Last night was the Freedom Software time slot for Mimata's Free NIght School. There was a lot going on with dodgeball outside, hip hop dance practice inside, along with the poetry/literature group. I took in some sign language books but the one deaf woman that came last night was busy with dance practice before next month's event. We signed a little but there was not time for the ASL and other places' Sign Language books. I took in Doi KouChi's old-time kanji book from the 40s that has an entry about his reply to Ogden's Basic English (850-word system) with 基礎語 a Basic Japanese system.. I have to make that list and approach availablein modern, easier-to-read kanji some day..

One energetic boy asked if I could do computers too? I don't think I've ever seen him before so I wonder what he thought I can normally do.. So I gave up using git to get the newer scripts of a USB stick and tried to get him into G-Compris. But he wanted to practice typing!?!?? So I had him press the logo-mark button and click on the "abc" TuxType penguin logo and not the TuxPaint penguin. By the time he got started on lesson 8 a couple other kids jumped in. Three of them wandered off a couple minutes later but a soccer girl kept at it and discovered the feed-fish-to-Tux game on her own. One of the visiting adults than never showed and interest before seemed interested in the TuxType fish game, or the girl's interest in it anyway... I tell the kids if their parents or grandparents have old computers laying around I'll make their PC into something like this one...
#FreeNightSchool #よる学校 #三股よる学校 #よる学校自由ソフト #TuxType

P.S. It is a "planet cute" character image that obscures the part of the boy's face that is (inadvertently) visible in the original digital camera photo. I started exploring Racket's htdp2/planetcute package thinking to use it for example images in a script that produces a daily sayings calendar..
https://docs.racket-lang.org/teachpack/2htdpPlanet_Cute_Images.html
https://docs.ra

#FreeNightSchool #MimataFreeNightSchool #三股よる学校 #よる学校

Another Wednesday night Free Software time slot! This 7(?) year old girl has been intent on learning chess moves with G-compris durig her last 3 or 4 visits. She comes every other week with he Mom who is the Hip Hop Dance instructor. I was distracted while signing with the two nice Deaf woman and the Mom had to request the PC setup for her daughter. The GNU/Linux Debian Gnome setup that boots to G-Compris was all set up, I just had to get a guy to move to another table so the girl could sit down and focus on chess. She was quick.. I've been going through the HipHop stretching warm up routine with the Mom but got called over to the PC. The girl somehow ended up with 8 applications opened over 5 workspaces. When a new blank workspace opened up the logo key was either forgotten or wasn't helpful enough. I had to close Inkscape and Gimp so she could focus on Fellswoop, "Five in a row"?, and Nibbles. Nibbles with the arrow controls is hard on this laptops keyboard. Maybe it's hard in general of little young people? But the girl is intent. Maybe she'll take it on as a challenge over the next month or so... Maybe I should ask around for an old game controller or find some way to make it more intuitive for a 7yo?

#FreeSoftware #GCompris #FellSwoop #NibblesGame #FellSwoopGame #FreeNightSchool #YoruGakkou #MimataFreeNightSchool #よる学校 #三股よる学校

During Wednesday's Free Night School a girl of about 6 or 7 years of age sat working with Gcompris for about an hour. From 2 weeks ago she remembered and asked if she could use the computer. I said sure and just walked over with her to pull out the seat. She jumped right in and found the chess game. It looked like she just started learning the moves last time and was very intent on learning the game. It worked out great because with the girl occupied with Gcompris her mother could concentrate more on leading us through HipHop stretches and basic moves. A month or so ago the girl kept hanging on her mother while we were trying to get through the stretches. I sing John Cougar Mellencamp's "Hurt so good" while we do it and they still let me participate: saints! working towards providing a place for everyobody, even tone-deaf barbarian whiners.

