I went to a cool workshop with Jason Ohler a month or two ago. Got me really excited for the students to do a digital "documentary" using Movie Maker. No story involved, just a quick way to show they have learned something about the founding of our country and the values we hold as Americans.
We started doing the project this week. Many of the kids have gone in the usual direction, Core Democratic Values and all. Some are going off entirely in a different direction, focusing on, say, the war in the Middle East or parts of the Constitution. I had a student, though, who is focusing on Sept. 11 and then the war in the Middle East and why we are fighting there. I don't know if it was a combination of the music she used, or what, but she wasn't even done and I had to wipe away tears. She was so excited about this project that she worked on it for 4 hours at home. It's moments like that, when she's so proud of her work that she can't wait to show me, and I have a genuine moving moment, that I just LOVE teaching.
Well, that and when a student dropped his pants in class yesterday, and the other one who keeps talking about how his mom makes him take Benefiber but it's not working. Yeah. Middle school is awesome.
We started doing the project this week. Many of the kids have gone in the usual direction, Core Democratic Values and all. Some are going off entirely in a different direction, focusing on, say, the war in the Middle East or parts of the Constitution. I had a student, though, who is focusing on Sept. 11 and then the war in the Middle East and why we are fighting there. I don't know if it was a combination of the music she used, or what, but she wasn't even done and I had to wipe away tears. She was so excited about this project that she worked on it for 4 hours at home. It's moments like that, when she's so proud of her work that she can't wait to show me, and I have a genuine moving moment, that I just LOVE teaching.
Well, that and when a student dropped his pants in class yesterday, and the other one who keeps talking about how his mom makes him take Benefiber but it's not working. Yeah. Middle school is awesome.
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