Category Archives: Teaching Moment

Apr 24 2012
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Simply Jason, Teaching Moment Quote

EARTH

If this little world tonight
Suddenly should fall through space
In a hissing headlong flight,
Shrivelling from off its face,
As it falls into the sun,
In an instant every trace
Of the little crawling things -
Ants, philosophers, and lice,
Cattle, cockroaches, and kings,
Beggars, millionaires, and mice,
Men and maggots all as one
As it falls into the sun….
Who can say but at the same
Instant from some planet far
A child may watch us and exclaim:
“See the pretty shooting star!”

-Oliver Herford

In the end, we are as nothing… Men and maggots together destroyed. Sobering.

If this little world tonight…

Apr 24 2012
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Classroom Tips & Quips, Simply Jason, Teaching Moment Video

4 Lessons From the Metta World Peace – James Harden Incident

Ron Artest – er, I mean, Metta World PEACE – messed up. That’s right, the man formerly known as Ron Artest – the same man who was suspended for 73 (that’s right, SEVENTY-THREE) before his therapeutic name change in 2004 – made a real jackass of himself Sunday night. (If David Stern has any kind of a backbone, World PEACE will pay a significant price for his, uh, NON-peaceful behavior.)

If you have been hiding under a rock somewhere – or simply do not keep up with the daily news cycle – you can read about the story here. Or here. Or even here.

Because life is full of teaching moments (you like that?), I figured I could a couple in here that we can pass along to our students. Well, actually 4 to be exact.

Here they are: (Feel free to watch the video below and add your own)

Here are 4 that I can think of:

  • A winning game can be overshadowed by a bad play. For our students, a great year or semester can be overshadowed by one bad decision – cheating, fighting, truancy, drunk driving, unprotected sex, etc.
  • When the whole of your life has lacked integrity, a comeback and regaining trust in a short amount of time is extremely difficult. It is still amazing to me how it takes an entire lifetime to build your reputation, only to be brought down in an instant. Even greater is when you have built a reputation, fallen and then worked to rebuild that reputation… and then fallen again (as is the case of World Peace). People are less likely to trust you.
  • People will always trust you once… twice is hard to come by. The biggest problem World Peace has going for him is his track record. Even if the hit was completely unintentional, his record speaks otherwise. Not matter what he says, what will speak loudest is his record.
  • One bad incident will outweigh a lifetime of good achievements. There is more proof of this than I can write about here, but World Peace is a great example. While he has done a great amount to attempt to rehabilitate his image since his 73 game suspension in 2004, this latest incident could be his undoing. Success and trust-building is a lifetime task.
Just some of my thoughts on this. Again, feel free to add your own.

Apr 21 2012
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Simply Jason, Teaching Moment

Bill Gates’ 11 Tips for Success

While the contents of this post are neither deep, political in nature, nor accurate (the following list is inaccurately attributed to Bill Gates) it is nevertheless filled with truth and worth repeating. And contrary to popular opinion, I do believe Bill Gates could very well have authored this list if he wanted to.

 

 

Bill Gates 11 Tips For Success You Will Never Learn In School:

1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

2: The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

3: You will NOT make $90,000 a year right out of high school.

4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: opportunity.

6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes – learn from them.

7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills and listening to you talk about how cool you are.

8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT.

9: Life is not divided into terms. You don’t get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you “find yourself”. Do that in your own time.

10: TV is not real life. In real life, people have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs..

11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one!

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