Rocco Maiolo's Ramblings and Musings

Creative Procrastination Right now I have 60 exams to mark. After that, 80+ report cards. So what am I doing now? Blogging: working title -- "Creative Procrastination". Would that be ironic X 2 or is there an other word for it? Yes, when I have something pressing to accomplish, my mind supplies me with all kinds of other wonderful possibilities; under normal circumstances, I couldn't think of such sundry speculatives: writing a daily devotional based on the genealogies, trying to find and buy a Montreal Maroons hockey sweater online, inventing/patenting a binder for foolscap-size paper (maybe I shouldn't go public with that one...) reading! reading is always good. James Joyce's Ulysses sits on my bookshelf taunting me; it whispers, you're no student of English until you've read me ; then it says, above a whisper, wuss! look for the verse in Proverbs where it encourage drinking beer & wine if your life sucks And the proverbial list goes on. Speaking of ...

To My 2009 semester 2 EWCs: You're Great! In my second year of teaching I was observed by my then vice-principal and once former high school English teacher, Bob Majers . He observed a grade 9 class -- I have no recollection of what we were doing. Cue for Treason maybe? What I do remember is a conversation that went something like this: BOB: Wow, this is a great class. ME: Yeah, they're super kids -- smart and a lot of fun. BOB: Have you told them that? ME: No... BOB: Well, I think you should. ME: Good idea. That conversation has stuck with me. I often forget that the young people I get the honour to be with for 5 months are 14-18 yrs-olds -- kids in adult bodies. I don't mean that disrespectfully ; I just mean that they might look like they're adults but really they're only a very short few years past being 12-yrs old ... kids. So what's my point: high school students need to know that you're proud of them and that you think they're great. Specifically...

Larry Sirranni, aka, Super Mario Yesterday I was at a retirement party for a man who is wholly human, doubtlessly flawed and yet -- dare I use the word? --great in what he has accomplished in his vocation as an educator. The point of this blog is not to honour the man, Larry Sirianni , although he is quite worthy of being honoured (as was he in the many speeches given on June 4 at the Thundering Waters Golf Course in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada). The point of this blog is to look at the concept of greatness. What makes Larry great -- what makes anyone great -- is that in his vocation he did not settle for the ordinary. He approached every minute, every day, every student, every colleague with the conviction that everyone, himself included, could be better after the encounter. As I watched Larry being so rightly honoured I found myself having many divergent thoughts. Is it then what a person does that makes him great? Does the greatness ( largeness , scope) lie in the magnit...