In the Internet post
Universal Journal, a publication of the Association of Young Journalist and Writers, the author covers a book I've read, own, enjoyed and quote from most often: "
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business,"
I've designed my teaching outline (so far) as follows:
00:00 - 00:05 Warm up
00:05 - 00:20 Lecture
00:20 - 00:25 Commercial Break *
00:25 - 00:40 Lecture
00:40 - 00:45 Commercial Break *
00:45 - 00:50 Closure/Bell
I usually set up my outline in Excel at 5 minute increments, trundling forward. It tends to keep teenagers quiet (and desperate) as they write in their interactive notebooks.
My "commercial break" mimics what they are used to: however, I'm not advertizing a product, I'm checking for understanding before moving forward.
Once upon a time, hunter-gatherers developed what we'd now classify as "attention deficit disorder," because stampeding Mastadons and Saber Tooth Tigers can make a really bad day! Ergo, you had to be kind of jumpy to know when to JUMP out of the way.
Cum agrarian society and the inventions of candles and the printing press, we developed vast powers of focused concentration. Walled cities and the deaths of Mastadons and Saber Tooth Tigers made us feel "safer."
Sadly, my hometown of Winston-Salem, NC is
16/25 of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the US. I guess it always has been: I never ordered a pizza until I moved out to Texas as an adult (seriously).
The Mastadons and Tigers now have two feet. Televison reinforces the feelings of fear that fuels both the alarm and firearm industries.
Yet, when I go home, I see the same neighbors and speak to them without fear. Yes, there's a fair amount of drug trading as there always from memory has been. There's a fair amount going on in the Texas suburb I live in. There are nuclear families, families getting divorces and single parent families in my culdesac. There are single mother families and nuclear families such as the one I grew up in that same neigborhood in NC. Yet, no one discusses the
Potter's House Inner City Ministries (no relation to TD Jakes), led by Pastor John Young and his wife Pansy, that have purchased properties on 25th street and renovated them (one of them being my parent's old home). The same home I was raised in and gained a love of science, an appreciation of family and ultimately, an interest in physics, praying over every meal we received and speaking to one another over breakfasts and dinners uncountable now.
Yes, there's a lot of things bad in the neighborhood, but little reporting of what is good.
Though I like a lot of Action-Adventure movies, the clips are faster now than they used to be when filmmakers took the time to develop "plot."
Now plot has taken a back seat to adrenalin rush. The initial inventions of the telegraph, telephone, radio, television now inhanced/superceded by the Internet and the fusion of it within cell phones and phone apps.
As I blog, complicit to the conspiracy and leave you with a limited entry, as our attention spans are less tolerant to long polemic essays...
