Quest Complete!

(before you begin reading, you may want to be playing some appropriate music dealing with this post's message. May I recommend Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" to you?)

Doc Waters isn't getting the hint.

No disrespect or nothing, but she is still trying to break me. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Shame on you Doc Waters. Why would you want to do such a thing? Some of you old school teachers might say "you have to break them down in order to buld them up" or some philosophical mumbo jumbo like that. Well, too bad. I've got better things to do than get defeated by an assignment. Remember WebQuest from last week? Yeah, well, I hope it was a fond memory. Nice try, Doc.

Some of you may be thinking "Wait . . . isn't this the same guy who complained in an earlier post? Wasn't he griping about having to work hard on something?" To those naysayers let me clarify something. I can do anything. Let me repeat that. ANYTHING. That doesn't mean I have to like it. That's the first lesson you should learn when you begin transforming into an adult. No one says I had to enjoy the stuff I didn't like.

That's not to say the experiences aren't useful. A task is usually the hardest the first time around when you don't know diddly-squat about it. Now I know I can do this WebQuest stuff . . . if I want to (maybe I can use it as punishment in my classroom). In the meantime, as a result of the ordeal I know more, can do more, and have the satisfaction of taking out another opponent in the road to world domination, or a teaching career--they're the same thing.

If you're shaking now, wait for this next bit. A little bit more than a year ago there was this young man named Dalton Sherman. Dalton did something few people can say they've done. He delievered a 7 minute memorized speech to a crowd of 20,000 some people. Impressed? Well brace yourself for this additional fact: he was just a kid (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAMLOnSNwzA). Ever heard of the study that found out people's biggest fear wasn't death, but speaking in public? Well, we've got a kid here who isn't afraid of death, it seems, because he nailed that speech of his. What was the topic? Believing in Education. His audience? Educators.

How many of you educators want Dalton in your classroom? All of you, hopefully. Who doesn't want a fearless student. Those are the ones that change the world. Now ask yourself this: Are you doing anything that would increase the fear your student(s) might have? Think about that. You may not mean to, but it happens. I like to think of the lessons in the book "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." Young kids think they can do anything. Here's a fact--they can. Heck, I conquered WebQuest. Why not a kid? Look up that book--there are no lessons about fear. None.




I say we don't teach fear. What about you?