Gorky!!

I just saw an exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that centers on the life and work of Arshile Gorky. He wasn't received well by the power players, collectors, and art brokers when he was alive, but now, about 60 years after his death, people are beginning to give him a second look.

Though I can't honestly say that his prolific paintings and drawings resonate with me, I am nevertheless inspired by the man's work ethic, his creative fire, and the careful, original way that he approached his craft. As a young refugee from the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Turks, he set out to educate himself about art, particularly absorbed inspiration from Cezanne, Picasso, and Miro. He went to museums. By copying the styles and techniques of the masters, he eventually found his own style.

Perhaps this is one of the true silver bullets for getting students to write well and enjoy the process. Have them find an accomplished writer whom they appreciate, and have them imitate the writing style.

My daughter, who is an extraordinary writer, never received formal writing lessons. Oh sure, I've given her a couple tips along the way, and she's benefited from fine teachers who helped her hone her talent, but I've watched her find her writing voice from thoroughly reading hundreds and hundreds of books.

The Kite Runner Project

If you're anything like me, you're something of a procrastinator, but that's OK. So long as you get the job done right and on time for the people who write your checks, write your observations, or give you the grades, then you'll be fine.

Did you know that creative people often wait long periods of time to think of something, then create what they need to do in one or two magnificent burst. If you haven't yet immersed yourself in your project, then use the weekend to make it happen.

Here are the parameters.

1. If it's appropriate, use big vibrant colors. Nothing wows 'em like color!
2. Avoid handwriting of any kind. If you need to hand write, please be neat.
3. Work on creating artifacts that I'll beg you to keep to beautify my room in the future. Make it something that I'll want to share with students in my other classes.
4. Proofread. Proofread. Proofread.
5. Be ready to proudly present your work on Monday.

Done Right, On Time, Every Time

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Back in the printing business, pleasing the customer was paramount. One year, some guys in suits from corporate taught us managers and coworkers a mantra that would build and maintain business:"Done Right, On Time, Every Time." If we met these parameters for our customers, they would be sure to give us repeat business, and that meant money. On the other hand, late copy and printing jobs ALWAYS equalled disgruntled customers. I worked hard to inculcate reliability in my coworkers, training them to take the customer's expectations seriously. At times we ran late with jobs, and after keeping my customers apprised, they often agreed to let me push back the deadline.

We teachers want the same from our students. Just get the work in on time - every time. Honestly, this is the recipe for success in college.

I worry about some of my students. I really worry about them because many are conditioned to float through high school without treating all significant assignments with a sense of urgency.

Body Worlds - A COUPLE DAYS LATER

I've been chewing over Friday's trip to Body Works and rather than chosing between liking it and disliking it, I'll go for the paradox option.

On one hand I thought the following:
1. I think it's gross and morbid to convert cadavers into oversized plastic anatomical dolls. Dead folks need to be buried, cremated, or interred in a respectful manner.
2. The argument that this exhibit inspires future doctors is erroneous; people have opted to study and pratice medicine for centuries without seeing or imagining the likes of Body Works.
3. Some of the exhibits were over the top; converting cadavers into surreal sculptures (the Drawer Man, the Angel...) seemed way over the top.
4. I would never want my dead body to be striped of skin, plasticized, dissected, and placed behind glass to be gawked at by ticket-payers.


On the other hand, I liked it:
1. Nobody forced these people to donate their bodies to the exhibit (if I take the Body Works literature at its word), nor are people forced to pay to see it.
2. This really was a breath-taking, impeccably professional exhibit, constructed by magnificently creative people.
3. I learned bushels of information about the human body, and my appetite is whetted to learn more.
4. Strangely, I want to see it again. I missed a lot.

BODY WORKS

Before the trip - 8:10 AM

I've always fancied myself a fairly enlightened guy, but I'll admit it; I have some reservations about seeing Body Works at the Franklin Institute today. I've been conditioned all my life to believe that dead bodies, the shells and engines once powered by our souls, need to be treated respectfully and interred with grace, not plasticized or stuffed like some taxidermy specimen. Sure, we've stuffed and displayed nearly every critter under the sun for display in museums, but people? Is this ethical and right, even if the people have willed their bodies to the project. I understand that tradition of donating bodies to medical schools, but this seems much different.

I will maintain an open mind, and perhaps I'll learn something.

The 10th day of Dhul-Hijjah

This is the third time that I've read Kite Runner and I encountered something on page 67 that intrigued me. I want to know more about Islam, a religion that dominates the news, a religion that burgeons with 1.8 billion people, and here I am, an educated fellow, and I know virtually nothing about it.

As the book gets started, a reference is made about the 10th day of Dhul-Hijjah. I investigated on-line and made a Text to Text connection that floored me: Muslims believe that the patriarch Abraham (Ibrahim) had only one son - Ishmael. Jews and Christians believe that he had two: Ishmael, the first-born by the maidservant Hagar, and Isaac, birthed by Sarah.

The Judeo-Christain tradition dictated that God directed Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on top of a mountain. Moments before the old man was about to slit his son's troat, along came an unnamed angel who ordered him to call it off, as he just proved his faith.

On the nine days preceding the 10th of Dhul-Hijjah, an Islamic month, Muslim pilgrims intensively prepare for the Haj. On the 10th day they commemorate with a festival, observing the time that Ismael was nearly sacrificed by Ibrahim and saved in the nick of time by an angel named Gibril (English-Gabriel, Hebrew-Gavriel).

On the second day of Rosh Hashana, Jews read about the binding and near sacrifice of Isaac. Ten days later, Yom Kippur gets observed.

I wonder what other parallels exist between Judaism and Islam?

I told my students to post some kind of image that relates to Macbeth onto their new Blog Sites, and here is mine. I hope they have their blog and first entry ready by class time.

Role reversal by gender is glaringly obvious in Macbeth. Several times, Lady Macbeth plays the "man" chiding her husband for being soft and deliberative, stereotypical female roles, especially when it comes to grasping and retaining power. For example, Macbeth breaks down after killing Duncan, and being unable to go back to the crime scene to plant the plant the bloody knife, Lady M practically spits at him, "Infirm-of-purpose," and stalks off to put the knives on the hapless guards. At one point, she implores demons to "unsex" her, thus divesting her of feminine touchy-feeliness that could hinder her ascension to power.

