A Picture Tells Half the Story...

Yesterday I walked through the senior hallway on my way to my Project Adventure class when a senior asked me if I was coming to tonight's basketball game.  I am not a big fan of Friday activity, as I am usually largely vegetable matter by that time, but I thought that I should go.

As fate would have it, Karyl was at school shooting swimming pictures as so I was able to borrow the school camera for the basketball game.  This was a great help, as my old Nikon D1x isn't up to the job on indoor basketball pictures.  So for three and a half quarters I took pictures.

We were playing Edison High School from the Minneapolis School District.  With all my twisted racial ideas, I assumed that an inner city team of African American boys would absolutely bound our team.  It turns out that we won 64-36, and it was never that close.  Shame on me for my assumptions.  And while we are in the "Shame on" department, I would like to nominate the head coach of Edison.  He came to the game dressed in blue jeans and a sweater.  Really?  Is that the message you want to send to your players - it was either go out for pizza or come to the game.  I don't know what I am writing about, but I don't get the feeling that the coach had very high expectations of his players.  I was very disappointed.

In fairness to Edison, our team also has some work to do.  Our senior guards don't think very much of our sophomore forwards and they don't share the ball very well.  Come on seniors, time to step up and lead and not go "every man for himself".  We can do better than that.

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I am reading a Donald Graves book on writing for a class I am about to begin on the teaching of writing.  Mr. Graves writes on page 40 that, "Writing is one of the best ways to remember something."  I think this is true for those of us who feel the pull of the written word, but I am not so sure that everyone feels the same tug to try and figure out what the heck is going on by racing to his/her blog or journal and having at it.  I don't know.  This is worthy of conversation and exploration with my students.

I will say that I was greatly embarrassed by one of the exercises in this book (A Fresh Look at Writing).  On a piece of paper I was to list all the kids in my class, and then next to their names write something I know about each student.  First, can I list all the students in my class or who are the quiet kids that are just off my radar?  Secondly, I hardly know anything about any of them.  That is terrible, and that is about to change.

More later...