YouTube Music

It was Thursday. We were watching CNN 10. They did a story on the sun's eleven year solar cycle (as we're reaching a busy time, solar-wise). 

And suddenly I thought of a song. 

I'm sure you know that you can find just about any song on YouTube. The students like to play their favorite songs when they have free computer time. I've discussed this before. 

As the story played out for the students to watch, I started humming this song to myself. And I realized that I just had to play it for them. I just had to. 

After we finished the day's video, we discussed what we saw. Mostly that's me asking, "What did they talk about?" and the students repeating something like, "The sun". 

(I'd welcome longer conversations, and with the news lately, I do go a bit more in depth on things. But they don't really understand nuances, so things stay fairly surface, and we can't really get into deep discussions.) 

So, this time, instead of talking too much about the sun, I pulled up the song and played it for them. 

I enjoyed it more than they did. But I enjoyed it a whole lot. (Jennifer was not amused.)

Not Stupid

I was back at the continuation high school today.  English class.  4th period was journalism.

The assignment was to read through a student news magazine, and then they were to answer questions on the back cover.  I've done this with them before, so I knew the drill.

I had seven students in class.

We read through the short news stories at the front.  Emily had not heard about the oil spill.  Then we read through the short articles in the back.  Everyone knew about the upcoming Karate Kid remake.

Then we got to the Debate article on the new Arizona immigration law.  I read through the article (it was my turn to read), and then we discussed.  The discussion ended up becoming a debate with good questions asked.  Emily wasn't sure what the big deal was, and her classmates tried to explain (I jumped in to help as well).

After we had exhausted the topic, Emily observed that the school could use a debate team.  Her friend replied that the school wouldn't because "they" thought the students were stupid.

I said that no one thought that the students at the school were stupid.  Just unmotivated.  I can't recall what words I used, but I phrased it nicely.  The girls boiled it down.  Most of the students just don't care.

See, not stupid.  They're perfectly aware of what got them to the continuation high school in the first place.

Then the girls realized that no one would join a debate team, and trying to get one started could be a waste of time.  That's when we moved on to the cover story of the magazine, and soon the period was over.

A Related Story

Yesterday I went on a yarn run. I have a few projects in the idea stage, and they can't go any further until I have the yarn. So, out I went.

On the way to the store the radio broke in with news that Michael Jackson had been rushed to the hospital. On the way from the yarn store to Trader Joe's the radio announced his death. Everyone in Trader Joe's had gotten the news by the time I got there.

My first thought? I remembered the day that I subbed for the middle school choir over a month ago. Every subbing day I keep an eye and an ear out for a good story for the blog. Some days this is harder than others. Some days I have more than one good story. On this day the following was my other contender for the day.

The teacher left me a stack of DVDs to keep the class entertained. As usual, I was given the task of choosing, and as usual, I delegated this to the classes. (Most of the time I don't care what they watch so long as it's appropriate, and they're usually much more attentive if they choose the DVD.) One period picked Mulan. Another picked a different movie (I can't recall which one now). Fourth period picked Michael Jackson's HIStory. I was shocked. I thought that that was the last one any class would pick.

But, I let them pick, so I put it in.

Apparently, they had watched this before. And enjoyed it. These were 7th and 8th graders. They usually spend their time listening to more current music, so I was surprised that they knew who Michael Jackson was.

The next thing that surprised me was that they were singing along with the DVD. At first I couldn't figure out why the closed captioning was on, but then I realized that with the captioning they know the lyrics. If this had been another class, I would have been more concerned, but it was a choir class, so they should be singing.

We skipped around a bit. They liked "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Smooth Criminal". They had not had a chance to see all of "Thriller" before, so they got their chance this day. For a medley done at an MTV awards, half the class begged me to skip it while the other half wanted to see it. We watched it.

At one point I gleefully informed the class that a song ("Billie Jean") was popular when I was their age. I love messing with their minds. I don't know if they processed it.

Then the period was over and they went on their way. And yesterday I couldn't help but think of them. I wonder how they took the news.