FinalCurve

As I sit at home editing, once again, my semester and quarter plan for my courses this year I am reminded of a podcast from Wesley Fryer’s Moving at the Speed of Creativity blog. The podcast is from a presentation by Marco Torres that Wesley originally aired in May. As Wesley notes Marco is a passionate teacher and points out several things that sometimes we assume are obvious. The main item I took from Marco’s presentation is that you can not fake teaching. As I told most of my classes during these first couple of days, I have not worked in four years. I have friends who work, and they sometime complain about getting up and going to work. Me, I go to school in the morning and practice after class. Sure some days are difficult, but I feel that many people forget how hard life can really be.

Last night I watched an episode of Thomas L. Friedman Reporting on the Discovery Times channel. Actually, I recorded it on my Tivo. Yes, I am an admitted nerd. Mr. Friedman was researching a wall the Israeli government is building to deter suicide bombers. At one point during the episode Mr. Friedman talked to both Israelis and Palestinians who had to either climb an eight foot tall cement wall to get to class or walk around the walk. Obviously walking would seem easier; however, the walk around is a twelve mile trek. I wonder if we had to face such difficulties in our daily lives would we stop complaining about reading assignments and traffic jams.

If you missed Wesley’s podcast it is worth going back to hear. At the minimum check out the commercial Mr. Torres’s group produced. It is a parody of the Monster.com commercial from the 1999 Super Bowl and it should give you a new look as you finish planning your lessons.

Enjoy your day,

Kyle