Barry Bonds

Baseball has a new homerun king and his name is Barry Bonds. How many of you are sick of hearing about this already? How many of you feel it does not belong on a blog about teaching? Well, if you answered “yes” to either question, you might want to stop reading. Or, continue on to see how I work this into teaching.

Every semester I have students work on a group project. Many prefer the individual assignments, but in a professional setting, sometimes people have to work in groups, like it or not. I tell my students that they are to take a situation that needs addressing and try and find the best solution to the problem (and it is acceptable to show us why the way it is currently handled is the best route to go). I tell my students that ideally they should come up with a unanimous recommendation. I, however, realize that sometimes that cannot occur. In such a situation, they need to tell us the recommendation of the group (Majority rules) as well as the dissenting opinion.

I am always looking for new topics. While steroids has been something that has been done in the past, certainly this controversy could make that a more interesting topic. In addition, perhaps my students can address the issue as to how baseball should look to handle the Bonds’ situation. Should there be some kind of asterisk next to his name? Should it just be viewed as the new record? What are the alternatives?

Of course, I want to see if this topic comes up at all during the semester. If a number of students do a speech about this, I will probably shy away from it. If it does not come up at all, I might also shy away from it.

Certainly it is another topic that can be suggested for my students. It can be debated in the classroom as much as it will be debated on the streets, in the bars and over the internet. So, what are your thoughts about the new holder of the record?