Tinkerings

Teachers get a bum rap in a lot of ways.  Low pay.  Blamed for all low performance results on standardized tests.  Caught between parents and students.  The list is long.  But, we do get summers off.  Believe me, that’s huge.

But there’s one other way teachers get a bum rap.  We get to make two sets of resolutions each year: One on January 1st and another sometime in August or September depending on what state in which one teaches.

Of course, not wanting to be an underachiever, I also set myself up for resolutions at the end of the last school year.

Like all good resolutions, we mean well.  We honestly intent to do things differently.  Sometimes we even succeed.  Other times we learn to tweak the resolutions so they are easy to complete.  Like this one from last New Year’s for me:

I will begin the process of losing 40 pounds.

And I did.  Several times.  In fact, I’m beginning that process again next week.  (Hey, we’re teachers.  We’re smart).

Here are just a few of the resolutions I’ve set for myself this school year.

1. Delegate more of my work among my team members.  I am one of those people that like to do my work and the work of thirteen other people.  It is time to give it up.
2. Learn all of my students’ names in the first three weeks of school.  I am horrible with names.  I think the only way I learned mine was from my mom writing it on the inside labels of my clothes when I went to church camp.
3. Find a working phone number for every student before the semester is over.  I’m giving myself a little more time here, but those of you who don’t teach would be surprised at the number of kids who don’t know a phone number for their parents.  Or a street address for their house.  Or what a pencil looks like.
4. Only grade what matters.  No more extra credit for bringing hand sanitizer.  Or getting a form signed.  Or staying awake in class.  (You can’t make this stuff up).
5. Refuse to allow a single student to leave my class without learning the things I intended for them to learn.

OK, I really only wrote all those to get to that last one.  It is this dogged determination to see kids learn that keeps us coming back to the classroom every year.

I will let the teachers, admins, school board members, and other members of PLN that read this blog hold me accountable to these resolutions.  Feel free to ask anytime how I’m doing.  If my answer starts with, “Ummmmm….” just shake your head and walk away.  Ask again on a good day.

What resolutions have you made this year?

I received a round of interview questions recently with regard to an assistant principal opening in another district.  While most of the questions were pretty straightforward with regard to my opinions about the role of APs, discipline, management style, and such, the first question was extremely interesting.  It was much more philosophical (the kinds of questions I love to grapple with for days, weeks, or even years….don’t get me started on Walter Brueggemann’s Israel’s Praise again).

The question asked for my ideas regarding the purpose of a public school education in the life of a middle school student.  After writing my answer, I posed that question on my Facebook wall and asked my friends to give me their ideas.  Their responses were somewhat close to my own in some ways.

Here is what I wrote:

Middle school is the most interesting part of education.  Our school is grades 6 to 8, and it is really more three schools than just one.  Students change so much in each year, so middle school has to take on several roles as well.

First, middle school is a time of exploration.  Middle school students are exploring relationships, extra-curricular interests, academic strengths, boundaries put in place by anyone in authority, and a lot about themselves.  Middle school should be a place where the exploration has meaning.  Students learn how to act in society, how to be kind and giving (sometimes they learn this by experiencing the opposite), how to organize, study, and a host of other lessons aimed at making them more productive students and citizens.

Second, middle school is a time of preparation.  The changes from self-contained classrooms to changing teachers every period, from cubbies to lockers, from no dress code to some form of dress code, and more, help students create a slow, deliberate readiness to life in high school and beyond.  Middle school is a place that helps foster this readiness for life.

Third, middle school is a time of decision-making.  Students begin to decide who they are in the world.  They also decide if they like school or not or if they are good at it or not.  Some research indicates many decide in middle school whether or not to even stay in school.  As such, middle school takes on an even greater role in engaging students in academics (learning in general), exploring career choices (discovering what they like and what they are good at), socialization (how to treat others as well as deciding how they want to be treated), and aiding in the formulation of a beneficial world view (citizenship, family, friends, etc).

I would love for you to leave me some comments as to your own thoughts.  What did I get wrong?  What did I leave out?  Or better yet, what did I get right?

I went hiking yesterday.  I don’t hike.  But yesterday, with the invitation of a good friend from Florida, I wound up driving 90 minutes to Pigeon Forge, TN, and taking a 6 hour hike over a total of 8 grueling miles.  I really didn’t think that much about it…until about hour 4.  That was when I started to hit “the wall.”  It was really only through shear determination (and the refusal to be the only one in our group to say, “I don’t want to walk anymore”) that I made it back to the car.

