Religious Good Humor and Science Fair Fun

(i wrote this yesterday and am just getting around to finishing and posting it now...)

As I walked home from the metro today, I passed the Good Humor ice cream truck. Yeah! Ice cream truck! Quaint...Happy... Nice. Wait a minute. What's that that the truck is playing? It's not Twinkle Twinkle Little Star; it's not All Around the Mulberry Bush... Why, it's ... What Child is This? !!! Yes, I'm referring to the Christmas song about Jesus, the manger, the whole nine yards. Crazy, huh? Maybe it's not. Maybe this is done all the time, and I just didn't know about it. But it was the first religious ice cream truck I'd seen, (Nevermind that Christmas is seven months away) so I wanted to share the news. My neighborhood is about 49% African-American, 49% Hispanic, and a handful of us who glow at night. There are a lot of Christian bumper stickers on the residents' cars and it's not uncommon to hear gospel music leaking from nearby homes. Perhaps the Good Humor driver took note of these details and changed his soundtrack to better connect with his audience. This man is brilliant. He was selling ice cream like no one's business today, and it was just a few overcast minutes from pouring rain. Quite impressive.

Not related...

I spent most of my day today judging 40-some projects at an elementary school science fair. This really is not part of my job, but I offered to do it because I really like the teachers at this school, and I wanted to help them out. Takeaway thoughts of the day:

While teaching next year, I will do anything and everything in my power to develop in my students two abilities:

1.) Critical thinking skills
I want my students to challenge everything. (Including me, and I'm sure they will.) I've noticed that so many ideas become engrained in our minds just because we hear them over and over. (I know this isn't rocket science, but I'm going somewhere with this.) For a lot of these students, those repeated messages are that they're stupid, incapable, underprivileged, lacking the connections or wealth to get anywhere, etc. etc. In addition to the often blamed media sources, these messages also come from their own parents, teachers, neighbors, and friends. These things are often said without ill will, but instead in the tone of 'that's just the way things are.' I want to teach every student I have to question everything they are told and arrive at their own conclusions. I'm actually falling asleep at my keyboard right now, so I'll have to find another time to post about the science fair projects that reinforced my plan to make this a VERY focal point of my classroom.

2.) Presentation and public speaking skills
I talked to a lot of kids who had impressive projects but sorely lacked presentation skills, and I talked to a handful who had projects that were average at best but had incredible presence and speaking skills. They earned roughly the same scores. If I have anything to say about it and my curriculum isn't hyper-structured FOR me, I want my students doing A LOT of presentations and speeches.

Ok. I'm exhausted, and I'm going to bed now. Sorry if this post was disjointed or boring. I'm too tired to sleepy to focus, but I wanted to post those two areas of intended emphasis, so I can look back through my blog in a few months and see how I'm doing in the actual classroom.

Goodnight!