During her presidential campaign, I remember Hillary wearing only pant suits on the trail. To be an alpha female in the male dominated world of politics, she needed to be seen as a hard boiled type with an edge, not some damsel who needed to ride on her husband's back. In fact, had she won the presidential office, Bill would have had to take the role of "first man" instead of the traditional spousal role: first lady.

Off To the WISE conference!

Time to get back into the Blogging mode as Jason and I are driving up to New York (my beloved homestate) to harvest information from the good people affiliated with WISE. I've got a bunch of questions, mainly about how to keep the teens engaged with journaling what we need to do to take the program to the next level.

Don Hewitt

Don Hewitt, the recently departed creative force behind the way we get our news and 60 minutes, has really gotten into my bones. I woke up at 4:30 this morning thinking about him and his role in the early years of news, not to mention how he created 60 Minutes, a show I've enjoyed for over thirty years. As I watched the segment about on 60 Minutes last night, it hit me that he would have made a brilliant teacher.

Great teachers, like great journalists, have to respond to their audience's desire which can be encapsulated in four words that Don used to advise a cub journalist: "Tell me a story."

Don had contagious enthusiasm for what he did. He worked full time until his mid 70's, never losing his juice.

Don used his firing from directing the CBS nightly news broadcast as inspiration; this was a crucible that helped him form the idea of 60 Minutes.

Hewitt exemplified creativity by merging two disparate entities: then staid, cerebral nightly news and touchy-feely format of Life magazine. He spiked the news with entertainment and birthed 60 Minutes.

Like Don, great teachers need to take risks and sometimes go "off book."

Don realized the importance of having segments last no longer than 15 minutes. Most people get itchy after viewing something longer than this time. Teachers should break their 48 minute time blocks into similar chunks instead of blathering on about the same topic for nearly an hour. Why not make it a ritual of having the students stand up and shake it out after 15 minutes or so, as we can do for commercial breaks?

Don knew the importance of beginning every 60 Minutes show with provocative teasers of the three segments that will follow. Shouldn't teachers excite students' interest in the same way?

A close call with a fallen tree

I enjoyed a weekend camping with my son and his cub scout pack in Northeast Jersey (alright, I'll let it out; I'm a cub master). On Saturday at around 7:30 PM, it started to pour, and then the winds kicked up.

The rain sounded like exploding popcorn kernels pelting the tent. My fitful sleep in the tent was interrupted by a the terrifying sound of a big tree splitting, falling, then crashing. The ground shook. And then it hit me.. Judging by the sound and location of the impact, the tree HAD to have fallen close to the tent inhabited by a man and his two young sounds. I listened for the sound of people in pain, praying that I wouldn't have to lift a tree off gravely wounded or mangled people.

I shined my flashlight out towards the direction of the fallen tree. WHEW. Their orange tent was still standing!

In the morning I surveyed the scene and saw that the dead tree had missed my fellow campers by about 15 feet.

You never know... You never know...

The Avalanche of Rain

Today during seventh period the rain battered the fair town of Lindenwold with a ferocious intensity. This marks what feels like the 76th consecutive day of rain and we just can't get a break.
I noticed how just before the deluge, I seemed to slow down, and my bones felt as if they were filled with concrete; when moisture saturates air, it has that effect on people, and most of us feel like burrowing into bed.
We're all growing impatient with the rain.

TEACHING MYSELF A NEW SKILL

Instead of sitting at my computer and comfortably typing this entry, I decided to do it in front of my students using the somewhat clunky keyboard on the SMART board screen. I'm now thinking of my students who text so effortlessly. If I keep practicing, I'll eventually get better and who knows---- perhaps I'll get just as fast as if I were on a regular keyboard.

BRUUUUUCE!!!!

Are you familiar with Bruce Springsteen's music? Can you identify him in a line up? If you are a high school student these days, the answer is probably "No," but nevertheless, he is an iconic rock n' roll figure, probably one of the top ten to ever live.

As a boy, I remember listening to the stereo for hours, waiting with agony for it to finally give up one of the Boss's songs. When the right song came on, I'd push the "RECORD" switch on my tape deck and let it sponge up the melody on what was then the magnetic cassette tapes (For the young 'uns, that's what we had before the increasingly out-of-date CDs). This is how we got our songs for free back in the late Seventies. No iTunes. No Limewire. No Youtube.

A couple nights ago, I saw the last concert that Bruce Springsteen will ever have at the Spectrum. I swear that this man must bathe in his own personal Fountain of Youth because he commanded that stage as a 30 year-old would, jumping, leaping, straining, sliding, kicking, and rock n' rolling like a man possessed. He sent bolts of musical electricity through the sold out show. Some people worship him as if he were some kind of religious deity. I suppose, for some, music is a kind of religion

Ding Dong

Today we started a public speaking component in Seminar. I thought I'd give the dictionary game a spin. Basically, a person has to open a dictionary to a random page, and without looking, that person has to nail a word with his or her index finger. The speaker then needs to talk extemporaneously about everything that word evokes, and one minute of time (for starters) needs to be filled with speech. It doesn't have to necessarily be meaningful, but it does need to be on topic.

DING DONG turned out to be my word my chooser selected!!!! Ding dong of all things. I thought fast.

I pulled it off, discussing the junk-food cake snack, doorbells, alliteration, and all I alluded to something that can't be discussed. here.

The students had a great time as they acquired valuable public speaking skills.

Book Purses

One reason why I love Senior Project Seminar has to do with how my students make me smarter. Normally I don't think much about purses (being a wallet-man myself), but a radio program on National Public Radio yesterday captured my attention because it made me think of Miss Salaam and how she mentioned that her fashion show will include custom made accessories, including purses.

An extremely creative woman named Caitlin Phillips uses the spines and covers of discarded books to make purses. Book lovers like me tell her that this seems sacrilegious, but she replies that she intercepts them from libraries, flea markets, and garage sales before they hit the dumpster. She admitted that she has given old bibles new life.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103327927

Because of my students' interests, I find myself absorbing media in new ways. I recently read a a fascinating article in The New York Times about how the ability of humans to use fire to cook their food enabled our species to evolve faster. Naturally, I thought of Enrique Gonzalez and his voracious interest in the origins of French cuisine. I would have overlooked this article if he were not in my class.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/science/21conv.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=evolution%20cooking&st=cse

More Students Using Blogger

Today, the rest of my seniors are test-driving Blogger. Adrianna, who deeply loves to write, impressed me with a busy blog filled with entries ranging back to January. Miss Mitchell, from the senior project seminar encouraged her to start one, and Miss McClendon has not looked back.
I think having my students blog can be useful for a few reasons.

1. Many students already keep a journal or have been looking for an excuse to start one because they want to preserved their words for posterity.
2. Blogging can actually help students improve their writing because they know others will read their entries. Who wants to look like a dope, showing off entries stuffed with silly errors that any second grader could fix.
3. Blogging enables students to respond to their peers' postings in what will hopefully be a cordial tone.
4. Students can share with others what they did over the weekend or on vacations, very much like keeping a digital scrapbook, complete with photos and commentary.
5. Blogging could enable students to find people from around the country or the immediate area who share their specific interests.
6. Those who decide be creative could take their blogs to the next level and make them look polished and professional. Blogger features many well-designed blogs in a "Favorites" column. Who knows, this could be part of a professional portfolio.
7. Blogging helps eliminate paper and helps me keep papers organized.

A Holocaust Survivor

To commemorate Yom Hashoah, the somber day of the year that Jews come together to remember the millions killed in the Holocaust, the religious school where I teach invited a survivor to speak to the children.
Mr. Kaufman was born in 1920 and he didn't look a day over 75. He told us that he had a very ordinary childhood, but when the Nazis took power in 1933, things changed drastically. He saw first-hand how Jews were denied education, jobs, and how they were relegated to second class citizens. This made me think of how not long ago African Americans had to live through the evils of Jim Crow, separated from other Americans by law and deprived of so many privileges enjoyed by whites.
Mr. Kaufman described how he was arrested along with tens of thousands of other German Jewish Jews as a means of "protection" after Kristallnacht - the night of broken glass that happened on the night of November 9th - 10th, 1938. The Nazis burned down hundreds of synagogues, ransacked Jewish homes, and shattered the storefront windows of every Jewish shopkeeper they could find.
Mr. Kaufman was imprisoned simply for being Jewish, and shortly afterwards, the Gestapo sent him by train to Buchenwald, later a notorious death factory. While he was there, he saw men hanged and beaten for the slightest infraction. He even saw a man killed after being rolled down a hill in a spiked barrel, only to have German shepherds devour him as he lay bleeding.
Soon after he was released, he luckily got an American sponsor to take him in. Had he stayed in Germany, he certainly would have been killed. He went on to serve in the U.S. army where he worked in intelligence, eventually earning the rank of major.

My Favorite Tree

I have a favorite tree that lives just down the street. She's a fifteen foot tall weeping willow - a baby - that blossoms from its parent's shell - a rotting tree trunk, and it stands on the perimeter of picturesque pond/reservoir that helps drain water in the area. At this time of year, pink and white blossoms adorn the trees with thousands of pink and white tufts colored like cotton blossoms and cotton candy.
Someone planted my tree's parent well over a hundred years ago, and no doubt it had a good life before someone cut it down with a chainsaw. The stump began to rot, but it just refused to die. Along comes a new shoot, and the weeping willow continues with its long-lived saga.

My First Visit to Nordstrom

I admit it. After living the better part of a half century, I have NEVER before been to a Nordstrom, and today I decided to take the plunge. I live a few stones' throws from the Cherry Hill Mall, so today seemed like a good as day as any to see my new neighbor; the Nordstrom had opened a couple months ago.

Back when I worked in retail, our trainers used to tell us about Nordstrom's legendary customer service, how sales agents would make miracles happen to ensure absolute shopping bliss for customers with fat wallets and purses.
I strolled into the Temple of Nordrstrom, feeling very unfashionable, clad in my old black Levis and a pull over shirt purchased years ago at Kohls. I put my hands on a collared men's shirt and found the tag. $125 dollars for a shirt that would go for a hundred less at Marshalls!!!! Are the people I see toting around their snappy Nordstoms shopping bags, filled with sartorial booty, absolutely nuts! I then found a rack adorned with white leather jackets, all deliberately smudged with what appeared to be dirt. The price? DRUMMMMM ROOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. $695!!!!!!!
In these recession-battered times who has this kind of money? Why pay so much for merchandise that can be bought for a fifth of the price at JC Penney?
As I fled the shiny, happy store, I could only think of the classic children's tale, The Emperor's New Clothes. The vain emperor foolishly paid some shyster tailors a fortune while they created nothing for him, all the while pretending to design and create most lavish clothes and outfits. All of his subjects made a big deal about the "clothes," buttering up the emporer and praising his exquisite taste. It took a little girl to tell the truth: the emperor has payed all that money for nothing. He has no clothes!!

Susan Boyle Stunner

Susan Boyle, a Scottish woman closer to fifty than forty, exploded onto the entertainment scene by appearing on the show Britain's Got Talent - the United Kingdom equivalent of American Idol.

Onto the stage stepped a stocky, unpolished woman with the antithesis of an entertainer's face, complete with bushy eyebrows and a washer woman's demeanor. This was a woman unaccustomed to make-up as she was to dating. Here mini bio said that she had never been kissed.

The audience hooted, winced, and openly mocked her when she said straight faced that she's looking for her big break. Why were people so condescending? Because she wasn't beautiful. They expected a woman who looked like her to massacre a song like William Hung. They expected a court jester. They didn't get it.

Instead, IN PERFECT PITCH - THE CROWED HEARD A BROADWAY CALIBER voice sing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Mis, dazzling the house and the judges.



Watch it for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY



What's the deal!??? Why is it such a shocker to people that vocal cords aren't molded by their owner's looks?

Why do we give the so called "beautiful people" all the chances and all the benefits of the doubts? Alas, typecasting pervades the business, and always has. Susan would never be cast as Fantine, but rather as Madame Thenardier, the monstrous wife of the swindler/money grabber Thenardier.

What if somebody had the guts to cast a show using so-called "plain" people with gorgeous voices.?

