The first round of the #blueberryfigabc is complete! Here is a full recap of all the letters and their Instagram captions.
All the colouring pages come from The ABC Coloring Book by Renee Chin. She is also the author of This Little Kiwi Went to Market and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star: Tirama, Tirama, Whetu Riki e, both New Zealand reimaginings of European stories.
A is for “ambivalence” and “alacrity”
When you’re not sure whether you’re doing the right thing, whether you should get started or do more planning, when you worry that a step forward might be a step in the wrong direction, a glassy-eyed optimism and a now-or-never attitude can help.
B is for Borodin
Go listen to Alexander Borodin’s String Quartet No. 2 and as you’re listening, maybe draw what you see from your window or try to follow each instrument through the melodies and harmonies. Can you tell which violin is which? Where is the viola? The cello gets some beautiful passages in low registers.
Spotify has several recordings and there are more available on YouTube. If you’re concerned about respecting intellectual property rights, look for open source copies or read descriptions to see whether the video has been posted with permission. With older compositions, the music itself is usually in the public domain, so it’s the performance that might be restricted.
C is for “cartography”
@atlasobscura recently posted an article about Native Lands, a website and app created by Vancouver resident Victor Temprano and run by a dedicated team of colleagues. The map reveals the territories of First Nations, Indigenous peoples, Aboriginal and other first peoples in North America, Australia, and New Zealand.
The map is interactive and frequently updated as new research and more community contributions help to give more depth and accuracy to the information there.
As an individual you can learn about the world we share, its history, and the ancient cultures that live on today. As a teacher or caregiver you can discover and share this with your students or children.
As a newcomer to British Columbia I had no knowledge or understanding of the cultural and political history of this region. Native Lands is helping me change that and helping me share these discoveries with my students .
D is for “dessert” and “desert” and “deserve”
“Dessert” isn’t something you earn – not in life and not etymologically. It is what follows the clearing – the desertification, let’s say – of the table after the main meal. And “deserve” emerged as a word for what we’re entitled to in light of our own good service.
Etymology isn’t a reliable guide to life, but here are some suggestions:
• We don’t have to earn joy (or cake); we do need to make space for it.
• Contributions, not suffering are what make us deserving of rewards.
• The Online Etymology Dictionary is delightful afternoon reading whether you’re in a classroom or on the bus or sitting under a tree wondering how much dinner you might have to suffer through in order to deserve your dessert.
E is for The Estorick Collection
We can’t all go to Islington in London in the United Kingdom whenever we are overcome by the urge to admire a beautifully curated collection of modern Italian art. But we can all enjoy the museum’s Instagram account.
F is for “folly”
A mistake, but when found in a garden, a beautiful indulgence; often well-intentioned or committed thoughtlessly, not out of malice.
We often focus on errors, transgressions, and failures. Maybe we’d be kinder to one another and to ourselves if we sometimes saw folly where we might otherwise see ill intent or incompetence.
Educators and students have inherited a reverence for correct answers and accuracy and a fear of being incorrect or inaccurate. Our concepts can become impoverished if we don’t leave room for silliness and folly, which, when found in a garden, can be beautiful.
G is for Geography Now
The Geography Now YouTube channel has helped me learn about the world in an entertaining and heartwarming way.
As a teacher, I love being able to share new, inspiring resources and introduce students to friendly and supportive online communities.
I’m a third culture kid with friends and family scattered across the planet. Many of my Vancouver friends have also moved here from other countries. When people are curious about the world and take a genuine interest in the reality of life in other countries, my own life experiences feel more accepted. I’m sure a lot of students in a classroom or children in international families would feel the same way.
H is for “hono(u)r” and “hour” and “honest” and “heir”
It’s also for “herb”, about whose pronunciation people disagree with a vehemence that could, if directed elsewhere, heal the injustices of the world.
When my students believe that English – or any language – does or should follow an objectively rational set of rules, they are frustrated. But when we instead delight in English as a chaotic slurry of historical and cultural contributions, then spelling and grammar and idioms become something to savour.
I is for the first person singular
In many languages, verbs have different endings depending on their person and number. In some languages, the endings even indicate the speaker’s gender.
Lexicon Valley (a wonderful, though not always family-friendly linguistics podcast) has pointed out how often we now drop the first-person pronoun as a subject in texts and even emails (e.g. “Leaving now” or “Had a great time”). We associate social media and the culture of instant messaging with narcissism, but as writing becomes more widely used as a form of quotidian (why say “everyday” when you can be fancy?) communication, the “I” seems to be fading.
