Today we spent quite a bit of time in class discussing carbon, carbon dioxide, and the effects of greenhouse gases. We played a nice little online game, where the students played the role of a carbon molecule making its way through the carbon cycle, and learning all along the way. One student asked if I had seen this video, and I hadn't. I love these guys. It's amazing how humor in the face of something so potentially grim as global climate change can be such a powerful educational tool.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Where is the Love?
We were sitting around at our staff meeting today, looking at the MEA scores for our school and wondering how we could help improve our students' performance in math. The discussion turned to how students don't just "do" math nowadays.
First of all, if I had a dime for every time I'd heard "students today just don't _____", I'd be a rich man. That only beats "families today just don't______" by a very slim margin. Fact is, we're teachers, and we play the cards we're dealt. Meet the kids where they are, and help them get farther on. But I digress.
I tried to think of a time in my life, especially my adolescence, when I just "did" math. I can remember getting up an hour before I normally would have (5:30?), to try to get my long division problems done. Mom was up with me, enduring the tears and the woe, and we somehow worked through it. Thanks mom, you unwittingly helped make the case for "families today" arguments. At any rate, that was somewhere around 4th grade. I wasn't into baseball in a sick, obsessed sort of way...yet.
Flash forward about two years. I'm a sixth grader, who lives and dies by the Red Sox. And magically, I had developed the ability to manipulate fractions and percentages to the extent that, by the end of his at bat, I could calculate what Dwight Evans' batting average would be at the end of the at bat, whether he got a hit or didn't.
Then, in eighth grade, I was into calculating shooting percentages and free throw percentages on our school basketball team. My FT% was easy, because when you don't make any free throws, 0% is really easy to calculate.
So somewhere along the line, someone confused my statistical sickness with the ability (or desire, or readiness) to do higher order math in eighth grade. Eighth grade algebra was a dismal failure. The teacher was good, he was entertaining, and he really tried to help me. I just wasn't ready, and I didn't care. Taking the class again in my freshman year wasn't much more successful, but I did manage to pass.
I don't really know what the point of all this is. Regular, everyday calculations have been easy since I used them on an everyday basis for things I enjoyed, so maybe we're onto something there. But the more abstract concepts have never come easy, even to this day. Physics took a serious toll on my self-esteem when I took it last summer, and statistics was the bane of my existence in my earlier grad school stint. But geometry and trig were fine during high school.
I think I've figured out what the point of all this is: the point is, "meet the kids where they are, and help them get farther on." Sometimes digression can lead you to an clarity.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Funniest Sports Ads
I was sitting around on a Sunday (nothing new here!) reading the posts on Sons of Sam Horn. There was a thread devoted to Greg Maddux's imminent retirement from baseball, and I was prompted to post my memories of Maddux. Here is my post:
"We drove to Montreal in July of '03 to see Vladimir Guerrero. Had great seats in the front row of the RF bleachers. Ron Calloway started in Vladdy's place, thus reinforcing the old adage that you NEVER buy tickets to a Sunday game if you want to see the stars.
Anyway, Maddux went six innings, against Tomo Ohka. He gave up six runs and two homers, the deciding blow coming from...wait for it...Ron Calloway.
I can still say I saw the three best pitchers of their era live, though, in Pedro, Roger and Maddux. As I recall, all three got lit up when I watched them.
Oh, and "Chicks dig the longball."*"
*Here is your video for reference:
Then Rach suggested someone (Translated:"ahem...that means YOU!") do a post on the best sports related commercials of all time. Well, I've taken it upon myself to gather a few that I consider to be very good, but it is by no means an exhaustive list.
Bo Jackson, who made so many of us feel inadequate as athletes:
Gretzky's performance is almost as good as Glavine in the previous clip.
There were a lot of good Michael Jordan ads, but this one stands out for me, probably because it pairs him with Larry Legend:
"Nothin' But Net"
Arguably, this one got it started:
"Tastes great!" "Less filling!"
Now before I'm overrun with "What about Mean Joe Greene? That was the best EVAH!", let me just emphasize that I don't want to pollute this space with glurge. It's cute, but it's not that funny.
How about Sugar Ray Leonard? This guy singlehandedly made boxing relevant in the years when the heavyweights were bashing each others' brains out; he was just a breath of classy air in a brutish sport. I can't find the one he made with his son:
Boy 1: "Hey, is that the champ?"
