Well, there was nothing particularly exciting in the news today. Obama gave a relatively boring State of the Union speech, which even drew praise from some Republicans, like Darrell Issa, so you know it had to be super lame.
As he was speaking, more or less, Navy Seals were pulling off an American Entebbe, killing 9 Somali pirates (who aren’t really pirates any more since they’ve been kicked off the ocean and now they’re just kidnappers) and freeing two hostages, which is all to the good, of course, but you wouldn’t know it from the teabagger naysayers on the comment boards.
But, that’s about it. So, let me just bitch about my 5th grade class today. I often start my lessons
Just 3 years after the 1st Moon Landing
with the 6 question words: Who, What, When, Where, Why and How, because my opinion is that once you’ve mastered those, you can find out whatever you need, you can teach yourself the language the rest of the way. Today I added “which” and asked them which of those words they would like to focus on today. Nobody wanted to commit but finally somebody said “when”, which allowed me to go into a history lesson. They are a bright bunch of kids, they really are, but…I was shocked to realize how little they know about history. The first moon landing was not in 1924. Columbus did not discover America in 16something. That’s pretty bad although, as my wife just pointed out to me, American space achievements did not get a lot of press in Czechoslovakia in 1969 and, of course, none of these kids were even born. But none of them knew when the Velvet Revolution was or when WWI ended, both seriously major turning points in Czech history.
Oh, well. At least they all learned the phrase “a long time ago.” I gave them 1 point for that, because at least it was an answer. It’s the blank looks I can’t deal with.
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