More Project Ideas!

We had another productive day of brainstorming yesterday, and more students have a better idea about what they will create during the next month.
Here is a role call:

Miss Garcia locked onto the clever idea of creating role playing clinic in which she models how ultra sound technicians go about their business. We even discussed the possibility of putting that ultrasound jelly on people, and perhaps even having real ultrasounds on the screen to give people the illusion that the probe is really happening!

Miss Medina, who is interested in guidance counseling, will allow her creative side to flourish by producing a documentary about the field, perhaps comparing techniques used in the elementary school and high school. We discussed the possibility of using student actors.

Miss Carter will create over sized posters done in the style of Polaroids (RIP Polaroid film). This will involve collage elements, and the end result will be arranged somewhere for many people to enjoy. Through her work, the rest of us will learn about photography.

Miss Tapia will become an expert in all things Smartboard as she creates an interactive game that ties into the social studies curriculum. This will help so much as she will be the most proficient Smartboard user when she enters CCC this Fall.

Miss Sotelo will create a book featuring immigrant success stories, focusing on people living in the Lindenwold area. I can't wait to see the books format, and perhaps we can make copies.

Miss Salaam's forte is fashion and guess what her presentation will feature? You guessed it! A fashion show featuring costumes and purses.

Project Idea Generators

Yesterday, many students were seeing their sponsors, and this made me glad. Those of us remaining in the class started brainstorming about the project component of Senior Project Seminar.

Miss Messner admitted that while autism still interests her, she's finding that her heart is increasingly with the public relations field. The students recommended that she approach Bancroft about how she can educate others about autism, and perhaps generate positive press for Bancroft. Perhaps she'll create PR items. Fliers? Video?

Mr. Gonzalez, who constantly thinks about cooking and restaurants, at first said that he could create a business plan for the restaurant he will one day open, along with a menu. The group convinced him to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple S______) and stick with the menu, and some students gave him great suggestions about layout, content, and format.

Miss Sotelo mentioned to me that she'll create a book of composed of the personal stories of immigrants who strive for and achieve success in America.

Mr. Pineiro will use CAD to create a blueprint of a playground, taking into account drainage, and he'll complement it will a scale model.

Miss Palermo seems to be leaning towards creating clay representations that represent various facets of physical therapy. It will be a teaching tool along with being well labeled.

Miss Wilson is staging a fashion show which will fuse her creative, custom-made outfits with dance.

Miss Scotten will compose a newspaper article about what happens during prom weekend after the prom. One student suggested that she create a survey. Already, Miss Scotten has contacted different schools to get some comparisons in the works!

Senior Project PROJECT

Now that the Research Papers (in some cases the Research Paper Rough Drafts) are in, it's time to focus on the PROJECT portion of Senior Project. Most of the students know exactly what they will do, and the rest will concretize their idea within the next day or so. During the last month, I created a project that I think would have flown had I been a student.

Theater has always been one of my passions, and part of any successful show is the Playbill. This publication---- besides giving the information about the show, the actors, the supporters, and advertisers ---- is part of theater culture.

I saw opportunity to plan, design, and produce the playbill from scratch, so I took it.

I first gathered playbills from other schools, and looked at the books given to me during performances at the Walnut Street Theater. Since I particularly impressed with the one from Cherry Hill West (Bye, Bye, Birdie), I tracked down the teacher who created it and asked him questions, and he revealed to me that he used Microsoft Publisher to create it, a program I had never used before.

I spent lots of time doing the legwork to acquire the program and much more time teaching myself how to use it.

Creating the program took me easily 50 cumulative hours, NONE OF WHICH WERE SPENT DURING THE SEMINAR CLASS. I devoted several hours over a few weekends doing it, and grabbed a few hours during my teacher prep time, as well as time after school. The time spent was not a chore; I had fun doing it.

I had the deadline looming over my head, and I knew that I had to adhere to it and deliver a quality product. Of course, nobody was grading me for this, and nobody needed to. I wanted to create a great playbill for myself and others.

Along the way, I consulted with Ms. Triplo, Ms, Sykes, Ms. Woodward, and Mr. Kulak - a member of the LHS tech team, and my wife.

I had to research the right kind of paper to use (60#, 20#, 65#, gloss) how I would get the darned things folded and stapled, and how long they would take to run through the machine.

Along the way, glitches game along that had to be conquered. I had to carefully check, and double check my work. At one point, Ms. Triplo noticed something in the book that had to go after I started running it. Production had to be halted while I made the modification, then started the press again.

I couldn't do all the folding and stapling on my own; after all, there were 1000 books, so I had to enlist the help of students and volunteers.

To sum it up, I took my passion - theater- and married it with an interest of mine - desktop publishing and printing. The end result - a playbill. Although it is not perfect, I created it with a practical purpose in mind.

How Are Hamsters Like People?

My daughter's hamster C.C. died suddenly a few weeks ago. For two years she had been Hannah's roommate, entertaining my daughter by running in her wheel, stuffing her cheeks with food, and generally doing wacky hamster stuff. And then one afternoon ---- dead.

After C.C.s little corpse found its way to the pet cemetery we have on the edge of the backyard and the mourning period ended, Hannah and I went to Petsmart and a new little buddy got picked. Little did we know we picked a hamster that just couldn't be tamed. For days this one recoiled in terror like some kind of hairly live-wire, whenever her cage door opened. She bit, squealed, hid, quivered, and tore up mountains of cardboard to use as camouflage. I was able to pick Luna up only once, and my success was met with a handful of hamster poop pellets and pee. My daughter reluctantly agreed to return this wildly, high strung hamster. She felt sorry for her.

Yesterday at Petsmart, we exchanged Luna for what turned out to be a tame, mild mannered Dalmatian hamster. This one seeks out human contact, and she'll look at us with interest, almost intelligence.

Just like poor Luna, I have known intensively nervous and hyper active students. Others are congenial and mellow. Alas, I can not return people to Petsmart, nor would I want to. Besides being unrealistic, that would be the easy way out. My challenge as a teacher is teach kids to simmer down, focus, do the work, and think.

