Transcripts of Sofia

So, why don't you introduce yourself? My name is Sophia Bachman, and I'm from Columbus Ohio. I grew up downtown, and I've lived here all my life. What are you going to school for? Linguistics. Can you tell us a story about when you were learning to read as a child? Well at first I did not read at all,and my mother was worried. She thought that "Oh my gosh, my child will never learn to read and it'll be horrible" And the teacher, she would take me out and work with me and I thought she was vile. And so when she'd have me read to her aloud, I would mispronounce words, I would get it wrong, I would try to mess up as much as possible. Needless to say, I left that school eventually and I went to my next school where I fit in a lot better, It was a Montessori School. And... We have another student from a Montessori School. Oh yeah? How many... Was it a small school? It's just right downtown actually, St. Joe's And you could sit on the floor, you know, it's much more geared to learn in your own way, kind of thing. And then I found the books there and I found the library. And I pretty much read my way through 3rd grade and 4th grade. And around Middle School, 7th and 8th grade, I switched to and I began studying along as well as reading. By then I had learned to read and everything. Loved it, and I've loved it since then. What was the difference like going from reading to studying, were you doing a lot of written assigments at that point in Middle School? Yeah, well, we were supposed to but you know I would get it done so I could read. It would be more of a precursor more "Why can't I be reading now?" than "Oh I'm learning new stuff" I didn't start studying seriously until around 7th and 8th grade when I switched schools and I went to a Catholic school, to prepare me for High School. And then I began studying seriously, and, you know, still reading. That was pretty much what I did. What kind of subjects were you studying then? Literature was part of your studies? Or were you also doing like Sciences at that point? Science and Literature and Math and they kind of melted it all together and had you, each class. How was that style of teaching different from what you had been used to at the Montessori School? At the Montessori School it was much easier to just sit down and read all day. And you had your little classes and everything, but we also had our free time to work, and I would read. And I would get assignments done quickly. It was a good environment for me to be in I think in the beginning. And then I was grateful that I went to the School later on, so that, they were much more strict. You have to do this. The work was more demanding. And they pushed you to excel a lot more. So their expectations were different or it was just like more... They were Math and Science. Very very heavy on the Math and Science. And so you had to know your Math and Science, or it was, you know, there was no point to be there. What did they emphasize in the English classes? Was there, there was an English class? What was emphasized there? Basic works, you know... Literature? Yes. You know the regular 7th and 8th grade curriculum. To Kill A Mockingbird. Not very, not complicated works, but works that would give you a good basis. In writing constructive essays and criticism on the subject. What do you remember about your fellow students? Like what kinds of things were they interested in? I mean at the Montessori School, isn't it kind of like, you're free to basically, you kind of do your own thing? But then at the Catholic school it was more... Much more. Yes, we had uniforms and everything. So I mean like, what was the difference in like the behavior of the students when you made that transition? Comparison from Montessori to? Well Montessori they were more each kid would kind of go and do his own thing and work in his own way. And in St. Agatha, they all worked the same way. They all studied the same subject, they all wear the same clothes, it was very same. Geared towards sameness, geared toward, everyone needs to know this information. Yes, very much so. But it did really regiment, in English and Math and Science they really made it stick in. Were there positive and negative aspects of each method in your opinion? Yes, I think so. What could you say about that? Would you prefer one over the other, distinctly? Or was it just sort of like, "Yeah, there were pluses and minuses."? I think there are pluses and minuses to each because... Montessori, it kind of helped shape my personality and how I interacted with other students and everything. And St. Agatha really geared down towards the academics. Rather than, you know, less "Make friends with the other students" They don't worry about that. They worry about "You need to have this these subjects in preparation for High School" And so, it was kind of like you know, get oriented in your own environment at Montessori. And then move on and really go hard with the academia. But there were probably State tests that had to be? Well yes, I mean we weren't blithering idiots over there, but we, it was much more easy to just go off and read all day. Is what I said. But at St. Agatha, you know, you were stuck into doing it. So you stayed at St. Agatha throughout Middle School and into High School, or? Just 7th and 8th grade. And then what happened with High School? High School I was well prepared for High School thanks for St. Agatha. I would have been lost if not for St. Agatha really gave you a point of focus there and... To a private High School? Yes, private and Catholic. So was it about the same kind of conforming? Yes, but it was better because there were more people at least. And so it was