Friday, January 6, 2012

Featured Photo: Social Media


Forgive me for posting yet another blurry camera-on-my-phone photograph, but I had to be inconspicuous with this shot. These are the shoes that were on our bag boy at the grocery store the other day. It's hard to see, but this guy has hand painted the logos of just about every form of social media on his high tops. Skype, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, Google, Flickr, even LinkedIn, they're all there.

This is a fantastic example of the pop culture of Saudi youth: the internet. Social interaction is very limited for the youngins, so they have found and used every outlet possible to get their personalities out there and to get to know the world around them.

The teacher in me kind of cringed when I saw this. I realized that this kid probably spent hours on these shoes. Hours that I know he would never have dreamed of spending on academic pursuits. This is the kind of student I want to have in my classroom because I try to connect the kids' outside world to the classroom. From what I've heard about some of the schools in the Kingdom, I don't think this kid's teachers share the same feelings.

Vicariously yours,


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