We were going over this week’s academic words pretest today, and when we got to the word integral, I was searching for a way to differentiate it from inherent, which is another word this week. “Inherent is sort of like ‘built-in,’ part of the …being of something. Like…you were all born inherently good, unless there was something wrong with your wiring…” “Like me!” A chorus. Sigh. “Anyway. Integral is more like ‘part of the structure’ of something. Without that integral thing, it doesn’t work. Like…without your skeleton, you’re just a big blob of Jell-O goo…” “Eewwww.” (Check out the Ray Bradbury story “Skeleton.” Talk about ewww.) “What. Ever. Your skeleton is integral to your body. Without it, you don’t really have a body. Integral is also where the word integrity comes from. That ShmartBoard might be nice but, it isn’t integral to this class. We could still have an effective class without it.” “So what is integral for you in this class?” “Excellent question, that. Let’s see. Back in the day, when I started here, I didn’t have a computer…Wait, my wife had that old Mac SE over there… 10 inch greyscale screen, Microsoft Word 2.0, and a printer…I think
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OK, I’m finally going to finish the bomb shelter story. Maybe. After we finished The Giver, we had a couple of days before Christmas to sort of debrief and discuss. We talked about “the end justifying the means” and such, and if it is OK to sacrifice one innocent to save multiple others. (Here’s Part I.) Then I busted out something I hadn’t used in years; the old bomb shelter exercise. I got it out of an old 70′s touchy-feely teaching book. I had to give some background about “duck and cover” and Mutually Assured Destruction and that sort of thing (good groundwork for The Martian Chronicles later on), and they laughed about hiding under their desks from nuclear weapons, and then… “So now the missiles are coming in two minutes. Your bomb shelter has enough room and supplies for you, your family, and six other people. But there are 10 people pounding on your door begging to be let in. You have to leave four outside to die.” I give them the same group of ten supplicants I got from the old book: a) An accountant, 31 years old, b) his wife who is 6 months pregnant, c) a
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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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