The walk was beautiful.  And hard.  I got to see some gorgeous mountains to the right and left of me as I trekked up the hill.  None of us really knew what the trail was like since we had never been there before.  Oh sure, one of us had looked at it on a map, but that really didn’t do it justice.  Each of us had a pre-conceived idea of the hike ahead and each of us, it turned out, were wrong.

You see, I thought starting at out 5,050 feet was pretty high.  I sort of envisioned a trail meandering around the tip of the mountain tops with a few uphill and a few downhill slopes.  I thought the entire trail would be like the beginning: flat and wide with steps braced by fallen logs.  Someone had gone to great lengths to make the beginning of my journey as easy as possible.

As we went along the trail, rising to over 6,100 feet, the trail began to change.  Suddenly it was more wild with rocks and water and foliage hanging over the sides.  It was more narrow and much more difficult to maneuver.  I had strategically placed myself 3rd in a line of 3.  At first that was so I didn’t have to set the pace.  But later I realized it was better to follow someone along the trail and watch how they proceed.  I could see steps that were difficult and make minor changes in direction from the leader so that my walk was somehow easier than his.

When we hit 6,100 feet we thought we were fairly near our goal, which was a large outcrop of rock on the knob of a mountain top called Charlie’s Bunion.  We were wrong.  We began a fairly fast descent back down to 5,500 feet over another 1.5 miles.  I realized that going downhill so fast was just as difficult as the climb, but for different reasons.  On the climb my legs were tired from stepping up and up and up.  My calves and quads were feeling the burn.  On the downward slope my legs felt better, but not my feet and knees hurt.  The angle of the slope made my feet slide into the front end of the inside of my tennis shoes.  My toes were hurting and that caused my entire foot to ache.  The change in the angle of my ankles caused extra pressure on my knees.  I was reminded of a talk I had with a runner a week earlier and how people who train for marathons find that training to run downhill is just as important and training to climb hills.  More injuries occur on the downward slopes where we think the hike or run is easier.  In reality, it is equally hard to climb the hill as it is to go down the hill.  But hard in different ways.

We enjoyed Charlie’s Bunion for about 30 minutes.  The views were spectacular.  We met a few other hikers there.  Everyone was resting and eating something.  It was a welcome break.

Most people on this trail never make it to Charlie’s Bunion.  For many it wasn’t their goal in the first place.  They walk in enough to get some beautiful views and walk back out again.  How did I know this?  Because the last mile toward our destination was the roughest, most underused portion of the trail.  It was very narrow and wet and covered over with brush.  I suddenly began quoting “The Road Less Traveled” in my head.  Going all the way to this small bald rock really was making all the difference for me.

Then it was time for the return.

The 2nd half of a long hike can be brutal.  Your body is already tired.  Your muscles are calling you a wimp.  And you know they are right.  And then it hit us.  That fast downward slope that felt so good on some of our leg muscles had just done an about face and was now the steepest part of the mountain to climb.  Our tired legs, breathless lungs, and weary minds stopped often. Yet on we trudged.  This was no place to stop and quit.

After reaching the 6,100 feet level again, we started the 2.5 mile decline into hell.  One thing I learned about hiking started to really become a concrete reality in my head: Take care of your feet.  My feet hurt.  And now my toes were forced back into the front of my shoes.  My knees hated every time we met a stair step that had to be traversed in reverse.

It was on this leg of the journey that I hit “the wall.”  I realized then and there that most of my life can be summed up as a quitter.  If I hit the wall on a treadmill, I just hit stop and go do something else.  I even joked that it might be worth it to fall down and break my leg and just wait to get airlifted to a hospital.  But I kept most of my thoughts of quitting to myself.  I wondered if I was the only one feeling this way.

