When students ask me what I do outside of school, I tell them that “I read Shakespeare and study the dictionary.” Of course, they believe me until I tell them I’m just kidding.

However, I do throw the books I read up on the book shelves in my classroom for them to read. I go through reading phases, but science fiction dominates my stacks. Ben Bova, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Peter F. Hamilton, and James F. David among others rest on the shelves waiting for a student to wake them up.

Recently, I’ve been drawn to mysteries and adventure stories. Here are a few of the writers I’ve sampled in the last few years:

• Matthew Reilly (straight action adventure)
• Raymond Khoury (mysteries delving into the mystical)
• James Rollins (adventure with some fantastic elements)
• Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (mysteries with some mysticism and science fiction elements)
• AJ Hartley (historical mysteries)
• David Stone (harsh intelligence mysteries)

I wonder what my next series of authors will be.

We’re reading The Chosen right now in one of my classes, and one boy, Danny, has a father who speaks to him “in silence.” The students enjoy grappling with this idea and trying to determine what has to happen when speaking without words. The mind really has to stretch. Empathizing is necessary. New ways of communicating must occur.

Thus, I take my students into the hallway and have them remain silent. Then I instruct them to line up from shortest to tallest without speaking. Mouthing words is not allowed. Neither is writing. This usually doesn’t take too long.

However, I then have them line up from youngest to oldest. This takes a little longer.

Lastly, I have the kids line up (in silence still) from who was born closest to the school to farthest from the school. This takes a little while.

After they complete this task, we return to the room and discuss how they felt during the exercise, how they communicated, and how they had to stretch their ways of thinking to accomplish the tasks. They quickly realize that communicating in silence really means stretching the mind and broadening their means of communicating. They must feel what their peers feel, and they must discover multiple means of sharing information. They stretch and they grow–just like the character Danny in The Chosen.

A report taken from the Healthy Youth Survey found a direct link between healthy living and good grades.

Well, duh!

The students in my classes with the healthiest lifestyles also typically have the highest socioeconomic status, the most involved parents, the most stable homes, and the fewest problems with addictive substances.

Factors included in the report are:

• smoking,
• eating enough fruits and vegetables,
• taking drugs,
• drinking,
• soda pop consumption,
• depression,
• hours watching TV, and
• getting enough sleep and exercise.

Here is a website with some real world instances of plagiarism and the consequences which followed. Maybe these could help when teaching kids about plagiarism.

When in class one of my favorite weapons in my arsenal against inattentiveness is humor, so I promised my students that with each “-ism” I show them in class that I would provide a joke with each. Today I presented to them artistic and literary examples of Impressionism, Surrealism, and Gothic Literature (not an -ism, I know, but it still counts). Here is the humor I used based on the old, corny English jokes I could recall:

Impressionism: (a one-liner) He is just like an Impressionist painting; he looks better the farther away you get.

Surrealism: (this makes a lot more sense if you know Surrealism) How many Surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer: Fish!

Gothic Literature: (prepare a groan) Why do Gothic writers have a hard time getting real jobs? Answer: Because they only know how to mope the floors and depress the buttons.

Yes, yes, I know. They aren’t that great, but the kids appreciated even an attempt at humor. Pity laughs are better than no laughs.