Word: showed
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Glee, the hit show about a high school Glee club, has very sharp claws, which is one reason kids like it so much. It is routinely, if hilariously, cruel (the sweet jock is described as so dumb, "he's cheating off a girl who thinks the square root of 4 is rainbows"). But no darker current--let alone motivation for parental monitoring--had occurred to me until I recently heard a bright, earnest youth minister tell a group of high school kids that he thought Glee was "anti-Christian...
Which led my husband to pose the question to our daughters, What would Jesus watch? That in turn led to an intriguing--and useful--conversation around our dinner table. It's the oldest teacher's trick, better to show than tell: the Sermon on the Mount was clean and clear, but Jesus also offered parables, little mysteries to unwrap and examine for their coded messages. This is a delivery device especially good for teenagers building their rebellious muscles...
...themselves what it was like to walk in their friend's shoes--or roll in his chair. A second subplot explored the love and tension between a flamboyantly gay kid and his devoted, conflicted dad. A third forced us to revisit the judgment we'd reached about the show's most gleefully conniving character, cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, who has all the charm and subtlety of a python. She accepted a clumsy girl with Down syndrome onto her immaculate squad and treated her just like all the other members--brutally and contemptuously. When Mr. Schuester challenged her motives, she stared...
...point is not whether there is an embedded moral message to be found beneath all the snark and snideness in this show or any other. The point lies in the surprises that jostle us out of our smug little certainties and invite us to weigh what we value, whatever our faith tradition. I'm reminded of the furor over kids' reading Harry Potter, which some conservative Christian parents rejected because the books dealt with magic and witches and wizards. I never understood why J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis' witches and wizards got a free pass just because the authors wore...
...background or learning ability. Early tracking of students in China ensures that only the best and brightest can receive college-prep education; others are put into vocational schools or the workforce. If I taught only students who had parental support and spent hours on homework, I certainly could show higher test scores. But I believe that anyone can achieve his dream. The surly teen may mature and realize he needs an education to get the job he loves; the struggling kid may be able to get to college with better study habits. Please don't insult American teachers in this...