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The thoughts have been rolling around in here for awhile.  Mainly, Thoreau’s “simplify” has been echoing alongside the riff of texting/blogging/twittering/facebooking/emailing/IMing that bombards my consciousness daily.  Obviouisly (in the way that this blog is growing rust) I don’t participate as much as lurk. 

This is about students.

The traditionalist teacher in me says, “Put that away and pay attention!”  But the pragmatic human that I am says, “Why?  They ARE paying attention…to what’s important to them.”

Let me throw this idea out.  Can they set the agenda?  Can they be given control to make their own path?  Perhaps, but it’s gonna be messy (the trad. teacher warns).

There are several courses currently in place here (AVID, Connections, Comm Apps) that attempts to focus their attention in new directions.  But often, the right prompts or questions are not aksed, or asked in the wrong way, and the response is never given coherent thought.  So traditional teacher gets 2 sentences, poorly written, with no point.  And the text message grows to several connected paragraphs on why traditional teacher is clueless.

I ran across a colleague who has an idea for a journal.  Old fashioned handwritten diary-type journal.  But with prompts, and ideas and a POINT…to be left for posterity.  To live beyond the moment of ‘today’s assignment’.  Check it out at www.wendysoria.com.

More later.

Browsing channels, there was a five hour program called “The Great Debate” with popular celbrities “debating” interesting topics.  I didn’t see it, just caught the information blurb.  I’ve got to see if I can find it and use it.

I manage 4 different email accounts, track many blogs (as you can see from my blogroll), teach 3 college courses and spend as much time as I can with my granddaughters.  I have found the time this summer to read two books (one for fun), worked diligently in the backyard under the benevolent dictatorship of my wife and found the time to exercise.  I have tutored in chemistry and mentored several colleagues on their roads to advanced degrees.

Last summer, I had many plans and got to about 1/2 of them.  This summer, I had few plans, but it seems like I have been busy every day.  REAL teachers make use of the time.  I hope, like Kipling wrote, that I “fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds’ worth of distance run…”