Born Yesterday

Last night, I took the family to see a show at the Walnut Street Theater, a grand old place now celebrating its 200th birthday! This is the oldest running theater in the USA, even older than Ford's Theater in which Lincoln was shot.

The show Born Yesterday was first performed about sixty years ago, and it features an extraordinarily greedy, philistine of a man who comes to stay in Washington D.C. for few months on business, and he brings his girlfriend, the quintessential blond bimbo type with a squeaky little voice. Harry Brock made untold millions growing his scrap metal empire during the war, and now that WWII is over, he wants to go international, and needs the help of a senator to do it. His girlfriend Billie is used as a front for him to evade taxes, and as the play progresses, he and the audience learn that she is not so dumb.

I was afraid that my kids would get bored. Among the audience of several hundred, they were the ONLY children. I explained the show went along and it was cool. I told them to imagine they were watching a show on Turner Classic Movies.

Born Yesterday relates so well to today's times. Insanely greedy people like Harry Brock will manipulate anything and anyone to make more money. This is the stuff that caused the market to rapidly melt down.

If I were a rich man, I'd go to three shows per week!

A Stressed Daughter

I hear my daughter roaring downstairs that her math homework is too hard. I hear her cursing her teacher, claiming that the woman didn't teach her how to do the advanced math assignment. I know that she'll simmer down soon, dig in, and get it done. My wife, the math whiz in the family, will probably give her a hand along the way, and help her crack the code of calculating sales tax.

Do we teachers really torture students with assignments like modern day, academic Torquemadas (he's the guy who spearheaded the Spanish Inquisition)? Some students feel the heat, get stressed, do the work - sometimes hating it all the while - and turn in the final product. Other students blow it off and flounder through their high school years. Tragically, some drop out.

What if my daughter didn't have parents who conditioned her to make the academics happen and earn those grades? What if she were conditioned to shut down whenever adversity or tough challenges cross her path. I feel for the kids who don't have a parent or guardian seriously setting the expectations for success. It can't be easy if you're doing it all on your own.

Does playing a instrument imbue a person with life skills?

Last night I attended my son's concert. Robert, who is in the fourth grade, has really shown an aptitude for playing musical instruments, the piano and the clarinet in particular. For the last two years, we have been shuttling him to the east side of Cherry Hill where he takes lessons from an elderly woman who immigrated from Argentina back in the 60's. She learned from European masters who fled Europe when the Nazis took over. The school district has nurtured his ability with the clarinet.

I never learned how to read music, and playing an instrument with any kind of skill has always confounded me. I guess he gets it from my wife's side.

What a pleasure to see my boy, one of the few fourth graders, performing in a band of what had to be well over a hundred kids cherry picked from schools throughout the Cherry Hill district.

The band director, at one point, addressed the audience crammed with parents, grandparents, and friends of the children. He said that being part of this band will help set the students up for success in life, and I'm sure he's right. These children understand the importance of teamwork, persistence, and hard work. It warmed my heart to see my son as part of such a talented group of kids.

Maturity and High School Students

As I guide my sophomores through the picaresque Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I have decided to focus on how Huck comes of age, and puts away childish things especially after he insults his friend Jim's intelligence with a puerile prank during the fog/trash separartion time. Huck knows that he has really annoyed Jim, and the little voice inside his head tells him to apologize, an action almost unthinkable back then because most whites would never condescend to say sorry to a black man, and a slave no less.
The students are to write an essay in which they define maturity and immaturity, giving specific examples that illustrate each. They then need to explain how they classify themselves on the maturity scale. Do adults, teachers, and other students deem them to be more mature or immature, and vice-versa.

Here is some of my brainstorming:

Signs of immaturity are as follows and most of them resemble behaviors of toddlers:

• Exhibiting very little sense of responsibility.


• Failure to empathize with others.


• Playing and goofing around when it's completely inappropriate.


• Losing one's temper over stupid stuff.

Improvisation and Teaching

OK. I'll let it out. I've been a Sunday School teacher for 5th graders for the last five years. It is an amazing job that happens from 9AM to Noon, and I get to teach bible and ethics to the young 'uns.

A wrench was thrown into the gears of my lesson plan today, and I had to think fast. Every Sunday, I show a custom made PowerPoint to help illustrate the story line and main ideas in various bible stories. Increasingly, I augment what I do with cool stuff and video streaming that I pull from the Internet. Guess what happened!

The school director had to commandeer the projector for a guest speaker and she hadn't told me. Down the drain went my carefully constructed lesson! Instead of gnashing my teeth or shutting down, I used this as an opportunity. Instead of relying of visual stuff, I decided to go the audio way. Since it's a Jewish school and Hebrew instruction is vital, I went to Youtube and streamed Hebrew versions of songs from The Lion King, Alladin, and the Little Mermaid. Since the kids new the English versions so well, they were able to zone in on familiar Hebrew words and translate them. IT WAS A BLAST!!!! REAL and ENTHUSIASTIC LEARNING WENT ON.

Time to Breathe Again

We'll the play is over, and after the props are put in storage and the set gets broken down, it will be a memory. About one hundred and fifty of us worked so hard to give this fascinating play life. I am so, so, so very proud of our students who performed. Getting on stage takes guts, a little insanity, and buckets of dedication.

Working with Ms. Triplo is extraordinary and I am in awe of the woman's ability to connect with students, organize the show, and inspire. I admire most her ability to keep it positive, along with her compassion and caring.

Now that the curtain has closed for the final time on what people are saying was the BEST show to grace the stage of LHS, I can finally breathe and decompress (and plan for the next show!) What am I going to do with all the extra time?

Becoming My Own Best Teacher

The best kind of learning happens when a person becomes his or her own best teacher. Since yesterday, I've been teaching myself how to use Microsoft Publisher and I'm having a blast with it. Yes, I am doing it for a reason. Ms. Triplo asked if I could design the playbill for the upcoming show, My Fair Lady.

Certainly, I could take a Publisher class sponsored by Camden County College and spend hundreds of dollars. Likewise, I could sit around and wait for someone to tutor me, but that's not the way to go. Teaching myself is so much more fun. Last night, I dug into the program and started really moving with the playbill. When I looked up, two hours had passed - just like a time machine!

