Lots of people have posted about this amazing fifth grader, Dalton Sherman. Take the time to watch this 9 minute video if you haven’t seen it yet. The speaker is a fifth grader who is talking to an auditorium full of teachers explaining to them why he needs them.
I have just found a link to some more information about Dalton. You can access it here.
What do you think of this?
Little League Pitcher Banned From Playing Because He’s Too Good
This comment comes from Successful Teaching:
This boy is nine years old and his fastball can go as fast at 40 mph. When he took the mound the other week, the opposing team forfeited and left the game. The league told the coach that this boy could not pitch any more. Imagine not allowing a child to play a game because he is too good? That is what is wrong with America right now. We are holding back children who are too good in whatever they are good at but other countries are pushing their children to be the best at extremely young ages. Look at the controversy over the age of the Chinese gymnasts. They push their children at a very young age to pursue excellence. Yet, we tell this boy he can’t play with children his own age because he is too good. Then of course he can’t play with children who are older than him because he doesn’t meet the age requirements. What will happen to this boy? Do we let his talent fall to the wayside?
Let me know what you think!
I found this through some Diigo bookmarks and was wondering what you think of these definitions! What would you add as your own definition of ‘being poor’?
Being Poor
Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.
Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends’ houses but never has friends over to yours.
Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.
Being poor is off-brand toys.
Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.
Being poor is knowing you can’t leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.
Being poor is hoping your kids don’t have a growth spurt.
Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn’t have make dinner tonight because you’re not hungry anyway.
Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.
Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.
Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.
Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.
Being poor is your kid’s teacher assuming you don’t have any books in your home.
Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.
Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.
Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn’t bought first.
Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.
Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won’t listen to you beg them against doing so.
Being poor is a cough that doesn’t go away.
Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.
Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.
Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.
Being poor is seeing how few options you have.
You can read them all here - Whatever: Being Poor. There are a lot more definitions in the comments to this blog post.
Many people are blogging about this video and website. This comes from Andrew Churches.
This is a great video, a great message, a great site and a great cause.
The Message is simple, its honest and its clear. Take care of the girls in the villages, provide them with an education, support them rather than abuse them or treat them a property, and…… many of the worlds problems will disappear. Don’t waste the talent, the potential.
Visit The Girl Effect website
I’d love to hear your comments on this important issue!
Graffiti around the country has been getting worse over the last couple of years and recently there has been a boy stabbed because he was tagging on somebodies fence and the owner came out and stabbed him. Although i think we would be able decrease the amount of tagging on locals property by putting up a wall in each town or city or place for people to just come along with a spray can and express their feelings by scribbling and tagging on the wall. If the wall gets too full they can just paint over it all instead of finding somewhere else to tag thus decreasing the amount of tagging on public property around New Zealand but that’s only my opinion and id like to hear what you think about this problem.
I’ve just come across Youth Twitter which may interest some of you - we may also be able to make use of it at school. It is not the same as Twitter but does give the same sort of community conversation and you are not restricted to 140 characters. Maybe someone in the class could check it out for us and let us know if it is worth pursuing further.
Join us! We’re a safe, school-based twitter-like blogging network for students.
After reading a blog post from think:lab by Christian re The “Robin Hood” Debate, I decided to try it with my class. Rather than summarise what they thought I’m going to leave it to them to add their comments on what they thought of the actions of each of the characters. Although we didn’t spend a huge amount of time in class debating the morality of each characters actions, many students left the room still arguing debating their personal choices.
You just have to take a look at this, from think:lab by Christian
The first which caught my eye is entitled “World Clock”. What does it do? The best answer I can offer is “check it out for yourself…and let your teacher/student imagination run wild”; the other answer I can offer for those short on time/imagination is that it keeps a up-to-the-moment tally on some wild stats that define the human experience in ‘clock’ style. Tick, tick, tick…
This is amazing - just sit and watch the changes!
You think 25:5=5? think again…
Comments?
I’ve had this post sitting as a draft for some time now but have decided it may be a good conversation starter for some of the group work you are going to be doing this term.
This post from Julie Lindsay is just what I wanted to start this conversation about digital natives.
She accepts change and new tools without hesitation. She uses a variety of hardware and software including online places with confidence. She can be doing homework, IMing and listening to music (iPod) at the same time. (yes, I know some studies show this is not true, that in fact multitasking does not exist however the ability to sequence events at a fast rate is essentially what is happening here). She is interested in the online world and participates in online interactions and wants to join SecondLife (!!!). She wants a new laptop (a tablet PC, no less), she wants a digital camera, she wants a playstation (mean mother will not buy a playstation…maybe a PSP is the way to go?)
How different life is for my daughter to when I was 13! How different will life be for her daughter? We can only surmise, but I do know that as a digital native and as a third culture kid and a global citizen she is developing and fostering the ability to use technology sensibly for communication and interaction with others as well as for learning about the world as it continues to evolve.
What do you think the future holds for you, for your children? Let’s see if we can get a comment from everyone in the class!
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