South of Here

The last period of the day is always a bit...strange. I'm not sure what it is.

"Where are you from? You sound 'country'."

I have no idea what sounding "country" means. I think I conveyed that more by the expression on my face than by my response. So, they tried to explain.

"Did you grow up in the South?"

That made me laugh. I grew up about 15 miles from the city where the school is located. Most of those miles are east, but since the city is southeast of where we were, I had a good comeback.

"I did grow up south of here."

Bizarre Conspiracy Theory

As I was plotting my blogs for this week, I ran across an article on Mental Floss: "11 Creative Film Interpretations You Probably Hadn't Considered". As I chuckled, an interesting thought occurred.

What sort of weird interpretations could be gleaned from your work? 

So, not so much a "what if?" this week as a WTF.

But what I really want to know: what is the strangest interpretation you've ever come up with for a book, TV show, or movie? Or song?

Dragon's Loyalty Award

Looks like I've been given another blog award...

Thank you, Crystal Collier. I think. Although, love the dragon pic. Love dragons.

Anyway, the rules for these things tend to be similar. In this case:

1. Display the Award Certificate on your website. 
2. Link to whoever presented your award. 
3. State 7 things about yourself. 
4. Present the award to 7 deserving bloggers. 
5. Notify nominees.

Okay, so 1 & 2 done...

Finding seven things is always an interesting challenge. Did I post these before? What's going to come out of my brain today? Well, let's find out, shall we?

1. Have you seen the new pic I put up of me? I finally got around to updating my photo, but I'm not all that happy with it. But the day was hot, so it'll have to do for now. Maybe it'll be an impetus to take more pics when the weather turns cooler.
2. Okay, so pointing out the new pic isn't really something about myself, except it is me. That is, the me people see. I'm not fond of having my picture taken. That's why I avoid updating them. But I suppose that's true of most people.
3. I meant to take a new pic right after I got my hair cut, as that's when my hair looks the best, but I put this off for so long. Just as I put off my haircuts. Seriously, I've been known to go six months or longer.
4. This is due to my inability to get on the phone to make an appointment. It's a failing of mine. It can take me months. For anything. Just to get on the phone to make the appointment. (Once the appointment is made, however, I show up no problem.)
5. So, if you're expecting a phone call from me... Yeah. I'm much better via email.
6. I don't know what it is. I can hesitate before writing an email, but I'm much more likely to write and send that email than I am to pick up the phone and call.
7. I have multiple email addresses. Each for different specific tasks. And I check each of them daily.

See. I had no idea I was going there when I started out talking about my new pic. Strange where these things always seem to take me.

So, in the comments, I'd love to hear one random thing about you. (Consider yourself awarded, too.)  

What the Girls Said

The continuation high school has a school newspaper. (They have a yearbook and they hold a prom, too.) Occasionally, I get to sub the class as I did last week.

Some days they are working on articles for the school paper. But when they're kind of between issues, they get current event type assignments. This time, they had to write up a report on an article that the teacher provided.

The article was on recycling bins that could take data from smart phones to generate targeted ads to passersby. Well, that is, these data sniffing recycling bins had been disabled. (I can't get a good link to the article they were using, but the link provided gives you the gist of the story.)

It was a writing assignment, analyzing the article and picking out the pertinent information. I got the usual questions about what they needed to write. And then a girl in the back of the room had a different comment. She felt the recycling bins were wrong--they were an invasion of a person's privacy.

Then a girl two seats over disagreed. She felt that data gathering wasn't a big deal. She'd rather have people looking in an effort to keep us safe from the crazies out there. Her argument was that if you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to hide, so why should you care if people are gathering digital information on you?

In circumstances like these, I like to keep my personal views out of it and let the students debate their own viewpoints. It turned into a good discussion, with both girls making valid points. A couple other students added their thoughts, and while they should have been writing, I figured that the discussion was a good educational use of their time.

Interestingly enough, a couple boys in class got very uncomfortable with the conversation. I wasn't sure why as the girls weren't rude, only offering differing viewpoints. The girls explained to the boys that they were allowed to have a discussion, and if that sort of discussion made the boys uncomfortable, they might have issues with their future wives.

One boy claimed he'd marry a mute girl. (I pointed out that she'd probably use sign language.) Another claimed he'd never marry.

The girls eventually finished their discussion and got back to work. One of the boys asked me what significance the article had. I pointed to the two girls. "What they said."

Quiet Resistance

"Stop. She's going to write us up."

"I don't care."

Okay, that got my attention. Quiet classroom, which is why I heard the exchange. The teacher insisted that they needed to work silently, so I was enforcing that. I knew it was time to go over and investigate.

The student who didn't care had a blank paper and attitude rolling off him. The boy hadn't been loud or blatantly defiant, so I walked up to him and asked him if he needed help with the assignment. Of course not, but eventually, he made a pretense of doing some work.

For the most part the class was silent as instructed. But this boy and his neighbor couldn't just sit quietly. Eventually, they resumed a whispered conversation. Again, I made it clear I was watching them.

The boy looked at me. Waiting.

"Are you bored?" I asked.

Noncommittal response.

"Will you take the roll sheet to the office for me?"

Several students in his immediate vicinity asked him if he was in trouble. Was I kicking him out? I mean, I suppose I could have, but that just seemed like overkill to me. I thought getting him out of the room for a bit might help his attitude.

It didn't.

But, he didn't do anything (except continue a whispered conversation) that I felt the need to "punish" him for. He even managed to finish the assignment. He noticed my attention on him, however.

"Why do you keep looking at me?"

"Because you keep looking at me," I replied.

It was true. If he hadn't been looking up, he wouldn't have noticed my attention.

Ah well. Since the room was mostly silent, I consider that period a win.

Missing the Point

It was Friday at the continuation high school. They had the usual assignment--finish any unfinished work from the week. Ms. M. gave me a list of students who had work to complete. They had been reading The Crucible, and they had a packet of questions that were due.

I read the list of non-turned-in-ers to period one.

"Oh no! I turned it in!"

It took only a cursory glance through his folder for Michael to locate the packet. He immediately turned it in. A bit later, I got to glance over his assignment.

Directions: Write in complete sentences that reflect the questions.
2. What is the setting of The Crucible?
     Salem, MA in 1692
3. Why does Parris question his niece about her job with the Proctors?
     Parris wants to know why his niece was fred*.

The teacher had written "correct and return" in red at the top of the paper. She also circled "complete sentences" and "reflect the questions". So, while his answers were technically correct, they weren't put into the correct format.

Once I saw the problem, I pointed it out. "You might want to fix this."

"I don't need to."

He seemed to think Ms. M. would accept the assignment as is. After she returned it to him, telling him to fix it.

Um, okay...

*Note: "fred" is copied directly from Michael's paper. I looked for an "i" somewhere in there, but no. I'm pretty sure he meant fired, though.

Enforced Empathy?

Of course, now I can't remember where I saw this. I don't think I was actually watching TV. I must have been in the kitchen, cooking, while the Science Channel was on in the background.

The topic was the brain, I think, and mention of oxytocin came up. Something about the possibility that it was an empathy chemical. And while I didn't take away much more than that, it got me thinking (and luckily, I remembered to write this down so that I'd remember to post it).

What if there was a chemical/drug that could make someone more empathetic? How would that be used? How could that be used? Could it be used like a weapon, taking away certain "killer" instincts?