Subject Matter......

It was NOT what I signed up for!!  I took a sub job today.  I accepted an assignment teaching a marketing class for a friend.  I knew what was coming.  Kim's lesson plans are meticulous.  Her kids are perfectly well behaved so the day was going to be great (if getting up at 5:00 am can make for a great day)!

Surprise!!! As soon as I signed in the secretary handed me a roll sheet and sent me upstairs to cover a World Geography class.  That is the downside of being a substitute.  It is not written in stone.  If you have a free period they can send you wherever they please...though they know that if it is a math class of any kind I am not going!!!  Like really NOT going!!!  I will not stand in front of a bunch of pubescent teenagers and tell them that I have no idea what to do with x and y.  Any other curriculum and I can wing it but NOT that.

So, on with with story.  

We had actually just discussed Geography at Sunday dinner...they are thinking of dropping the course from required courses.  What???  Do people not need to know where the continents are?

The subject today was Africa....Okay, I need to know about that!

I now have a visual of where all of the countries  in Africa are located.  

I found Djibouti!  

I know where it lies in relation to Kenya ( the home of my children's brother from another mother). 

I could see the land features and the climate and lifestyle.

I soaked it all up!!!  That is where my son is living for a year and suddenly Geography had meaning in my life.  Sadly, when we are young it does not seem so important.  The attitude that all necessary info can be googled if it becomes need to know information make kids oblivious to wanting to learn.  The students thought I was sniffing paint because I was so exited about the pictures in their textbooks.  Sadly, someday those textbooks will be obsolete.  I am a reader...but I want to hold the book in my hand.  I want to touch the page and highlight what I want to remember.  I want to go back and reread.  I love my books....not my novels, but my real books.  I think my dad is the one who made me love books.  Just another thing I am grateful for.
So much is changing in the world of education...and I am not sure that all of the changes are for the good.

PLEASE keep Geography in the curriculum...and leave it in a real book!!!