The hip hop Mom commented that the Gcompris games seemed kinder and more mentally active, there isn't any fighting and killing things. Nobody seems to have old computers lying around though. I offer to take any old computer to reformat the HD and set it up just like the PCs here where the kids learn chess and practice typing. Eventually people will notice that kids can entertain themselves on screen without any internet connection or violence. I should ask again about a space where I can just leave a PC for kids to learn with at any time...

The chess screen made it onto an IG reel as one of the four must-have tools for the Night School...
#FreeSoftware #GCompris #FreeNightSchool #よる学校 #三股よる学校

The 自由ソフト Freedom Software timeslot is back to Wednesday night. You can see the poetry people talking on a sofa in the background to the left, on the right is the local guitar teacher. The poetry people tend to come every week. The guitar teacher has his own school, I think, and the last Wednesday of every month is the only evening he has free. I tend to refer to him as one of the Gypsy Kings: should probably remember the name of another classic Spanish guitarist, who were they in the movie with Sean Penn??

This time a 5yo girl took a break from her dodge ball adventure to work the mouse with GCompris. I was off talking and came back to see that she had already found the color-making game on her own. She had done it before a few weeks ago, I think. Her mother seemed impressed at how familiar Libre Office's Writer seemed for writing reports like she does at work with proprietary software. Tux Type's lesson 7 or so seemed interesting too. A slightly older boy came in after dodge-ball to join the girl doing TuxType's comet zap. I think I had the Animals selected.. We were supposed to be cleaning up and leaving at the time so I didn't have time to get picture. One of the organizers got some sell phone photos of us all on her phone so maybe those photos are spreading the word somehow. Eventually I'll have to get organized about explaining what it all is, but words from mouths you trust and direct experience and talks about what the needs are might be enough...

#よる学校 #FreeNightSchool #MimataNightSchool #三股よる画工 #自由ソフト #自由ソフト体験 #GCompris

A Modest Utopia --- Paul Goodman: It's just smiling faces in places with good air and water...
The fundamental civic unit is the neighbor --- Jelani Cobb

It's been hot and tiring weather lately, but it's probably good to acclimate yourself by binking through the humidity and get things done: sort of pep yourself up for the painful months ahead. Maron seems to like riding in the bike basket and she gets a lot of suprised smiles when the notice her. She's a hit at the Free NIght School too. She did well Wed. night when I had the Freedom Software Time slot so I took her Friday night for the big Dodge Ball Event. Going there makes me think of Paul Goodman's essay "A Modest Utopia" then today an IG video streamed by and I saw Jelani Cobb comparing ICE raids to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. When goons started taking their neighbors away slavery became more than an abstract abolitionist cause to a lot of people. One of Cobb's comments on some sort of TV show with a white guy with big glasses, reminded me of I.A. Richards in _Philosophy of Rhetoric_ quoting Aristotle: The fundamental unit of thought is the sentence. You get to thinking how you can build something up from fundamentals, be graded, direct and coherent but start with the right unit, like the sentence or the neighbor and make sure each step up has a wide solid base on the steps that make the next step possible. I might fight with neighbors, but I won't let anyone take them away..

I'll take photos of Maron next time. But she's usually surrounded by kids and it's too involved to try and get the understanding and consent I feel is needed when taking photos with people in them. It feels ok if the photos are so distant and blurry that individual faces probably can't be made out. I need a picture of Maron in the bike basket too. She looks cool in there. I'll bike her over to the PlayPark event this afternoon...
#FreeNightSchool #MImataNIghtSchool #YoruGakkou #yorugakkou #よる学校 #三股夜学校 #TheNeighbor #Neighbors

The Freedom Software 自由ソフト time slot is back to Wednesdays. There were a lot more people then usual this Wednesday because of a special event with the people from the nearby army (Self Defense Forces 自衛隊) base. Usually it's only one guy doing camouflage hiding, stealth walking and interesting exercises. This time there were a group of people in organizing some sort of quiet run event. It was hot so sometimes kids would come inside for a coolness break. Three elementary school tried GCompris and TuxPaint. I tell everyone if they bring in an old PC, or some machine that no one is using I'll set it up the same way. It's mostly just planting seeds now I guess, maybe when the Win10 support ends... I should really talk to the people about a special Freedom Software presentation and demonstration by then, I guess...

