Fruit for Thought: the Intersection of Education, Culture, and Performance

As a teacher, it is our duty and responsibility to protect children - that are not our own as if they were - from the forces outside our school. But, these past few weeks, we all needed a little extra protection. March is supposed to be a happy month. The snow has melted (at least from last weekend’s storm), the weather is breaking and the sounds of Spring are in the air: birds chirping, grass and flowers growing, rain falling and…bullets flying. Sunday, March 8 , Pastor Fred Winters of First Baptist Church in Maryville, Illinois is shot and killed at the 8 a.m. service by a gunman with a .45-caliber gun. Three days later, a gunman rattles two towns ( Samson and Geneva in Alabama ) when he kills 10 and – on the same day, in a separate incident across the Atlantic – a student walks into his former school in Winnenden, Germany shooting at pupils and teachers killing 15. And the day before yesterday in Carthage, North Carolina a man – with no affiliations to Pinelake Health and Rehabili...

And we begin again. Let me just say, for the record, NCAA basketball is “Sweet”. And I am not saying that because my bracket is unbustable. It is not. Using the 1-2-4-7-10-12 point system I use with my eighth grade students (two points in the first round for a correct upset pick), the 1-2-3-4-5-10 point system used with the pool I joined and the 10-20-40-80-160-320 ESPN point system , I have 46, 46 and 460 points respectively thus far. Putting me just behind President Obama (470) in 2,167,290th place . Which means I am picking teams at about a 50% rate well behind the 100% rate of P. Sergi, D. Jones, V. Gordon and J. Jamroz in 1st place with 620 points. It is what it is. I do not put too much energy nor am I worried about my bracket because I do it for fun. Especially when I purposely pick and hope for 1st round upsets. I had Ohio State facing off against Michigan State in the Final Four because I wanted the see a rematch of the Big Ten Semifinal game . And, though I didn’t pick them,...

What do these three things have in common? Take your time to think, I’ll wait… Give up? They have all been victims of identity theft. Growing exponentially every year, identity theft is a crime that affects more than 15 million Americans a year. Surprisingly, since ’03 Illinois has seen its state rank of ID Theft drop from 9th (2003) to 10th (2004 and 2005) to 12th (2006) . This lower stat does not mean that Illinois is safer from these crooks, it just means that victims of ID theft have turned into willing participates. Case and point: January 31, 2003 .  The culprit, US Cellular and the “victim” Comiskey Park: In an attempt to keep up with the Joneses, the Chicago White Sox joined the 50% of ballparks who are corporately owned. It has its perks. The money the corporation paid for the park will be reinvested into the park making it more enjoyable for the fans. The downside is, the ballpark loses its heritage and identity. September 21, 2005.   The culprit, Federated Department Stores ...

This is the only month where it is perfectly acceptable to display a little Madness. In fact, it is necessary for keeping your sanity. Going crazy for your team is a prerequisite to dance. The crazier the fans gets, the better chances that team has to make it to Detroit. Or, if you are like the millions playing along at home, you have 2 days, 13 hours, 19 minutes and 28 seconds  before the First Round tips off. So, like the standardize tests, make sure you fill out your bracket(s) accurately and completely with a #2 pencil before you go over it with a Sharpie and turn it in to your preselected pools. A tournament system is the only way college sports should be, not the flawed BCS system NCAA football has. Let’s not shift focus because this is only about the bracket. CBS’s Selection Sunday with Greg Gamble, Clark Kellogg, Seth Davis, Jim Nantz and Billy Packer broke down The Selection Committee’s choices. Yet, coaches, players, the Around the Horn panel, PTI, SportsCenter experts and ...

This is the question, from the movie , that defined the 80s. If you know the answer say it with me… SHO-NUFF!!!! Yeeeeah! In my 先生 (sensei) role, I have yet to make a student “kiss my Converse.” They choose to respect me so I don’t need too. I do require my fourth graders to call me Master Murray. It might sound like an ego trip, but I assure you it is all for educational purposes. I read them Grandfather Tang’s Story . To make it applicable, I showed them how to use the Tangrams shapes. They were amazed that those seven shapes (two big triangles, two little triangles, one medium triangle, one square and one parallelogram) make more than 1000 different (I categorized them into animal, person, head and object) figures. The geometric application is wonderful not to mention the $0.99 iPhone App . Unfortunately, they didn’t agree. In their construction frustration, they exclaimed, “Can you show us how to do it?” “Nope.” “Do you even know how to do them?” I paused, gave that Leroy glare (I ...

It took me a few days. I had to let it all marinate… So, I’m not doing a review like you would find here or here . And it definitely will not resemble the review here (I could go on and say how my review will be neither this nor  this , but I thought that might be overkill). I will say this: Watchmen exceeded all my expectations. Let me quantify that statement; I say, “exceeded all my expectations” for the simple fact that I have only seen one preview (the preview before Dark Knight). Since, I have intentionally stayed away from any and every Watchmen preview. I dislike the concept of giving away the best parts of the movie. I am all for whetting the whistle and tickling the fancy and kindling an interest, but when a sprinkle here and there becomes an oversaturated douse then there is a problem. I am not a little kid anymore, nonetheless, I still want to be surprised, I still want to be amazed and I still want go to the movies with anticipation waiting to be awed. Watchmen did just ...

“Who Teaches the Teachers?” Not a literal translation, but it is all that I could come up with given my limited Latin knowledge and a dictionary. Teachers are superheroes. I’m not trying to convince you. This is a known fact. To quote a very great man : “(We) get involved in things sometimes because nobody else will…because it’s not in the rule book, or it’s politically inconvenient, or it’s too weird, or simply because nobody else cares.” Let me put it numerically for those numbers-people: An average school day goes from 8am to 4:30sih pm (extended day, extra-curricular activities and such). That means we have 2,550 minutes of contact time with students over a five-day period. Say the average parent gets home from work around 6-6:30pm. A suitable bedtime is between 9pm and 10pm. That’s 1,200 minutes of parent contact time. This is not a competition or about who is better, I’m just trying to point out that only a superhero would spend that much time with other people’s children. Supe...

The right to voice our opinions without the fear of government censorship is one of the many things the  1st Amendment  guarantees us. But - in the words of The Amazing Spider-Man as he hung from the ceiling of the secret Senate Hearing with Tony Stark - "Great Power also brings with it great responsibility." (Marvel's Road to Civil War : The Amazing Spider-Man #530) This great power is speech. It has the power to: encourage or discourage, persuade or manipulate, lift up or tear down, etc or etc. Choosing the latter would mean to abuse aforementioned power. Thus the speaker, writer, cartoonist, whoever is acting in an irresponsible way.  People who speak - Rush Limbaugh or Don Imus or (add any other name you'd like), draw - Sean Delonas - or forward - Los Alamitos Ex-mayor Dean Grose - "racist" material aren't racist (not a psychologist so I don't deal with what they actually think or feel), they're just using their power irresponsibly. I say, t...