It was about 1.5 miles away from our car that I realized part of my problem.  I had established the wrong goal from the beginning.  My goal was to get to Charlie’s Bunion.  In reality, my goal should have been to get back to the car.  This became crystal clear as a young man in his early twenties came running down the trail behind us.  Yes, I said running.  He was skipping from rock to rock and jumping over things that jutted out in his way.  We gladly stopped to let him by, but he stopped for a minute with us and asked if any of us had a map of the trail.  You see, he knew there was one particular trail that went off from ours, but he couldn’t remember the name of it.  He wanted to add about 5 miles to his hike that day, and thought that would be a good plan.  Luckily, he wasn’t standing close enough to me to deck him.  But then, I was probably too tired to take the swing anyway.

I love metaphors.  And this hike has given me many to ponder.  Here are a few:

• Make sure you are headed toward the right goal in life.  If you are, the entire journey will be enjoyable.  If not, the journey will hurt every step of the way.
• There is no map that can accurately prepare you for the journey.  Watch those in front of you.  Do what works.  Change what doesn’t.
• Hike your own Hike.  OK, this is not original to me.  One of the guys we met that has hiked for 25 years gave us this quote.  He meant every hiker should wear what they want, hike where they want, carry what they want, and don’t be conformed to what they think a hiker should do.  I translate to be “Live your own life and not someone else’s.”
• It really is all about your mindset.  Your mind is more powerful than your body.  It can sit your body down, or it can pick your body up.  Be determined.  Don’t quit.  Its just pain.
• Travel with a buddy or two.  The Bible makes this point in a couple of ways.  First, if one falls down and he has a partner there is someone to help pick him back up (words of wisdom on a long hike).  Second, anyone can break a cord of just one string.  Some can even break a cord of 2 strings.  But a cord made out of 3 strings is not easily broken.  We all agreed that if we had been alone, we would have turned around before we got to Charlie’s Bunion.
• When you think the journey is over…its not.  Charlie’s Bunion wasn’t the end.  Even making it back to the car wasn’t the end.  I’ve still got more journey today.

What about you?  Do you have a metaphor you would like to share?  Or is there a life lesson from this post that you found and I didn’t mention?  Leave me and the rest of the world a comment!

In an answer to the age-old problem of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg,” I read this week that scientists have finally decided the chicken had to come first.  The chicken creates some type of protein necessary for the egg shell to harden.  So, they concluded, the egg would not have had this protein without first being inside the chicken.  Wow.  Thanks for that.

A larger question, for me at least, emerged this week at our DEN LC Symposium.  I was leading a group discussion on the power and pitfalls of allowing students the unique privilege of using their cell phones in class.  Our group was sharing best practice ideas of how cell phones could be used to create podcasts, produce videos, snap pictures for assignments, respond to questions using text, view video tutorials hosted at iTunes and much more.  It was a great discussion.

Then one of our many STAR educators hit me upside the head with the reality stick.  Lisa Parisi said something to the effect that it sounded like we had discovered this great tool and we were trying to find creative ways to use it.  Instead, she continued, we should be looking at curriculum and standards and developing lesson plans and only then deciding which piece of technology (if any) would best help us and the students in the learning process.

That was a light-bulb-over-the-head moment for me.

This article from the Washington Post helps demonstrate her point.  It discusses the boom in sales for Interactive Whiteboards such as SMART and Promethean.  Our school just purchased a Promethean board and short throw projectors for every classroom.  The article talks of teachers who are using the product with minimal results.

DISCLAIMER: To be fair, those teachers frustrated with the lack of gains using an IWB seem to be those that are just using them as a glorified way to lecture; a new PowerPoint if you will.  Reading the article you will find few who are actually engaging students with the boards.  But I think Lisa’s point is still valid: design the lesson first and choose the technology second.

Teachers are under pressure now to “use those boards” every day in their classes.  This seems reasonable.  After all, schools just spent tens of thousands of dollars purchasing them, installing them, and training teachers to use them.  But what if it isn’t the best tool for the job?  What if you don’t need technology at all?

I teach in a computer lab.  My kids get hands-on computer experience nearly everyday.  Yet, even in that environment there are days when our kids won’t touch a computer.  We want them in circles talking.  We want them manipulating things together on a table top.  Could I put them in a chat room for the discussion?  Sure!  Will I? Well….it depends.

If the goal of the lesson is to get kids to work collaboratively to discuss a particular aspect of a story, or design a math lesson for their peers, or talk about their summer vacation, then no, they don’t need a computer for that.  If, however, the goal is to demonstrate for them the power of collaboration in a Web 2.0 environment where they learn how to discuss these things together at home outside of class, then yes, a chat room or a Google Doc would be perfect.

