by For 249 years, Americans have enjoyed a day off from work to celebrate the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. Aside from the great Joey Chestnut displaying his dominance annually, the highlight of this great event are the gladitorial introductions by Major League Eating founder George Shea. Proving the invaluable and inevitable rise of generative AI, I asked ChatGPT to introduce me in the style and spirit of the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Competition. It did not disappoint.
Can you write an introduction of me in the style of the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest master of ceremonies?
Absolutely. Here’s a high-octane, over-the-top introduction in the style of George Shea at the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest:
“Ladies and gentlemen, patriots and pedagogues, dreamers of the digital dawn and defenders of discovery—
He has challenged the gods of convention and spat in the eye of mediocrity. He once taught a turtle to draw, then taught a generation of teachers to believe that children are not vessels to be filled but fires to be ignited.
He is the thunder behind Invent to Learn, the whisper in Seymour Papert’s algorithmic dreams, the Pied Piper of progressive pedagogy who leads classrooms not into silence, but into song.
He has spoken truth to power in more countries than most of us can locate on a map, and his ideas have turned standardized tests into confetti at the parade of possibility.
He is the wizard of workshop wonder, the maestro of maker magic, the founding father of Constructing Modern Knowledge—where minds are not managed, but unleashed.
He is not a man.
He is a movement.
He is the mouthful of meaning in the educational eating contest of life.
Prepare yourselves, world, for the educational eruption… the computational colossus… the learning liberationist whose laptop runs on justice and joy…
GAAAAAAAAAAAAARY STAAAAAAAAAAAAAGER!”
Veteran educator Gary Stager, Ph.D. is the author of Twenty Things to Do with a Computer – Forward 50, co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, publisher at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools thirty years ago and designed one of the oldest online graduate school programs. Gary is also the curator of The Seymour Papert archives at DailyPapert.com. Learn more about Gary here.