J is for Just Nuisance
Just Nuisance, who enlisted in the Royal Navy during WWII, was a beloved member of his community, and was, perhaps most importantly, a large and good natured Great Dane. 🐶🐾🐾🚢 According to Cape Town Magazine, Just Nuisance was much more than a dog. To quote, “It was in 1939 that Just Nuisance became the very first and only canine Royal Navy member in history…” According to the article lovingly relating his life story, Just Nuisance enjoyed train rides, but was frequently in trouble for fare dodging. Volunteering for the Royal Navy allowed him to ride for free. His gentle and charming antics boosted morale at his naval base and his passing was mourned across the world.
A bronze statue of the beloved Great Dane stands in Simon’s Town in Cape Town, South Africa. When you go there to pay homage, make sure to waddle down to Boulders Beach and befriend (from the safety of the boardwalk) the African penguin colony frolicking in the waves and rock pools.
K is for “kindergarten”
Kindergartens are where we send our sprouting artists, cheesemongers, industrial psychologists, human resources managers, and cabinet makers. But they are also nurseries for seedlings of friendship and civic duty and caregiving.
99% Invisible ran an episode about the concept of kindergarten and how first-wave minimalism, brutalism, and modern design more generally have their genesis in the values and aesthetic sensibilities their practitioners gained in kindergarten. Look for 99% Invisible – Episode 349: Froebel’s Gifts wherever you get your podcasts.
The episode made me think about the sort of learning environments people want for the children in their care. Does the sandbox of your infancy become a fundamental analogy for the world you inhabit throughout your life?
L is for “lugubrious” and “loquacious”
Can a child be lugubrious? The word (which roughly means “appearing mournful”) sounds old and indulgent. The syllables are neglected dessert wine and moral ambiguity; not emotion or affect.
And what about “loquacious”? Of course individuals of nearly any age can be chatty. But “loquacious” sounds oddly condescending, as though it captures something just short of affection. Maybe because the word echoes the tone of “precocious” or “brassy ” or even “sociable”. Words that so often look down on subjects, minors, those with whom the word and its wielder do not empathize.
Words don’t just mean what they mean; they mean what we mean them to mean.
The thesaurus may lead you (or your student or the child in your care) astray. True synonyms aren’t abundant. Replace “mournful” with “lugubrious” and you might unintentionally age your character. But understanding the tone and texture of words can be an advantage. Is your character very young? Do you want to infuse your description with a sense of gentle absurdity? Stand aside “sad child”; the “lugubrious infant” has arrived.
M is for “miracle”
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher living in the 1700s. The Enlightenment was a time of growing secularism, when scientists and philosophers were trying to forge a path that, if not leading away from religion, would run parallel to it. Hume appealed to what were then already understood to be “laws of nature” (rather than a deity’s creation) in his discussion of miracles. Go read what he wrote or read about his work! The SFU and UBC Philosophy Department websites have some great resources.
Maybe such issues don’t keep you up at night, but as a teacher or caregiver or curious human, you may enjoy learning about the life of David Hume, the reactions his contemporaries had to his ideas, and his intellectual legacy.
It bears mentioning that Hume enjoyed life. No ascetic self-denial for him. As a result, he was not very athletic in appearance. But Scotland is very proud of their philosopher and the statue of him in Edinburgh, often lashed by cold rain, is a neoclassical imagining of a shirtless, Apollo-like Hume.
N is for Namibia
In Namibia, you can see centuries-old plants (Welwitschia mirabilis), a moonscape in the desert, sand dunes the size of mountains, beaches home to thousands of flamingos, and Etosha National Park where humans are working very hard to celebrate and protect a version of innocent nature.
Maybe a vacation isn’t hiding in your bank account or your calendar, but go sit on the floor in the travel section of a book store or hunch over your phone on your commute as you learn about ancient Namibian plants.
O is for Ovid
Ovid was a Roman poet whose cast of poetic characters, from Orpheus to Orithyia, is omnipresent, though often obscured within contemporary retellings. Find stories of transformation, of shifting, changing, and emergence. They are hidden in plain sight.
P is for “perspicacious” and “perspicuous”
I’m not a betting type, but I’d put down a few dollars/dictionaries that I’m not the only one who has trundled through life hoping no one would ask me what these words meant.
So here you go. I looked them up for you and would like to thank the Oxford English Dictionary Online for saving us all from being caught with our vocabulary down:
perspicacious (adj.) having ready insight into and understanding of things
perspicuous (adj.) clearly expressed and easily understood
As Helen Zaltzman on The Allusionist always says when she shares the dictionary word of the day, go use these words in an email. Stun your relatives into silence using them over dinner.
Q is for “quagga”
The quagga (pronounced /kwa:xa:/) is the phoenix of zebras. This subspecies of plains zebra in South Africa was hunted to extinction in the 1800s. In recent decades, selective breeding has been used to bring back the quagga and rectify the mistakes of the past.
Read more at The Smithsonian and at The Quagga Project. If you have been wondering whether mammoths or sabretooth tigers could be brought back from extinction, then immerse yourself in the epic tale of the quagga.
