Latest Song Crush...

This may come as a shock to a lot of people, but I have a real love of geek and gamer culture.  In the past, I might not have always been able to be so open about that given the perception about games and those that play them.  I'm always encouraged when I see, or hear in this case, talented and passionate people breathing new life into something that enjoy so much.

Today's example comes courtesy of James Landino (SoundCloud here) who put together this phenomenal remix from one of my all-time favorite franchises.

Enjoy!

~Mr.T

I know... I did it again...

Let's just get the apology out of the way:  I am terrible at making this a thing of permanence.  Once again, I find myself in the position of needing to get back into the habit.  However, I'd like to think that I'm in good company on this one.

I mean... it's Batman for crying out loud.  If I've learnt anything from the impeccable performance of Michael Caine, it's that I need to keep going and push forward.  Starting today.

I won't bother trying to give a recap since my last update.  Suffice it to say, that we are still here, and for middle school that should be an accomplishment far more than people might realize.  In any case, I've been spending a good deal of time looking for things that I can do to add a little bit of energy into my daily routine, or to give my students some of those moments that they'll look back on and maybe laugh about when they're older.  That is my hope.

Teachers are pretty adept at looking around for new ideas.  This can sometimes be a bit of a two-edged sword, though.  In the past, I've felt free to approach a colleague and ask for a few resources only to end up with a huge stack of manuals and binders that I know that I won't have the time (or the desire) to go through.  Don't get me wrong here... I've always appreciated the help, but my time is finite and it can be immensely difficult to look at curriculum through the eyes of another teacher.  What this usually leaves me feeling is that I need to spend the time to create resources for my own use.  There is undoubtedly still a time factor here, but at least I will know what it is that I'm creating.

From time to time, I get lucky and I'll see something that just gets me excited.  This was the case a few weeks ago when I came across a segment from Jimmy Fallon.  The premise was simple: give 7-year-olds the title of a film and They wouldn't be told what it was about.  Once they had that, they would simply need to write a scene.  I've included the clip below... it's so good.

Once I had the idea, all I needed was a collection of titles that, in my opinion, would be relatively unknown amongst my students.  Students were divided into pairs, and they selected a random title from a list that I had put together, which included gems like "The King's Speech," "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," and "My Neighbour, Totoro."  Students were given time to write a two-person dialogue and then all scripts were turned in.  As one final step to increase the potential humour, I handed out scenes to random groups and gave them a few minutes to prepare before they would be read out in front of the class.  I have to say that our collective response was a lot like what was in the video above.  We had a blast and we all left feeling more energized then we had in a while.

It's good to be back.  More to come...

~Mr. T