Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Umbrella Pointers

I'm covering the Inca, Maya, and Aztec civilizations this week in Ancient World History. On a tiny Rand McNally wall map of South/Central America, in the absence of an adequate implement, I have been using an umbrella for a pointer. Bing Crosby, perhaps, would be proud. Didn't he dance with an umbrella? Or was that Danny Kaye?

Either way, I'm certainly not doing any physical dancing, tap or otherwise, but more like I'm dancing around the obscure fact that I know/knew next to nothing about these civilizations prior to taking this job. I'm barely a step ahead of the students. Is that normal for teachers? Is that wrong? Machu Picchu, here I come.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gene Kelly was the most famous (remember "Singing in the Rain"?) but I'm sure there were others.

dp

Allison said...

It's your first teaching job. And as a substitute on someone else's lesson plans. If you are one day ahead of the kids, you are doing GREAT. Trust me.

(And even during my second year when I planned entire semesters in advance, sometimes I still changed things up last minute and it felt like an improv routine -- every class period was something different. It makes life more interesting, I guess. Or stressful.)

ERiC PETERS said...

dp, you WOULD know that sort of fact.

allison, somehow i knew you would understand and empathize. thanks!