Do The Evolution - Pearl Jam (Video)

I used this for a reading strategy example in a masters level class (I didn't intend to show it to high school students... I wouldn't want to field phone calls from parents who were terrified that I had given their children a glimpse of the ugly side of our society)

A note about Evolution...

It simply is. Believe it or don't. I don't suppose it matters that you believe it... it will go on regardless. 

When humans find some way to completely destroy life as we know it, some other group of organisms will rise up, mutate, experience natural selection, mutate, experience natural selection and so on, and life will go on and continue to evolve.

Long after churches, cities, and civilizations crumble, evolution will march on, producing fantastic, successful (and sometimes grotesque, brutally unsuccessful) organisms. 

So there.

Who knew it could be so exhausting?

So, the whole grad school in under a year idea seemed great a few months ago... It seems, however,  to be a little painful upon execution. Sleep deprivation leads to concentration decline, which leads to lower efficiency in homework, which leads to more time required to do homework, which leads to less sleep, which leads to more pronounced sleep deprivation... and the cycle goes on.

Sometime last night (actually I guess this morning would be more technically accurate) it all seemed a bit too much. I felt a bit like throwing in the towel. Frustration, fatigue, and a nagging sense of inadequacy won out over signs of growth and learning, and I went to bed defeated. Defeated by my own inability to see beyond the two or three pages of lesson plans in front of me, and strategies that needed to fit into those lesson plans somehow. 

I awoke, two and a half hours later, less than rested, and resigned to put my head in the guillotine that is going to class with an incomplete assignment (a rather large assignment). 

After class, which included an "I am a failure. Please put me out of my misery." session, I feel a bit better. That's not to say that unit plan in question isn't a failure as a unit plan... it is. resoundingly so, but, I have come away with the realization that I can still probably redeem myself. 

Here's to the non-traditional unit!  (It has to go better than the last one).

Cheers, 

Jeremy

Me, Joe, and Barack at the park and ride.

I would like to thank my friend Emily Matsumoto for making this photo possible. Joe, me, and Barack at the Jeremy Ranch Park and Ride.

Who would have thought that I could have a photo op with the boys only 5 days before the election? ...and in the heart of the conservative stranglehold to boot?

No, I didn't photoshop them into the photo... those are life-size cardboard cutouts.

It's nice to post something... right?

The insane/inane rantings of a lunatic

I just didn't want to go to bed with my new blog looking all lonely...