A Student's Comment on Philosophy

Today in history class I mentioned two philosophers - Karl Marx and Fredric Engels. The question from students, of course, was "what is a philosopher?"

"A philosopher is someone who thinks, specifically about what is really real (among other things)," I answered.

Most students didn't quite understand that explanation, so I gave them a "philosophical" question.

"How do you know that all of this - the classroom, me, your classmates - is real? How do you know its not just a figment of your imagination?"

Most of them answered, "Because we know! I can see it!"

"But how do you KNOW for sure!" I said.

Answers one student: "Because if this were really a figment of my imagination, there would be dragons and everyone would have swords."

You can't argue with that.

Headline of the Day

Bird Suspected to Be Extinct Photographed for First Time ... Then Eaten

FYI

For those of you who have been waiting in suspense, I have successfully connected all the pieces in order to create an interactive white board for my classroom. It will be awesome.

+

=

A Smart Board - for $70. Sweetest thing EVER.

Have you ever used a SMARTboard? Or an interactive whiteboard? Basically, when you project a computer image on an LCD screen, you see what is on the computer. An interactive whiteboard makes the actual image on the board your screen. You can go up to the screen and touch it, move the mouse, draw, etc. I used one in my student teaching - they're really nice. But they're also really expensive.

A friend cued me into a similar concept for 5 percent of the price. A guy named John Chung (check out his videos, too) took a wii remote control, hooked it to a computer through bluetooth and used an infrared light as his mouse. For about $70 he's created an interactive whiteboard. I was able to get all the parts I needed - a special infrared "pen", a bluetooth usb adapter and the free software (actually, I still need the wii remote). By next week I should have this all worked out. It's pretty sweet.

In other news, things have been slow at school, at least for Alison and I. The students had exams this week, so we didn't do a whole lot. The kids, I'm sure, stressed over their exams. They do have a lot of them. I was pleased, though, with their results on my tests. I've got a good bunch this year. Things will pick up next week though as we swing into a new semester.

Alison and I have booked our tickets for the states for the summer, as well. We'll be back at the end of June and then coming back to Bahrain in the middle of August, so if you're either in Michigan or Texas, let us know and we'll get together.