Ten Things I Know for Sure
Posted by johnrinker in Uncategorized, tags: list, sarah kay, TED, ten things
Inspired by Sarah Kay’s TEDTalk on becoming a spoken-word poet and suggested by Keri-Lee Beasly whose class recently blogged on the same topic, I asked my Grade 6 students to blog on ’10 Things I Know for Sure.’ Their results were inspiring, illuminating and often just plain fun to read. So, I thought I’d follow their lead and give it a try. So, here are my 10 Things I Know for Sure.
1. Two wrongs don’t make a right. But three rights do make a left.
2. ‘Those who can’t do, teach.’ Poppycock*! Those who can see the future, teach.
3. With a little trust and encouragement, students have a delightful habit of exceeding expectations.
4. Ride a bike instead of driving; it makes the world big again.
5. Practice makes permanent. Practicing mindfully makes excellence.
6. The harder you pull back the rubber band the farther it shoots; sometimes it snaps your finger. Great deeds require much effort and occasional sacrifice.
7. We are all tourists here. Enjoy the view, take lots of photos, and be a gracious guest.
8. Rivers are more fun than lakes. There something about water that flows, and swimming against a current can make you stronger.
9. Given the choice between intelligence and curiosity, I’ll take curiosity. Intelligent people often know too much, curious people never know enough.
10. One wife. Two daughters. Priceless!
*Incidentally, the word ‘poppycock’ comes from the Dutch words ‘pap’ meaning ‘soft’ and ‘kak’ meaning…um…er…uh…’kaka’!
Wait, this would make 11 Things I Know for Sure. Man, I go to ’11′!
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Oh YAY! So glad you did this too and that it worked well. I did have to stress that I wanted things that *they* knew, not a collection of random facts on the internet… Some did this better than others.
I almost wished I had chosen Sarah Kay’s other suggestion of ’5 things I should have learned by now’ – as that would be even more interesting!
Thanks for posting!
Yes, it was a hoot! Afterwards we looked at Marius’ and Kavya’s blogs from your class. Both we’re so very well written, and very individual. Marius seems to like a deep thinker and Kavya obviously has a tremendous sense of humor. There’s a girl in my class who I have encouraged to comment to Kavya as they seem like two peas in a pod. I do wish we had seen these posts beforehand to get a sense of the kinds of things students could know about.
I love the ’5 Things I should have learned by now’ idea. I was actually thinking of having my students blog along similar lines next week with ‘Something I should have learned in Grade 6 but didn’t.’ We are preparing for the Grade 5 Moving Up day soon, and I wanted the two groups to read and respond to get a conversation going. I’ll see how it goes.
Thanks so much for reading! It’s nice to have an audience.
Cheers, John
Ok, two things:
Re item 10: So, what would “One wife. Three daughters. One son.” be?
your definition of poppycock reminds me of the definition of “politics.” Poly – from the greek word meaning “many” and tics from the word mean “bloodsucking creatures.”
Um…more priceless, I guess. But no where near as priceless as your definition for ‘politics’! Ha! Fabulous! Thanks so much for reading and commenting.