In NIE, using the analogy of baseball, we talked about 'pitching', pitching the level of your lesson; pitching at the correct height so that the content would not be too difficult nor too easy. Generally I feel I have done well to keep the students in my English class interested and engaged. Today was an exception in which I probably 'overpitched.'
Five for fighting's World, that's one really great song, with lyrics that make you ponder, lyrics which evoke mental images of starving children, mushroom-shaped clouds, a polar bear clinging desperately to a melting ice floe, World Leaders giving great speeches promising everything but fulfilling little, hurricanes, Katrina, New Orleans, Surveillance, Big Brother, Che Guevara, Revolutions, failed revolutions, crying mothers while bombs rain down all around, or so I thought:

Got a package full of Wishes
A Time machine, a Magic Wand
A Globe made out of Gold

No Instructions or Commandments
Laws of Gravity or
Indecisions to uphold

Printed on the box I see
A.C.M.E.'s Build-a-World-to-be
Take a chance - Grab a piece
Help me to believe it

What kind of world do you want?
Think Anything
Let's start at the start
Build a masterpiece
Be careful what you wish for
History starts now...

Should there be people or peoples
Money, Funny pedestals for Fools who never pay
Raise your Army - Choose your Steeple
Don't be shy, the satellites can look the other way

Lose the Earthquakes - Keep the Faults
Fill the oceans without the salt
Let every Man own his own Hand

What kind of world do you want
Think Anything
Let's start at the start
Build a masterpiece
Be careful what you wish for
History starts now...

Sunlight's on the Bridge
Sunlight's on the Way
Tomorrow's Calling

There's more to this than Love

What Kind of world do you want
What Kind of world do you want

What Kind of world do you want
Think Anything
Let's start at the start
Build a masterpiece

History Starts Now

Be careful what you wish for
Start Now

"What kind of World do you want?" I thought that'd be a great message. All that. lost on my class of 13 year olds. I was so disappointed. It's back to the drawing board.