Posted on

Tumble. Polish. Shine. Repeat. Any questions?

ThumblerTumbler-1Many patterns in teaching and learning emerge over time. The pattern of knowing what you don’t know is one of those long-term, polishing-a-rock patterns.  Every time you, my students, take a test, write a paper, talk about a book you’ve read, or create reasons why you didn’t, you give me answers. You answer questions such as, “does she understand how to generalize?” “Does he know what this word means?” “How can I help them understand an abstract concept such as making an inference?” And the time-honored, “?” written on a test or quiz. Even knowing when you don’t know something is helpful to me, so I can help you.

I just finished reviewing your latest reading assessment. Here’s what I know now: Most of you know more than you think you do, but you’re still struggling on how to express it. Also, many of you  need help working on big ideas, such as “what does it mean to generalize information?” or “is this a reasonable conclusion?” I guess many adults are not asked to perform such higher level thinking as we demand of eighth grade kids.  You are little diamonds in the rough, my gems, and let’s bring out your best! It’ll take some time, but teaching is truly a patient, faithful process…I need to believe that if you don’t get it now, someday you will. Otherwise both of us will be ground down for not much but some fool’s gold. Your knowledge and education is your mental gold, and you want the most ka-ching!! as possible. It’s worth it to put forth your best effort, and have faith in yourself, too, and patience.

These are your gems of wisodom for today.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Posted on

Holy da Vinci, Batman!

 

 From The Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the birthday of the comic-book author Bob Kane, (books by this author) born in the Bronx (1916), who was working at DC Comics in 1939 when his editors began asking for more superhero characters to follow up on the success of Superman. Kane thought about it over the weekend, and on Monday morning he turned in some sketches of a character he called Batman. The character made his debut in DC Comics number 27, “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate,” in May of 1939. He is alter ego of multimillionaire Bruce Wayne and one of the few superheroes in the history of comic books who doesn’t have any special powers. He’s just rich enough to build himself special crime-fighting gadgets. Kane said he based the character partly on Zorro, because he liked the idea of a fashionable rich guy dressing up as a vigilante at night to fight crime. He got the idea for Batman’s costume from a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci of a bat-winged flying machine.

So, burning question:

Your faced with a creative challenge. What do you do? What resources will you draw from, (literally, if you’re an artist, or figuratively, if you’re tangling another sort of task)? Did you ever imagine that Bob Kane would use the genius of a 420-year dead guy to inspire him? Happens all the time.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email