I'm not going into this blind. I've commandeered a playbill that I grabbed from Cherry Hill West's production of Bye Bye Birdie. I'll look at the layout and ask myself, "How did they do that?" Through trial and error, I'll get it.

Sexting

As teachers, we have to deal with lots of stuff that hinders student learning. I got into this profession knowing that classrooms were awash with raging hormones, reluctant readers, ADD, ADHD, rampant immaturity, depression, distractions galore - you name it. Today in the Courier, I learned about a new and insidious force that can derail students' learning and cause terrible harm - "sexting." I'm certainly aware of cyberbullying, through texting, but I had no idea that kids frequently send explicit pictures of each other, not realizing that this is a serious and punishable offense. It's so sad, and the process starts with kids not thinking.

I have all the more reason to confiscate cell phones.

http://southjersey.momslikeme.com/members/JournalActions.aspx?g=437469&m=4080991

Electricity Keeps Us Alive! -

We're lucky to have a dad who's a cardiologist in my sons cub scout den. During today's field trip, Dr Drachman taught the boys, the other dads, and me a thing or two about the human heart. He showed us his Echo Cardio Machine, which is really something like an ultrasound for the heart. He wired one dad up and we saw his four chambered heart, a foggy, ghostly looking thing on the screen, pumping away, the valves flapping with the regularity of a clock.

I had a couple of epiphanies. For one, it hit me how much human beings and refrigerators have in common. Electricity powers both our hearts and refrigerator motors. Take away the electric current and what happens? We die and the food rots. Most miraculous is how our bodies generate their own electrical currents. Artificial hearts are powered by a battery that has much in common with the one that powers a car!

I thought of the movie Frankenstein and how the doctor shrieked, "It's alive! It's alive!" as a corpse began to breath and move after being jolted by harnessed lightning.

I thought about the theory that life started on Earth billions of years ago after lightning licked an inorganic, primordial cesspool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H3dFh6GA-A

BROADWAY - A WICKEDLY GOOD TIME!

If I were rich, I would make a point of seeing as many Broadway shows as humanly possible. I wouldn't think twice about paying $150 for a great ticket, and if I wanted to, I would see the same show over and over again.

Wicked, one of the best things on Broadway, has been playing at the Gershwin Theater for about five years or so. Yesterday, we took a busload of LHS students to see a show they will never forget. Never before have I seen such a talented cast create such magnificence on stage. Never before have I seen lighting become such a magical entity, complementing a show about what happened before Dorothy's house fell on the Wicked Witch of the East.

We had a fantastic time meandering around Times Square before the show. Several of the kids encountered the Naked Cowboy. If you want to know more, then you need to ask them!

Most exhilarating for me was to see Nicole Parker, an actress/comediene I've long admired from Mad TV, star as the green Elphaba.





Nicole Parker
(signing autographs)
and yours truly - feeling the magic!

Doc Gibbs Visits L.H.S.

"He listens well who takes notes." Dante Aligheri

I took notes during an awesome assembly featuring Doc Gibbs and his talented percussionist ensemble. These fine musicians from Philly gave us a sampling of various African instruments, the likes of which I had never encountered. Some sounded eerily electronic, but they weren't. No special effects or fancy digital mixing here!

Doc Gibbs - Percussionist Extraordinaire

I was most impressed by the instruments that sounded like dogs barking and monkeys chattering. Another instrument, called "the rain stick" sounded just like puddles being pelted by thousands of rain drops.

One notable instrument called the kalimba was likened to a Gameboy by Doc Gibbs. He at first called it a hand piano played by the thumbs, then mentioned that it is often used by travelers who need something to do as they hike from village to village.

Kalimba - The "Hand Piano" - I want one!

I enjoyed the improvised "Trip to Lindenwold" arrangement. The four musicians wove wonderful sounds together using panderos (Brazilian skin drums), the Ghanana gankoqui, spring drums and a host of other lively instruments, many of which were gourds covered with beads.

My Students - The Rappers!

Part of the plan for my Julius Caesar unit required that my ENG 10 students realize that there is a musicality in Shakespeare's work that resembles so much of what goes into hip-hop music. Shakespeare's plays bristle with puns, irony, tricky word play, playful and acrobatic language, metaphors, the works! One final project option required that the students, by collaborating or working individually, create a poem or rap that interprets an incident or a plot line from the play. The final product needed to use rhymed or unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Over the long President's Day weekend, three students worked magic. John Suppa, Booshon Warrington, and Kyle Thompson composed and performed a rap that blew me away. It is a hip-hop version of Antony's eulogy for Caesar. They killed it (no pun intended) , and I had to share it with my wife and father, both of whom were deeply impressed.

It makes me so proud to have my students do something that I could never do, to exceed my expectations through sheer creativity and persistence, to come up with something so original that it garners praise from strangers.

If you want the MP3, just email me and I'll be happy to share.

Wisdom From Criminal Minds

I don't watch a lot of TV because I'm too lazy to hunt through the infinite number of channels to find something worthwhile, but every now and then the "boob tube" (this archaic term for a TV dates me) throws something wise my way and it sticks to my brain.

As Criminal Minds began last night, one of the characters quoted Einstein: "I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn."

Heavens knows I remember so little of my high school lessons from back in the early Eighties, but I do remember the teachers who turned me on to knowledge. Mr. Pratt, Mrs. Fish, Mr. Wray, and Mr. Brooks made me feel comfortable and inquisitive. Of course teachers need to be well prepared and lesson plans need to be rigorous and relevant, but Einstein states that really effective teaching transcends this stuff. It corresponds with my mantra that I want my students to become their own best teachers.

I hope my students attack their research paper topics with real zeal, and become our resident experts about whatever they chose to study for the next month or so.

The Start of Research Papers

Today, students of the Senior Project Seminar, you will officially start your research papers. I want you to enjoy the process instead of it feeling like root canal. The premise is simple - prove something about your project's topic and make sure the subject is not too broad nor too narrow. The final paper will be six pages long and, you guessed it, Times New Roman, 12 point, double spaced font with one inch borders all around.

First thing's first. You need a thesis that will guide your research. How does one find a great thesis? Let's say we have a friend named Fred, who has a project focused on culinary arts. He just can't say, "I'm going to prove something about restaurants." The subject needs to be narrower.