easier to meet people who share your interests. So you were still interested in reading a lot? Yeah, Freshman year, yeah, Freshamn year I did well. But I also read a lot better. Freshman year is of course easier than the rest but it was a good year. Did you read a lot of fiction or non-fiction, or were you starting to get into more, like political or classes with government or classes with a lot of reading but it wasn't just a lot of works of literature but more contemporary works meant to get you engaged with more current events? That was mostly last year, because I took government last year. And it was my Senior year, yes, and we read, in English also. We read, you know, Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness, Beowulf. What's his face? The Canterbury Tales. I remember Chaucer. Yeah we went through that stuff, and I read Crime and Punishment which I loved. It's fabulous. And I started more getting into reading less candy books, more psychological, more interesting, more there's different sides. What's the distinction, or what's the difference between a candy book and a psychological thriller? Well a candy book I mean it's like, Robin Cook, he writes medical mysteries. That's like a candy book, because, you know, you just read it for fun you're not really going to write a literary essay on it, you're not going to like prove it it's pretty straightforward. You figure out what happened and everything. But like psychological like Crime and Punishment is you know, there's different arguments you could make, and he's trying to prove one thing. But at the same time other stories are happening. Other, theres more stuff in the plot line happpening. It takes more of your mind, I think it uses more. I just, I think that they're more engaging and they're more argumentative. What do you mean? That you can take two different sides and argue both of them, with like different stuff. Rather than a candy book... It's just pretty straightforward. Well, not necessarily one way, but I think they're a lot easier to read I think that they're a lot more straightforward and I think that they require less of a focus on the book. Like Crime and Punishment caused me to think, you know really think about "Oh, this is interesting" It caused the mind to work a lot more than a candy book or medical mysteries. Straightforward, more straightforward than the more complicated things. In High School, were there any kinds of focuses in speaking in terms of English classes? Were there any kind of interpretive focuses that you were taught? By the teachers there, such as this is a new critical structure, This is a Marxist reading. Were you ever taught those types of interpretive methods? Or was it just sort of "This is an important book because other people in the past have thought it was worthwhile to read, so you're going to do it too." Well what she'd do, she would kind of, she would give us, we had to write an essay, after each book that we wrote. A literary essay, and we had a list of subjects that we could write it on. And that was the whole class all year long, essays. And she would grade the essays very very hard on which points she would want. By doing that she had us focus more on the little details in the book, and pick things out, and read more aggressively rather than just letting it flow by. You really had to pick up the details you had to understand more about the book and look at it from different approaches. Can you tell us a story about like maybe an essay in High School that really stands out that you wrote? I know it's hard to remember, I don't remember a lot that I've written, but like were there any essays that you remember, are there any novels you remember writing about that seemed very interesting? It seems like you've been reading a lot of books for a very long time. Is it ok if the screen went black? Yeah actually it's still on. Ok, so, I did my Senior research project on The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio (...) And that was essays about the Mexican, and the Mexican way of life. And it started like, it talked about the revolution, and how Mexicans worked in the fields. I say Mexicans in general, not all of them obviously. But they work and then they spend all their money on this one fiesta. It talked about the psychology behind, you know "You work hard all year around, and then you have a big Day of the Dead festival and, you know pretty much all of your money goes into that", and why they did that. And what prompted them to do that, and it was interesting. It was about how they needed like a release of their spirit, they needed to actually be themselves for a day. But that's what I did it about. That's cool. I just think that's interesting. What were some of the more innovative things that were going on in High School in your English classes? Were there any multimodal forms of digital media, projects that you were assigned? I mean did you ever have to, for instance, blog? Or maybe not in High School, but did you ever experience blogging or graphic design, web design, things like that? Not in my High School, but in Russian they had us, over the school year they had us do blogs, and they had us make vokies. What's that? They're litte like animated things where you talk a little bit and it comes up on screen when someone clicks on it. I don't know what that is. It's like a little thing that, and you record, and then someone clicks on the thing, and then they can hear your recording back, and it's online. And you're just talking a little bit. It's just a little thing that you can use. And that was interesting, that was an experience. That class pretty much was my technology intro sort of. Into blogging and