A Day In The Journey

I invariably have a small amount of trouble teaching my students about objective case. I'm not sure why. It's pretty simple: when you use a pronoun as the object of a preposition, a direct object, or an indirect object, you use objective case. Apparently, this little nugget of grammar wisdom is skipped over too often, which is why people say things like, "Between you and I" (wrong), "My sister went to the mall with my mom and I" (also wrong), and "You are giving that to who?" (wrong, wrong again). There is a lovely little moment in The Office (US series) that deal with this controversy. I tried briefly to find the video clip, but YouTube is a vast marshland of video clipage through which I was unwilling to wade. Here, instead, is the text of the discussion:
Ryan: You know what I really want? What I really want is for you to know (the computer system) so you can communicate it to your people here, to your clients, to whomever ...
Michael: (Snort) OK.
Ryan: What?
Michael: It's whoever not whomever.
Ryan: It's whomever.
Michael: No. Whomever is actually never right.
Jim: Well, sometimes it's right.
Creed: Michael is right. It's a made-up word used to trick students.
Andy: No. Actually, whomever is the formal version of the word.
Oscar: Obviously, it's a real word, but I don't know when to use it correctly.
Michael (to camera): Not a native speaker.
Kevin: I know what's right. But I'm not going say, because you're all jerks who didn't come to see my band last night.
Ryan: Do you really know which one is correct?
Kevin: I don't know.
Pam: It's whom when it's the object of a sentence and who when it's the subject.
Phyllis: That sounds right.
Michael: Sounds right, but is it right?
Stanley: How did Ryan use it, as an object or a subject?
Ryan: As an object.
Kelly: Ryan used me as an object.
Stanley: Is he right about that ... ?
Toby: It was: Ryan wanted Michael, as the subject, to explain the computer system, the object, to whomever, meaning us, the indirect object, which is the correct usage of the word.

There you go. Short, simple, and sweet lesson in the use of objective case. So what brings this up in my blog today? This:

Now I realize the quality is rather awful as I was using my cell phone and had the setting such that I couldn't zoom. I apologize. The sticker says: Who freed who? Suddenly I understand why my students grapple with simple grammar concepts: adults surround them with ignorance. The end.

Now that I have that out of my system, on to other tidbits.
* I'm in the middle of Season 3 of Lost. I'm very, very confused and completely addicted.
* You shouldn't drive too fast in a raging downpour. This is not because of any visibility issues, mind you, but because water splashing up into your engine is a bad thing.
* The school where I teach uses ABeka for the main portion of the Reading program. We also supplement using the Houghton Mifflin Reading series because it involves more critical thinking skill development, and it's the curriculum the state schools use for Reading at the lower grades. Last year, because I was catching up with myself all year due to coming in at the beginning of the second quarter, I only used the parts of the HM workbooks that stood alone (ie, didn't require reading the selections from the HM readers). This year I started using the HM readers as well. They're really quite nice. The stories are engaging (albeit a little dated at times--a problem that's inherent in some ABeka stories as well, so no biggie), there are many pictures to aid in teaching predicting skills, and really excellent summary questions that include writing connections. I really wish I had been able to integrate this more into the curriculum last year. Of course, I did integrate other comprehension and critical thinking exercises. It will be much easier and better with this particular resource, though.
* Toe socks are fun.
* Funny story: Yesterday, I was bustling about the classroom as usual. I had finished the Language lesson and walked over to my desk, set down my Language book, and picked up my Spelling book. I then taught the Spelling lesson and the Reading lesson. About 25 minutes later, I walk to the door at the back of the classroom to line up the students to switch classes before PE. I can see my computer monitor and notice that my open document is currently scrolling up and up and up. I look at it for a moment and realize that it's been scrolling up and up and up for 25 minutes. I realize that when I set down my Language text, the corner of it had landed on the "Enter" key of the number pad. When all is said and done, I had a Word document that was 1497 pages long. Yes, 1497 pages. Needless to say, I went to the top, copied the two pages I was supposed to have into another document and just deleted that one. Hahaha. What a day!

I supposed that's plenty enough for now, all. Have a great weekend!