La Vie des Animaux selon des Hommes (a.k.a. The Life of Animals, as interpreted by Humans):
It's fun, it's fluffy, it'll at least make you chuckle. At least I chuckled. You can even LOL if you'd like.
Awesome Video of the Week, Vol. 2
Time lapse of slime molds and various mushrooms growing:
Slime molds are crazy organisms. They live animal-like lives for much of the time, but will eventually "settle down" when it's mated (if you can even call it that) and then release spores as if they were fungi. Some experts have argued that slime molds should be their own kingdom since they are so unique.
It's a good illustration of how science is a construct of our own species. We do our best to make observations and organize the universe into distinct categories. Sometimes, however, there are things that don't fit cleanly into our categories. These often lead to debates between groups of scientists, who eventually reach a general consensus based upon the best information available. Often when new information is discovered, we learn we had it backwards or even find out we really had no clue what was going on in the first place. All of which is OK, since it's all progress. 🙂
Metaphor(s) for our System
In sifting through my feeds the other day, I came across this advertisement (91 seconds long):
The Metaphors
#1) The so-called experts (teachers, doctors, psychologists, etc.) immediately treat the student with a pathological mindset. Their first thoughts when they don't understand are, "What's wrong with him?" How often do we do this to students? Often there's nothing wrong. Our students often think in ways that are foreign to us. How often do we as educators tell students who think outside our realm of experience that they're doing it wrong?
#2) In the ad, the powers that be allow the student to continue working, but how many of us would tell a student to stop and start doing things "correctly." How often do we stifle creativity in our students without truly realizing it?
#3) The boy in the ad was thinking about three levels above any of his students, yet wasn't receiving much support in his endeavors. Do our schools allow our most gifted students to explore, experiment, and push themselves to their own zones of proximal development?
Of course, the student could've explained his idea, and the ad would've been over 80 seconds earlier. 😉
"Fun Facts"
I've taken to adding in "fun facts" to my class. I'm not sure if I got this idea from Dan Meyer in the first place, or if I stumbled upon it independently and then had my habit reinforced by his enthusiasm for a little fun unbound from the "standard" curriculum. They
Pro-crast-i-na-tion: I've seen all of my students do one of these at some point. I've done most, especially the "imaginary computer games with your furniture."
Kung Fu Bear : I used it as a pep talk for my students while they were working on a presentation project. When you go to the zoo to see a bear, it's pretty impressive. Bears usually are just lying around at the zoo, so it doesn't take long to get over the impressiveness and move on. However, this bear decided he was going to take his game to the next level (here's when I started the video). He wanted people to sit up and pay attention to him. People come from all over to see Kung-Fu Bear. People will watch him for hours. He's mastered his game. I then told students I didn't want their presentations to just meet the bare (hardee-har-har) minimums. Don't just be a lazy bear. Be a Kung-Fu Bear!
21 Accents: Some classes loved it, others hated it. I was badgered by one class to play it multiple times spanning through the end of that week. In another class, I was asked to turn it off about 15 seconds in and never play it again. It's amazing how different the personalities of my classes are this year.
I Love the World (The Earth is Just Awesome): I posted on this earlier. The class that hated the 21 Accents video loved this one. Wonder if there's some psychological reasoning behind that...hmm... My other classes enjoyed it, but didn't constantly demand to see it over and over and over and over...
666: I got the information for this from a RadioLab show (RadioLab totally blows my mind). Want to grab every student's undivided attention in a class (yep, even the ones who haven't earned a single credit since 3rd grade)? Throw up a 5 ft. x 5 ft. 666 on your projection screen- the room will almost assuredly fall eerily quiet. Here's the story I told 'em about their favorite numbers: It turns out the oldest known manuscript of the book of Revelations says the "number of the beast" is actually 616. Interestingly enough, this is the area code for much of west Michigan (where I spent my undergrad years). I've embedded the section of the show below where it tells the full story. Or you can visit the RadioLab episode site.
I'll try to update you with more good finds as I come across them.
The best commercial evar
This commercial gives me goosebumps. I think it sums up my thoughts on the world quite succinctly: "The World is Just Awesome."
My favorite parts: "I love hot magma!" (0:44) and of course you can't go wrong with Stephen Hawking actually singing along (0:53)! Now only if it had Neil deGrasse Tyson (my favorite astrophysicist)...
