There was a cartoon on the screen at the front of the room. It was a hand-drawn thing, the sort I use a lot in class. The ground was green. The sea was blue. The rocket was red. … Yes. There was a rocket. What else would you use for a visual aid if you’re trying to illustrate real world applications of “order of algebraic operations”?
And then there was some code on the screen. Pseudocode to illustrate the point I was trying to make. An if-statement with a dangling else that made the code ambiguous in a glaringly obvious way.
These were what they call a “hook”, something to get their attention. It seemed to work.
“Mister,” one of the kids in the back of the room said. “Did you really do this stuff?”
I paused and then said, “Yes. Yes I did.”