Get Out of the Sandbox
by Miss Baker
I’ve adapted written this story from a vague memory I have of another story, but I can’t recall that story. If any elements in this story are comparable to another story, please share it with me. Who knows, maybe it was just inspired from a weird dream I once had. 
A boy is playing in a sandbox in his backyard. He’s having a ton of fun building sandcastles when his dad comes to him and says,”Hey there! How would you like to go see the ocean?”
The boy doesn’t understand what his dad means because he’s never been to the ocean. The boy replies, “When?”
“We’ll, we’re going to leave right now,” says the dad.
The boy screams, “No! I want to stay here! I like my sandbox!”
But, the dad persists, “At the ocean there is a ton of sand to play in. Far more than what you’ve got in this tiny sandbox.”
The boy sticks out his lower lip and again screams, “No! I like it here.”
“But, I promise you’ll like it so much better at the ocean,” dad continues, “Because at the ocean you’ll be able to build even better sandcastles and you’ll be able to build sandcastles with other people to make really great big sandcastles!”
The boy starts to cry, “I don’t want to go to the ocean! I want to stay here! Please don’t make me go!”
The dad is confused because he doesn’t understand why his son won’t trust him and be excited about going to the ocean. But, you see, all the son has ever known is the sandbox. The boy doesn’t understand that the ocean is a much more incredible place than his little tiny sandbox. Although, he knows it will cause his son unhappiness and frustration for a little while, the dad reaches down, picks up the crying boy and forces him to leave his sandbox.
What is the point of my story? Well, the dad is supposed to represent me, your teacher (weird, I know), and the son represents all the students in the class who aren’t grasping the point of the blog project.
The blog is the ocean! But, you have to trust me and get out of the sandbox before you can understand its value.
You’re too big for the sandbox now anyway.
Go explore the ocean:
Here are some more blogs you can explore and comment on:
The Intersection, Everyone Loves Echinoderms
Cognitive Daily, Can a Blind Person Whose Vision is Restored Understand What She Sees?
Living the Scientist Life, For All You Piscivores
November 12th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
The great thing about blogs is that I can edit a paragraph if it appears that my readers have misunderstood my meaning due to a lack of reading comprehension. This story is my own. I wrote all of the words and all of the sentences. If you choose to reference it, the credit goes to me.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Foreword: I do not expect any blog points for this comment.
The sandbox story is a great example to compare to hesitation for blog usage. Just as the boy would have benefited by going to the ocean, we can benefit by using the blog. Just as the boy would have been able to build bigger and better castles, we will leave your class with a better knowledge for good writing. There are short and long term benefits from using the blog.
Short Term: Biology will appear a little less difficult, when using technology.
Long Term: We will become better writers by becoming accustom to citations and other components key to successful online publishing.
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Interesting blog, Miss Baker! I was very intrigued by the “Can a Blind Person Whose Vision is Restored Understand What She Sees?” article. It says that there is a woman named S.R.D., as she is known, from India who was born almost completely blind. When she was twelve, she had surgery done, restoring vision to one of her eyes. Researchers recently looked into her case and after talking with S.R.D.’s mother, found out that it took her several months before she could navigate using her vision and recognize objects. Although S.R.D. has done well in adapting to her vision, the research team led by Yuri Ostrovsky wanted to test her to see if her vision was really normal. The team put her through tests such as shape matching, visual memory, face identification, depth perception, gaze estimation, and face/nonface discrimination. They found that in gaze estimation, in which she would look at a man gazing in a certain direction, S.R.D. was unable to tell when the man would gaze with his eyes, as opposed to turning his head toward one side. They also learned that she was only a little bit over 75 percent accurate in face recognition, but overall, S.R.D. showed great vision progress.
Source: http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/11/can_a_blind_person_whose_visio.php