We are pushed so hard to earn the title of a 21st Century Classroom.  But whether we like it or not, this is the 21st Century.  Every classroom is now a 21st Century Classroom with or without technology.

So. back to my question.

I have to change my paradigm a bit.  The lesson has to come first.  It contains the “protein” that solidifies the reason to use the technology.  Not just any old technology.  The right technology.  Sometimes that’s a computer. Sometimes a phone. Sometimes an iPod. Sometimes an IWB.  And sometimes it is something just as revolutionary in its day: a pencil, a crayon, or a foldable.

Monday was spent pretty much in the exhibit hall.  Being registered as an exhibitor (with the DEN) didn’t allow me to get a printed schedule of workshops with times and locations, so I wasn’t really sure when everything started.  Luckily, with the time change involved between Tennessee and Colorado I was up early enough to be ready long before anything opened.

Once I realized that the exhibit hall “officially” opened at 9:30, and I was already standing in the conference center at 8, I decided I would look again at the offerings of workshops and see if I could redeem some time.  That’s how I wound up in Hall Davidson’s session on Epson’s Bright Link project and IWB combination.

After that, I spent most of my time in the exhibit hall just wandering around to see what was there.  I put together a little montage of what I saw in the video below.

While Traci Blazosky was presenting on DE Streaming and Glogster in the Discovery Education booth, I struck up a conversation with the founder of Glogster who had stopped by to see her work.  Well, actually, I was noticing him looking at the presentation while standing in the aisle and, being a former sales/marketing guy, thought I should help engage him more in what was going on.  It went something like this:

Me: Are you familiar with Glogster?

Him: Kind of.  I’m Mr. Glogster.

Once I thought the various shades of reds and orange had disappeared from my face, I began telling him how we used Glogster in our classes at Lake Forest this last year.  I mentioned to him that ENA had unblocked the education version of Glogster, but not the regular Glogster.com site.  As a result, we were unable to successfully add DE Streaming videos to our student Glogs.  He verified that the videos for both sites are pulled through the same pipeline and gave me some information to pass along to ENA to help solve that problem for next year.  Sweet.

The afternoon was less eventful.  Well, at least less embarrassing.  I got to meet the founder of BrainPop and pick up a cool Moby ball cap.  I will wear it proudly.

MaryAnn Sansonetti and I went to a social gathering sponsored by Compass Learning at The Tavern.  Since neither of us are customers of theirs, the gathering was a little boring (sorry Compass Learning).  As a result, even the prospect of possibly winning a new iPad in the evening’s raffle couldn’t keep us there much more than about 30 minutes.

In a conference as overwhelmingly big as ISTE, it is the small things that really matter.  Seeing Epson’s new technology.  A chance meeting with a website founder who might help an entire state free up his product.  Lunch with friends from Pennsylvania.  Coffee with a friend from South Carolina.  Late night dessert with both.  These are the successes of ISTE.

I have been a fan of Dan Meyer for about three years.  I should say, I’ve been a fan of his blog.  As a math teacher, he is constantly challenging both his students and his blog readers to think in new ways.  Recently, he did a talk for a TED event.  In it, he talked about the need to fundamentally change the way we teach math.  He coined a phrase that stuck with me (and others from what I’ve seen on Twitter).  He said that we needed to develop our students into “patient problem solvers.”

I totally agree.

So I’ve been thinking of ways to make kids patient problem solvers in language arts.  We drill and kill all these rules for spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and more.  But I’m afraid kids lose a fundamental truth needed to understand their importance: Why are we doing this?

With text messaging and other forms of quick, concise, truncated communication, kids have lost sight of what makes text messaging work.  Even those messages have certain rules.  Even abbreviations take on a consistent form in order to be understood.  One simply can’t shorten LOL to LL and have anyone understand what it means.  By the same token, I still get a kick out of using ROFLMAO with people that have never seen that acronym before.  It is total Greek to them until they understand the words behind it.

This led me to wonder about going back to Greek in order to get kids to understand the need for grammar rules.  In college, I had three wonderful years of Koine Greek, the derivative of Greek used to write the New Testament.  The original Greek texts were written in all capital letters with no spacing and no punctuation.  I wondered what would happen if I gave kids the note below on the first day of class?

