How do you teach people that some reasons are better than others? How do you get students to realize that their actual opinion is less important than their ability to represent the resolution for their team? I tried with "women should quit their jobs after they get married," because I knew it would get a reaction. It did. But I could not get them down from the reaction to try and argue the affirmative case. The girls flatly refused. I said, girls, come on!! You know I don't believe this but it's the job of the affirmative case to PROVE the resolution. Ay, yay, yay. There was certainly a lot of shouting in the classroom today. Security looked in several times. They probably thought I was strangling someone.

My afternoon was filled with helping students fill out their college applications. For some, it was the first time they had ever addressed an envelope (they have to hand their teachers rec letters and envelopes). The online generation. Wow. It amazes me how daunting this process appears to be for them. On the other hand, I edited one student's personal statement and it was so good that I had tears in my eyes thinking of her in college next year. This will all be worthwhile.

My late afternoon was spent grading these stories that kids wrote ina project where I collaborated with the science teachers. It was the life of a carbon compound and the kids had to have it cycle through millions of years into various states (as sugars or fossil fuels) until it winds up in their bodies at the end. Some of the stories were hilarious. My job was to help them make the stories creative by making the carbon into a character. Lots of the carbon particles sounded like pimps, others like bored and restless teenage carbons looking for love, a few were excited to get excreted from the butts of dinosaurs. Ah, teaching.