It's good to have something like this that forces you out into the town to talk with people, see faces, carry babies around. I'll have to remember to take Maron more often. She was popular with everyone and might enjoy the change of scenery. It will be important to remember she's out there and that she should be reassured regularly. Hopefully nothing will sneak into the yard and eat the chickens while she's gone. With the longer days the chickens don't go to roost for the night in their safe cages until after 6:30 or so.. Makes it hard to go out for the night without worrying about getting back and shutting their cages before they get eaten.

#TuxPaint #GCompris #FreeNightSchool #よる学校 #三股よる学校 #MimataFreeNightSchool

On Tuesdays, the Free Night School (and the Social Welfare Office and...??? One day I'll ask someone how it's all organized and be ready to sit still listening or a couple dozen minutes...) does a Free Meal. There are some many kids and guardians to chat with, to run around with, I can't eat there but it looks like it's helpful for people with kids. There's never a day off, kids have to eat every day like dogs and chickens, but more than twice and the kids meals are a lot more involved right? There's are rooms set aside for studying and talking in a building a short walk from this "Biotope" building. The study sessions are in a building that was refurbished as two parts, on half a little local cafe and the other half some sort of playroom. Some kids go and play dodge ball or jump on the trampoline in the big roofed area by the after-school facility.. The local buddhist temple with the nursery school operation is central to all the activity I think. That's a how all the people get access to buildings and facilities. And the staff support from the Local Welfare office seems important too. It must make it easier for the Moms and their kids to get together and help each other out. Some of the regulars are great at ignoring me (for them I probably have what Coleridge called that odor that teachers can have) but they are really sweet to the new shy kids. I wasn't sure how it would work out but the bigger kids were sweet about bringing a little 7yo into their board game, and making sure she got a cup of water too. I guess they're used to helping out with younger siblings too, and all running around this area with different ages...

The Sign say TateYokoNaname, Vertical Horizontal Diagonal, as the idea for the various ways to go about organizing things: hopefully all together I guess. たてよこななめ #たてよこななめ #
#縦横斜め
#FreeNightSchool #三股よる学校 #夜学校

I offer this Freedom Software experience once a week, usually on Wednesdays. It's a bit quieter with fewer people on Wednesdays compared to Fridays. I guess more kids and guardians and everyone else too feels more leeway on Fridays, huh? On Wednesdays the inside space is shared with a poetry group of two which is occasionally joined by one or two others, usually me for a few minutes, sporadically: it's great for learning and chatting. There's a dance section but they only seem to come together and focus before a festival or some other event where they will perform. But this space (a safe space for everyone 居場所) and time isn't really intended for a school classroom sort of approach, I don't think. It's just a place and time where people can get together and having a couple of themes and time slots decided ahead of time makes it easier to come together? The town's Social Welfare office 社協 is one of the main backers or organizers (I'm still don't know much about how it's organized) so certain people are in charge and try to make sure people sign in and put their names by the time-slot they took part in...

You can see hot it would be hard to teach the use of Freedom Software, or programming racket in a serious way here. On the other side of the table with the old PC running GNU/LInux Debian are four people having a great time around the ping pong table. One guy was really good and athletic and helping the three elementary school girls keep the ball going back and forth: not very concerned if the ball hit the table, the floor, or the ceiling just as long as they got the ball to each other past the net somehow. Outside are dozens of kids and other playing dodgeball or on the trampoline (2 at a time!!).. or just running around as some moms(and other guardians) watch and official facilitators also watch participate. But it's freedom exposure..
#YoruGakkou #夜学校 #自由ソフト #FreeSoftwareEducation #TuxType #TuxPaint #LibreOfficeWriter
#MimataNightSchool #三股夜学校 #FreeNightSchool