Time 100

It's that time of the year again, when Time releases their list of the top 100 Most Influential People of the last year or so.

Some of the entries this year are no surprise - Mark Zuckerberg, Colin Firth, Julian Assange, a racy picture of "Tiger Mom" Amy Chua...

Some more surprising include: Angry Birds creator Peter Vesterbacka, Glee's Chris Colfer, Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska, PBS's Rebecca Eaton (who has had a hand in producing many of the acclaimed period dramas of recent years), and Pastor Rob Bell, of Nooma fame. Justin Bieber has replaced Lady Gaga as the headline influential pop artist, reflecting current trends.

This could make for interesting class discussion. You might even compile a class list of the people considered by the class to be the most influential.

Fox News Gaffe

Proofreading is an extremely important aspect of producing good written work. I was just teaching this concept to students this week.

Unfortunately, someone needs to teach this to Fox News. They made the rather embarrassing gaffe this week of having their banner at the bottom of the screen proclaim to the world "Obama Bin Laden Dead", which apparently prompted mass panic.

I shall show this to my students next week to further reinforce my point, methinks.

The 50 Most Influential Books of the Last 50 Years

As has been commented before on this blog, lists of the "top/most {insert adjective here} books" may often seem arbitrary and objective (and even questionable - e.g. the alleged BBC books list that goes around on Facebook).

The SuperScholar website has released a list of the "50 Most Influential Books of the Last 50 (or so) Years". The list contains the usual suspects, such as Atkins, Spock, Friedan, Dawkins, etc., but also some other more interesting selections - Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, John Gray's Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

I particularly applaud the inclusion of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life.

As is often the case, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series has been incorporated as one item, coming in at number 35.

Check out the list and let me know what you think. How many have you read and consider to be worthy choices? Is it too limited to restrict the list to 50?

Princess Party

Today, with my pastoral care class, we did a kind of self-esteem building activity.

This term, we have been watching the film Ever After, and discussing it along the way. The film teaches us to remain true to ourselves and not to "be overcome by evil {stepsisters}, but overcome evil with good" (NIV Bible, Romans 12:21). The main character, Danielle (Drew Barrymore), gets her prince in the end through courage and honesty, not by devious means.

We linked this to the upcoming royal wedding of Kate Middleton (a "commoner") and Prince William. I showed them an article from The Courier-Mail, "Website puts royal gloss on Kate", and we discussed random questions such as:

• If you were Kate Middleton, how would you be feeling right now, with your wedding not far away?
• Do you think Kate Middleton is under pressure to live up to expectations of being as good a princess as William's mother, Princess Diana?
• Is Kate's weight loss in preparation for the wedding a bad sign of the stress/responsibilities to come, considering Princess Diana was anorexic/bulimic when she was a princess?
• How do you think Kate is coping with all the media attention?
• Do you think she feels pressure to produce a male heir?
• How are things different these days now that princes can choose whom they want to marry, rather than having to marry someone chosen for them by their families (cf. Prince Henry's frustrations in Ever After)?

You might also want to look at an article discussing Kate's "princess training" which she is currently undergoing, the official website for the royal wedding preparations, and/or look at Princess Mary of Denmark (as an Australian commoner married to royalty).

I then tried to link the discussion to Psalm 139, about how we are all princesses in God's eyes because we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14), and that you don't need to marry a prince to be a princess! (Aww....)

Next, we proceeded to make a right royal mess by crafting our own princess crowns out of cardboard, ominous amounts of gold glitter, fake jewels and whatever else we could get our hands on. Sadly, I forgot to take my camera again so I can't show you any of the lovely creations!

Some of the students said they would go off to their next class wearing their crowns and command the teacher to bow to them...!

We finished the lesson by eating pink cupcakes. A happy, sticky ending.

Get Down to GOMA

The Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Brisbane is currently running an excellent exhibition, "21st Century: Art in the First Decade". This exhibition has something for everyone and is sure to dazzle your senses.

The exhibition is spread over all 3 levels of the gallery. Highlights include:

• Carston Holler's spiral slides in the foyer, which, if you fancy, will take you from the top floor of the gallery to the bottom floor really quickly (if you're willing to join the queue).
• Leandro Erlich's Swimming pool which you can experience from above ground and from inside (in case you've ever wondered what's it's like to be inside a swimming pool and be able to breathe...)
• a giant arch made out of cardboard boxes
• a wall of wishes, where you can take a "wish" (i.e. a ribbon with a wish printed on it) that you most identify with and leave your own wish on a piece of paper. This is the one I chose (above). It says, "I wish to find pleasure in things as much as I used to as a child". I was going to take the one that said, "I wish wishes came true", but that seemed a bit pessimistic.
• Martin Creed's Work No. 956 composed of a room half-filled with giant purple balloons - perfect place to lose a child, if you so desired. Be warned that there may be a long queue for this one also.
• a giant sculpture made out of plastic bags (see the pic in the brochure above). Supposed to be a comment about waste, recycling, etc.
• Olaf Eliasson's The cubic structural evolution project made up of famous buildings built in white Lego. You can pull up a chair and add to it.
• A print of Damien Hirst's infamous diamond-encrusted skull, surrounded by crushed diamonds - very blingy!

The exhibition is on now until April 26. Admission is free. Check it out and take the kids!

Australian Red Cross Japan Appeal

Please give generously here.

The People's Prince?

I'm not a republican by any stretch of the imagination (I'm a Pom!), but even I found Trent Dalton's coverage of Prince William's recent visit vomitous (to use a friend's favourite word): "In the darkest hour, a handsome prince did come to southeast Queensland...It was the arrival of a rockstar. Sunburned face. Warm demeanor. Hands for shaking." Even the picture is a bit OTT.

If you can get hold of this Monday's Courier-Mail (March 22), there is a double-page spread of Dalton's article, pictures, etc. (see image above - pardon the food marks!).

But then, in true teacher style, I began thinking about how we could use it in the classroom, and it struck me that this is a prime example of bias and hyperbole being used to position readers. Lots of great words and phrases to analyse!

• To take things even further, you could then get students to consider the notion of perspective and persuasion by imagining they are a member of the Australian Republican Movement and writing their own report of Prince William's visit. How might this influence your word choices?

This might be an interesting activity as part of preparation for the NAPLAN persuasive writing task.

If you get a chance to try it out, let me know how it goes!