Norman Lear – The Long View – This is Really About Teaching
I caught this by accident, scanning through the radio stations on my way to work the other day:
Highlights:
To start with it takes a passion and devotion to the subject.
For education: is the subject your subject or is it your kids?
…and it’s a desire to pass that passion on.
Okay, so what’s your passion?
Thinking of it as a lot of dry grass that’s just waiting for that spark.
What’s the best way to be the spark?
The more you get people to care; when they laugh they will laugh more.
Do other people care about what you teach? Do you give them reason to? -10 points if your reason to is the grade book.
If it’s something that’s happening in real people’s lives they’re going to feel it much more.
Just like the things we teach.
Here’s the commercial he talks about at about 4:30 in the interview. It’s at 1:20 in the following video:
Isn’t that what we want our students to start doing? Knowing and caring about issues and getting their voices heard? Isn’t it completely possible today?
Things I need to work on: getting people to laugh and think. It’s what I always loved about the best punk music. It’s what I love in my favorite movies. It’s something I have to get good at.
Thanks, Norman for making us all laugh and think. Here’s to many more years.
In other news: hey NPR (yeah I’m looking at you @acarvin), how’s about you let us embed your audio in our blogs. If you do maybe I can stop lying about scanning through the stations, admit that I listen all the time, and finally become a member k, thx.
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belinda responds:
Posted: February 21st, 2008 at 7:33 pm →
Marcella: Sir, they’re very unhappy.
Martin Q. Blank: I’m very unhappy.
Marcella: It was supposed to look like a heart attack! He was supposed to die in his sleep!
Martin Q. Blank: Well, he moved.
McCullers: You got any ideas how you wanna wax this guy?
Steve: Can’t you just say ‘kill’? Ya always gotta romanticize it.
Debi: So, is there a Mrs. Mysterio?
Martin Q. Blank: No, but I do have a very nice cat.
Debi: Not the same.
Martin Q. Blank: Well, you don’t know my cat, it’s very demanding.
Debi: It? You don’t know if it’s a boy or girl?
Martin Q. Blank: I respect its privacy.
Debi: You’re a psychopath.
Marty: No, no. Psychopaths kill for no reason. I kill for *money*. It’s a *job*. That didn’t come out right.
Rob: What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns or watching violent videos, that some culture of violence will take them over. No one worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable, or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
Rob: What do your songs sound like, Sex Pistols, Nirvana, Pop Abrahms and the Smurfs?
Barry: You know what? You wouldn’t be familiar with our immediate influences.
Rob: Try me.
Barry: They’re mostly German.
Rob: Kraftwerk, Falco, Hasselhoff?
Lotte: You know, I was thinking, maybe you’d feel better if you got a job or something.
Craig: Lotte, we’ve been over this. Nobody’s looking for a puppeteer in today’s wintry economic climate.
I love these movies where it’s just about the film. You don’t have my face on the poster. It’s all about the movie. I like that.
~John Cusack
Watching students laughing and thinking…now that’s the “perfect job.”