in modern written English. Though presumably that figure is higher in spoken English, even if a novelty to a resident Australian. Popular awareness was raised by its occasional use in Absolutely Fabulous.  

 As inferred earlier, wazz rhymes with jazz. This puts us in mind of the world of music, which is why we were all there in St Kilda on a drizzly March evening in the first place. The line caused me to wonder if it was part of Mick’s armoury, or perhaps that’s battery, of rebukes for hecklers at British concerts who want more of the fast songs and less of the slow, lilting ballads. Wazz started life as a verb, morphing into a noun some ten years later (1994), the form of speech used during the speech. Although much of the literature claims that the word is vulgar, it is a mild and even slightly comic nonsense word compared with other synonyms for piss.

 In the context it all made sense. Spritzes fizzed, whiskies hit and ales palely flowed as the audience leaned into the speeches ahead of a promised bracket of chansons. Only the rare punter made a beeline for the conveniences, or wazeria, as those assembled hung on every word. Indeed, for a while there about the only person not intoxicated was the one giving the acceptance speech.  

 

Maxxing

 April 10 Word of the Day: Maxxing

 

eyewearmaxxing to position glasses in each room of the house, memorably, thus obviating the need to search the house top to bottom each time a pair of your glasses is misplaced or ‘goes missing’, thus also inspiring a growing appreciation of the art and science of glasses-making, optometry as it were, frames, tints, dependability

 hairmaxxing to comb the remaining white locks into waves providing room for air to flounce and sun to dry them into a respectable and resilient shape, without counting each hair knowing there are less than this time last year and who is counting, streaming from under a tweed cap

 monographmaxxing to surround the reader with eight, nine, ten books of current interest their contents leading at the very least to interest if not next level contentment, available for attention over the short term such as a suspended haiku, medium term the essay as it should be, awe long term the Russian or similar who just talks like that, truly, leading even to satisfaction, thrills, revelation, awe again

 napmaxxing to rest shuteye as advised ideally twenty minutes before rems rev-up, thus restoring the zizzy or dizzy or tired mind with a while, else a longer siesta fifty minutes say after hard work in the hot sun and beating rain, then to jettison that tiresome dream for a new touch of reality

 silentmaxxing to maximise the times of available quiet away from the noise of the world demanding our hearing with its mindless intrusions of leaf blower hours and supermarket thrash and hormuz buzz and endless ads and helicopters overhead

 slowmaxxing to reduce the speed with which anything is done, not running to catch a train but slowing down to catch the next one, moving from one task to the next with an eye to every detail of the task and an enjoyment of these small details known from a lifetime’s experience

 vinylmaxxing to pack the stack of tracks wax appeal for hours, recordings both new, platters of fluoro wizardry, and old, a scratch on track three and undulations still keeping intact the thirties première, until day turns the turntable into even and the needle drops one more time to a moving voice from another age