I will develop a good BS detector

This has always been one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes strips.



I've been thinking a lot about how to approach students who will try their damnedest to get away with stuff in the classroom. One reason I decided to go into teaching is because, as my brother once said, I have a good BS detector. Kids can be so incredibly manipulative and as you get older, it becomes harder and harder to see through the charade. One of my objectives is to be that teacher that calls her students on their con attempts, that refuses to let them off the hook, and that has high expectations for everyone. I don't think I'll be falling for the plastic binder trick!

Here's another classic for good measure!

A history mental health break

Ah, the classics!

Mental Health Break

In honor of the return of Mad Men!

I plan to use some of these tools in my teaching and in my life

For educators and tech junkies alike, I found the most incredible site listing of Web 2.0 tools and applications EVER! You can so easily get lost there, surfing for the coolest new tools for collaborating, editing, shopping, searching, reading, networking, podcasting, tweeting, sharing, filing, organizing, and any other -ing you can think of. And I thought that Google had it all! Apparently, I had absolutely no idea how many brilliant people are out there every day creating brand new tools to make all of our lives easier. The main problem that I predict? There's not nearly enough time to explore the options and to learn how to use them in a meaningful way. How can a layperson possible know what works and what doesn't? I worry that I'm going to miss that one amazing, can't-do-without application that will transform me from a good teacher to an unbelievable teacher. Yes, I know in my head that such a tool doesn't really exist. But I can't help feeling overwhelmed by this constant stream of new technology. I don't have the skills to discern those apps that can really assist me as an educator. I guess good, old-fashioned trial and error?

I love these guys

Mental Health Break for fans of The State, Reno 911, Stella, Wet Hot American Summer. You either love Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter (and David Wain) or you don't. I happen to love them!

Michael & Michael Have Issues	Wed 10:30pm / 9:30c
The Farting Butterfly Sketch
www.comedycentral.com
Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online Games

This is why history is so important

Via Andrew Sullivan, a reader post that beautifully sums up the danger of not knowing our own history. The Obama Derangement Syndrome afflicting 30% of the country is at a fever pitch and he's only six months into his first year in office. I shudder to think about what might come next. But Sullivan's reader is quite right - this is nothing new in American politics. Money quote:

They have always been with us, the people who believed in manifest destiny, who delighted in the slaughter of this land's original inhabitants, who cheered a nation into a civil war to support an economic system of slavery that didn't even benefit them. They are the people who bashed the unions and cheered on the anti-sedition laws, who joined the Pinkertons and the No Nothing Party, who beat up Catholic immigrants and occasionally torched the black part of town. They rode through the Southern pine forests at night, they banned non-European immigration, they burned John Rockefeller Jr. in effigy for proposing the Grand Tetons National Park.

These are the folks who drove Teddy Roosevelt out of the Republican Party and called his cousin Franklin a communist, shut their town's borders to the Okies and played the protectionist card right up til Pearl Harbor, when they suddenly had a new foreign enemy to hate. They are with us, the John Birchers, the anti-flouride and black helicopter nuts, the squirrly commie-hating hysterics who always loved the loyalty oath, the forced confession, the auto-de-fe. Those who await with baited breath the race war, the nuclear holocaust, the cultural jihad, the second coming, they make up much more of America then you would care to think.

I'm not sure whether to be optimistic that we can get through it again, just as we always have, or whether the country is in such a hole today that we simply can not afford to placate these people any longer. It's no accident that Obama's approval ratings are much higher among the under-30 crowd and much lower among the over-50 crowd. Who thinks they have more to lose in this new century? And who gains?

But back to the historical angle.... It's absolutely imperative that kids today understand that these movements don't exist in a vacuum, that they don't spring out of some spontaneous grassroots response to injustice, and that they aren't harmless. The roots of right-wing extremism run deep and have caused considerable damage to the progressive narrative that many Americans believe in. Perhaps if we were to educate our students about push and pull that has defined our struggle towards a more perfect union, they would develop the will to keep us moving into the future rather than rooted irrevocably to an ugly past.

I trust bloggers more than I trust the Washington Post

From Andrew Sullivan, a debate about the waning power of traditional media. Count me in the Anderson camp. Money quote:

People have learned to see the little men and women behind the curtain and would rather trust the people they know - or come to know online - who have always been in front of the curtain and honest about what their biases are.