After kids have taken a shot at re-writing the paragraph in a readable form of text, I would want to know the answer to one question: What general rules would you develop to make this and all writing easier to read? I would hope to hear rules about spacing between words, capitalizing only the important words, capitalizing only first letters, adding different punctuation for sentences and questions, and more.

Perhaps by struggling with the why of grammar we could develop patient problem solvers that could correctly use the how of grammar.

What do you think?

My feet can still get to tapping a bit when I think of a very young Michael Jackson singing “One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch girl…” with the Jackson 5.  Ah, that was when music was music and you could still understand all the lyrics in a song.

This morning, that song came to me while walking through Wal-Mart at 6:15.  I usually love Wal-Mart in very early morning hours.  There are no customers there to speak of.  You can find all kinds of employees in practically every aisle while they restock shelves.  It is very easy to get someone’s attention to help you find nearly anything.

This morning I didn’t need help.  I knew where the blank DVDs were, and I had a pretty good idea about the clear packing tape dispenser I needed.  So my walk through Wal-Mart lasted a total of 3 minutes.

Then I went to check out.

Because it was the early hours with no customers backed up in long lines of overflowing carts, there was one cash register open.  This particular Wal-Mart has over 30 cash registers, but only the 15 items or less lane was available.

I walked up to the register and laid my two items down for the man in the khaki colored pants and blue t-shirt to check me out.  (Just as a side note, sometimes a dress code really doesn’t matter).  Without a word to me, the man turned around and walked away.  I was left in the only available check out lane and there was no one there to do the checking out.

I continued to stand there while four other employees walked by the register and merely looked at the growing frustration on my face and continued on their way.  Finally, the checkout person came back (along with another customer he was evidently helping) and proceeded to move me backwards away from the register so he could help the person he brought with him.

Nothing was said.  No apologies made.  No explanations.  Just rudeness and a total lack of customer care.

If I hadn’t been wearing my DE Streaming Beyond the Textbook t-shirt I might have responded differently.  (Sometimes dress code does make a difference).  But since I was easily identifiable by the personal branding I had chosen that morning, I smiled, slid my credit card, gathered my belongings, and walked out of the store to let my blood pressure go down just slightly.

Think about it.  An entire store full of employees working away to get things ready for the shopping spree of the day, and one…just one…ruined my entire experience.

Sometimes that’s just one student.  Just one can ruin an entire day of teaching.  Sometimes that’s just one teacher.  Just one can make a student hate school for years to come. Sometimes that’s just one parent.  One administrator.  One professional development opportunity gone bad.  One badly needed website that’s blocked.  One email written in haste.

Michael Jackson had it wrong.  One bad apple really can ruin the whole bunch.

Always do your best to be a good apple.  We don’t all have to be the same type of apple.  Simply being a good one is enough.

Today, April 30, is National Poem In Your Pocket Day.  No, I don’t know who established it.  Its after our TCAP tests in Tennessee, so I’m sure we won’t celebrate it in our classes across the state.  Yet, poetry is one of the most beautiful art forms we can embed into the minds and hearts of our nation’s children.

Poetry leads to music.  It makes rhetorical speeches eloquent.  It lifts the heart.  It expresses our inner angst in a way no other medium can.

Today’s observance is not about those poems you have to look up and read (even though you love them so much).  It is about those poems you carry with you.  The ones you have memorized.  On Facebook this morning, I posted this one I learned nearly 25 years ago:

A diamond in the rough is a diamond sure enough / For before it ever sparkled it was made of diamond stuff / But someone had to find it or it never would be found / And someone had to grind it or it never would be found / But once its found and once its ground and once its burnished bright / That diamond’s everlastingly just shining out its light.

Back about five lives ago, I worked for our denominational publishing house.  Part of my job was to travel to Christian education workshops.  Sometimes I ran the bookstore.  Sometimes I got to lead workshops.  Sometimes I did both.  It was always fun.

My boss at the time, Tony Capps, pulled this poem out of the air one day as part of his opening keynote.  I was mesmerized by its simple beauty and its telling way it describes the job of a teacher.  I committed it to memory after hearing it once.  I still use it occasionally when I lead education workshops across Tennessee.

