Continuing yesterday’s breakdown of the classroom as casino metaphor. Hmmmm. We left off yesterday with Mr. Lee’s observation that casinos bombard you with lights and sound, and since this is the intro to his section on the physical setup of a “happy” classroom, I assume that he’s going to make some sort of connection. Are we to put up neon signs that flash “Free Drinks with any KBAR” and “Homework Pays 2 for 1,” and have speakers blaring sounds of pencils scratching across paper and the clacking of keyboards, with the occasional cry of ”Yes! Winner! A+”? Can’t wait to see where this is going. I’m actually kind of starting to like the idea. His fourth observation about casinos is that the physical layout is supposed to get you lost between the door and the front desk. You’re supposed to get confused and disoriented, and presumably drop more money because all you can do is gamble since you’re lost. This one I have personal experience with. Waaay back in the day, when the wife and I first started going to Vegas, we used to take advantage of those offers in Parade Magazine in the Sunday paper. The full-page ads promised
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Can you tell I’m on vacation? I got up at 9:15 this morning… Usual time: 4:55. I went to bed at 1:00… Usual time: 10:00. I have read several books. I am sore from doing “honeydos” for the past several days. I have taken 5.5 naps in five days, and had to make my own lunch for the same amount of time. There have been a lot of potato chips involved. The books: Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. Set in a dystopian near-future where everyone spends most of their time in in giant internet-based virtual world called the Oasis, it follows the adventures (1st person) of a high school kid as he competes with the whole world to find the Easter egg hidden by the world’s creator/programmer. The finder inherits the guys trillions and controls the virtual world. Lots of ’80s pop culture references, so if you’re a child of the ’80s… My boy was born in 1999, and he loved it. The Wrecking Crew, by Kent Hartman. The book’s subtitle says it best: “The Inside Story of Rock and Roll’s Best Kept Secret.” Did you know that the Beach Boys didn’t do anything but sing on the records? That Glen Campbell
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Every year for the past three I have voted against the two-week spring break, but right now that stretch can’t be here too soon or last too long. I’m crabby and ready for a long break. And we haven’t even had any actual bad weather this year at all, like you all in South Dakota and Virginny and places like that… Speaking of… Mrs. M, have you read Downtown Owl? It’s set in a fictional NORTH Dakota town in 1984, and features a noob hs history teacher. There really isn’t much of a plot, but it’s one of those books where you don’t care because the characters are so good. Well, not necessarily “good.” You know what I mean. Is there some sort of rivalry between North and South Dakota? Just wondering… Heather, over in the comments, says I’m brave to bust out Tom Sawyer this year. More like moronical, as my brother used to say. I swear, Mark Twain’s comedy stylings fly right over about half of them, but when I act it out and explain, they’re rolling on the floor. And I know I ain’t that funny. There just isn’t the vocabulary and background knowledge any more. Everything has been
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I was going to post about some new books I just finished (there is some down time in Vegas after all), but then I got distracted. You know the old saw about becoming like the kids you teach? Remember, I was already there before I started teaching. I got distracted by another book that my wife was using as a resource for a workshop she was giving to some ad copy writers. I finally got around to reading it right now as I was going through my Nook to remind myself of the various books I intended to talk about. So now I’m 20-some pages in, and I’m already hooked. The book is called Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip and Dan Heath. Yes they’re brothers. After four days in Vegas with all three of mine, I applaud the Heath brothers’ ability to work together. I already love it, and have confirmed several ideas I had about teaching, and inspired me to change a couple of things, though I’m not quite sure yet how to do that. Already I know that I have to try harder to avoid what the authors call the “Curse of Knowledge.” (Wait
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I have been illin’ on and off (mostly on) for over a week. I have attended an exquisitely useless meeting, forced to grind my molars to powder in order not to make enemies of an entire department, the kids are on glue, and Modern Family was a rerun after I stayed up to watch all dopey and sick. I have been a little crabby lately. But I have also been doing a lot of lying around in bed, reading on my various devices. (I wish I had thought before just now, to convert my e-books to Palm format, so I could have been auto-scrolling, and not even had to move a finger to swipe.) So I’ve been reading some great books lately. Rant: I missed the Puppy Bowl for the first time since its inception eight short years ago. I always catch at least a quarter or so, but this year we were somewhere where the “real” Super Bowl wasn’t even mentioned. Too busy chattering about the upcoming David Beckham undies ad. I was too hungry to complain. I also miss the Bud Bowl. Rave: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party and the sequel,
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(Friday Flashback – Last Year) “Mrs. G” has been teaching in our district for over 40 years. She’s been at our school since it opened in 1980. She’s taught English, art, social studies, music, and much more. She is literally an immovable object, and doesn’t need to rise from her chair to strike fear (well, not exactly fear any more, but…) into 8th graders’ hearts. She doesn’t care what people (parents, admins, other teachers) think of her, and speaks her mind whether it’s “appropriate” or not. She currently teaches 8th grade US history, and has been going toe to toe with a particularly pesky student I had last year. Now, this “Steve” sends me e-mails about how the posts he’s reading in the discussion forums on our Moodle don’t have enough thought behind them, and he has a real brain. But he’s a loud-mouthed pain in the rear, whose parents it seems, are wrapped around his finger. I was probably the only teacher he got along with…until Mrs. G. He’s still a pain, and though, like me she recognizes and likes the Steve underneath, she’s not afeared of giving what she gets. So… Food is not allowed in our classooms. [...]
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That reminds me of those great SNL skits about the Sofa King. You know, how the prices are "Sofa King" low, the deals are "Sofa King" great, etc. (You obviously have to say those phrases out loud to get the joke.)