all of that stuff. For goverment however we did do gosh, whatchamacallits. Drop.io where you type online and you argue like an issue. Our teacher would give us an issue that was going on in the political news, and we'd have a couple days, and we'd have to write a page about it and we would put it online. And then other classmates would, they would write their stuff and we would like look at each other's and we would comment on them. Online and everything. Just argue a point every week. What did you think about those ways of arguing versus like being in class? I like that. What do you think of that? You liked it you said? I did, I like this because we did argue in class, but this gave you time to look stuff up to formulate your argument a little bit better, to really think about what were your views on certain topics in the news and everything. To stay on top of things, politics wise. And I thought it was really useful because it kind of, you know, showed me a little bit of what I think about certain things like, I don't know, We had to write about, oh jeez, you know when they were in New Orleans. We wrote a little bit about what we thought of how that situation was handled, what could have been done differently, what people were put on the task, about the Peter Principle. Do you know that? Well it says that where you're promoted until you're not good at what you do anymore. Because you know, one guy was really good in his office. And as a reward they promoted him to another branch where he didn't really know how to work and it wasn't run as effectively, so he stopped being promoted. He wasn't promoted anymore. And that's essentially the Peter Principle. And anyway we wrote about that. Stuff like that and argued our points and stuff. Do you think it's easier to communicate that way? Or do you think that there were some barriers there because you can't really tell the way that someone voice is inflected, or has a certain tone I guess? I mean you know you can't tell if someone is being sarcastic. I guess you can. Well right but I think it was more of a way to, you know, get your voice out and, you know, less of an interaction, more of a make your views and make your own argument. In class when we argued person to person. Right, you would kind of just say, you got to have, to know it right away or you don't know it right away. And so it just gave you a lot more time. We did reply to other people but it was more of a chance to formulate your argument and set it out there. What do you think, about... I don't know, have you ever taken a class in like film studies or...? Do you ever watch film or do you ever talk about movies, with your friends, try to interpret them? Something like that I don't know, they have a few classes here on film. They often show film students about various... I mean what do you think about watching a movie versus reading a book about something? Do you think there's a difference? Plus and minus? Sure. Yeah I do, because in a book, you know, all the facts are right there and if you need to reread something, re-go over something, it's right there and you can just look it up. And if you watch a film about a subject, then you know, if you miss something in your notes then you got to scramble around, you got to see, you know, "Who can I talk to, who can go over this, who got this?" I think it's a lot harder to watch a film and retain information than reading a book and retaining information. I guess it also depends on how interesting the film is and whether it's a subject you're utterly fascinated in versus a subject that you're being stuck learning you see. I think for me, a film on physics is a lot harder to follow than a film in Spanish or something. You know I'd retain a lot more. I think it's also your interest. Actually in Spanish I would probably prefer a film, because application. So I think it really depends what subject they're talking about, in that it has different drawbacks and differernt pros. What clases are you signed up for this year, this fall? Do you know yet? I'm trying to, I'm working on it. Spanish and Russian. Could you talk about foreign languages? Sure. You've been studying foreign languages for a long time. Do you think there's a value in studying a second language and... What do you think like the advantages are of studying something like that?  For one thing I think it's a whole nother worldview. And I think a lot of people who don't start a language, I think they're missing that worldview. One of the things is when I went to St. Agatha, a lot of the kids, they hadn't started studying Spanish, and it was a complete joke there. The teacher, half the time she wasn't even in the class. I mean the kids did not care, they would make fun of the culture. I think that sometimes learning another language you can get a different point of view. And I mean I'm sure there are other ways to get a point of view. But I think in more narrow environments, I think it's important to grab every one that you can. And I think they should start languages right at preschool and kindergarten. I think that the earlier you start, it becomes something regular and it's much easier to understand And I know a lot of the people who started languages later on have trouble with them, and you know, it's not as easy for them to retain the information. Whereas I have a friend who started French when she was in Kindergarten and now she fluently speaks French. And I think that languages, they offer an opportunity into learning about a whole different culture, a whole different point of view. That there's more in the world than just where I live right here. And so it gives you access to that. Do you want to end there? Sure, sure.