Watch a television show clip. These can be downloaded from the internet or recorded directly. Identify and write down all the idioms heard. Discuss how they were used. -or- Talk about famous song titles or lyrics to famous songs with idioms. A type of “famous song titles” or “famous song lyrics” on an internet search engine such as Google can provide a good start. -or- Use comic section of the Sunday paper. Look for and discuss idioms found. Look for idioms in other sections of the paper, such as sports or arts and entertainment. -or- Look for idioms in popular fiction books or books required ..read more

Should Batman kill the Joker? While there is no objectively definitive answer, like there is say for “What is the capital of Australia?” the two main possibilities just so happen to be the two main opposing forms of moral philosophy: utilitarianism vs. deontology. Utilitarianism advocates judging actions by their consequences. The consequences of killing the Joker would be to save the lives of everyone the Joker will kill in the future. Utilitarianism contrasts with deontological ethical systems, such as Kant’s and Christian ethics, in that in those systems, certain duties apply regarding how ..read more

The Self Hume subtracted anything supernaturally special from the concept of the self, arguing that there is no coherent self or “I.” Instead, each of us is nothing but a bundle of perceptions. “When I enter most intimately into what I call myself,” he wrote, “I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.” This subtraction may seem initially disheartening. Further reflection, however, reveals its many ..read more

Blurt!  Students are instructed to state the helping verb in orally presented sentences. First write the helping verbs on the board:  For example,  “Is Are Am Does” Then say a sentence with a helping verb.  For example, say: “I am hungry.” The first student to say the helping verb, am, gets a point. Increase sentence length to increase complexity. For a noncompetitive activity, write each word more than once, and instruct students to work together to eliminate all the words on the board. Surprising Statements.  Use tag questions to verify surprising statements, such as ..read more

There are several posts here on making language therapy objective, but because they’re scattered and hard to find, I’m combining the information into a page that can be accessed from the top menu. Objective Language Therapy is an attempt to shift SLPs’ traditionally subjective, scattered approaches into an approach that can be used to know where language impaired kids are at and where they need to go.  Instead of statements like, “He’s doing better with making sentences,” Objective Language Therapy encourages objective statements like, “His use of age appropriate prepositions in sentences ..read more

Yet another study popped up in my feed saying the same things about what successful educational countries are doing that America isn’t.  This study, as many of the others have been doing, looked at what foreign exchange students are saying when comparing their systems to ours.  If America ever wants to compete, these are things that have got to happen: School is harder. There’s less homework but the material is more rigorous. People take education more seriously, from selecting the content to selecting the teachers. Sports are just a hobby. In the U.S., sports are a huge distraction ..read more

Virtue Theory His definition of virtues divided them into two types: moral, which are shaped through early training and reinforced to become matter of habit, and intellectual, which can be rationally taught. All virtues have the common structure of falling between two extremes at a point called the Golden Mean. Virtues are the mean between excess and deficiency. He believed that because every action and decision aims at some good, the good has been well described as that at which everything aims. A virtuous response or action is intermediate. For example, it is not good to feel angry too ofte ..read more

Look in a cookbook. Identify conjunctions. Follow directions in a recipe. Talk about the conjunctions used. Example Statements:  “Put the ingredients in a bowl before mixing them together.”  “Mix the ingredients until all the lumps are gone.” Talk about some games’ rules. Talk about reasons for the rules using conjunctions. Example Statements:  “You collect two hundred dollars when you pass go.”  “The other team gets the ball whenever there’s an interception.”  “If another piece is diagonal to yours, you can jump that piece, and then take it.” Use an atlas. Instru ..read more

Lying has obviously become a huge issue recently.  And while politicians have long bent the truth and engaged in other exaggerations and distortions, the intentions seem to be what’s changing.  The more common political lies of the past, used primarily to win individual elections, have been replaced by elaborate webs of distortions intended to use voters’ confusions as tools in constructing greedy gain.  As part of this confusion, the distraction has often been raised that because the other side has been dishonest, the voter should just, well, keep listening to the distraction o ..read more

He was an American philosopher who lived from 1921 to 2002. Rawls reconciled liberty and equality in one way by saying that each citizen has the right to the maximum basic personal and political liberties that are compatible with a similar system that can be afforded to others.  His difference principle states that social and economic inequalities should be to the most benefit of the least advantaged members of society. We should put our effort into ensuring that the rules of the game are fair. Once society is organized around a set of fair rules, people can set about freely playing the ..read more