Let's try him saying, "I'm going to write about Mexican restaurants," because he likes eating and preparing Mexican food, and he has visited most of the Mexican restaurants in the area. Alas, this is no good because this isn't a statement proving anything.

Suppose after more thinking, Fred recalls a magazine article he read about how Mexican restaurants started exploding onto the American scene in the 1980's. On his way to school he watches how a new Mexican restaurant is being built where a Pizza Hut once stood. Now we're onto something as he refines his thesis as follows: Mexican cuisine has become immensely popular in the United States for a variety of reasons. Fred is not sure why this is the case, but he is absolutely determined to figure out the reasons. If Fred can find more evidence - from both primary and secondary sources - to back up this claim, then he has a live one!

STUDENTS OF SENIOR PROJECT SEMINAR, YOUR TASK IS TO FIND A WORKABLE THESIS BY MONDAY'S CLASS TIME. YOU WILL PRESENT YOUR THESIS DURING OUR CIRCLE TIME. - A strong, workable thesis will be worth 20 points.

How do you know if your thesis is a good one?

- It must be neither too broad nor too narrow.

- It must be provable.

- You must be able to provide a few articles from reliable sources that back up your thesis (newspapers, magazines, trustworthy websites, etc.)

Check out an excellent web site that we will visit regularly during the process. It does a nice job defining a thesis.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/545/01/

If you have questions, ask, ask, ask.

And of course, the fascinating stuff you find about your project could be fodder for blogs:)

Start Blogging Today!

Esteemed colleagues:
Thank you for attending our presentation about blogging.

Here are three great reasons for teachers to start blogging:

1. Blogging allows us to effortlessly create our own web site, easily visited by students and staff.

2. Blogging complements and enhances the learning community you already have in the classroom.

3. Blogging enables us to model constructive, proper digital communication for students.

4. You can archive and share great articles and information that get you fired up! The following got me thinking:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/books/06games.html?ref=books

HERE'S HOW TO GET STARTED. IT TAKES LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES TO START YOUR BLOG. JUST CLICK THE LINK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnploFsS_tY

Finally, here's food for thought if you're thinking of the legal ramifications of what you put on the web. http://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal

And of course, students need to be told and retold that blogging is a public forum and they need to be mindful about posting images that could haunt them years from now. They also need to know that displaying private information is a big no-no.

Flip the Switch and Just Do It!

Everyone needs to look up to someone, even adults like me. My rabbi is incredibly erudite, articulate, and compassionate, and I admire him tremendously. Much of what he says makes sense and his sermons rock. He wrote something in his last sermon that's been on my mind lately:

A study was done not too long ago on the effectiveness of self-help groups. There are so many around and they have so many participants, but do they work? The answer: Sometimes. Who do they really help?

Participants in the survey of self-help groups essentially broke down into two distinct groups - Those who, after six months, said their lives had been changed and those who six months later felt they were the same person they were before the course. What made the difference? The people in the first group implemented the changes that they learned in the self-help course within 36 hours of first hearing the suggestions. Those who waited longer than that felt minimal long-term change, if any.

The message seems pretty straightforward: Everyone has moments of inspiration but if the inspiration is going to make a difference you must act on it right away. This may seem impulsive, but I prefer to see it as hearing Gd's call. If your inspiration is helping to bring out the best in you, run with it. (Conversely, if your inspiration is counter-productive or hurtful, you are mislabeling it as "inspiration".)

I have a number of students who spend a lot of time thinking about how to best improve their lives, but they spend lots of time spinning their proverbial wheels. If I can somehow convince them take the initiative and just act immediately after a "light bulb moment," perhaps they will encounter success. For example, many students do their homework erratically or not at all. What approach can I take to get them to Flip the Switch, and make the permanent change for the better?

A no brainer?

Imagine a world where English teachers issue novels to students along with providing the audio book. Would this move inspire reluctant readers to follow along with the assigned chunks of reading? Would proficient readers be able to take their appreciation for literature to the next level if they pinball back and forth between reading the novel and listening to it? Or would the opposite happen?

Would kids ditch the magic of reading altogether if they could simply listen to the novel? As it is, we teachers generally agree that kids dump too many hours into TV watching and cruising the Internet. Reading well is a key component to being successful in college and beyond, and I cringe at the idea of kids "taking the easy way out," simply listening to the book instead of grappling with nuances and intricacies of the on paper (or on a screen). Ms. Ryan has a great sign on her door that says , "READERS ARE LEADERS," and it is so true. Look at President Obama! Look at our scientists, intellectuals, and movers and shakes in practically every field! Would we be dumbing down the curriculum by offering audio with every novel?

How would we teachers help students deal with reading passages on the SAT and HSPA if kids were fed a steady diet of audio?

I'm not sure if audio books would cause catastrophic harm. Here are my top eight reasons for making the audio book option more accessible:
1. Nearly every student has access to a listening device of some sort.
2. Students can multi-task if they chose, and do their English homework while cleaning or working out.
3. I have had great experiences with audio books, namely The Count of Monte Cristo and The Book Thief - two books I wouldn't have finished if I stuck to the straight text.
4. A couple kids in my class admitted that since they listened to The Kite Runner, in tandem with reading it, they liked it much more and remembered details they would have otherwise missed.
5. Kids who have never been read to properly as children can now have a skilled voice actor read great literature to them.
6. English as a Second Language learners need to hear the words properly pronounced.
7. Kids afraid of being laughed at for having a book in their hands will look cool listening to the audio book. Nobody will suspect them of preferring The Great Gatsby over Kanye's latest album.
8. Making copies of the audio book for educational use won't cost a dime.

Progress With The Seminar

Lately, as I read the newspaper (yes, I still read the newsPAPER as well as the online versions), I patrol for articles that my seminar students might find interesting. For example, Enrique is pursuing food, so I "dished-up" an food review by the Inquirer critic Craig Leban. Since fashion is Turquoise's passion, I adorned one of my comments responses with an article about Barbie and fashion from the magazine section of the paper. Other students have received articles related to civil engineering, smart prosthetics, cochlear implants, and rehabilitating our oceans. (If you are reading this blog gentle students, and you're wondering why Mr. Abrams hasn't sent you an article link, just you wait. I started doing this recently)

I haven't set a deadline for the research paper yet because, gasp, I want the students for now to get into the habit of blogging and journaling on a daily basis. Most of what they reflect about should have to do with their project theme, along with personal and professional development stuff.

