Thursday, December 15, 2005

What happened to Schoolhouse Rock?

Hey Eagles fans,
Today we salute you, Philadelphia Eagles fan. While teams like the Chicago Bears and the Cincinnati Bengals (Bengals?!?!?!) are enjoying winning seasons, you have to endure starting Mike McMahon at QB, and some running back you don’t even know this week instead of Brian Westbrook. Oh, you had your laughs when T.O. was dismissed by the team, but now you’re just another malcontent Philly fan longing for the days of Ron Jaworski (Who, you ask? Yeah, exactly.) So crack open a non-alcoholic beverage, only because the B.L.O.G. website doesn’t advocate drinking anything hard. Even though losing seasons will make you want to get ya drink on. Ask Lions and Cardinals fans.

(Now back to the B.L.O.G., already in progress…)
-- everybody,
Hoping that you guys are continuing to have a spectacular holiday season, and that everything is going well with finals if you just happen to be in school. Actually, I wanted to address education in America, and the fact that it’s steadily declining because of a number of factors. To talk about all of them here would take more than a hot minute, and would range from lack of funding to lack of parental participation. There’s a decided lack of concern from all sides, and being a Bible Study teacher, I know that kids can read how someone genuinely feels about what they teach. Well, I’ve been in conversation with someone my age about their teaching experience, and this is what I’ve gotten from her…some quotes first:

“…but it does seem like all the principal cares about is getting a paycheck”
“…like he wants the students scores to go up, but when it comes to cracking down on kids that misbehave, it's like nothing is really done about it”

She also said that she believes the main issues that affect the youth concerning learning is lack of discipline, and lack of wanting to learn. Granted, this is her first semester teaching, and possibly her last, because she’s endured a lot of frustrations and such during this term. However, I feel like she was dead on with some of the issues that are affecting the young ones.

I originally wanted to throw something in this blog about Schoolhouse Rock, and about how in the late-80’s and early 90’s, was used as an instruction tool in some schools. For those of you that don’t know what Schoolhouse Rock is, here’s a description by the good folks at Wikipedia:

Schoolhouse Rock! is a series of 46 educational shorts featuring rock songs about schoolroom topics, including grammar, science, economics and American history and politics. Originally conceived by Thomas G. Yohe in 1972, the shorts were broadcast on ABC television affiliates until 1986. They were then broadcast on occasion throughout the 1990s and part of the 2000s.

Here’s a link that describes the breakdown of Schoolhouse Rock in depth, chronicling the six different ‘rocks’, including Grammar, Science, Money, Multiplication, Computer and America Rock.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoolhouse_Rock%21

Earlier, I was thinking that I would include Schoolhouse Rock in my blog as part of explaining how I feel music can bridge some of the gaps in education. Music has been used long before SHR in helping kids to learn…e’rybody know the ABC song, but even before that…I did some (internet) research to try to find original teaching methods from the Motherland. Found some interesting methods fused in a class taught in Australia…here’s the link:
http://education.deakin.edu.au/music_ed/african_music/

I’m saying this to all you guys because I’m actually trying something of the sort in my bible study class. I’m working on…well, it’s not a musical per se…it’s got more of a “Lyricist Lounge” flow in reference to talking about real-world issues. It’s going to be deeply scripture-based, and I explained to them in saying that ‘it will have a music video feel, but that your thoughts and feelings and what you want for yourselves will make this experience come to life’. I’m calling it ‘An Album Concept’, and I really just want God to work through our class and through this project to make youth and parents understand alike what is at stake in our everyday lives. And just for somebody, somewhere to care about the young ones. Ya’ll take it easy,

The Good Doctor

(and because some of you like irrelevant relevance…)
So I went to cover the Aiken High basketball game…and the opposing team went to take a free throw. The AHS cheerleaders began a chant that sounded something like this:
Oh I think she’ll miss it
Oh I think she’ll miss it
(after a missed FT)
Oh I think she’ll miss it like she missed the other one
So it’s only right that she gonna miss another one
Then someone ran out onto the court and did the Laffy Taffy dance. I’d had enough, and tackled the dude like the second coming of Terry Tate, office linebacker. Ok, so I made the last part up.
But still, this is why we can’t allow sorry rappers and sorry trends to stay around, because the young kids will pick it up, and just like that, young Shad Moss will become Lil’ Bow Wow, and then grill out the top of his mouth and perform a double homicidal, spelling and grammatical murder of the phrase ‘Fresh Azimiz’ (Fresh as I’m is…yeah, I know. I threw up too.)
Still, in the back of mind I kinda wonder how much money the candy folks at Laffy Taffy made since D4L dropped their hit. If your moms is the candy lady, I’m happy ya’ll making a little mo’ bank.
That being said, Iceman, we need to go to the lab and make the ‘Now and Later’ remix, and as Dave Chappelle in P-Diddy garb would say, ‘go and make Daddy a hit!’ I miss Dave…here’s hoping that the passing of Richard Pryor will bring Dave out of his South African hideout. (More IR will be added later this week.)

Next blog will be a football preview…I gotta talk about my Panthers, the undefeated Colts, and why Donny McNabb’s sports hernia might not be all in part to that early season hit against the Falcons, but rather enduring the cheap shots taken by Limbaugh, T.O. and others during his days in the league. Stay cool.

Peace and love folks.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Hey, a holiday contest from B.L.O.G.

Hey everybody,

Just wanted to thank you all for your continued support of the B.L.O.G., and we're having our first contest here at the B.L.O.G. You, yes Y-O-U, can win a free copy of Ralph Wiley's 'Why Black People Tend to Shout' if you leave a comment on 'The Blackest Friday' or on the upcoming post here at the B.L.O.G. If you've ever left a comment on the BLOG, you're automatically entered, and the best part is that shipping is free. We keeps it real at the BLOG, son, down to the postage. Hey, if you read it by Christmas, you can even wrap that bad boy up and send it to someone that needs the knowledge. Well, just to give you guys a heads-up on the next blog, it's going to be music-related...I wanna know what happened to Schoolhouse Rock...and other issues of that sort. You'll understand when you read it, trust me. Love ya'll folk,

The Good Doctor

Fine print: blah blah blah Void where prohibited blah blah blah I ain't sending that ish overseas blah blah blah Because he left a comment, The Good Doctor is eligible for the contest blah blah blah Rick James blah blah blah