Goertz Thoughts

 What do you think of when you think of a library? If you grew up at a certain time, you might envision something like this scene from The Music Man . Most of you students have probably never seen that strange filing cabinet in the background. That's where the card catalog is stored (yes, for holding index cards). Ask your older teachers sometime how long it used to take to do research. Actually, a lot of the things in the scene probably seem anachronistic. Even the books. Hot take: most of the information that we use is not stored in books. On a daily basis, if I am looking for information, I use Google. I don't go find an encyclopedia (even if I knew were to find one. I must admit, I do sometimes miss my family's old World Book and Childcraft sets). In fact, even the books that I do read are mostly on the Kindle. An ebook is: Searchable Portable Readable in the dark Able to change font size and style According to Amazon, I own 490 ebooks. Plus, I can access thousands mor...

 One of my jobs as an Assistant Principal is to monitor the halls during passing period. I routinely call out students for the following: Cellphone use Untucked shirt Untied shoes Earbuds in I really don't understand the last one. The King And I Yul Bryner GIF from The King And I GIFs I have good reasons for asking students to refrain from earbuds in the hallway: Situational awareness: if I need to give a warning, students should be able to hear Community: don't tune out classmates, greet them and be greeted in turn Disconnection: we are overly reliant on technology to fill every moment of the day (I actually wrote  an article  on this a few years ago) But some people have trouble taking their earbuds out for just 5 minutes! Even stranger (to me anyway) are those who walk around the entire day with an earbud in just one ear. Granted, I do this for safety when I am walking my dog at 5:30 in the morning (see Situational Awareness above). But I feel like it would dri...

 My last few posts feel slightly off to me. Their not up to my usual (self)standards. Part of that is just that I'm out of practice. So, I'm going to keep writing whether I feel like it's good enough or not. There's a lot of advantages to writing (even if no one's reading. Consider this blog: total views in the last month = 43): Helps with organizing thoughts Improves emotional wellbeing Enhanced learning through mental consolidation of information (notetaking) Increased awareness of self Creation of a record of thoughts and feelings (I doubt anyone will ever make a Goertz museum, but if they do I want them to have some record of my own personal ideas) On the subject of creating a record, you may have noticed the old pictures in the previous post. My mom gave me a whole sack of old photographs that I've been digitizing. Here's a few things that I've realized/remembered: I'm almost positive that phone is now in the Savio prop room. I used to be able t...

Some have accused me of being a Grinch considering some of my earlier Christmas posts (see here and here ). That's not true. I love Christmas! Here's proof! (That's me in the blue) However, now that Halloween is over, many people (unfortunately including Savio teachers) have started to play Christmas music. My problem is not with the music (it's one of my favorite genres). My parents have an annual caroling party. Christmas Concert @ St. Mary's Taylor 5th grade I'm okay with playing Christmas music after  Thanksgiving dinner. Starting Christmas music too early is a bad idea, though. Here's why: Liturgical appropriateness Technically speaking, Catholics celebrate Christmas from Christmas Eve to the Sunday where we celebrate Jesus' Baptism. That's a very small window and radio stations usually stop with Christmas music after the 25th (another great reason to go to Mass; you can keep singing your favorite songs!) Even during Advent (the season preceding...

Our sophomores read Pride and Prejudice, which is a book that everyone should read (it actually gets better each time I read it. I pick up on the humor more and more each time). You may wonder (when you're done reading of course), which movie should you watch: the 1995 adaptation or the 2005 (there are a number of other options including 1940, 1980, and Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies , but we'll put those aside for now). In my mind, there's only one viable option. It's the 1995 BBC miniseries version. It's just better all around.  If you haven't seen it, you may never agree with me (we tend to like the first thing that we see). However, here are a few reasons whey you should give it a chance: The casting (and hair) is much better. Here are 3 examples. 1995: Colin Firth 2005: Matthew Macfadyen 1995:  Jennifer Ehle 2005: Kiera Knightley 1995: Mr. Bennet (Benjamin Whitrow) 2005: Mr. Bennet (Donald Sutherland) Length is important in book adaptations. To properly adap...