As some of you know I want to become a teacher after I graduate from school.  I made this realization  my sophomore year when I was tutoring an astronomy class.  Standing in the study room in the library I was explaining to Miranda Hitchcock all of the material that was going to be on the test.  I was writing on the board and going through everything she would need to know and she was having difficulty remembering all of the material.  It was at that moment that I stopped thought and imagined myself as her sitting there.  What tools and previous knowledge did she have that I could use to my advantage to have her learn something new.  It was at that point that it clicked and going with a new approach I re-explained the material and she got it.  The best part was I didn't have to hear her say that she got it I could tell simply by the way her face lit up.  It was there that I knew what I wanted to do with my life.  I wanted to teach.  I wanted to see faces doing just that, lighting up with understanding, for my career.  That was my calling.

Now as I near the end of my undergraduate studies and start looking towards grad school and a hopeful teachers assistantship I am starting to collect articles, book excerpts, potential lesson plans, and movies to use in my classes.

The other day I purchased Network, a great movie about the fall of the modern news media.  Other movies that I have that I think will come in handy are

Saving Private Ryan
Thankyou For Smoking

Movies that I am looking for are

V for Vendetta
Osama
Lord of War
Schindlers List
Lions for Lambs
Searching for Bobby Fischer
Charlie Wilson's War
Taxi to the Dark Side
An Inconvienet Truth

I like these films because they inspire people to think.  To take waht is given to them and actually think.  I feel that the art of thought is something that humans often are lacking in.  I'm not saying people are stupid because for the most part people can be pretty intelligent but thought requires so much time and energy that I think people just give up and want to have things handed to them.  I think that is why religion is so popular.  Its not about God or a spirtual relationship.  For crying out loud God is everywhere why in the name of Mary would you have to go to a special building on a special day to talk to God?  The answer is that religion hands you what you need to think. "Don't worry!"  It says, "Here you go.  Life, death, ethics, eternity.  Its all right here and all you need to do is not think about it."  I'm not saying religion is evil or that humans are ignorant I'm just saying that laziness is so easy.  Thats one of the staples I want to make in my classes: The Art of Thought. 

Do you guys have any ideas about movies, books, or articles that I could start looking at?

A few post ago I put a video up about Shelby Foote, a historian in my opinion that many can not only gain information and wisdom from but also a certain kind of inspiration about America and humanity in general.

David McCullough is another one of those historians in my opinion.








Has anyone been watching this series?  I haven't because I don't have HBO but I can't wait to watch them when they come out on DVD.