For the next week, class, I want you to start concretizing a research paper topic that is narrow, but not too narrow, and provable, and I hope that deliberately looking at newspapers and magazines will "prime the pump." One article could be the beginning of several weeks of invigorating research. Save the articles in a folder - you may print them out or keep them in a SAFE digital place (U Drive). Make sure you have the author's name, the date of the article, and the name of the publication.

Hit the public libraries and our own library to find books related to your topic! Keep thinking, collecting, making the connections, and making yourselves smart!

Vocabulary that Sticks! There is no "n" between the "i" and the "c."

Vocabulary and all of its incarnations are my passion. I remember as a boy how I would flip through a thesaurus and be enchanted by all the different synonyms for different words. Why say "dog" when I could use jewels like hound, pooch, canine, mutt, cur, and bitch?

When I first started teaching, I would give my class a canned list of SAT-style vocabulary words - words which came from chipper worksheets that I dutifully copied, and I expected the students to know how to define them at the end of the week, perhaps even use them in sensible ways. Of course, I used them in context as best I could, but at the end of the week, it was "pump and dump" on the quizzes, then the words would be abandoned. They didn't stick.

Today I have the Smartboard, a magical tool that has enabled me to take vocabulary study several levels higher. First, the students find "Words in the Wild." From reading newspapers and magazines, they bring me cool, advanced words that they have never used before. Most of the time, these words would fit on any SAT study list.

Next we define the words and understand the part of speech for each words.

Now I'll tell the students to create a complex or compound sentence that clearly uses the word in context. And the kicker...

I've modeled for students how to find an online image that portrays the word.




Today, I invited students to put their fingers on the Smartboard, and smiled as they attacked the creative, open-endedness of it all. As a class we made slides that featured the word, it's definition, a great sentence featuring the word in context, and an image that conjures the word. The sky is the limit!

I like this approach because I made it up after synthesize my best practices and what I've seen other teachers do. While it probably makes more work for me- no matching or fill in's at the end of the week - I hope the students get more our of it and learn to love and use vocabulary in creative ways.

I wonder what the character "V," the word lover extraordinaire, from the movie V for Vendetta would say? Visciously vital vocabualy victoriously vaunts over other versions!

Do full moons make students and teachers nuts?

Are lunatics really influenced by lunar occurrences?

Is it an old wife's tale that some people get very agitated during the times of a full moon? Can the moon really affect our moods? As a teacher, I've really started thinking about it because we work in relatively small locations jam-packed with humanity, like few other places, and yes, there was a full moon last night like I've never seen.

Today I've noticed a palpable frenzied energy field in the hallways that didn't exist last week. Some of the kids seem much more rammy, and the loud students really shout and yell.

Should I be sensitive to the rhythms of the moon in planning my lessons?

Want to read more? Check out the link! http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=124301&page=1

IS TECHNOLOGY MAKING US DUMB AND LAZY?

Cindy wrote in her blog about how how her parents lament the fact that technology seems to spoil young people today, that somehow teens lose the ability to think when information is thrown right into their laps. As a teacher, I think about this all the time.
Yes, I remember having to get most of my knowledge from books and encyclopedias. My parents bought me a set of red covered Junior Britannicas, and I used them all through middle and high school. It took me TIME to find information. Today, I can get the answers to practically anything in seconds; an impossible amount of knowledge is a keystroke or two away.
Technology will dumb us down if we let it, I suppose. But I truly think that technology is a boon to education. My daughter who is in the 6th grade is very tech-savvy, and I know that if she were beamed back to 1979, right now, she would flourish and adapt, as many of my students would flourish.
It all boils down to work ethic and passion for education. Those students who have both, and leaven it with healthy doses of reading will always do well.

SATs and "The Top Dogs"

http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20090205/NEWS01/902050350

I just stumbled across the above article in the Courier Post. It reported that Haddonfield, Moorestown, and Cherry Hill East have the highest SATs in tri-county area. Haddonfield weighs in at 1726, and Shawnee, Medford, and Eastern are in that elite club of the top ten. So what makes a school fortunate enough to be inhabited by so many over achievers who perform well on the be-all and end-all of standardized tests? Do these schools have better educational systems? Are their curricula more rigorous? Do they have better libraries and more extraordinary technology? Are the teachers more engaging and better trained? I honestly don't think so.

Our students at Lindenwold are every bit as intelligent and dynamic as the students at Moorestown or Cherry Hill. On this note, we can't rest until we inspire our students devour their studies with a kind of religious fervor, until they all become addicted to becoming their own best teachers, and even after this happens, we can't rest.

I keep thinking of Abraham Lincoln, and how he intrinsically revered education.

Recently, I've noticed more students focused on their studies. More seem to come to class prepared. There is more focus and I see more hands going up. Does the election of President Obama have anything to do with it? Is this the stuff that fuels the SAT scores that are catnip for admissions officers? What can I do as a teacher to help equalize those SAT scores? Am I being quixotic or am I for real?

How is Shakespeare Hip Hop?

Lately, I've been thinking about how to help my ENG 10 students realize that Shakespeare's work and hip-hop are one and the same. Hip hop embodies the artistic, and usually verbal, portrayal of raw human emotions (love, hate, anger, envy, passion) into stylish songs and raps that often have contageous beats. Hip-hop also employs puns, irony, rhyme, sarcasm, paralipsis, iambic pentameter, and drama to convey messages.



I found some nice clips from Youtube that back up my contention.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec_pDV07pQg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H2htG2bv20&feature=related

I don't mean to mar my blog with a direct quote from Wikepedia, but here goes:
Origin of the term of Hip Hop
Coinage of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, a rapper with Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five.[3] Though Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap, it is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers.[3] Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly copied by other artists; for example the opening of the song "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang.

************************************************************

I hear big-time iambs in the following sequence of words:

hip/hop/hip/hop/hip/hop/hip/hop/hip/hop


Wait a second! Did I just write some iambic pentameter? Time to replace those hips and hops!