You'd Like to Go Second? No Problem . . .

THREE . . . count them, THREE-- that's right, I generated three great moments in education over the past two days-- for an average of 1.5 great moments per day; so without further fanfare-- because this is already too much fanfare-- here they are:

1) yesterday, a girl in my College Writing class asked me a strange question: she wondered if I knew anything about the PE mid-term . . . and though I told her that I did NOT know anything about the PE mid-term-- why would I know anything about the PE mid-term?-- but I told her I was totally willing to hypothesize about what I thought should be on the PE final, and then I went into an impromptu monologue about something I am fascinated with-- the sundry and miscellaneous rules of in-bounds and out-of-bounds in various sports . . . and while the girl that asked the question tuned out immediately-- before I even finished contrasting tennis and basketball!-- some of the athletic boys in the class got involved, and we went through a number of sports, hashing out when a ball or player was considered in-bounds or out-of-bounds and we agreed that knowledge of these rules would make an excellent PE final and we had a generally excellent time speaking on this topic-- especially because our hypothetical final monumentally annoyed the girl who originally asked the question;

2) in Public Speaking class this morning, we were about to present informational speeches and when I asked for a volunteer to go first, once again-- and this happens all the time-- a girl asked if she could "go second"-- this is a common and logical request in Public Speaking class . . . the kids are great-- they actually signed up for Public Speaking so they like to speak in public . . . but they still don't want the pressure of leading-off, so I'm always getting requests to go second or third-- but someone has to go first . . . and today, in another great moment of teaching, I finally solved that dilemma-- a girl asked if she could "go second" and another student quickly claimed "going third" and someone else actually claimed the fourth spot-- so we were all lined up and ready to roll, but someone needed to go first and then I had an epiphany, a stroke of brilliance and I said: "Ok . . . I will go first" and the kids looked at me like: "Wtf?" and then I drew a line on the board and I said: "Tennis" and, once again, they were like "Wtf?"

3) then I did an informational speech on the topic of "In? Or Out?" and first I went through sports where the ball is "in" if it hits the line-- soccer and volleyball and tennis-- and then I discussed the anomalous nature of basketball, where the ball is "out" if it touches the line-- and we also reviewed how the sides and top of the backboard are in-bounds-- but not the supporting braces up top; we talked about football and the fact that if your foot hits the line, you are out; I outlined the complication of pickleball: the ball is "in" if it hits the line, unless the serve touches the non-volley zone line, then that serve is "out"; I brought up darts and what happens if the dart splits the wire (you get the higher score) and that started a whole debate on if darts and bowling were even sports at all (they are) and then I broke down the weirdness of baseball-- the ball can roll foul but if it rolls back into fair play before the base, then it's a fair ball-- and if it hits the foul pole then it's fair, so yu should call the foul-pole the "fair-pole" and then I actually learned something new from the lacrosse girls in my class-- and this rule seems plumb-fucking-crazy-- in lacross, if the ball goes out-of-bounds after an unsuccessful shot, when the ball crosses the end line, then the team whose player/player's lacrosse stick is closest to the ball is awarded the ball . . . wild stuff-- and now I'm making this extemporaneous informational presentation into a Google slideshow, entitled "Is it IN? Or is it OUT?" so that next semester, when a student asks to "go second" the class will be in for a real surprise (and perhaps no one will ever ask to go second again . . . but maybe I need to prepare a number of these boring and technical speeches, so that any time I don't get a volunteer to go first, the entire class gets tortured . . . there so many great topics I could present on: Transcendentalist Philosophy in American Literature, How to Keep a Salubrious Sleep Schedule, Here Are Some TV Shows Old White Guys Like, Seven Ways to Improve Your Pickleball Game, and -- of course-- How Robert Moses and the Automobile Destroyed Our Once Great Nation).