R is for “ritual” and “regimen” and “rest”
Not everyone is a creature of habit, but our private routines or shared observances create a soft backdrop against which we can distinguish ourselves through creativity.
Celebrate your morning cup of tea or your Monday evening tap dancing class. Find comfort in brushing your teeth the same way every time. This is where your mind rests before it writes a poem or paints a mural.
S is for “salubrious “
Despite how similar it sounds to “lugubrious” (which was the word for L – go take a look!), “salubrious” is a much more positive word, meaning “healthy and good for you”. Importantly, although you can have an ironically lugubrious infant, you can’t have a salubrious one. Well, one shouldn’t assume. But unless you are a cannibal or a lion, no matter how lugubrious an infant is, they cannot be salubrious. (A mild climate or a quaint village or a fibrous fruit may be salubrious, making you feel refreshed and well.)
T is for “tremendous” and “trundling” and “tawdry”
Some words do a great job of describing or capturing whatever they are referring to. “Luminous” and “running” and “slimy” tell you a lot about something in the story or the sentence. Other words, like today’s selection, tell you a lot about the person using them.
What is the character of the person who spontaneously describes something as “tremendous”? Would a humourless, self-important person say that something is “trundling” along? And when someone uses the word “tawdry”, they have told you far more about their own values and aesthetic sensibilities than they have about whatever situation they are describing.
In a creative writing class, maybe for high-school students or undergraduates, it can be a fun exercise to come up with words of each sort: 1. Words that tell us more about the subject matter and 2. Words that tell us more about the person using them.
U is for the Urals
U is also for Uzbekistan and for Uppsala. Taxonomy, categorization, geography, and topography… Young students (and many worldly adults) are a little lost. Learning place names can easily be boring and repetitive, but with Google Maps, Street View, Google Earth, National Geographic, Native Lands, and many other free online resources, you can find out whether any particularly cute goat species lives in the Urals or what public parks look like in Samarkand, an ancient city in Uzbekistan. You could even discover how many hours of daylight Uppsala gets in midwinter. Context feeds curiosity.
V is for Vancouver!
I recently learned more about the history of street names in Vancouver and was dismayed at the lack of imagination that went into them. (There are some fascinating exceptions and I encourage you to discover the history of the street names wherever you live – who knows what you may find.)
In Vancouver’s West End, population density has been increasing and planners now want the laneways developed into charming streets where former garages and parking lots could make way for cottages and small apartment buildings.
In the spirit of decolonization and dignified residential conditions, the city named all the laneways as streets. They are now named after LGBTQ+ activists, community leaders, and other people whose contributions have lifted people up. These include representatives of women, advocates for seniors and disabled community members, people of colour, Chinese Canadians, and First Nations leaders of the Pacific Northwest.
V is for “validation” and “voices” and “values”.
W is for Vancouver’s West Side
W is also for Vancouver’s West End, and West Vancouver (which is on the North Shore). If you’re a newcomer to Vancouver and its surrounding sibling cities, you can be forgiven for getting confused.
Metro Vancouver itself is perhaps the best known worldwide, but is geographically continuous or very close to several other municipalities which collectively dwarf it. Together, the Greater Vancouver Area is wriggling deeper into every nook and cranny between the mountains and the sea.
As we wriggle into winter and while away the long evenings, may we all enjoy a gentle end to the outgoing year and a brave start to the next. Do you feel as though one year slips away while another breaks on the shores of your to-do list? Or do you wade through time, nodding only briefly to the New Year as you pass by?
X is for Xhosa and Xenophanes
Xhosa is a Bantu language spoken by about 20 million people (about half of whom are second-language speakers) in South Africa. In Xhosa, “x” makes a distinctive click sound. (“Q” and “c” make their own click sounds.)
Xenophanes lived approximately 2,500 years ago in what we now refer to as ancient Greece. He was a poet and philosopher. I encourage you to read the entry about him in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, if only for the biography section. Xenophanes’ life was dramatic and eventful and his poetry and opinions are appropriately rich and intense.
Y is for “yearn”
As 2019 draws to a close, what do you hope for in the year to come? What are your ambitions? What will you strive towards?
We often set resolutions or goals based on what we think we should do, what we ought to do, what’s expected of us. But what do you yearn to do? Maybe your resolution can be to celebrate that!
Z is for Zealandia, the lost continent
Atlantis is fine, if it’s all you’ve got, but what is a mythical lost city when there’s a real lost continent?
The continents as they are today make more sense when we understand their long history. From Pangea to Africa, the continents drift through the expanse of time, shifting and buckling as they go. Some slip below the waves and hide, with only a few islands peeking out.
If you have read this far, thank you! I hope you enjoyed this and I also hope you feel inspired to start your own Lexicon of Learning. May your leap from 2019 into 2020 be felicitous. From me at Blueberry Fig to you, happy New Year!