Sugar Ray's Kid: "Naw, that's just my dad."
Another one I wish I could find is Eddie Murray's spot from the 90's where there's a little jingle to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw" singing about his career accomplishments ("...and a three time winner of a Golden Glove") and at the end, a young fan comments about the laconic Murray: "That's not tired, that's DEE-termination!" Eddie was a man of few words, but one HELL of a hitter.
The last one I wish I could find for you is one where Randy Johnson is playing dodgeball. That's just a flat-out funny concept, and it just might have been the inspiration for the Ben Stiller movie.
If any of you stumbles upon any of these missing gems, please contact me or post them.
Please vote in the poll at the upper right of your browser, and if your answer would be "none of the above", either don't vote, or drop me your favorite in the comments. I might even add your suggestions!
I'll leave you with this, and let you chime in with your own thoughts. I know I'm in the minority, being a Patriots fan who thinks Peyton Manning is pretty awesome, and here is why:
"Cut that meat! Cut that meat!"
"We drove to Montreal in July of '03 to see Vladimir Guerrero. Had great seats in the front row of the RF bleachers. Ron Calloway started in Vladdy's place, thus reinforcing the old adage that you NEVER buy tickets to a Sunday game if you want to see the stars.
Anyway, Maddux went six innings, against Tomo Ohka. He gave up six runs and two homers, the deciding blow coming from...wait for it...Ron Calloway.
I can still say I saw the three best pitchers of their era live, though, in Pedro, Roger and Maddux. As I recall, all three got lit up when I watched them.
Oh, and "Chicks dig the longball."*"
*Here is your video for reference:
Then Rach suggested someone (Translated:"ahem...that means YOU!") do a post on the best sports related commercials of all time. Well, I've taken it upon myself to gather a few that I consider to be very good, but it is by no means an exhaustive list.
Bo Jackson, who made so many of us feel inadequate as athletes:
Gretzky's performance is almost as good as Glavine in the previous clip.
There were a lot of good Michael Jordan ads, but this one stands out for me, probably because it pairs him with Larry Legend:
"Nothin' But Net"
Arguably, this one got it started:
"Tastes great!" "Less filling!"
Now before I'm overrun with "What about Mean Joe Greene? That was the best EVAH!", let me just emphasize that I don't want to pollute this space with glurge. It's cute, but it's not that funny.
How about Sugar Ray Leonard? This guy singlehandedly made boxing relevant in the years when the heavyweights were bashing each others' brains out; he was just a breath of classy air in a brutish sport. I can't find the one he made with his son:
Boy 1: "Hey, is that the champ?"
Sugar Ray's Kid: "Naw, that's just my dad."
Another one I wish I could find is Eddie Murray's spot from the 90's where there's a little jingle to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw" singing about his career accomplishments ("...and a three time winner of a Golden Glove") and at the end, a young fan comments about the laconic Murray: "That's not tired, that's DEE-termination!" Eddie was a man of few words, but one HELL of a hitter.
The last one I wish I could find for you is one where Randy Johnson is playing dodgeball. That's just a flat-out funny concept, and it just might have been the inspiration for the Ben Stiller movie.
If any of you stumbles upon any of these missing gems, please contact me or post them.
Please vote in the poll at the upper right of your browser, and if your answer would be "none of the above", either don't vote, or drop me your favorite in the comments. I might even add your suggestions!
I'll leave you with this, and let you chime in with your own thoughts. I know I'm in the minority, being a Patriots fan who thinks Peyton Manning is pretty awesome, and here is why:
"Cut that meat! Cut that meat!"
Friday, November 21, 2008
Photo Friday Challenge
SJ's Sky Photo entry linked me to another photo challenge: the Photo Friday Challenge. Today's challenge is "food", and a whole bunch of people in this circle would be up for that challenge (Amity? Krazy Karoline?)! This is my entry:
Amity, I'm sorry I got all the garlic in the ground this fall without having you over to see the process. It's really easy, though.
Amity, I'm sorry I got all the garlic in the ground this fall without having you over to see the process. It's really easy, though.
