Emergency!

Emergency! was a television series that was on the air from 1972-79 – how it lasted that long is beyond me.  The show revolved generally around the life of the Los Angeles Fire Department, Station 51, and specifically around the lives of its two paramedics – John Gage and Roy De Soto.  The weekly series was pretty typical – a daring rescue, an out of control five- alarm fire, life-saving measures while riding in the back of an ambulance…impossible situations with no hope, BUT, all solved in 46 minutes not including commercial breaks!  A few months ago, I flipped on the television to MeTV, a channel that carries the “Oldies”; one of which is my favorite show, the greatest television series ever – The Andy Griffith Show.  Anyway, John and Roy, along with three doctors, worked on an emergency patient for an extended period with all of the equipment, knowledge, and technology that they could muster.  Unfortunately, the patient perished.  One doctor commented, “We did everything by the book.”  To this, a second doctor replied, “Maybe we need to get a better book.”

It’s not about the book.  The book is just one resource. Heck, some classes do not even have a book.  You are better than the book…aren’t you?  There are more resources than can be counted.  There are textbooks. There are periodicals. There are internet sites.  There is actual conversation with people.  Back in the so called “Old Days” when  kids like me actually had to visit the library (there was no such thing as a Media Center), choose six books about the topic you were researching and catch this – actually read them!  This was needed to write a 10 page paper for English X (the thought was that no one would figure out X as honors, Y was regular, and Z was remedial).  Back to my point.  It is important to utilize every resource that you can in your teaching.  One obvious choice is professional reading and making the most of every professional development opportunity (even the ones that are like watching paint dry). A great resource is to not only converse with your colleagues, but to visit their classrooms and check out their strategies.  Yes, it okay to steal the good ones.  One very important resource that is underutilized is creativity.  Get outside of the box and color outside of the lines.  Dare to make your class the most exciting one in the school. Be the class that the kids are running to get to because they do not want to miss a thing.  Keep them thirsting for more.  Sometimes we don’t need a better book. We need a wider imagination.


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The Browns open the regular season against the New York Jets.  Interesting, the Jets actually play their home games in New Jersey. This would be akin to the Browns playing their home games in Pennsylvania, which would be in violation of the Ohio state constitution.  Regardless, here we go Brownies, here we go!