Today, following "Big Joe's Funeral" around Harlem on Google Earth and introducing my African-American-dominated class to Sammy Davis, Jr. as an 8 year-old, singing and tapping to "You Rascal You," was supposed to be the big fun day in class. Instead I got the feeling that they would rather have been doing a worksheet and listening to their own headphones because of all the side conversations that began as soon as I started the "tour."
Most of them wanted to know if the pictures they were looking at were "real," in the sense of whether the cars we were "passing by" in Street View were actually on Malcolm X Boulevard right at the moment we were seeing them. When I explained that they weren't, a lot of the students seemed to lose interest. Maybe it wasn't as cool as I, and most of the other adults to whom I explained my plans, thought it was. Or maybe these students don't get out of their own neighborhood much and have had the edge of their curiosity a bit dulled because of it. Who knows?
Or maybe they're not happy being challenged. More than once I heard a comment about too much discussion of death and "Can we get back to just reading the story now, PLEASE?"
Well, we will tomorrow, because I definitely want to finish up by the end of class.
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