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Beehive Collective
The Beehive Collective: full time volunteers based in Machias, making some incredible sociopolitically inspired tapestries. They restored local grange hall as their home, and have turned it back into a community center. They go on tour with their tapestries, exhibiting them at colleges and being paid in honoraria. They also show their work at high schools, where they get their bigger impact: usually when they exhibit at colleges, the students who show up are "the choir", and don't need to be preached to. To say these folks are liberal is analogous to saying the weather this year has been crappy. The next tapestry they are working on has mountaintop removal as its theme.
The tapestry in front of me stretches diagonally across the room, about thirty feet, and it depicts the political and social conditions in Colombia, as influenced by geopolitical and historical events. Directly in front of me there is an ant colony, where worker ants seem to be reading about organizing labor, watching television, plotting military strategy, and other activities. Different corporate labels (Monsanto, Chiquita, BP, Coca Cola, DynCorp, Ford) find their ways into the tapestry, and not in the most flattering of light.
I've seen these folks exhibiting at Common Ground before, but never really stopped to find out about what their story was.
This could be a really cool way to have students tell human stories in ways that make sense to them. It is interesting to watch these kids opening up a little bit, explaining what they see in the symbolism and imagery of the tapestry. This would be a really cool way to have kids show what they know in an interdisciplinary unit. (Joe, you feelin' me? Amity? Mike?)
Mission statement of the Beehive Collective: "to cross-pollinate the grassroots".
Feeling Good
I'm at the Maine Youth Action Network conference in Bar Harbor today. There are about 350 attendees, including middle school students, high school students, and the adults who love working with them enough to endure ridiculously low salaries to do what they love.
Shortly after the keynote (not really very effectively done, but the guy has an impressive record of anti-tobacco activism at the tender age of 19) I ran into a former student who is now a senior at our local high school. She endured three years of me as her science teacher, and one as her language arts teacher, and was a member of my favorite class ever. To this day, every time I see her she exclaims that I was her "favorite teacher ever". That's not a brag, and I certainly don't claim to have done anything to have earned that particular accolade, but I use it to set the scene.
So after hugs and some small talk, I asked her what is happening for her next year. I was flabbergasted to hear she is hoping to enter Pre-Med at UVM next fall. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't flabbergasted because she has dreams of Pre-Med. And it doesn't shock me in the least that she is considering a very good school. No, it was the fact that this is one of the most intelligent kids I've ever taught, who--though she coasted through my sixth, seventh and eighth grade science classes--I never pegged for being a particularly science-oriented person. She always had a book, and usually it was pretty challenging reading. Check that: she always had a book going, and usually she had it going simultaneously with my lessons. But she was a very capable multi-tasker, and even when I tried to trip her up, she knew right where we were, even in the middle of Return of the King. This is one sharp kid. Anyway, I view it as vindication of my teaching methods that she told me when they did Punnett Squares in honors biology, she had no problem while most of the others in the class simply didn't get it.
It excites me that at least one of my students is going into a scientific field, and I think I had some small part in helping develop her passion for science. That feels damn good.
Shortly after the keynote (not really very effectively done, but the guy has an impressive record of anti-tobacco activism at the tender age of 19) I ran into a former student who is now a senior at our local high school. She endured three years of me as her science teacher, and one as her language arts teacher, and was a member of my favorite class ever. To this day, every time I see her she exclaims that I was her "favorite teacher ever". That's not a brag, and I certainly don't claim to have done anything to have earned that particular accolade, but I use it to set the scene.
So after hugs and some small talk, I asked her what is happening for her next year. I was flabbergasted to hear she is hoping to enter Pre-Med at UVM next fall. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't flabbergasted because she has dreams of Pre-Med. And it doesn't shock me in the least that she is considering a very good school. No, it was the fact that this is one of the most intelligent kids I've ever taught, who--though she coasted through my sixth, seventh and eighth grade science classes--I never pegged for being a particularly science-oriented person. She always had a book, and usually it was pretty challenging reading. Check that: she always had a book going, and usually she had it going simultaneously with my lessons. But she was a very capable multi-tasker, and even when I tried to trip her up, she knew right where we were, even in the middle of Return of the King. This is one sharp kid. Anyway, I view it as vindication of my teaching methods that she told me when they did Punnett Squares in honors biology, she had no problem while most of the others in the class simply didn't get it.
It excites me that at least one of my students is going into a scientific field, and I think I had some small part in helping develop her passion for science. That feels damn good.
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