{"id":6213,"date":"2012-10-30T07:00:01","date_gmt":"2012-10-30T07:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/2012\/10\/30\/the-wisdom-of-sevehhhhsixth-graders-living-without-electronics-for-a-week\/"},"modified":"2012-10-30T07:00:01","modified_gmt":"2012-10-30T07:00:01","slug":"the-wisdom-of-sevehhhhsixth-graders-living-without-electronics-for-a-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20121030-01\/?p=6213","title":{"rendered":"The wisdom of seve^H^H^H^Hsixth graders: Living without electronics for a week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sixth grade students (ages 11 to 12, roughly) were instructed to imagine that they have no television, computer, or telephone for a week and write an essay (in the form of a letter to their parents) on what they would do with their time and why. The assignment was given under standardized test conditions: 90 minutes with nothing but pencil and paper, with an additional hour available upon request. (In practice, few students ask for the extra hour.)\n Remember, these are only the funny sentences\/excerpts. Do not assume that all students write like this.\n <b>Stage One: Denial<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A powerman came to our house and is trying to fix the     <span style=\"cursor: default;border-bottom: dotted .75pt red\" title=\"precious\">precios<\/span>     <span style=\"cursor: default;border-bottom: dotted .75pt red\" title=\"valuables\">valubles<\/span>&#8230;     <i>But don&#8217;t touch the family jewels.<\/i> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <b>Stage Two: Anger<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Since you have forcefully restricted me from using     <span style=\"cursor: default;border-bottom: dotted .75pt red\" title=\"essential\">essenchal<\/span>,     electronics like the TV&#8230; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <b>Stage Three: Bargaining<\/b>\n (couldn&#8217;t find an example, sorry)\n <b>Stage Four: Depression<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>My heart is full of grief and sadness,     yet I regret nothing but the loss of my precious x-box. <\/li>\n<li>Although I am in a mood of melancholy over this gloomy oncoming event,     I hope my hobbies will cheer me up.     <i>Big words sound bigger.<\/i> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <b>Stage Five: Acceptance<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Since you have grounded me for a week, I need to nurture my growing sense of fun. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <b>Other excerpts<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>[When working in the barn]     1) don&#8217;t touch the electric fence 2) don&#8217;t throw poop <\/li>\n<li>Every day, I am getting closer to achieving my goal of     attacking my friends.     <i>You should see what your friends&#8217; goals are.<\/i> <\/li>\n<li>&#8230; Gliding on black     <span style=\"cursor: default;border-bottom: dotted .75pt red\" title=\"asphalt\">ashphault<\/span> &#8230; <\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m going to play legos until my arms hurt.     <i>In my experience,     <a href=\"http:\/\/knowyourmeme.com\/memes\/i-hope-you-step-on-a-lego\">     your feet hurt first<\/a>.<\/i> <\/li>\n<li>I have a life outside the digital world! <\/li>\n<li>My grade went     <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Academic_grading_in_North_America\">     from a C- to an A-<\/a>,     and that is the second highest you can get!     <i>So why not do it for real?<\/i> <\/li>\n<li>After a long day of skating,     my legs are battered and crunched, and that just means I had a good day. <\/li>\n<li>I have noticed lately that my social level is not up to my standards.     <i>Level up?<\/i> <\/li>\n<li>I will draw elaborate scratches of     <a href=\"http:\/\/www.officemuseum.com\/pencil_history.htm\">     lead<\/a>     all over the blank paper. <\/li>\n<li>Inside used to be another word for     <span style=\"cursor: default;border-bottom: dotted .75pt red\" title=\"trapped\">trapt<\/span>.     Now it translates to party! <\/li>\n<li>We have invented a new game.  We tie one sister to a post&#8230;     <i>I&#8217;m not sure who the winner of the game is,     but I&#8217;m pretty sure I know who the loser is.<\/i> <\/li>\n<li>One of my options for an activity is reading.     I have noticed a big collection of books on my shelf     and a few look quite interesting.     <i>How&#8217;d those books get there?<\/i> <\/li>\n<li>If there were no phones, I would die, but I would still have fun. <\/li>\n<li>Remember, reading is a movie on pages. <\/li>\n<li>By going to church, you don&#8217;t need anything but faith. <\/li>\n<li>I would go play behind the     <span style=\"cursor: default;border-bottom: dotted .75pt red\" title=\"aggressive\">agresive<\/span>     looking houses.     <i>I prefer passive housing myself.<\/i> <\/li>\n<li>Skydiving I went once it is like diving into a pool     you lose your     <span style=\"cursor: default;border-bottom: dotted .75pt red\" title=\"stomach\">stomache<\/span>     sometimes you find it sometimes you don&#8217;t.     <i>Somehow the run-on sentence makes it more poetic.<\/i> <\/li>\n<li>It is a very relaxful activity. <\/li>\n<li>One book I will read is     <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0310205719?tag=tholneth-20\">     A Purpose Driven Life<\/a>. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <b>Any final requests?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The last thing I will do is tape toys together and make new toys. <\/li>\n<li>The last thing I will do is go bike     <span style=\"cursor: default;border-bottom: dotted .75pt red\" title=\"riding\">ridding<\/span>. <\/li>\n<li>The final activity I would do is Africa!     <i>Um, you might want to rephrase that.<\/i> <\/li>\n<li>Then, last but not     <span style=\"cursor: default;border-bottom: dotted .75pt red\" title=\"least\">leave<\/span>, my instruments&#8230; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <b>I&#8217;m not resentful. Why do you ask?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sincerely, Your Daughter, the Formerly Loved. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> Observe that many students talked about &#8220;the last thing&#8221; they would do. This is another consequence of adhering too close to formula. &#8220;I have three things, so I will say &#8216;The first thing&#8217;, &#8216;The next thing&#8217;, and &#8216;the last thing&#8217;.&#8221; They don&#8217;t realize that when you write &#8220;The last thing I will do&#8221;, it carries a somewhat different meaning.<\/p>\n<p> (Today&#8217;s post is in support of the millions of people currently <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/49593609\/ns\/weather\/\"> without electricity due to Hurricane Sandy<\/a>.) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sixth grade students (ages 11 to 12, roughly) were instructed to imagine that they have no television, computer, or telephone for a week and write an essay (in the form of a letter to their parents) on what they would do with their time and why. The assignment was given under standardized test conditions: 90 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[103,109],"class_list":["post-6213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-non-computer","tag-the-wisdom-of-seventh-graders"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>Sixth grade students (ages 11 to 12, roughly) were instructed to imagine that they have no television, computer, or telephone for a week and write an essay (in the form of a letter to their parents) on what they would do with their time and why. The assignment was given under standardized test conditions: 90 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}