This is the third year in a row that I’ve taught my One Really Good Lesson™ and forgotten to take pictures. After we take care of boring procedural things, the first things that we do in programming class is have a picnic.
It’s usually blasted hot at the start of school so we have the picnic in the air-conditioned commons. But this year the weather has been relatively nice, so I setup two tables under a tree in a little courtyard area that we have. I spread out traditional checkered tablecloths on the tables (pushed together to make one big square table) and made things look nice. The students went to our normal classroom and found these instructions on the board:
Go South.
Bring chair.
Once everyone is there, I spread out all the tools and fixins to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and tell them that I would be glad to make sandwiches for them if only they would tell me how.
I play the “oh so literal” computer, and they learn things like precision, thinking ahead, looping, procedures and other programming things. I didn’t get as messy this year as I usually do.
Has anybody ever gotten it, or is it an unsolvable test like the Kobyashi Maru simulation?
I had to look that up, you Trekkie.
Lloyd’s teaching has improved since we were in college. I had to do a baby programming assignment and asked him for help. He just kept saying, “Look at it. LOOK at it.” over and over.
I wanted to cry.
That’s always my favorite. Just keep repeating the same thing, louder each time, THEN I’ll understand it. Because when it’s louder, it makes more sense to me. It didn’t make any sense at a normal voice level, but now that you’re yelling at me, I understand.
In my defense, I had no idea how very, very little the professor who taught the class really explained to them.
Couldn’t do it at our school, ’cause we have some “peanut and tree nut free classrooms” and cafeteria. Shouldn’t evolution have taken care of that?
Sam can’t even BEGIN to tell you the frustration I am feeling about this whole peanut free issue. I can’t send a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my kids’ lunch! Nor can I send anything for their lunch, which may have come into contact with a peaunt. Here’s an example: Anna loves dried apples. I go to the grocer and find them, but then happen to look on the container and NO!!! They may have been processed in the same building with open container peanuts! Not only do I have to respect this policy, but now i am spending a WHOLE lot of extra time at the grocers, reading all the labels to make sure my kid is not eating any item for lunch or snack that might aggravate someone else’s allergy. Sorry, got on a soap box. I will try to refrain from doing that again. Please forgive. (Head bowed in supplication.)
I think they should put a big perminate stamp on the kids to let everyone know they are allergic to peanuts or nuts. That away your kids know to stay away from them so they don’t hurt ’em.
Sorry, but your post hit a nerve. Also, sorry you have to do all that crap.
After reading my comment, I could see where it looked like I was lashing out at you but I am actually in total agreement with you. Sorry I didn’t my intentions that very clear. Plus I can’t spell permanent.
Looks like I don’t have good grammer either. Dagn. I think I need to go back to grade school.
I understood you right from the start. 🙂 Remember, if you go back to school, be careful what you bring to snack on!
I know of a school that has the “peanut table” in the lunch room. They make all the kids with nut allergies sit at that table for lunch everyday so they don’t come in contact with anyone else’s lunch…and that way the non-allergic can eat what they want.
It’s sort of sad both ways isn’t it? Poor kids sitting at the peanut table…and poor kids who can’t have a PB&J because some other kid in the school might be allergic. The whole deal is messed up.
I do however believe that making an entire school peanut-free is a bit crazy.
Man, maybe it’s a better idea to have separate schools for all of the sickly kids. Separate, but equal –of course.
I use that very same demo. I have my entire Ed Psych class write out the instructions for making a PB&J on the board while I get the ingredients out. They laugh and giggle and tell me that they know just what I’m doing, and some groan because they have “done this before”. So they get ridiculously detailed in their instructions.
I start making the PB&J using thier instructions, and I get mad at them for thinking I’m some sort of idiot – writing out how to un-twist a twist tie on the bread bag, and how to unscrew the PB jar – I’m NOT AN IDIOT! (I even yell a little).
And then I make the point that in education it’s very important to know your audience. If you teach down to high schoolers you’ll completely lose their respect. If you teach over the heads of 2nd graders, you’ll lose theirs, too. Know your audience, and give them the amount of information they need.
What I’m saying is, Thanks Lloyd. For doing this demo, so that I can turn it around on them in a few years and make them feel stupid. 😀
Ha. The thing I say most often is, “I don’t know how to do that.”
Is it legal to share some of their instructions? Grab bread…hehe. And how do they learn ‘looping’ in this exercise? What is looping anyway?
We did something similar to this with our youth group…I don’t remember the exercise…all I remember is the cool, fun scavenger hunt afterwards…the twist, there is always a twist…each team had to be in a hula hoop as they searched. (Muahhh)
Lloyd, can I send Daniel to take computer classes with you? He would love to learn more… And I would love him to do something besides trick me into putting in my password and making it look like the computer is freaking out.
I was told once that there are 11 steps to washing your hands. I think it was meant for teaching little ones how to wash their hands. I can only think of nine steps. Perhaps the other two are “step up onto the stool” and “step down off of the stool”. Who knew it was so complicated!
Here is a loop:
5. Scoop out peanut butter with knife
6. Evenly spread peanut butter on bread
7. Is there enough peanut butter? Yes, go to step 8, else go back to step 5
8. Scoop out jelly with knife
9. Spread jelly on bread….
Oohhhh….thanks Curt!
I’m still thinking ahead to the procedures Lloyd will use to program how to coordinate the shirt and tie without looping it up!
The shirts will be strictly ROYGBIV. I’m still working on a tie process. It’s hard to tie a tie without looping.
One (hyphenated) word: clip-on
Won’t it actually be POYGBTV?
hehe…clever girl.
Artistic license baby. Artistic License.