Procrastination man - Part 2

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Monday 29 December 2008

Something looks odd...

A BBC News page about a Warwick Uni study is fairly interesting on its own. However, the related articles seem to show a contradiction:

The facts are these, seemingly: behaviour is better than in the 70s, but worse than five years ago. Concerning the latter article, have a look at the photograph chosen to illustrate bad behaviour: a fuzzy image, cut so that nothing above the waist is seen. While BBC News usually prove to be excellent journalists, this association between bad behaviour, violence, and people's legs, is poor at best.

Friday 26 December 2008

The Next Doctor

Beware - if you have not seen The Next Doctor yet, this review will include big spoilers, so avert your eyes!
BBC One gathered over half the TV viewers last night at six, for a Christmas special of Doctor Who. While there were "only" 11.7 million people watching it (overnight figures), it is safe to say that those were drawn in by the appeal of the show itself, rather than by the star effect of Kylie Minogue last year.
And those viewers must have been pleased: of all the Christmas specials, The Next Doctor is the one that feels most Christmassy, with plenty of snow, children and a scenery and photography (at the beginning) which reminds slightly of Nativity scenes (admittedly, at a push). Victorian London, in any case, feels very much like it's taken straight from Dickens's books. Storywise, it was bigged up quite a bit by the sparse leaked information: the title, The Next Doctor gave quite a bit away, especially as David Morrissey was reportedly cast as "the Doctor" and had an assistant called Rosita (and even, we find out, a TARDIS!) and as David Tennant is reportedly leaving the show after this year's specials. The Cybermen were back in it as well, which would have been quite a biggie were it not for the multi-doctor aspect of the story (remember the end of series four teaser?).
And, just like in series 4's The Doctor's Daughter, we are cheated! David Morrissey is not the next Doctor, but through rather clever story devices, he has assimilated some facts about the Time Lord, and believes himself to be him. He has a screwdriver, which is sonic (as in, makes sound), a hot-air balloon, which is his TARDIS, and many more similarities with the Doctor. Now, while the plot device to explain this assimilation is subtly introduced at the beginning of the story, it remains no more than a plot device that accidentally also serves as a weapon, and in the end, the viewer is left to wonder why the Cybermen needed those in the first place (let alone how they have archive footage of the Third, Eigth and Ninth Doctors, and if they are the parallel universe Cybermen, how they have any of any Doctor except for the Tenth!).
But the plot works fairly well, and is the occasion for a few nice continuity references, some more subtle than others (Blink, Human Nature twice -once obviously, the other time less so-, The Runaway Bride gets a nod at the end, Last of the Time Lords at a push... very much at a push... if you find it, kudos, you're as much a geek as I). The dialogue is crisp, and the acting awesome on Tennant's and Miss Hartigan's side, quite good on the Next Doctor's and Rosita's too. And the mystery is quite deep throughout a story whose pace never lets down.
More importantly, maybe, it is a pivotal story in the Cybermen's storyline - which is quite surprising for a Christmas special. Russel T Davies has, essentially, created an Eric Saward Dalek storyline for Cybermen. There could well be, from now on, two factions of Cyberpeople - one, following Miss Hartigan, and the other one, rebelling against those heathen feelings. I am quite curious to see what a Cybermen against Cybermen story would do - after all, the CyberKing has only been sent to the Time Vortex, nothing says it can't get out in Manhattan/fall through time all the way to the Time War and get the Rani out/anything is possible.
All in all, The Next Doctor is probably the best Christmas special so far, and deserves full marks! (and I haven't even mentioned Murray Gold's music, even though it is mostly the ususal themes rearranged this time around!) (and well done to Doctor Who Magazine for managing to make a Doctor cover for Morrissey without giving the game away!)

Saturday 13 December 2008

When theology meets education...

... it creates this beautiful quote by C.S. Lewis, in his address from 1941 The Weight of Glory.

There are different kinds of rewards. There is the reward which has no natural connection with the things you do to earn it and is quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things. Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward for a real lover, and he is not mercenary for desiring it. A general who fights well in order to get a peerage is mercenary; a general who fights for victory is not, victory being the proper reward of battle as marriage is the proper reward of love. The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation. There is also a third case, which is more complicated. An enjoyment of Greek poetry is certainly a proper, and not a mercenary, reward for learning; but only those who have reached the stage of enjoying Greek poetry can tell from their own experience that this is so. The schoolboy beginning Greek grammar cannot look forward to his adult enjoyment of Sophocles as a lover looks forward to marriage or a general to victory. He has to begin by working for marks, or to escape punishment, or to please his parents, or, at best, in the hope of a future good which he cannot at present imagine or desire. His position, therefore, bears a certain resemblance to that of a mercenary; the reward he is going to get will, in actual fact, be a natural or proper reward, but he will not know that till he has got it. Of course, he gets it gradually; enjoyment creeps in upon the mere drudgery, and nobody could point to a day or hour when the one ceased and the other began. But it is just insofar as he approaches the reward that he becomes able to desire it for its own sake; indeed, the power of so desiring it is itself a preliminary reward.


Published (between others) in C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, HarperSanFrancisco 2001. (buy it, it is very good). The emphasis is mine.
This quote, even though lenghty, is believed to fall under fair use. Copyright holders may obviously request for it to be taken down.



This excerpt shows in clear term the difference (in educationalist terms) between extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Now, amongst the interesting ideas that slip through, is the fact that C.S. Lewis insists on the process of the task, when talking about intrinsic rewards. His examples are admittedly different, as it would be fairly difficult without sounding naff to say that students do the task for its own sake. These are more than just intrinsic, they are internal rewards.
The search for knowledge is seen as an intrinsic reward (and rightly so), as it is linked to the task itself. However, it is larger than the task, and is an external intrinsic reward. If we hastily assimilate motivation and rewards, we can see that there are different kinds of motivations. External intrinsic motivation exists! I believe it, however, to be different from engagement. The third kind, is possibly the most intriguing - and I will leave you to comment on it! I believe it falls under external intrinsic socially induced motivation.
Apologies, this is quite poorly constructed - it is just jotting down different ideas, and seeing where they lead you! ;-) Now comment!