Teachers Writing About Teaching

I'm reading Pat Conroy's newest book, South of Broad, this week, but I looked back on my bookshelf at his books and remembered when I first encountered him.

It was the book, The Water Is Wide: A Memoir, which is about his teaching experience on a very poor South Carolina island in 1969.

The book came out while I was an undergrad and I read it along with a shelf full of other books about teaching by teachers as part of my prep to start my own teaching career.

Many of those books were about well-meaning, optimistic young teachers who were in frustratingly impossible classroom situations.

Conroy's isolated island community had the same students who were far behind where they should be, no funding, no real curriculum, no textbooks, racism and bonehead administrators that I found in books from To Sir, With Love to Up the Down Staircase.

All these books painted a really horrible picture of what I should expect in the classroom. But, they also offered humor and, ultimately, teachers triumphing over adversity. Conroy also realized that he didn't all he wanted to accomplish. A good lesson.

The book also became a movie called Conrack (the name his students gave him).

I don't know that I ever consciously used any of the book in a class I taught, but I bet that Pat Conroy's books have had an impact on me as a teacher.

The Oprah and Dan Brown Effects

Oprah likes a book. People buy the book. Simple economics.

But it's not just Oprah.

There's also a Dan Brown effect.

Dan Brown's books - Angels and Demons, The DaVinci Code, The Lost Symbol - often boost other authors' sales.

In The Lost Symbol, he mentioned The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World and sales on it have risen steadily since his book's release.

“…human consciousness, as Noetic author Lynne McTaggart described it, was a substance outside the confines of the body. A highly ordered energy capable of changing the physical world. Katherine (Solomon) had been fascinated by McTaggart’s book ‘The Intention Experiment’, and her global, Web-based study – theintentionexperiment.com - aimed at discovering how human intention could affect the world.”

Anyone can learn to do effective intention in their life, but it does require some learned techniques.

To find out how to ‘do intention’, Lynne McTaggart interviewed many intention masters – Qigong masters, Buddhist monks, master healers – as well as scientists.

She extrapolated this program from the common practices of all these diverse healers, plus scientific evidence describing circumstances that created the most positive results in mind-over-matter laboratory experiences.

From this research she offers a blueprint for using intention effectively in your own life through a program she calls Powering Up.

Oh yeah, it's controversial. Religious groups are opposed to people praying without Praying.

I'm just saying - there's a Dan Brown effect.

Of course, if you want to make me your Intention of the Week, I could use the good karma, vibrations or whatever goodness comes my way.

The Swell Season

Back in 2007, I saw the low-budget indie musical Once and was surprised and taken away by it.

Glenn Hansard and young Czech singer Marketa Irglova played the struggling musicians who start a tentative relationship in Dublin.

They became a couple in real life.

The film took off.

They went on a world tour.

Once became a best-selling soundtrack.

They won an Academy Award for the movie's "Falling Slowly."

The have since split up (amicably) as a couple but still record and tours as The Swell Season. Hansard also plays in the Irish band, The Frames.

I actually prefer Marketa Irglova's (classically trained Czech pianist and vocalist) pieces, but I can't find any solo efforts by her.

Here's a track from their new CD, Strict Joy, that features her.






The name "The Swell Season" comes from Hansard's favorite novel by Josef Škvorecký from 1975 bearing the same title.


http://www.theswellseason.com

You Looking At Me?

Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver is now free to watch on YouTube. That came as a surprise to me.

You can click here and watch this classic film (starring Robert DeNiro, Jodie Foster, and Harvey Keitel).

It doesn't seem to be available outside the United States now from what I read, but this is a big film to get a free view on YouTube. And it's rated "R" you you need to get past a disclaimer log in. And there are some ads. And it is a "YouTube promotion" that is "sponsored" by Crackle.com. (That is a Sony Pictures site where you can watch other major films online.) But it's there and it's free.

You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talking... you talking to me? Well I'm the only one here.

Flu Info

Red State, Blue State, One Sustainable Bluefish

Since the presidential election of 2000, Republican and Democratic states have been represented on TV and in the press by red (Republican) and blue (Democratic).

Though the Federal Election Commission’s 2004 election report used the same coding, it hasn't always been that way.

Actually, prior to that, the opposite colors were usually used. Ronald Reagan’s blue states were called a “lake” in 1980.

What caused this switch?

The answer doesn't seem to be clear. A piece in The Washington Post once gave part of the reason as a decision made in the NBC graphics department and also to a joke by David Letterman. Letterman make a joke during that long 2000 recount period that they might “make George W. Bush President of the red states and Al Gore head of the blue ones.”

Anyway, the shift occurred and “red” and “blue” state thinking seems to be part of our election lexicon now.


Which also leads me to think about Dr. Seuss. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish is a 1960 children's book by Dr. Seuss. It's a simple rhyming book for learner readers about a boy and a girl and their amazing creature friends and pets.

I came across it again recently when I was researching a piece for my Endangered New Jersey blog about sustainable fishing practices.

Following in this fishy stream (of consciousness) I stumbled upon the Smithsonian Institution's Sustainable Seafood website. This site complements One Fish, Two Fish, Crawfish, Bluefish - The Smithsonian Sustainable Seafood Cookbook. (See, there is a Seuss connection.) It's an interesting site about the seafood you might enjoy at dinner.

We generally think of seafood as a healthy choice, but not all fish and shellfish that are available in today's markets and restaurants are good choices from an environmental perspective.

Return to the Hundred Acre Wood

Must there always be a sequel or prequel these days?

Return to the Hundred Acre Wood is the first authorized sequel to the Winnie the Pooh tales.

David Benedictus is the writer who had the task of re-creating Pooh's world and friends.

There is also a new illustrator - Mark Burgess - who has re-created the look of the original artwork done by E.H. Shepard.

All of this is with the approval of the trustees of Pooh Properties, and the publishers in the U.S. and in Britain.

There's one new character - Lottie the Otter. Why?

Other than Lottie, it remains pretty faithful to the original.



NPR ran a story on the new book and has included Jim Dale reading chapter one. (Jim Dale read the Harry Potter books and was brilliant at that.)

A Gull Walks Into A Store in Jersey

A gull walks into a store - but it's not the start of a joke. It's a Jersey gull and the store is in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ. My cousin - a Shore lover - emailed it to me.

This one is into stealing Doritos from a convenience store. Walks in, checks on the manager, grabs the snack-size bag of chips and leaves.

I'm told that he (OK, it might be she, but I'm thinking it's a guy gull) rips it open and does share with his buddies.

He's become a regular. Same chips. The manager supposedly thinks it's okay because people are coming to watch and that draws customers.

'This is New Jersey, and if that seagull starts to grab a 6-pack of 'Bud' to go along with the Doritos, I may have to put a stop to it,' says the manager.

Classic Jersey shore.

Except that it actually happened in Scotland.

Yeah, I had to do a fact check (it's just in me) and Snopes says that it's another commonly passed-around urban legend. They even have some video of the real gull on their site.

I want it to be Jersey true. Can't we train some gull to do it?