As teachers, we sometimes gripe about the kids we have.  We wish we had more technology.  Better textbooks.  More supplies.  More time.  Fewer students.  Shorter weeks…. You know what I’m talking about.  And yet, too often we forget that we are diamond miners.  We are digging through rock and dirt.  We are getting dirty in our attempts to find the diamond buried beneath the surface of each one of the precious children placed in our care.  (Yes, I said precious).

Thanks Tony.  25 years later you are still impacting kids in ways you never dreamed possible.

This has been a burning question on my mind for a few days.  I’m going to try to put down some thoughts in this blog, but please be aware that most of my blogs are first drafts.  They are a stream of consciousness at the time I feel I have to write.  Sometimes I look at them later and wonder, “What was I thinking?” or “I don’t remember saying that.”  This post may well turn out to be the same kind of thing.

I can tell you a big reason that is NOT why I teach.  I don’t teach for a paycheck.  Don’t get me wrong.  I like mine.  My creditors like for me to have it.  I know my daughter who is still in college is grateful for it.  But I don’t teach for the money.  If I did, this would just be a career.  It is more.  Much more.

I guess in simplest terms, I teach because I must.  I always have.  I was teaching adult Sunday school classes while still in high school.  Put me in a small group, and I’ll be the one explaining how things get done.  My kids hate it.  Their questions turn into mini-lessons from dad.  Sometimes it even gets me in trouble, but we won’t talk about those times here.

I am a teacher.  That’s not a career description.  It is a personality trait.  Every spiritual gifts inventory I’ve taken puts teaching at the top of the list.  Personality profiles all indicate I would be happiest in an area involving instructing.  I’m a helper.  Plain and simple.  Personality profiles indicate that I will often jump in to “fix” something without thinking simply because I know the answer.  Remember that statement about getting in trouble?  I’m still not talking about it.  If I wasn’t hired as a teacher, I would still be teaching…something….somewhere….to someone.

I teach because I love to see the light go on.  You know the one.  That little light bulb above every head that suddenly brightens when they “get” it.   I love the look of their eyes when the sparkle of learning something new sets in.  I love the fact that I have had an opportunity to change a life for the better….forever.

And I teach because I want to help teachers better themselves.  Some would say it is all about the kids.  I disagree.  Somebody has to be all about the teachers.  Someone has to want to help teachers be better teachers so they can reach more students.  OK, maybe that is all about the students in some convoluted way.  Streams of consciousness are tough to get out sometimes.

Why do you teach?  If you’re not a teacher, leave me a comment about one of your teachers that really showed you what teaching is all about.

(NOTE: This is also posted on the DEN TN LC Blog)

Today has been a great day in Memphis, TN!  The good folks with Memphis City Schools have done a remarkable job for their first truly regional Mid-South Technology Conference here at the Memphis Convention Center.  Nearly 1,000 are in attendance for technology training just a few blocks from historic Beale Street and the Peabody Hotel.

The day began with a keynote from Alan November.  If you’ve ever seen Alan speak at a conference, you know how engaging and personable he is.  Today he was at the top of his game just bouncing us from one idea to the next as they ping-ponged across his brain.  I’ll share more about that in a later post.

In the morning, I attended an informative session on BrainPop and another on the use of the video site Oovoo in schools.  Both were well-attended and the information was extremely useful.

After  lunch there was a keynote by John Seely Brown.  I had never heard him before.  While his information was sound, his presentation style is a little staid for right after lunch when nap time calls.

At the end of the day was my session on Skype.  I had a fairly packed room with about 65 people in attendance.  Most had never heard of Skype, or if they had they had never used it.  Another TN LC member, Tina Moore, Skyped into my session to talk about how she has used Skype in her classroom.  She was able to demonstrate Skype’s ability to share your computer screen.  The participants had lots and lots of questions when that piece was over, so we threw out the rest of the planned session and just popped the hood on the old Skype convertible and took a look at its horsepower.  It was, quite honestly, one of the most enjoyable sessions I’ve ever done.  The feedback from the group was phenomenal.

Tomorrow we start again.  Hall Davidson will be doing a keynote right after lunch.  In the morning, I will present on Building a Better Builder.  I would love to Ustream both sessions if I can get the audio fixed.  Today’s session is online, but there is only video, so its coming down later tonight.  Or maybe I could do one of those voice-overs like when the director narrates what was going on in his mind while shooting a particular scene.  Hmmmm…..