First Socratic Seminar
Results For "Month: August 2023"
Fire
This year I’m trying a new starter: Write Into the Day. Basically, it’s a short writing exercise that is intended to get their minds in a literary space. I’ve tinkered with it, changed a few things, altered how we share, but so far, I’ve left the core idea alone: write a few sentences about a given prompt.
Last week, one of the prompts was this: “What lights that fire in you to give it your all?” When I was reading the responses this weekend, I found this one:
Mr Scott because he wants me to be my best in school so everytime he talks to me in the hallway about how much brain cells I have. After we finish talking in the hallway and when I go to my class I’m ready to learn so He always fires me up every time in class so Mr scott fires me and I give it all I have.
These kids kill me: it takes the smallest thing sometimes. This boy was telling me early in the year that he couldn’t do any better because he “only has two brain cells.”
“What are you talking about? You’ve got something like 120 billion brain cells, and they all work just fine as far as I can tell.”
The next day I saw him, I’d done some calculations, and I told him, “You know if all your brain cells were one second each, you’d have 3,800 years worth of seconds!”
“Really?!” He couldn’t believe it.
The smallest things…
Canceled
Some locals weren’t too happy about the fact that the Swedish band Ghost was going to perform locally at an amphitheater. A band whose gimmick is lyrics that openly profess love for the devil is not going to be too welcome in the Bible Belt.
So they started praying — Jeania was praying for a lightning storm and posted about it on the venue’s social media feed.
And wouldn’t you know it — a rainstorm came through and washed the concert away. Jeania will forever see this as an answer to her prayers and proof of God’s greatness. She will talk about it at church this Sunday. They might even have a hallelujah moment about it.
Meanwhile, there were many Christians posting in response: “We are Christian fans of the band.” “We recognize performance/entertainment when we see it and don’t feel threatened by it.”
Getting to Know You
Relationships are what teaching is all about. Once you have a good relationship with the kiddos, almost anything is possible. The incorrigible become a little more compliant. The withdrawn start to speak out a little more. The insecure grow a little more self-confident. It’s a wonderful thing to see.
In the past, I’ve concentrated on getting to know my students without really worrying about letting them get to know me all that well. Sure, they know a lot about me: they know I love dad jokes because I try to tell them one every day; they know I like to cycle because I ride to school occasionally; they know I love Poland because they see it in the pictures I hang all around my room and the customs I share with them during the year. But beyond that? Not too much.
So I hit on an idea and a challenge for myself: make a playlist on Spotify of songs that have I’ve loved over the years. The catch: I will never repeat an artist.
I’ve got a list made out already — up to 96 songs, and I don’t feel like I’ve gotten started…
Hoodie
I don’t think I will ever understand the fashion of wearing hoodies — with the hood pulled firmly over the head — in the heat of summer. One of our neighbor’s sons was doing yard work the other day wearing a hoodie. It was ninety degrees; it was a full, thick hoodie and not one of those fashionable cooling hoodies that have come on the market in the last few years. A long-sleeve, thick hoodie in ninety-degree weather.
I have students who, when they can’t wear hoodies (dress code violation), wear sweatshirts in class. When my air conditioning in the classroom was out the first week of school, they complained about how hot it was. While wearing sweatshirts.
Journal
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First Day of Soccer
The Boy played his first two games today: tied the first one.
And in the meantime, two idiots proved themselves to be such.
Planning
Church
Revisiting Krakow Shot
