Lesson One – No One Cares About Your Killstreak

With the release of Modern Warfare 3 this week, the boys in my class have been fixated on playing the game all week long. While I am myself someone who enjoys playing games like MW3, I do have to say that  I don’t like the conversations that accompanies it. To me the conversations about who got a better killstreak is not a worthwhile one…call me crazy. It was put best to me this week when a former student, Jackson McNeal, wrote this on my board…

Dear Students,

No one cares about your killstreak.

Sincerely Everyone

Well put Jackson.

Lesson Two – “I Just Started To Remember”

I try to interject current events into my weekly lesson planning and try to make it as entertaining as possible as well…the past couple of weeks it has been very easy to accomplish that thanks to our boy Herman Cain. Herman has had a few slip ups in the media in the past couple of weeks as he has come under fire about his employment history.

I would have to say that the high point of this circus called the Herman Cain Campaign Scandal, was when he contradicted himself within 24 hours. He was basically caught in this contradiction and when ask why the sudden remembering of facts he replied, “I just started to remember”. Which provided me with a valuable teaching moment to my kids…the lesson of that moment is that if you get caught in a lie then using the excuse that you just started to remember is not a solid choice. Just own up to it.

Lesson Three – Evolution of Twitter

I’ve been a user of Twitter for 4 years now, and as I have been using the service through the years I have noticed a sudden change in how it is being used. In the past I would use it to keep in touch with other teachers and use it to follow people who wrote meaningful tweets on a regular basis. However, over the past year or so I have seen that younger generations are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon and have really changed the complexion of the Twitter landscape.

My conversations have changed from being about educational philosophy and teaching strategies, to whose class was better…that being my former students talking about who had the better class period over the years. The way I use it has completely changed for me and I’m not sure if it has been for better or for worse, it’s just purely an observation.

Mr. McClung