So the other day I taught a lesson on magnetism to a group of 30 4th and 5th grade kids. The lesson was inquiry based where I gave them all magnets and mystery bags full of random stuff. The bags had many different kinds of metals. Some of the metals were magnetic and some weren't. I included some other silly stuff like string, rubber bands, poker chips, pipe cleaners, cassette tape, and some cut up pieces of 35 mm film. I had the students record in their science notebooks what was magnetic and what wasn't. Every student, all 30 of them, had no idea what the film was. I was hit with one of the biggest generation gap bricks in the head that I have been hit with. Here is my friend Lindsay poking at a typewriter and made me think about generations and who uses what and why. I feel lucky to have grown up in the generation that I did. Why on Earth would you ever use a typewriter when we have these beautiful computers filled with color and shortcuts? Yet here I am using one to type these very words. I could talk for days about this but won't. I guess its that silly argument similar to digital and film. Each has its place. If you say different I encourage you to slow down and step backwards there is excellence in it all. Its just how you use it and enjoy it. So go ahead poke at a few keys and feel what hitting the return button really feels like. zzzzzzzz CLUNK!

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