Posts Tagged ‘give’
Connecticut little leaguer Jericho Scott is a hotshot, up-and-coming baseball star. He’s 9 years old, with a 40 mph fastball. Naturally, that got him banned from Little League. From ESPN:
He throws so hard that the Youth Baseball League of New Haven told his coach that the boy could not pitch any more. When Jericho took the mound anyway last week, the opposing team forfeited the game, packed its gear and left, his coach said. …
Jericho’s coach and parents say the boy is being unfairly targeted because he turned down an invitation to join the defending league champion, which is sponsored by an employer of one of the league’s administrators.
Jericho instead joined a team sponsored by Will Power Fitness. The team was 8-0 and on its way to the playoffs when Jericho was banned from pitching.
“I think it’s discouraging when you’re telling a 9-year-old you’re too good at something,” said his mother, Nicole Scott. “The whole objective in life is to find something you’re good at and stick with it. I’d rather he spend all his time on the baseball field than idolizing someone standing on the street corner.”
Unfortunately, the other side of the argument is pretty compelling. Though given the opportunity to advance into the defending league champion, Jericho’s parents opted to place him in another team.
Safety concerns also became an issue, whether it really was or not. Jericho hasn’t hurt, anyone, yet, but that’s no guarantee that he never will. Given that other parents raised those safety concerns to begin with, the league had no other options left but to acquiesce to the wishes of a vast majority of parents.
Because it’s apparently the policy of the league to not place Jericho in a more competitive age bracket, officials had no mutually agreeable options left on the table. If only policy conformed to reality, he wouldn’t be in this mess.
Sure, it’s a shame that the league told a fifth-grader that he’s too talented for his age, but it would have been a greater shame to ruin the fun of the game for even one more team — whether because the other coach called a draw, or because he called an ambulance.
Short entry today, in part because I’ve been wasting my time on some old, familiar edutainment. I’d forgotten how freakin’ hard of a game Pharaoh was.
In any case, Weezer made themselves a music video, and it’s probably my favorite music video from a musical act without a prominent member named Yankovic. There’s at least one other, older music video I like, but mostly because I like to mock it sadistically.
There’s nothing trainwreck-of-poor-taste about Pork and Beans. Something tells me that Weezer meant to include nearly every star of the Internet.
Glorious.
Be sure to check out another great video by the same group; I think you might like it. I’ll leave the explanation to someone else.
Idle brainstorm: Find and download a representative sample of all of the videos shown or referenced in Pork and Beans, saving them to show one’s students.
At the beginning of each class session, show one of these clips. Skip Cris Crocker and other those few other school inappropriate clips, and be sure to avoid telling the students what all of the clips have in common.
On the very last day of class, show the Pork and Beans music video.
Do this at the beginning of class, because everybody’s heads will have exploded. You’ll need time to clean up.
Our semester’s almost over, and my sophomores have one major project left. About a third of my classes are failing, and about a fifth of each class has such a low F that, even if they get full credit on the final project, it’s impossible for them to pass.
Granted, most of those irredeemable Fs rarely, if ever, show up, but there are more than a few who show up every day. They just don’t turn anything in.
Some of them are quite bright, and, given how many of the assignments are credit/no-credit, should have the highest marks in the class. Throughout the entire semester, they don’t do any of the work, whether their in-class work or the rare homework assignment I’ve assigned.
Clearly, they weren’t motivated enough, even to come in at any time during my turn-in-make-up-assignments-at-lunch week. Nobody showed up after school when I offered time to help them out.
At least one world history student stopped showing up last month. Since then, truancy caught him once and forced him to come to class. I took the opportunity to ask him why he stopped coming to class. Exasperatedly, he said:
I already have an F. I’m already going to have to re-take this class. Why should I show up?
I checked his grade after class, and he was well within the passing range; he still had a shot. I would have told him this if I had seen him since.
So many have resigned to their fate already. Is there anything more I can do but resign along with them?
