Dragons... and why I like the metro

Three days ago I painted a picture of a dragon on an index card with a mix of instant coffee, old red wine, and charcoal, inspired by one among many video lectures I've been watching lately in a series of 10-20 minute talks sponsored by TED. (If you're interested, they can be seen here http://www.ted.com/talks) This particular one talked about video games, psychology, learning, and motivation. One of the games mentioned has the goal of teaming up with other players to kill dragons. I'm thinking about the role of games in "formal education" as well as in learning outside of a school building.

Then as I was leaving the metro on my way home from work, I passed by a man with a great sweater walking with his 3 or 4 year old grandson. Since I'm teaching elementary school this year, and more specifically 4, 5, and 6 year old kids, I find adults' conversations with children of that age more interesting than I ever have before.

The only part of the conversation I over heard was the grandfather saying, in a very driven tone of voice, the following:

Exacto. Es un dragon que podemos usar para....
(Translation: Exactly. It's a dragon that we can use to....)

And then I turned the corner up the stairs to exit, so I missed the end of it.

I've been thinking about it and coming up with possible endings all afternoon.

This is one reason that I like riding the metro to work. And dragons.

Dragon picture courtesy of Google images. This is NOT the painting I mentioned at the beginning of the post. My painting skills are not up to a feat like this. Yet. ;)