I am loving that I came up with my title the way that I did....this is a quote often attributed to Mark Twain...but he stole it from Benjamin Disraeli. And then it makes me think of the great episode from the first season of the West Wing.
I opened it up because I wanted to paste it in here..but then I got wondering about where these statistics came from. So I went to the original website and found the link above. He learned that his stats might not be true....and that's a bummer to me because a couple of them actually seemed legit. Like the high school grad and college grad one....the no bookstore one makes sense if they are only counting stuff like Barnes and Noble because most people buy online now. I really wanted to know more about the chosen field one--that is actually not bad.
On the website he created a new graphic....which keeps that 7 years idea...which is apparently not a statistic....just a nice thought.
This still has some interesting numbers on it...but it is mostly just about literacy--but that reading frequency declines and over the age of 16 ones sound about right too. What this whole situation really shows me is that we can't trust statistics....they really can be just lies like Israeli and Twain have said. What do you think?
Every once in a while I will tell you why I like Pinterest so much. Today...it is because of memes. Everyone uses this word and the sad thing is that it is such a widely used term that I never know for sure if I am using it right but I think I'm ok.
So the first one I love because it is so VERY true...I especially realized this when I went to college and would say West Wing quotes that my sister would have totally gotten and nobody was laughing...
This second one was my day yesterday...I took about 15 minutes because I had people coming over and my front room looked better than it had all week. It is sad...but the life of a busy girl who doesn't want to clean.
The last one I think speaks for itself....when co-workers usually want a file from me and they say "Oh I'll just get on and find it on the network." I have to give them like five folders to go to before they can find it.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to teach my students about the filibuster. One thing that I have learned about U.S. History and Government students is that they are very curious about a filibuster. What exactly is it? Really they have to stand the whole time? What if they have to go to the bathroom? The record is over 24 hours?! How did he manage that?!
So, after going over a few background things and making sure students know about the Senate and a cloture etc. We watch clips from one of my favorite West Wing episodes! The Stackhouse Filibsuter from Episode 2 is great because it shows how a filibuster is done and how it ends. The students really strive off of the visual. I fast-forward through the non-essential plot parts, because as all good TV has more than one story line going through. So, I highly recommend that as how to teach filibuster. Here is a quick clip to give you a taste:
