The Desert Glows Green

And THIS is why I teach!

2011-04-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

Today was a very very good day. I started my poetry unit today and had the students listen to and read "The Road Not Taken" to give them an idea of how different poetry sounds when it is spoken aloud. When I asked my kids about the poem I got two just jaw-dropping interpretations. The first one was from an honors student who compared the poem to a Biblical story about the road to Hell and the road to Heaven. I've read that poem so many times I've lost count and I've NEVER made that connection. Then one of my regular kids comes up right after class and tells me that while she was listening to the poem she heard the first line and realized that her desk was both yellow and wood and then made the connection that students have two choices. They can choose to do the work, or they can choose not to do the work. Again, total jaw dropper! I love teaching poetry for just this reason, the kids come up the coolest most original ways of looking at poetry.

In addition to that, my 6th period class showed me just how much the respect me. Near the end of class there was a fight in the hallway, I saw the crowd and because of the yelling and the size I thought it was a full fledged brawl and not just a couple of kids. As I shot out of the door I told the kids to 'stay in the room'. Now most of the kids on the floor ran out to see the fight, which was just a couple of girls fighting. Most of the kids... but not mine. They stayed in my room and were back in their seats when I returned.

I simply looked and them and thanked them for doing as I asked.

And THAT is why I teach.

You were not selected...

2011-04-10T17:31:00.000-07:00

With those four words I now find myself without a school to call home. Oh, I'll be where I'm at until June, but I no longer consider myself a part of that family, and before you start writing about how I'm going to short change my students, relax. I plan on staying loyal to them and to teach the hell out of my poetry unit and to prepare them for the spring final. My loyalty is to them and them only. And no, I am not going to burn any bridges with the administration of the school either. If they need a sub during my prep, I'll cover for that teacher and that sort of thing.

Will I be taking many souvenirs from my school? Why the hell do I want all those reminders of my failure to measure up? How would you feel if you knew you were in the bottom 50% of the teaching staff at your school? The only things that will come with me will be a coffee mug, my BSU shirt and my rejection letter. The mug I'll take because I can put pens in it. The shirt because it was a gift from the club adviser and has no school name or logo on it, and the letter (which I'll have laminated) to remind me never to feel secure in my position again.

I'll be honest, I thought that I would be a 'One School Guy'. I'm not, nor was I ever a nomad. I don't get those teachers who constantly move from school to school. I figured that since I had gotten off probation my first year, and had received good reviews both years, I was pretty safe. After all, how many teachers actually want to teach at a Title I school? And of those, how many want to teach 9th graders, especially at a school that has had such low test scores for such a long time? The answer is not many, so you can understand that I got a bit complacent and lazy.

When the turn around was announced I had my application in as soon as I had answered all the questions and I felt comfortable in the interview, but I also had this feeling of dread that I would not be selected. That feeling was confirmed Friday afternoon when I got the letter via e-mail. That part I don't mind, at least I knew right away to start looking for another (very scarce) teaching job. In addition, I have my resume updated and Monday I'll ask a couple of people for letters of reference.

Finally, I have a rule about shirts etc., when I leave a position. If I leave on good terms, then I don't mind keeping a shirt or hat assuming that it's OK with my former employer. I still have a Xerox shirt and jacket from my 4 years working for them. I also have my shirt from a middle school where I subbed from late February through the end of the school year. But when I get fired like I did here, everything goes back to my employer, or gets donated to Goodwill. Is it immature? Probably, but that's how I roll.

Job Joys... Not

2011-04-07T20:19:00.000-07:00

So today I had my interview with the principal to see if I am among the 50% of the staff who will stay at my school next year. A turn around school is one where the test scores have been low for so long that drastic changes needed to be made. So if the principal has been there more than three full years they are out and the new principal has to interview everyone who wants to stay (teachers, administrators and support staff) and then they can keep no more than 50% of the current staff. Our principal had not made three full years so she can stay but you could not pay me enough money to be in her shoes right now. There were three high schools that fell into that category in the valley.

I think I did pretty well but I'm not sure it matters at all. Our district is going to be $400 million short for next year and even if the deficit is much smaller than what is projected then lots of teachers are going to lose their jobs. That has already happened to one of my friends who got surplussed at her school because they lost some teaching positions. And to make it even worse for her, she is expecting another child.

Now our district happens to have one of those really cool contracts where it's LIFO. That means 'last in, first out', AKA it's all by seniority. So I busted my a$$ to get off probationary status last year and I did well on my observations and review this year and it doesn't mean spit. This is one of the reasons why public education sucks in my state. Once you get seniority all you have to do is to get decent reviews and then bump teachers who have less seniority than you when times get tough. So there are two dates I have to worry about. The first is next week when I find out if I'll be 'staying' at my school and the second in is May when I find out if I got bumped.

This really sucks...

Update #1: I will be looking for a new position next year. I was informed that I would not be coming back to my HS next fall. Now what the hell do I do?

Muslims, Christians and Jesus

2011-03-31T19:53:00.000-07:00

This was a very interesting book to read. Written by Carl Medearis, it talks about how to talk to Muslims about Jesus without turning them off to the good news. It explains the 5 Pillars of Islam and points out a multitude (I lost track at 80) of verses that mention Jesus in a positive light along with a correlating Biblical Verse.

The book also talks about the things that Christians do that turn Muslims off to Jesus. One of the most interesting things about the book is how focused the book is on Jesus and not the Christian faith and it's not hard to see why. It's not Jesus that turns people off it's the way we follow (or don't follow) him that turns them off.

Reading that book gave me insights into the Muslim faith that I didn't have before and answered some questions that I did have. It was far more instructional than watching blowhards on the news argue about whose religion is better.

For Jesus it was never about religion, why do we keep forgetting that?

Why is this OK?

2011-03-30T18:29:00.001-07:00

So today at lunch I found out one of my male students called a female teacher 'sexy chocolate' during our mentorship class. Needless to say I didn't take that news real well and seriously chewed his ass out when I saw him before class. I told him that if I caught or heard him doing something like that again I would call his grand parents, write him up for sexually harassing a teacher and personally walk him to the dean's office. I also made him go back to that teacher and personally apologize to her for that comment. WTF?

Why is this OK? It's not the first time I've heard female teachers get hit on at school. Last year one kid told his teacher that they needed to get together because he could 'teach her things'. Are their home lives so bad that this is an acceptable behavior? Do the parents have so little control that they let their sons do this at home? My parents would have ended my life if I had done this in high school and not figuratively either.

Tomorrow I am going to address this issue tomorrow with all my classes to let them know that they need to add this to the list of 'things you just don't do'. What's sad is that I even have to do it at all.

HS Students Hungry For History?

2011-03-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

Normally people would see that and say... "uh, not a chance!" and I don't really blame them. I learned far more about history and military history from reading books on my own than I did in any history class I took. However, I'm confident that the reason that most HS kids don't like history is that most of the books... well suck.

I say this for two reasons based on my own observations. The first reason is that when I do a mini lesson on big historical events like 9/11/01 or Pearl Harbor the kids always eat it up. Both days I got great written responses and comments from the kids about how they learned something that day. The second reason is that I have this tendency to put historic WWII aircraft on my desktop and when I project them on the screen 'by accident' I always get questions about the plane and it's historic importance.

The first one I did was a P-38 Lightning, my personal favorite. The P-38 Lightning was made famous when it shot down Admiral Yamamoto and America's top ace Richard Bong (40 Kills) flew a P-38. It was fast and had it's 4 .50 caliber machine guns and 1 20mm cannon in the nose for a very concentrated blast of firepower. Can you say 'swiss cheese'? I knew you could. It's extremely long range made it perfect for the Pacific Theater in WWII.
After having that image on my desktop for a while I then found a picture of a P-47 Thunderbolt with the bubble canopy that is currently gracing my desktop. I always forget just how flipping big that airplane is, and I don't know about you but I'd rather not get in the way of it's eight .50 caliber machine guns! The 'Jug' as it was called was also great at attacking ground targets as well as taking on enemy fighters. Another interesting thing about both of them is that they used superchargers to maximize their performance.

If only the history teachers could actually add things like this into their curriculum and not worry about offending anyone. War is part of history and when students get to see images like this it piques their curiosity and then you have them. I'm not sure what will grace my desktop yet, I'm thinking about either a B-25 Mitchell or maybe the B-17 Flying Fortress. All I know is that I'm glad to give them a bit of history in addition to literature.

I also linked the photos to the original sites so you can see the bigger images and to give them their due. Taking a ride on a war bird like those is totally on my bucket list!

WTF? The March Edition

2011-03-10T19:57:00.001-08:00

Maybe I should make this a monthly thing since there is a plethora of subjects worthy of a genuine 'WTF?'. This month's edition is thanks to my students who thought it would be a good idea to flash gang signs in my class when there was a guest teacher covering for me while I was proctoring the proficiency tests. One of the kids wrote 'F*** Crabs' in one of my textbooks. 'Crab' is an insulting term used for the Crips. I found this out when one of my students from that class came by after school and pointed the tagging on the book out to me. I asked her point blank about the gang signs and she said that they were indeed flashing signs in class. WTF? Did they think that everyone else in the class was just going to STFU and not say anything? So I had to email the deans with all the important information to see what the next step is. If what I heard is true then both those kids will at minimum get suspended and possibly expelled from school. We have a serious gang problem at my school and any gang activity is a one way ticket to behavioral school.

The other piece of news is that my school is going to be facing a major staff change next fall. Fortunately our principal won't have to leave but it will suck to lose half the staff. I've already started filling out the application to return next year. I love that school and don't want to leave. I do know that some of my fellow teachers will not be back next year. I just hope they make the right choice. It should be interesting to see what happens.

Comedy Corner

2011-03-04T16:20:00.000-08:00

My teacher is sooooooo dumb...

'how dumb is he?'

He's so dumb that I can sign into class and then split without him ever knowing I'm gone!

It looks like the joke's on you moron... and that goes for your two friends as well. I use the sign in sheet to keep track of who is there, but I also look around the classroom to see who is there and who isn't. And when I am handing out progress reports and I call your name because you signed in... Well you get the idea. I had to write up three more students today. Two of them were the butt of their own joke today and the third left class 20 minutes early. All three got dean's referrals and two of the I am going to try and remove from the class.

The one thing that really angers me is a lack of respect and thinking that I'm really that stupid is really, truly disrespectful. Should be interesting to see what happens next week. The dean's office didn't look to happy when I told them what happened. There are advantages to working with the dean's office after all.

RVD

2011-03-01T16:19:00.000-08:00

I was bouncing around cyberspace recently and ran across these two videos. The videos pretty much speak for themselves and they've become known simply as RvD.

And here is the second one.

The second one took place about three years after the first one. You do see a 'clone' at the end of the first RVD. It was an inside joke about his love of making clones in videos. The website is here.
It includes FAQs and a video interview with the two combatants. It's pretty cool what these guys came up with. I guess the force was strong with these two.

Romeo and Juliet

2011-02-24T19:50:00.000-08:00

The play stays the same but the students don't. I shouldn't be surprised that this year's students wouldn't react the same way that last year's did but I am.

Last year's kids were a bunch of romantics, apparently I have a more bloodthirsty pack of kids this year. Many of them didn't really get into the first two acts because there was no violence, but they're way into Act III where both Tybalt and Mercutio both end up in the morgue. Last year the kids were not super shocked by the dad's anger when Juliet didn't want to marry Paris, but this year they were really shocked by how angry and how abusive he was with her. I am, however, worried that they are not taking this test as seriously as the first one and that they'll bomb this one. This happened with the second Odyssey test last fall and I can already see it coming. I guess they didn't learn their lesson the last time around. My honors kids are just starting the play so it will be interesting to see what they think of Romeo and Juliet.

The mess in Wisconsin

2011-02-20T09:35:00.000-08:00

I wasn't going to comment, I swear I wasn't, but I simply have to put in my 2¢ worth. I've looked at the bill and the protesters and I'm just tired of the whole thing.

But.

To the 'teachers' in Wisconsin who called in 'sick'...

How dare you. How dare you betray your students and violate the terms of your employment contract because you have to donate more money to your retirement and health care plans. How dare you decide that you are more important than the financial well being of your state. In case you didn't notice your state is short about 3 Billion dollars over the next two years. What would you rather have? A smaller paycheck or classes of 40 students plus? Do you really think no teachers will get laid off if you win this battle? How dare you forget that your paycheck comes from the taxpayers. I hope that your employers not only fire you but revoke your licenses to teach. You are a disgrace to your profession. And that goes for you 'doctors' who fraudulently wrote sick notes for those same 'teachers' I hope you also lose your license to practice medicine. Maybe you ought to retake your ethics classes one more time since you obviously didn't pay attention last time around.

And I'm sooooo sorry that you won't be able to negotiate your working conditions and that you might end up getting fired at any time. That's called reality in the private sector. Before I taught I spend about 20 years working from every sized company and I knew that I could lose my job at any time. Hell, one time I got fired because an employee transferred in from another state and they needed to find a work station for him, last hired first fired. And it's not like there won't be competition for your services with all the different school districts in your state. If you don't like how you're treated at one place then take your services elsewhere.

I'm out of pity for the lot of you. Suck it up or find another job, preferably one in the private sector, a cold dose of reality would be good for you.

Honors or Not?

2011-02-16T19:59:00.000-08:00

One of my jobs as an Freshman English teacher is to make recommendations about which English and History class my students should take next year. Last year I was way to nice to students, including my honors students and sent kids to Honors English, Honors World History and AP World History who didn't deserve it.

This year I was very selective. Only about 12 kids have the option of AP History and of my 66 honors students, 11 didn't make the cut and will be taking regular English and History classes. Of my 76 regular students only 5 will get to move up to honors classes and 1 will do AP History.

Of course students and parents may challenge my decision and some will. But I am comfortable that I made the right choices. If you got either a C or a low B last semester you have no business in an honors class, especially if the same teacher teaches it next year.

Romeo and Juliet

2011-02-11T16:01:00.000-08:00

Romeo and Juliet is one of those required texts that 9th graders at my school must read. I was admittedly nervous about teaching it last year and was pleasantly surprised by how well it went. Once students were able to get past the language, they really enjoyed the story.

Probably the smartest move I made (and repeated) was to show video clips from both the 1968 and 1996 versions of the play. And just out of curiosity I always ask which version they like better, last year it was about 60/40 old version. It's one of the essays they can write about on the test (Acts I & II). This year I was shocked that the old version won by about 85%/15%. I thought that the older version might be more popular but I was not expecting it to be this big a difference.

Another cool thing that happened this year was when one of my students connected the crow in Act I to Romeo and Juliet dying. I'll be honest, I never made that connection. Not that I never talked about it, I mean I literally NEVER made the connection between the use of the crow and the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, and I've read and watched the play several times. The best part is that while this student is one of my favorites due to her wonderful work ethic and smile, English is not her strong point. I was so excited I gave the essay to her TOR (teacher of record) so she could see it as well. And one of my students who is reading about the 6th grade level only missed one question on the scantron half of the test.

These are the days that make teaching the greatest job in the world. The fact that only one student failed the test out of the three classes who took it doesn't hurt either.

The Power of Words

2011-02-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

For some odd reason the area I work in has asked that the word adequate be used in performance evaluations. I bring this up because while the district may think that adequate might be just fine and dandy for evaluations, every time I saw it on my evaluation forms (three) I was left wondering what the hell I did wrong that lesson, especially when my AP (Assistant Principal) gushed about the lesson to me when it was over. After talking it over with my neighbor who felt the same way I did, I emailed my boss and asked him if adequate was good or bad. He reassured me that it was a good thing and given his druthers he happily pick another term to use.

And people wonder why Nevada is ranked #49 in the USA in education? Obviously someone does not understand the real connotation of the word adequate. It may mean 'fine and dandy' but in the real world it means 'barely good enough'. Well that's the polite version anyway. Either the people who made this change were never English teachers and are therefore ignorant of the stress they are creating, or that creating stress was the goal all along. Someone at some point should have mentioned that using the word adequate in a review normally bodes ill for the employee who is involved.

That would be your tax money at work people...

Black History Month

2011-02-05T17:48:00.000-08:00

I have mixed feelings about these things. I really do, is it really necessary to have a month dedicated to Black History, or Hispanic Heritage? But, since my HS wanted to know what we were going to do for BHM, I decided to dust off an old lesson I had not taught since I was an apprentice at the Andre Agassi school.

Right now my honors kids are reading 'Letter From A Birmingham Jail', and I am glad I did it. Most of them didn't have a clue as to what real racism was, or why Dr. King was held in such high esteem. Happily I can report that now my honors kids understand both, especially because they also listened to Dr. Kings's 'Mountaintop' speech, which is the one he gave the night before he was assassinated.

My favorite part of the speech is when Dr. King is talking about getting stabbed in NYC by a crazy lady (is this Palin's fault too?) and relating how if he had sneezed, the blade lodged in his chest would have pierced his aorta and he would have died. This report made into the NY Times and a 9th grade student then wrote Dr. King a letter saying how happy she was that he didn't sneeze! (she also mentioned that she was white) This got his audience and my class laughing at her earnest innocence. I found it interesting that out of all the letters he had received after the attack (including ones from the President) that the one that he remembered most was the one from the girl. I guess we should not be surprised at this because he was, after all a man of God, and not after the fame and fortune that he received.

I am also doing some biographies this month as well for all my classes, including William Wilberforce, Dr. Condolelleza Rice and Bishop Tutu. It might make a welcome break from Romeo and Juliet for my regular classes.

Spring Semester

2011-02-01T15:50:00.000-08:00

Well, the first semester is behind us and now we're on to semester 2. Honestly I like teaching more in the spring than I do for the winter for a few reasons.

1. Romeo and Juliet. While this will probably make eyes roll and groans abound, I do enjoy teaching Shakespeare. Now understand that while I admire Shakespeare and understand his importance in Western Literature, I don't worship at the altar of 'The Bard'. I've only read 4 of his plays and only a handful of his sonnets.

What I enjoy is watching inner city 9th graders not only understand R&J, but really get into a play that is more than 400 years old. I enjoy opening their eyes and ears to the power of the written word. I like teaching them about the symbolism contained in the play, and I hope that I get another moment like last year when Romeo proposed to Juliet and I had a student audibly go 'Oh!... ahhhhh' when she understood what had happened. I love it when I get a kid like last year who averaged about a 19% all year... except for Romeo and Juliet when he averaged an 81%. I like it when hardened kids get sucked into the romance and tragedy that is Romeo and Juliet. And no, there are no Shakespeare posters in my room, hopefully there never will be...

2. Poetry: What irritates me about HS poetry is that it's really PiNO. Poetry in name only. Sure they talk about rhyme schemes and meter, and even bore er teach kids about a few important poems and poets, but seriously? Is that the BEST they can do?

Needless to say I ignore the garbage in the textbooks and created my own month long introduction to poetry unit. Gone are the idiotic poems and half-assed explanations. Instead the kids get to learn about the poetic form and what makes a ballad a ballad. I show them what rhyme schemes are and why they matter. I teach them the difference between major forms of poetry. We listen to poems being recited over the speakers and then learn about poets and poems.

When they are done, they know what the difference between a ballad and a heroic couplet is. They know why pastorals are important and why Shakespeare and Marlowe used blank verse to write their plays in. They get the joy of reading fun poems like 'The Tale of Custard The Dragon', and see the emotions behind poems like 'Warming Her Pearls' and 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'. They also learn about Haiku and Tanka poetry.

Finally they get to write some of their own poetry. They must write a haiku, a tanka, a ballad and a heroic couplet. If they want extra credit they can give any of the forms we study a try. I don't really do much with meter or the really technical part of poetry for a couple of reasons: I don't care and I don't want to bore them to death.

3. Extended teaching time! By this I mean no vacations. I like vacations but honestly November and December are wasted months because kids are always on vacation mode. They are either getting ready for a long weekend or just coming back from a long weekend. It's impossible to really teach because you can't build any momentum. I like having a long stretch where I can really just go for it with my teaching and not worry about long weekends and extended breaks.

4. Summer vacation! When you look at reasons 1-3, would it surprise to you find out that I'm pretty much wiped out when summer break starts?

Before I forget, I wanted to mention something funny that happened this week. My honors students are reading 'Letter From A Birmingham Jail' before they start on Romeo and Juliet. The teacher across the hall from me asked me for a copy of the letter so he could read it over the weekend. Mr. J., who is black came up to me on Monday and said this about Dr. King... 'Dr. King's got a little thug in him doesn't he?' I laughed about it in agreement. Mr. J. was impressed with the courage and backbone that Dr. King possessed and was surprised by his willingness to call other religious leaders on the carpet and properly chastise (well chew them out) them for their lack of support for the cause of civil rights.

I'll never look at Dr. King the same way again.

Pearl Harbor

2010-12-07T15:55:00.000-08:00

Today is the 69th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and this history geek just could not resist a mini lesson on the attack. So yesterday I went online and found a cool 17 minute video on the attack from Discovery.com, and showed it to my class and then had them write about what they had learned. Not surprisingly, not many students knew that today was an important historical date, and even though it put me behind in my lessons, it's worth it. There are some events that everyone in the USA should know. The Declaration of Independence, The Civil War, The Apollo Missions, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are a few of the biggies. The best part was that most of my students payed serious attention and one even asked why they had interviewed a Japanese pilot.

There are times it's good to be a teacher.

Donors Choose

2010-11-29T17:29:00.000-08:00

After getting shot down attempting to have my school buy novels for the classroom (because they were not on the approved list), I decided to find another way to get the books I want into my classroom without emptying my wallet (that would be a neat trick considering it's a cash free zone).

Enter Donors Choose, a website that allows people to donate to projects that teachers post, helping them acquire items like projectors, computers, trips and more. Some of the projects are very cool and some make me mad. I mean how bad is it when a math teacher is asking for a white board? Seriously? The school can't flipping spring for a white board? That's not even a luxury, that's a necessity. Wow... just wow.

I have spent the last few weeks setting up my project on Donors Choose and today I was informed that my project has gone live and that a company has already covered the first $300 of the project. So I am going to do something and I never thought I would do and ask for your help. If you could donate a couple of dollars to the project it would be greatly appreciated, not just by myself but by my students. And please look at the other projects and if you find one more to your liking, by all means, donate to them.

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T13:19:00.000-08:00

It's going to be an odd Thanksgiving this year. Not odd in a bad way but odd all the same. You see normally we either visit family and friends for Thanksgiving or they come here. This year it's just the family. It's cool in a couple of ways.

1st of all, we don't have to have the house all picked up for guests. Secondly we get to teach the kids how to cook. Right now my wife is teaching the kids how to do cranberry sauce, and later my son and I will be deep frying a turkey in the back yard. This is in addition to baking pies and making fruit salad (yummy yummy) and real whipped cream. And since we are not traveling there is no traffic to fight or TSA agents to spend personal time with.

Finally I'm thankful for my family, my health and my job. I am one of the lucky ones here in Vegas who has a job and still has a house to call home.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and remember WHY we celebrate it in the first place...

Used Books

2010-11-21T10:18:00.001-08:00

For an English teacher they are a God send. They allow me your humble blogger to amass a fairly large collection of books for my classroom without having to file bankruptcy. While I love new books and have bought them from time to time or gotten them as presents, I prefer to get as much for the money as I can. Luckily for me there are two stores here in Vegas that are close by and both of them have a YA (young adult section) to make it easier to find books my students might be interested in.

The local libraries also have used books but so far their selection has not been great. I also use the internet to get used books, which is good and bad. It's good because you have a plethora of choices, but bad because of the shipping. Now I don't blame the vendors, they need to make money and when the book is only $1.00, I understand that the profit is in the shipping. And I can still get double the books vs. getting them new at the bookstore.

I know that there are several good e-readers such as the Kindle and the Nook from Barnes and Noble, but I can't read large blocks of text on a screen and it's just. not. the. same. There is something intimate about holding a book in your hands and physically turning the pages that simply cannot be duplicated by an e-reader. I'm not against them, they're just not for me.

Now my only other problem is that I'm running out of room for my class library. I did find another bookshelf but I'm not sure where to put it. It's a good problem to have. I also need to start getting some graphic novels for my classroom as well as some manga.

Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving.

The Walking Dead

2010-11-16T20:05:00.000-08:00

It's not often that I will watch a series on TV, especially a miniseries, but I am making an exception for 'The Walking Dead.' From the time I saw the first commercial I was excited as all get out about the series. I have watched the first two episodes (thank goodness they replay it on Friday nights) and can't wait for the next one.

Now don't be fooled, this show is for adults only. It has graphic violence and adult language, not to mention it's very creepy. It's also very well written and the zombies look very very real. If you like creepy shows give this one a try.

What you may not know about this Zombie Apocalypse miniseries is that it's based on a comic book. Yep, a comic book. And it's not the first time comic books have been used for TV Shows and movies. I'd get the comic book compendiums if they weren't so expensive, like say $50.00 each.

One last thought, I had a student tell me they loved the book I picked out for her. The funny thing is I don't have a clue as to what book I picked out for her. But hey as long as she liked it, it's all good. Speaking of books, I got 12 of the 16 books I ordered online. Yea, I'm a geek like that...

Revenge

2010-11-08T19:45:00.000-08:00

Revenge is the theme of 'The Cask of Amontillado', one of Poe's more famous short stories. In this story the narrator tells about the revenge he takes on the poor soul who dared to insult him. I like this story because it's fun to show how Montressor gets his revenge and teach them about theme at the same time. The students like it because it's dark and creepy and allows them to safely fantasize about really getting even with someone who has done them wrong.

Thematic webs come in handy here because it allows the student to write down all the things that Montressor does to get even with the ironically named Fortunado (Italian for fortunate). For example he uses his knowledge of wine to bait him to coming to his palazzo to examine a pipe (110 gallons) of Amontillado. He then pretends to be concerned about his cold and 'tries' to talk his drunk (he keeps him drunk as well) victim out of venturing under his empty (no witnesses) palazzo to the catacombs where the wine is. I could go on but go read it for yourself. It's pretty cool in a creepy way.

That is the first of the three stories my students will be reading. The other two are 'The Most Dangerous Game' and 'The Necklace'. In addition, my honors students are finishing up 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and I got my kids to the library for the 2nd quarter book project.

Testing

2010-11-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

Testing is a necessary evil in teaching. Now the trend to see if teachers can teach is to do standardized tests and based on the performance of the students over several years you get a good idea of which teachers can teach. Or can you? Does that really tell you which teachers can teach or which teachers can teach to the test? What about writing? Does the ability to write to some random prompt mean that the teacher is able to effectively teach writing? Or can they just teach students how to write to a prompt?

I'm asking these questions because I seriously don't have an answer. I totally get the idea that teachers need to be able to teach in a measurable way, and that it's not like a job in the private sector where if you're in sales, all you boss needs to do is to look at the numbers and they can tell if you're doing your job or if you're a mechanic and it's easy to tell by the quality of your work if you know what you're doing.

Teaching isn't like that. You can use standardized tests but then the weakness is that teachers will stop teaching properly and simply teach to the test. And honestly if they start using testing data to see if I'm a good teacher or not the pressure will be huge to do just that. That will be cool for the teachers but not the kids because real life is more than a scan-tron and a proficiency prompt.

There are just some issues that don't have good answers...

Moving On

2010-11-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

No I don't mean Moveon.org... Different thing altogether.

I meant moving on from bad news. As you know a fellow teacher took his own life on our campus Monday afternoon. Yesterday was hard as we pretended to do our staff development day. Today the students returned and things began to return to some sense of normal. To be honest we teachers needed this more than the students.

The students took this better than the teachers, at least in my room. I only had to send one student to the library for the grief counselors and I did talk to them about trying to avoid the rumors and reminded them that he had a family and to consider them before they opened their yaps. The other good part is that they were taking the interim assessments today and tomorrow so they didn't have time to dwell about what happened.

Monday they're in the library for their next book project.

Finally I need to address the election for a bit. The GOP needs to understand that they have a lease on the House of Representatives and not the keys. If they don't try to accomplish what they want to do then they're out on their butts. And locally we need to keep in mind that Carson City is not the reason the district has money problems. They didn't decide that the classroom only deserves 25% of every dollar that they send to Las Vegas. That is a different group of people. If you're angry fine, but direct your anger in the right direction.

Suicide

2010-11-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

Update: They released the name and I knew him. I often talked to him during lunch and when I saw him on campus. We were both hired about the same time and shared many of the same students both last year and this year. He was a committed teacher who wanted the best for his students. The story is here if you want to read the whole thing.

Today was a tragic day at my school. Just before 3pm, a fellow teacher of mine took his life on campus. I don't yet know who it is and in a way it doesn't really matter. A family is now without a father, son, husband and brother. Students are now without a teacher and the staff is without a teammate.

To those of you making cracks online at the local news sites, you can go F*** yourself. The school is a Title 1 school, but the majority of my students bust their asses to get an education and deserve better than the juvenile cracks you so *bravely* posted online. Most of the problems we have come from off campus, and when we find kids who bring pot, guns, gang-banging on campus, we expel them.

The staff at my school is a pretty tight knit group. While we may not know every single teacher (there are about 120 spread across 4 or 5 buildings) we all put our kids first and we all are willing to help each other out in a pinch. We share resources and ideas. There is very little BS as far as politics go. It exists of course but kept to a minimum. Tomorrow's staff development day is going to be odd indeed to say the least. So when you read about the story and see the stupid comments remember that it was a person who died and he will be missed by his family, fellow staff and by his students.

This stuff really truly sucks.

The Yellow Wallpaper

2010-10-29T07:13:00.000-07:00

Rarely do I inflict my favorite stories and poems on my students. I was not a big fan of that when I was a student and I do my best to give them literature they are actually interested in or that are wonderful illustrations of themes, symbols etc.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is an exception. It is and remains my favorite short story of all time. I read it in one of my college English classes and was hooked. It's not the easiest story to read, I had to read it five times to understand what happened and a few more to really get what the author was talking about. Because it's a difficult story I only have my honors students read it and I offer extra credit to any regular student who reads it on their own.

At first my students thought is was 'retarded and lame' but after they got about a page in, they really began to enjoy it. Interestingly they have not freaked out about it like last year's class where kids were getting dizzy and ill from the descriptions.

Another interesting thing about this story are all the things people have decided that Gilman was talking about, social injustice, equal rights for women, that sort of thing. And while I believe that in her subconscious mind she may have been addressing those things in reality she had a different purpose in mind.

Here is why she wrote it in the first place.

Many and many a reader has asked me that. When the story first came out, in the New England Magazine about 1891, a Boston physician made protest in The Transcript. Such a story ought not to be written, he said; it was enough to drive anyone mad to read it.

Another physician, in Kansas I think, wrote to say that it was the best description of incipient insanity he had ever seen, and -- begging my pardon -- had I been there?

Now the story of the story is this:

For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia -- and beyond. During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stir of hope, to a noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country. This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest-cure, to which a still-good physique responded so promptly that he concluded there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to "live as domestic a life as far as possible," to "have but two hours' intellectual life a day," and "never to touch pen, brush, or pencil again" as long as I lived. This was in 1887.

I went home and obeyed those directions for some three months, and came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin that I could see over.

Then, using the remnants of intelligence that remained, and helped by a wise friend, I cast the noted specialist's advice to the winds and went to work again -- work, the normal life of every human being; work, in which is joy and growth and service, without which one is a pauper and a parasite -- ultimately recovering some measure of power.

Being naturally moved to rejoicing by this narrow escape, I wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper," with its embellishments and additions, to carry out the ideal (I never had hallucinations or objections to my mural decorations) and sent a copy to the physician who so nearly drove me mad. He never acknowledged it.

The little book is valued by alienists and as a good specimen of one kind of literature. It has, to my knowledge, saved one woman from a similar fate -- so terrifying her family that they let her out into normal activity and she recovered.

But the best result is this. Many years later I was told that the great specialist had admitted to friends that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading "The Yellow Wallpaper."

It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked.
SOURCE: The Forerunner, October 1913.

My students will read this article once they are done with the story and answer a few questions about it. I always find it interesting how readers and viewers react to art weather it be literature, poetry, paintings or music. We tend to put into it our own life experiences and that is what makes it fun.

End of Quarter 1

2010-10-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

The first quarter ends on Thursday the 28th and I've done almost everything that I wanted to do this year. I won't finish the expository essays before the end of the quarter but that's not a huge deal, it'll be the first grade of the 2nd quarter and the book project has been better than I thought (see post below). The kids are not only better academically, but they're better behaved as well for the most part.

I do have my exceptions, I have a few kids in 5th period that talk to much and one in another class that I had last year. This student is repeating the same mistakes that he did last year, so I finally told him that his homework over the weekend was to decide if he was actually going to make an effort this year and then tell me on Monday which way he wants to go. If he decides not to try I will have him sign a form saying he chooses to fail and then as long as he does not decide to disrupt my class he can learn the hard way. If he chooses to try then I am going to stay on him to make sure he passes.

What I want to happen and what I think will happen are two different things. I hope he decides to actually pass this year, but my gut tells me he could not care any less about his future. So be it, I have enough students who actually want to pass to waste any more energy on someone who doesn't care. If that makes me a bad teacher then I'm guilty as charged but I am reminded of the old Chinese saying that goes something like this. 'Teacher opens door but the student must walk through'...

Finally, I got my dog Charette down to a local grooming school and got her washed, her nails trimmed and even painted in the school colors for spirit week.

Book Project

2010-10-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

One of the things I changed this year was to include a quarterly book project in all my English classes. So once a quarter they read a book of their choice (within reason) and then do some sort of project on it. To make sure they actually do the project I made it 25% of their quarter grade.

I gave them a sheet with 16 different ideas to choose from (#16 was come up with your own) and then took them to the library so they could pick a book. Today was the due date for my honors classes and from what I have seen it's going very very well. One student did a diary for 'Of Mice and Men' and it was just AMAZING. In addition I've gotten crossword puzzles, sculptures, posters and book reviews. (One student did not like 'The Stranger' at ALL) I did get one book report but he did a good job with it so I didn't mind, and no it was NOT on the list. I've even gotten a couple already from my regular kids and those were also 'A' level work.

Now it was not easy to get the kids to do this, but this is an ENGLISH class and they will read 4 books this year. If they want to pass my class they will anyway.

The bonus is that now I have book ideas to add to my library in my house and my classroom. And since I have gift cards to both Barnes and Noble as well as Amazon, it's going to be fun.

Not a happy camper

2010-10-18T20:42:00.000-07:00

Today was the tipping point in my regular classes. For whatever reason they all decided that it was social hour despite the fact that at least 5 kids per class were absent today. It didn't even help that I removed two chatter boxes from class and then called their parents after school. And then the kicker was during my credit retrieval class when one of my students told me not to give him attitude...

Of course I told that class FOUR times to stop talking when I caught him and his friend talking yet one more time. His excuse was that his and his neighbor's computer had suddenly shut down. I told him I didn't care about his computer and then after his comment about my attitude I kicked him out of class.

So tomorrow the kids get new seats and zero tolerance for the chatter and that kid who gave me lip is going to be in for a shock tomorrow.

I don't do disrespect.

If it isn't broke...

2010-10-12T20:21:00.000-07:00

Don't fix it right? Apparently not for my students. Why do I bring this up? Well, because they took notes and payed attention to Book 9 of The Odyssey and did really well on the test. So you would think that since it worked for Book 9 it would also work for Book 10 right?...

Well not so much. I knew that the scores would drop a bit from that test to this test because there were more short answer questions than on the last one, but I did not expect the classes to literally do a full grade worse. I literally had a student get a 32/40 on the first test and a 4.5/40 on the second test. Seriously? You go from about an 80% to about 11% in four days? This same class had an average score of 83% on the first test and a 68% on the second one. Can you say 'overconfident'? I knew you could. Now I will say that the kids who totally bombed the first test did not repeat their mistakes on the second one. Not that they all passed, but I am pleased when you go from an 8/40 on the first test to a 22/40 on the second one. I know it's still an F, but he increased his score by almost 300%. I just hope he takes the Book 12 test seriously, because I want him to succeed.

I do know that today when I was reviewing the material for book 12 the students were certainly paying more attention than last time. Of course it was no accident that I handed back their tests at the beginning of class to give them a bit of a kick in the butt.

Finally I asked them what the biggest surprise of the book was and the two most popular replies were as follows: "I can't believe that Odysseus slept with Circe" and "I thought it was going to be boring but now I'm into it." I may let them finish listening to the story after the test tomorrow and a bit on Thursday.

Lets just hope this test isn't the Hindenburg Part II...

A big difference

2010-10-07T21:03:00.000-07:00

This year is so totally different from last year. Maybe it's the fact I have a year under my belt teaching English (as opposed to math, long story) and don't have to make it up as I go. Maybe it's the fact I have both honors sections and can actually teach two different things. Maybe it's the fact that the kids are not only better behaved but harder working, but so far this year has been much less stressful than last year. I even have a handle on the credit retrieval class now. I just need to update the grades again in the grade book. I am also enjoying myself more this year than I did last year and last year I had a blast.

I am however going to have to remind my regular classes just who is in charge since they're starting to think it's not me... Big mistake on their part. And the nice thing is I have not had to bark much this year either, in fact I haven't even kicked anyone out of my room yet.

My regular classes are almost done with 'The Odyssey' (books 9-10 and 12) and then they'll start the writing project and my honors classes will start 'The Odyssey' on Tuesday, they'll probably finish up in a week since I can move faster with them than I can with the regular kids, then we start my favorite short story 'The Yellow Wallpaper', which is a perfect story for October. Then both classes will read 'The Cask of Amontillado' and then we'll go from there. I still have to make time to prep the kids for the interim assessments at the end of the month.

Wow is the 1st quarter that close to being over?

Speaking of my room, it's officially decorated for Halloween!

Seriously PO'd

2010-10-04T20:12:00.000-07:00

Update: I got played. That student is on probation and decided to cry wolf about the abuse. I'm still mad, but now it's at the student. I know I did what I was supposed to do when abuse is alleged, but that student is now a permanent resident of the dog house. I don't do back stabbing. I don't stab students in the back and I expect the same in return. I can't wait for the parent teacher conference next week...

As much as I love teaching there are parts I'd rather not have to deal with and a few that really truly piss me off. Today I had to deal with the one thing that sets me off faster than sagging jeans and sleeping students: abusive parents.

Today I had my second guest speaker of the year come in and talk about social work, and I think it went well all day. The students pretty much paid attention and asked some good questions.

It was during one of the passing periods that the crap hit the fan. One of my students who has been really struggling (but got a B on the Odyssey test) came up and asked the social worker and I if it was 'OK if my step-dad punches his son in the face'. The look that passed between my guest and I was a combination of 'oh s***! and WTF?'. I replied that no it was not OK for him to strike his son like that and that opened up the flood gates. Turns out that he verbally abuses his wife and physically abuses my student and his step brother. He said that it was only his PO (probation officer) that keeps him from running away to AZ to be with his dad.

Lovely.

My guest and I give him some advice along the lines of talk to your PO and counselor and he goes to his next class because I can't be talking about his business in front of an entire class.
So I email his counselor asking for advice on how to report this piece of er step-dad to CPS. She gives me the number and tells me that I need to talk to my AP, who also prints out the kid's address and phone number for me so I can give it to CPS, which I did after a 40 minute wait. She also told me to tell him that the next time it happens that he can call 911 (Why the hell didn't I think of that?) himself as well as asking him for a bit more information if he is willing to share.

Hopefully this will turn out alright for my student and his family. Hopefully I won't meet his step-dad in a dark alley either, because I'd seriously like to stomp a mud hole in his sorry carcass.

I am still seriously PO'd...

Not so fast!

2010-10-03T17:33:00.000-07:00

I know many people on the right are drooling about the November election and for good reason. This could be a year where the Democrats get their collective clocks cleaned, but before you all start breaking out the champagne and singing 'We Are The Champions', you need this reality check...

Not much will change when the next congress starts even if your greatest wishes come true and the GOP gets both houses of Congress...

Why? Two reasons...

1. The Filibuster, there is no way on God's green earth that the GOP will get 60 seats in November, allowing the Democrats to do what the GOP has done, threaten talk bills to death.

2. The Veto, there is also no way on God's green earth that the GOP will get 2/3 in each house to override vetos, so even if the GOP can overcome the filibuster, nothing will change for at least two years. Obama will veto EVERYTHING that goes against his agenda. He fought too hard to implement it (often against the wishes of his bosses) to simply allow the GOP to repeal it. Trust me he'll use every means fair and foul to keep the changes he has worked to make reality.

This means that in 2012 the democrats can point out how the GOP has done nothing and try to regain power. So hold your horses the battle isn't even won much less the war. Remember the democrats cried foul every time Bush 43 legitimately used reconciliation to give us the soon to be expired tax breaks, and then used it for health care reform. Don't think for a second that they will threaten to filibuster everything if they do lose the Senate, which is far from certain.

If the GOP were smart (which given their track record is a real stretch) they would force the Democrats to actually filibuster the bills. Then they would force the President to veto them.

Like they have the balls to do that, they haven't shown the balls to do much of anything for the last 20 years...

Compare & Contrast

2010-09-30T21:42:00.000-07:00

No, not the essay although it was a good guess. The compare and contrast part is right but there is no essay involved. Confused yet? Let me explain, tomorrow my honors kids get to read two of my favorite short stories and then look at the main characters or the flowers that play a prominent role in them both. They'll start with 'The Possibility of Evil' and then read 'Marigolds' in groups, filling out thematic webs as they go. They then get to take that information and compare character vs character or flower vs flower. It's more fun for me to watch them compare what happens to the characters and if they deserved what they get.

I do love my job.

Lesson Learned!

2010-09-28T15:54:00.000-07:00

One of the constants in teaching freshmen is The Odyssey. Now the book does not have the entire poem, it has books 9-12 and then the last few where Odysseus gets even with the 100 suitors and gets to live happily ever after with his wife and son. I normally do only books 9 & 10 because it allows me to show how Odysseus changes after his encounter with the Cyclops and because there is a plethora of material that I teach so time becomes an issue. Last year I started out by having the students read Book 9 (Cyclops dining on Greek Sushi) silently and taking notes, then having the students listen to it before the test. That was not a great plan because half the class didn't understand the text until they heard the audio version. Duh, it's a poem for crying out loud. Now I wised up for Book 10-12 last year and was planning on doing it this way the next time around.

This year I did the same thing again, knowing they were going to struggle with the text, some of them anyway. I didn't want to cheat the readers out of using thier abilities so I planned for three days of silent reading and two days of listening to and following along in the book before the test. It went much better this time around, the kids who struggled reading it, understood it once they listened to and followed along in the book. The kids who knew the story really got it and I am hoping that I have a plethora of good scores and a paucity of flame outs on the book 9 test.

The other lesson I learned last year that I applied this year was the importance of breaking down the writing process into steps, my honors kids are ripping through their essays this year precisely because they went step by step and because they prewrote their essays, which is the big key. 30 minutes of prewriting = 3 hours of writing is the formula I told them and they totally bought into the concept. The result is that there was far less confusion and far less frustration with the process, which is good because the source material was challenging to say the least.

Reflection has its benefits when you take the time to do it.

Too Much Of A Good Thing

2010-09-24T18:58:00.001-07:00

No I'm not talking about beer! What I am talking about is teaching the same thing 5 times in one day. One of the lessons I learned as an apprentice teacher (the hard way) is how to get burned out in less than 1 year. One of the big things was teaching the same thing over and over and over and over again.

When I hit the HS I am now I vowed not to repeat that mistake a second time if I could help it. I did a good job the first semester, all the way until I had to teach parts of The Odyssey at the end of the first semester.

When the second semester hit I fell back into my old ways and basically taught the same thing until the end of the school year, to the detriment of 6th period. You see while I really like Romeo and Juliet, I don't like it as much the 5th time around, and the same thing went for poetry. By the fifth time I read the balcony scene I wanted Juliet to jump off the balcony so it would be a one act play.

This year I'm fortunate that I have both honors sections so it's easier to split up what I am doing. So while my honors classes are doing their writing project, my regular classes are doing the Odyssey. This way I can improve my writing project for my regular classes and do a better job with the Odyssey with my honors kids.

The best part is that I don't want the Cyclops to win this time!

So Far So Good

2010-09-22T17:10:00.000-07:00

Funny how different a year can be. At this point last year my classes had established their identities. 1st period was quiet but worked hard and rarely gave me any issues. 2nd period was nothing but issues and lots of 12oz therapy. 3rd period was my zany honors class loaded with smarts, attitude and a dash of insanity. 5th period was my best regular class and 6th period was simply a typical 9th grade class.

Not so this year. Neither one of my honors classes is as zany as last year although they might be even more gifted that that bunch. And the only reason my 4th period class is giving me issues is because of one kid I had last year who basically did the same thing before moving to Washington. 5th and 6th have a couple of goofballs but they are willing to work and have given me little if any attitude. Not only that but they are doing better academically as well.

It'll be interesting to see how the personalities of the classes develop over the year. I just hope that NEXT year doesn't give me 5 classes of future felons.

It should be an interesting year.

All Freshmen All The Time

2010-09-20T17:57:00.000-07:00

That is the story of this year. Now don't get me wrong I love teaching 9th graders, I just figured it would be a cool title for a post. Last year ended pretty well. 2nd period was of course, second period and I did get one brain sturgeon back from that class again this year. I pulled him aside and asked him if he actually wanted to graduate from high school because I was tired of him wasting both his time and my time. His reply was that tomorrow would be a better day and that he was just really tired. Uh huh...

I have both sections of honors English this year which is really cool because I don't have to collaborate with anyone they are mine to educate as I please, so I am having them do a writing project before I start them on The Odyssey. Speaking of stories, we got in new textbooks this year. Sigh, I really wish they had allowed us to see them BEFORE the school year started and not three weeks into semester 1. I had blocked out most of the first semester as far as stories go and half of them are not in the new book, so we use the old one until second semester starts. Then we can start with the new books assuming they have audio files like the old one does.

One good thing the school district did was to add in dealing with politics first quarter since it's an election year and then move around a couple of writing projects to better match the the schedule. (The county tells us what standards to teach each quarter, the rest, for now, is up to us) That is not a big deal to move them around since they take about the same time and the writing process is pretty similar.

Well that is about it right now, I promise it won't be eight months before the next post.

Changes

2010-03-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

First I want to apologize for not replying to the comments that were left at my blog. Haloscan, which I have used for the past few years for comment moderation has gone the way of the dodo bird and I will have to find a new system since it's replacement is not free. That is the official change to the blog.

As far as my classes go, I had to change the plans for the week due to my mistake and my students not getting the lesson I used Tuesday for figurative language. They simply did not get similes, metaphors and personification. To complicate matters, our copy guy got fired and the graphics department (AKA copy room) is now locked up, including the self service copiers that I used all the time. We do have small copiers around campus but now they get more use than they were really designed for so they break more often. And teachers don't bother to let the staff know so they can call the tech. This meant that I needed to come up with a different lesson for Wednesday that did not require the use of copies. Fortunately I was able to find a couple of power points on figurative language that will allow me to better teach the material without needing to make copies. At least when the education student shows up on Wednesday for his observation I won't look like a total putz. I wonder if he hates the Danielson book as much as I did?

The mistake part of it was not marking my key correctly for the scantron part of the Romeo and Juliet Act 1 & 2 test. So I will have to rerun the scantron forms so I can discuss the results on Thursday and have the students who failed correct them and get some points back.

The interesting part of the test is that I asked the students which film version of Romeo and Juliet they liked better: The 1968 version or the 1996 version. The surprise winner was the 1968 version by about a 60/40 split. Most of the comments said that the scenery and the characters matched better in the older one than the newer one. Almost all of them said watching the clips helped them better understand they play (no surprise there) than just listening to it and reading it. As a movie fan the 96 version has it all over the older one. Claire Daines, need I say more? As an English teacher the older one is better, plus that balcony scene is awesomely done.

Should be an interesting week!

Guest Speakers

2010-03-02T19:28:00.000-08:00

Today my students had a treat, Casey Hendrickson and Heather Kidd from KXNT came out to speak about the radio industry, how they got their start, and even how they keep callers from cursing on the air (it's called the dump button). To say they were good with the kids was an understatement. They were great with the kids. They answered questions and gave them examples of how they approach shows that dealt with issues they face on a regular basis, including combating the ghetto image their school has. And the kids were also able to teach Casey and Heather a couple of things, most importantly that while Western has its share of issues when it comes to things like fights and drugs, it's much safer than people think. Not one of my students felt unsafe while on campus. In short they helped dispel the myth that Western is a school not worth saving.

Days like this are worth the bad ones.

Shakespeare

2010-02-23T19:54:00.000-08:00

So yesterday we started our unit on Romeo and Juliet with a pair of power points on both Shakespeare the play itself. I purposely left in the slide about how the people in the courtyard would relive themselves where they were just because. Yep, I'm just shallow that way. I kept my students occupied by having them fill out worksheets as we went along and then had them turn them in for points. Nothing like effecting grades to get them interested in a presentation!

Tomorrow we start the play in earnest and we'll take turns listening to the play and watching it. We'll spend time discussing it as we go. My plan is to go after the 'big picture' stuff in the play. They'll get Shakespeare for all four years in HS so there will be plenty of time to dissect it line by line. I want them to understand things like what Shakespearean tragedy is, Star Crossed Lovers, dramatic foils etc. I want them to enjoy the play for what it is, a romantic tragedy with interesting characters.

If there is time this quarter, I want to read a second play called Trifles. What I would really like to do is read 12 Angry Men, but that is going to wait until next year.

WTF? The 2010 Version

2010-02-17T19:43:00.000-08:00

So all the English 1 teachers at my school do reading comprehension every Friday to keep students sharp (in theory) with their skills. So last Friday I gave my students a short reading passage on dog shows along with 10 multiple choice questions for them to answer. Now most of my classes did about how you would expect. Some did well, some didn't with most someplace in the middle. Then there was 6th period. Normally they do pretty well but on this assignment they just puked all over the place. As in 1 A, 1 C's, 1 D, and 18 F's. Seriously? I can't tell you how many students thought that this article was a F****** biography! Really? It's not like I've never used the term nonfiction in class before, unless you count all those times we went over those terms. It's not like we went over things like looking at the questions carefully and to pay attention to words in ALL CAPS or in bold, or italizied!

As if this academic vomit was not bad enough I made the mistake of letting my students work on their college/career project in class, thinking (id10t me) that most of the students would actually jump at the chance to avoid homework. I now know better. Tomorrow when the students walk through the door they'll find minimal time to F*** off, er I mean work on their project. Instead they'll find plenty of work to keep them busy, and the poster project is still due on Monday. No more class time for projects for them, now they get to work all period and the projects will be done at home.

Yea and we start Romeo and Juliet next week...

So much to blog about

2010-02-13T19:37:00.000-08:00

And yet I can't seem to get my thoughts organized enough to actually post them here. We're about half way through quarter number three and after this short week we start Romeo and Juliet. This week we'll be working on our research project which went from a formal paper to a poster. We just completed two formal writing projects and I didn't feel like adding to my stack of essays to grade, so I decided it was time to put up new things on my back wall and take down the product reviews from last quarter. I'm hoping to get through Romeo and Juliet fairly quickly so I can do one more play from this century.

If you need any more proof that I am insane I volunteered to help non-proficient students on my prep so they can pass their writing proficiency. So this means I'll lose 4 preps and take on additional grading, but if helps more students pass the writing proficiency so they can graduate I'm happy to help.

Finally I am thrilled that two local radio personalities have agreed to visit my classes and talk about the radio profession and the skills people need to be successful at it. Casey Henrickson and Heather Kidd from KXNT radio will be getting up early on March 2nd. And I am thrilled to have them. I am hoping to get at least one more guest speaker to come to my classroom before the end of the school year.

And in honor of the Olympics... U-S-A! U-S-A!

Comfort Zone

2010-01-29T18:44:00.001-08:00

All students have a comfort zone and I enjoy dragging them out of it whenever I can. On our school email I ran across this article about a 13 year old girl who was beaten and given 60 days in jail for bringing a camera phone to class in Saudi Arabia. I found the entire story online and decided to use it and the photo of flogging for my classes.

I did this for two reasons. First, I needed to adjust my lesson plans due to the librarian breaking her leg. I was going to take my classes there to start a research paper project and she holds presentations to help them do the research. Secondly I was a bit tired of hearing about how bad our justice system was and decided to show them a bit of the real world. Yes I know that our system is flawed. But at least we don't crucify people in public.

It worked like a charm. After reading and discussing the article my students got to write a reaction to it and from what I have seen, the responses should be pretty good. And more importantly, they learned that our system is light years ahead of most countries around the world.

This week they will be coming up with ideas to help solve the budget crisis Nevada finds itself in and then writing a persuasive essay to convince the reader to adopt their plan. Hopefully they will also get into this assignment as well since they will be the ones to pay the real price next year.

1st Semester Reflections

2010-01-19T21:52:00.000-08:00

Today I asked my students to reflect on the first semester. Surprisingly I got some nice comments but I do get worried when I get things like 'the work is easy' etc., fortunately I also got comments like 'the teacher does a great job of explaining' so I hope that is why the work is easy. I also need to tell my friend Rich that one student mentioned his visit as the highlight of her semester. I thought that was pretty cool.

My big issue (aside from second period) is that I don't have enough chairs for my honors class. I mean I thought that 41 chairs would be enough but I have 44 students enrolled right now. Soooo I need to scrape up three more desks. The other thing that I did with them was to hand them back their essays and have them revise the weakest of the bunch. My new students I had start an essay. One student made the mistake of asking me to comment on her essays because she did not trust my grade... Heh, I doubt she will do that again.

Next week we start the research papers, that should be interesting to do. Oh and it really does rain in Las Vegas...

Wow has it been that long?

2010-01-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

OK, I guess it has been that long. So, what happened since November? Well, 2nd period is still 2nd period, 2nd semester starts on Tuesday and I have a cold, again. I had a great Christmas break and found out that 10 13-year olds make more noise than 38 9th graders. I also found out that my students need help with reading comprehension, badly. I had to curve the final exams because out of 140 tests I had FOUR C's... Yea 4 kids got at least a 35 out of 50 on the scantron part of the exam. The rest? Let's just say that the scantron machine I was using ran out of red ink and it was a good thing I used the silent one and not the one that adds the sound effects while I grades the tests. It would have sounded like gunfire and the building would have been locked down. At least the writing part of the test went well, at least for the regular classes.

The honors classes had two essays and most them them had one good essay and one that sucked eggs. I mean that a student would get a 40/45 on one essay and a 30/45 on the other. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? I mean I can see a bit of a difference but not that much. But they did better (not great mind you) on the scantron part.

Soooooo I need to go over reading comprehension, a lot and my honors kids get to revise the essays they puked on this week. Then we get to do research papers and then Shakespeare! Yippee Flippin Skippie. Maybe next year I should teach Shakespeare the first quarter and get it out of the way.

Finally, I really truly hate No Child Left Behind. Seriously... Thank you ever so much for that piece of garbage Mr. Bush and Mr. Kennedy. Teaching is hard enough without constantly worrying about the Next Big Test...

End of the streak...

2009-11-17T20:52:00.000-08:00

So my streak of not writing up students ended last week. We had a tardy lockout and one of my students told me that if I did not let him in that he would not come to class. I didn't let him in and he was true to his word. What he didn't know is that I would make him pay a price for ditching my class. So I wrote him up and he got dean's detention anyway, which is what he would have gotten had he simply taken his ticket to detention. Id10t.

Speaking of id10ts there is second period, THAT class. I totally rearranged my room because they could not handle the way it was before. I gave two students detention last week because they would not shut their mouths, and that didn't help. So today I informed them that because they insist on acting like little kids I would treat them like little kids and the next time one of them opens their mouth they get detention. Mind you this is also my worst class academically as well. 2/3 of them are failing right now and they don't seem to care. Mass detentions seem to be in order for them.

That reminds me I have to write up another brain sturgeon (you guessed it 2nd period) for skipping two of my detentions. Now he is the dean's problem. The school policy is that students can reschedule one detention but once they blow that one off, then it goes to the dean's office.

On the bright side, I have a guest speaker coming in tomorrow for National GIS Day and he is going to do a presentation on the conquest of Guatemala. It should be a welcome break for my students to hear someone other than me speak. And the short story literature circles in my honors class is going very well. They are working on their group power point presentations and for the most part they are going well. And the mystery boxes went very well with them. Hopefully 5th and 6th period will do well with their mystery boxes as well.

What I really hope for is a turnaround for 2nd period. We'll see...

The Big Red Binder

2009-11-04T18:13:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I have my meeting with my AP regarding my Big Red Binder. For those of you who don't teach in Las Vegas let me explain. The Big Red Binder is where you keep your lesson plans, your attendance sheets and other related items. To the administration and the district, The Big Red Binder is a very big deal. They are supposed to be able to come into your room while you are teaching, open up The Big Red Binder and follow along with the lesson via the plans. Your attendance sheets are supposed to be uber accurate as well so you end up having to write in new students and crossing out the ones that have dropped your class in pen. The school prints out new sheets on a monthly basis to reflect your enrollment. Some schools also have you put your sub plans in there as well. I'm not sure if I have to do it here but I have the room. Did I mention the binders are BIG? Like with those huge 5 inch rings big. So for the last two days I have been putting The Big Red Binder in order. Now I did have the lesson plans in there already but I split them into the three sections and rearranged the order to make it easier to read. I also put in all the attendance print outs and tomorrow during my prep I'll go through the most recent one and add the new students while crossing out the ones who are no longer there. Hopefully I will have done it correctly. We'll see. I also need to finish up my emergency sub plans. I have four of the five days done and I should have the last one done tonight.

In other news I finished The Yellow Wallpaper with the two classes who were reading it. I am SO doing this story every year. The students seemed to enjoy it, even if they were grossed out and a bit confused at times. The honors kids also enjoyed hearing about why she wrote the story, although my other class would not shut up long enough for me to let them know so they missed out.

Finally I started calling parents tonight. One call was to check in on a suspended student to see if they needed more homework. One was because the kid wanted to sleep in class for the last two days and the last was because he likes to wear his pants below his buttocks. Tomorrow will be round two of the calls.

Quarter 1

2009-10-27T20:43:00.001-07:00

Is done and in the books. Today I asked my students to write about what went right and wrong for them in the last eight weeks. Among the usual things such as not liking their seats, boring stories and promising to try harder next quarter, I saw a couple of interesting things. One of the first things that I noticed with some concern is the fact that the students think the class is easy. I am glad that I had only a few students fail, but I am concerned that they didn't really earn their grades. Now I know a couple of students mentioned that I explain things really well so they don't get confused but I worry at the thought of easy. Is it easy because I explain the lessons so well or is it easy because my standards are too low? I want them to succeed but I want them to learn. I didn't do a bunch of big projects for most of my classes but I will do more this quarter than just the active reading and the narrative.

The other thing was the response I got from a student who said "You make me like English!"

And that is why I teach.

Hey Mister!

2009-10-21T19:16:00.000-07:00

I hate getting a cold. It's bad enough when you have a regular job, but it really sucks when you're a teacher. You can't go through the motions or just call in sick. That means a wasted instructional day and they're precious enough as it is. So this week has been a bit of a challenge to say the least. Fortunately most of my students got the hint about me not putting up with any crap due to my sickness.

And even more fortunately for me, I had the audio version of the story we were reading. "The Cask of Amontillado" so I could simply play the mp3 file and then stop it to have quick discussions. Today I was planning on just finishing the last few minutes and then doing a catch up day. That changed when my AP showed up unannounced to observe me for most of the period. I instantly switched gears (good thing I had not announced my plan) and actually taught the rest of the story along with the audio file. The class did really well today and we had a good discussion.

Near the end of class while the AP was writing furiously in her notes with her head on her arm a student on the other side of the classroom raised his hand to ask a question and when I walked over to him to see what the problem was, he looked over at the AP (Assistant Principal) and said quite seriously, "Hey Mister, why is that lady sleeping?". With a concealed smile I told him that she was awake and was writing some notes. That seemed to satisfy him and he went back to work. When I saw my AP later in the day I relayed the conversation to her and she got a big grin out of it as she headed off to lunch duty.

It was not until later that I realized that the unspoken question was really "Hey Mister, why are you letting her sleep?" I'm infamous for kicking desks to wake up students who are sleeping. Although I have occasionally let sick students alone. I'm firm not a monster after all and the students are pretty good about knowing the difference between the two.

So far that has been the funniest thing that's happened this year!

Gah

2009-10-15T20:28:00.000-07:00

So I was talking to my DC today and he had some bad news. Apparently those tests that I had my students take for the last two days were the wrong ones. Oh, they were English I tests and they were most certainly the interim tests for the fall, the problem is that they were the wrong year. Of course nobody told either the DC or the AP. The county finally got around to sending us the right books. Nice, huh? Now all my students have to retake the test a second time which means I lose two more instructional days because of this snafu. Now I am a bit annoyed but what can I do? Yell and scream? That would be your tax dollars at work for you.

At least the quarter is ending on the 21st of this month and then we start everything again. I am so glad I had that internship last year because I'm not nearly as flustered as I would have been had this been my first year. And I get a three day weekend at the end of the month due to Nevada Day! I'll take it!

Flexibility

2009-10-12T17:37:00.000-07:00

It's a must have for teachers. You have to be able to adapt your lessons on the fly and be able to reschedule interm assessments from next week to say... tomorrow and Wednesday. Yea, gotta love the schedule shuffling by the powers that be. But I was the good soldier in the hope that when I need some consideration that I'll get it. Plus my Department Chair promised me that this would not haunt me come evaluation time. So after I was done complaining (just so I'd feel better) to my DC, I realized as I was driving home that this could actually work to my advantage.

I am desperately behind on my grading and filing and having two whole days where my students aren't actually turning anything in will give me the chance to get caught up on both. And it will also allow me to get the lessons I had planned over the weekend fine tuned and the copies of the graphic organizers made so I can continue the lessons on active reading.

Finally, my room is all decorated for Halloween and the kids thought it was really cool that I took the time to decorate my room. Apparently I was one of the few teachers who did decorate their classrooms. And if they think it looks cool now, wait until Christmas!

Halloween

2009-10-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

Halloween is coming up shortly and my room is almost decorated. I had to run to the Dollar Tree to pick up just a few more things for my back wall which is almost totally bare at this point. The rest of the room looks pretty good. I have up the fake cobwebs in areas that cannot be easily reached by the students, the window clings, my Peanuts Great Pumpkin Display, spiders, skulls and various other items to add some atmosphere to my room.

I just need to find my spooky sounds CD so I can put it on my PC at school so when we read our short stories I can have a bit of extra atmosphere. The stories I am planning on doing this month are "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Yellow Wallpaper" . I had been thinking about doing "The Telltale Heart", but I didn't want to subject them to that story yet again, nor did I have enough copies of "Dracula", "Frankenstein" or any of the other classics of the horror genre to use in the classroom. In addition, I don't want to overdo it when it comes to reading fiction so I'm also mixing in some current events articles ranging from sports to news and politics. I still have not had time to chase down anything relating to music etc, but I will at some point.

Since we celebrate Nevada Day the last Friday of October I'll be showing "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" the last half of class on the 29th just to give the kids a short break.

No, no costumes for me, I'm scary enough as it is...

Rants and Raves

2009-10-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

Why is it when students leave your class because their schedule got changed nobody informs the teacher? I mean I'm trying to do attendance and yesterday my students were there in SASI. Then today? Nothing, no emails, no forms to sign, no notifications in SASI that they had dropped. It looked like it they just fell off the face of the earth. I had to trek down to the attendance office to find out that yes, these two students are now in another class. So I then had to trek up to the 2nd floor office to tell them what happened so that the Assistant Principal (AP) could talk to the counselors about proper flipping procedures. I realize that I'm just a teacher but a heads up would be nice.

Now for the rave part. I'm currently teaching my honors students the skill of active reading and will start teaching it to my regular classes tomorrow. We're working on free response where at the end of every paragraph they jot down some thoughts, questions ect. on what they have just read. This is a continuation of the prereading I did yesterday featuring news articles and posts by bloggers such as The Other McCain, Buckhorn Road, and Jammie Wearing Fool. The goal was to read the headline, make a prediction about what they thought they were going to read and then write down if they were correct or not. The article about Polanski still had most of the class torqued up at Polanski's rape of that girl. So today I used an article from Fox News online that talked about how Medicare knowingly pays too much for equipment and boy did I get a reaction to that article from my students. Here are my favorites...

What is wrong with congress?
These congressmen must be stupid...
It gets me irritated that they keep on wasting money. I find it very stupid
The two guys that are congressmen are pigs.
So much money they could save and their wasting it. It's absolutely pointless and stupid.
And my favorite... This is f*****g c**p (yes they did write it with the stars)

I'm hoping that my regular classes give me similar reactions to all that wasted money. I was also able to rearrange my seats so that my room no longer looks like it belongs in a reform school. It's not perfect but it's a vast improvement on what I had. I may even be able to lose some desks and create enough room for beanbags!

Those are 9th graders in case you're curious. They liked it the last time I brought in current events so I am going to continue to bring them in on a regular basis.

Duh

2009-10-04T17:51:00.000-07:00

Yet another awe inspiring title from yours truly. I was stressing about teaching reading strategies and I did get some good pre-reading strategies from my AP who used to teach reading before she crossed over to the dark side of administration. Bless them, because I have less than no desire to get into administration. I'd rather just teach thank you very much.

Anyway as I was driving home from school I remembered that I had a binder full of active reading strategies that I learned during training last year. Which is where my brilliant title comes from... Duh! Why not use one of them? Hello! McFly! Anyone home? And to think I'm a licensed teacher to boot!

So what I came up with was to combine what I got from my AP with what I had in my binder. I'm going to use headlines from articles in the Las Vegas Review Journal and The Wall Street Journal, with the writings of blogs that I follow on a regular basis.

Buckhorn Road wrote about how Astroturf is not all it's cracked up to be, especially when it's hot outside.

Jammie Wearing Fool has an update on the Roman Polanski scandal.

And finally The Other McCain discusses his 'appearance' on Meet The Press. And when did become OK to not have proof to back up charges of racism in this country anyway?

In need of a title

2009-09-30T17:07:00.000-07:00

Seriously, I have no clue what to title this one. Yea, anyway my observation went pretty well and the classes' personalities are starting to become crystal clear. And I also need to get them to read more nonfiction text which they will be doing in the next couple of weeks once I get the lesson planning done for them. Oh and I have to come up with emergency sub plans as well. I have two days done and Karlan a was nice enough to send me some of hers. Stop by her blog when you get the chance, she writes on a plethora of different subjects and does it well.

1st period is your typical class, some kids who should be in honors and some who couldn't care any less about passing not to mention a few who cannot show up on time, ever. Academically they're doing OK but not great. I don't really have any meatballs though so it's a pretty good class to start with.

2nd period is my Excedrin class in spades, it already had more than it's share of chuckleheads and then they added 10 more students for a grand total of 41 kids. I am now on seating chart #4 and we've been in school for 5 or 6 weeks. Whereas 1st period is going to do group work, 2nd period isn't because they could not stay quiet for independent reading. And surprise, their grades as a class suck eggs. Rotten eggs. Looks like the Siberia seats will get some use from them tomorrow.

My honors class is what you would expect of honors students, bright kids who talk fast and work harder. Today they began their mystery box assignment and tomorrow when they finish "The Most Dangerous Game" they'll start "She Unnames Them" and then it's off to short story literacy groups. That's where a group will pick a story to read then fill out the elements worksheet and then will start creating power point presentations to teach the rest of the class about the story they read. I just hope all the freedom I am going to give them does not come back to bite me in the gradebook so to speak. I am also going to have them read some nonfiction work.

5th period is like 3rd period except they are a regular class but I only have 2 kids who are failing and their class grade is right there with the honors kids. They'll be doing lots of group work as well I think. I may just give them the same (or similar) work as the honors and see what happens. I am going to loosen the leash on them as well and see how they do. Library, here we come! Pray for the librarian if you can though!

6th period is between 5th and 1st. I think if I had them at a different point of the day they would really shine but it's the last class of the day and they are kinda done with school at that point but I have some GREAT kids that day. Their grades are pretty good as well.

What I really want is to have a class where there are no F's and few D's and with my honors kids and with 5th period I just may get my wish as I have only a couple of kids who are failing in either class.

I also need to mention that one of the nonfiction texts my students are going to read is by Mary Baker who wrote a very compelling article about why she no longer considers herself an African American. My honors and 5th period will read that one, discuss and write about it and my other three classes will read a shorter piece by Teddy Roosevelt talking about what it means to be an American without the hyphen. Credit goes to Saberpoint for posting it in all it's un-hypenated glory. It's shorter than the Mary Baker piece but has the same message about the importance of simply being an American regardless of where you immigrated to this country from. It's a message some of these kids sorely need to learn.

Speaking of Teddy, here is my favorite quote of his. Feel free to mention it next time you get called an '-ist' for criticizing the President...

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

Observation

2009-09-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

I knew this day was coming, the day that my supervisor would come in and observe my class while I teach my students. Tomorrow (possibly Wednesday) is the day of my first observation and to say I am stressed is a bit of an understatement!

For those of you who don't understand let me explain. In education, instead of the normal review with your supervisor where you fill out your form and your boss does theirs and you meet and hash it out, your supervisor (usually the principal or vice-principal) will sit in your class and observe you teach. They will look at your lesson plans, the setup of your classroom, what you have up on your white/chalk boards and even how you have decorated your classroom. They do this several times during the year depending on where you are in your career. Then they will discuss their observations with you at the end of the year and give you your review.

The only way I can get off the probationary list is to get high marks on my observations, and if after two years I don't get off of probation, I have to find a new career.

I think I have everything set for this week but I'm sure I forgot something. I need to do some emergency sub plans to put in my big binder and give to the office.

The joys of teaching.

Switching Units

2009-09-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

So today I switched units with my classes. The two classes that were doing short stories are now starting the narrative writing unit and the ones doing the writing are now starting the short stories. One of the things I forgot to account for was my honors class. Silly me thinking that they would just plod along reading "Two Kinds" for three or four days like my regular classes! Looks like tomorrow they are going to work in groups and do the elements worksheets as they read. I figure they should finish it by Monday at the latest and then we can do short story literature groups. Of course I have not written up the plans for it yet, but what the hell, I'll come up with something and make it work. Now I need to reserve the computer lab for them so they can teach the rest of the class about they story they read as a group. Plus I need to reserve time in the library since the librarian dropped the hint that she had not seen me with my students yet. Some English teacher I am! Finally, I had a chat with the soccer coach about two of my students who could not figure out what 'no talking' meant. Today along with the teenage death stare I got silence from both of them, and the football player who was acting like a meatball is now passing with a solid C (from a 40% F) and actually pays attention the whole period. Yay for coaches!

Bad Timing

2009-09-21T20:01:00.000-07:00

Sigh, the timing for the transferring of 160 students to the other English 1 teachers came at the worst possible time. Because we did not make our enrollment numbers we lost an English Teacher and a support staff position. So now that I am two days from finishing up a 2 1/2 week unit on narrative writing and a short story unit of the same length. I now have between 5-8 new students in my regular classes (none for my honors class but I have plenty of honors students in my regular classes) and have to find something for them to do for the next couple of days. At least for the writing part I found some quick narrative prompts so I can get an idea of their ability. As far as the short stories go, they'll just have to catch up on 'The Most Dangerous Game" and then we'll start on the writing unit.

I can't help but wonder that if the CCEA had not fought so hard for the raises due teachers this year, that some of the positions would not have been eliminated, but hey it's all about the students, right?

Progress Reports

2009-09-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

Updates below!

I love it when I get warned about little things like progress reports, so I am not thrilled that I didn't find out until Thursday afternoon that progress reports grades are due on Monday. Normally I give my students fair warning so the ones who care and turn in missing work in their classes and keep their phones. So today after school I spent 2 hours trying to get missing work put together for my classes. I got first and part of second period done and on Monday I'll get the other ones done. Monday will be a make up work party along with working on their regularly scheduled work. I will probably be printing out extra reports to keep students out of trouble. They will get a 25% penalty for the really late work but the students seem to like the idea that they can still get a decent grade for late work and I like not having all the 'mi' for missing in my grade book.

There is also the rumor that a position is not going to be filled so that all the English classes are going to be much bigger than before. I'm not exactly thrilled about this rumor because I don't need 5 classes with 45 students each in them. I already have THAT class to deal with, you know the one that drives you to drink? It's 2nd period and I'll be changing their seats this weekend and hope this works along with some phone calls next week. At least I finally got my attendance program this week which had made my life much easier.

Update #1: My posters came in today. So on Monday along with the college pennants (all of the PAC-10 schools, thanks Dick!) to hang up I will also hang up my 'Victims of Che' poster as well as my Friedrich Hayek poster, after I laminate them of course. Go me!

Update #2: The rumors are true and now I'll have at least 40 kids per class. Looks like I'll have to go back over the procedures again. What really sucks is that I am finishing up a unit on narrative writing as well as a unit on short stories that many of my students will miss and I will have to figure out some way to get them caught up before the super important mid term assessments in a few weeks. Man, that is really going to throw a wrench into my plans.

Open House

2009-09-15T21:20:00.000-07:00

Man are my feet SORE. I guess standing up from 7 am to 1:30pm and then from 6-8pm will do that to you. I ended up with 25 students coming in with their parents and three or four more who came without their parents. That's not bad for high school. The parents were very nice and the snacks and juice were a big hit. Plus my daughter came with me and made $10 for watching an infant for a fellow teacher who could not find a sitter. Classy gal she is, just don't tell her...

I am continually impressed by how smart my students are in my class. I wish everyone would stop slamming today's students because they are way smarter than we give them credit for. I'm amazed that some of them keep coming to school with the fact their home lives are a tire fire.

The problem is that now I am a day behind on grading and it's going to get worse because I have training tomorrow so grading is shot for tomorrow as well. Can you say 'burn the midnight oil'? I knew you could! If people knew how many hours teachers put in they would stop bitching about what kind of money we make. I easily put in 55 hours a week, sometimes more, including nights, weekends and holidays.

Another Mystery

2009-09-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why, but out of my four regular English 1 classes, the last two periods are doing better as a class than the first two periods. Here are the class averages by period as of yesterday.

Period 1: 54.4% with 17 Fs
Period 2: 50.7% with 16 Fs
Period 5: 67.2% with 7 Fs
Period 6: 66.4% with 9Fs

I have 4th period prep and 3rd period is my honors class. You would think that 5th and 6th period because they are late in the day would be hanging off the walls and not doing any work but that really isn't the case. I am getting more makeup work in today as well which is nice. Late work is the bane of teachers and I still have yet to find a system that works for me and that will induce the maximum number of students to turn it in. I've tried the 'if it's late it's a zero' tactic, the 'just turn it in' tactic, and the 'turn it in for 50% credit' tactic and they have all failed. This year I am trying something new. They get dinged 5% per day until they lose 25% of their grade and it seems to be working. The fact that they can turn it in and get a 'C' is doing the trick so far. It does punish them for turning it late, but not so much that it's not worth it to them. I remember when I was in high school (was it really more than 20 years?) and that if I could only get 50% credit, it simply was not worth my time.

Tomorrow is open house at our school, and like last year I have resorted to bribery to get my students to come to open house. I told them that if they show up and sign in with their parents they get 10 extra credit points. Last year, when I was interning at the prep school I literally had 8 or 9 parents tell me their kids dragged them to the open house just so they could get their points. Hell, if it worked there, it should work here. Plus I am making walking taco dip as well as a snack for anyone who comes by. Well, actually my wife is doing that for me.

At least I'll eat well tomorrow night!

A Rude Shock

2009-09-09T19:52:00.000-07:00

Some of my students are in for a rude shock this week. I posted grades on the uber ugly bulletin board that were just as ugly. Why they can't do or turn in a quick write that is done at the beginning of class is a mystery that even Sherlock Holmes can't solve. I even have a couple of honors students who have literally a 0% in my class right now.

What is sad is that there is no reason for my students to be failing at this point. My quick writes are easy points and they students have a good amount of leeway in how they approach their assignments.

My hope is that posting the grades and switching the seats will light a fire under some of these students.

Speaking of rude shocks, we had two fire alarms go off this week, 10 minutes before school started. Yesterday was not bad but this morning I was literally under the alarm when it went off. Can you say 'instant headache'? I knew you could. Then I had this donkey of a student who walked back onto campus sporting a nice baseball cap. The problem is that you are not allowed to wear your cap on campus. I kindly asked this young man to take off his cap and got ignored. I repeated my request "Sir, would you please remove your hat?" and was told 'no'. Wrong answer... I then asked him for the cap, "you're not getting my cap!" Strike two! OK, then you're going to have to give it to the dean. "No, I'm not!" And you're out! I then continue to follow him around campus and continue to ask him to go to the dean's office and he continues to refuse. I signal one of the administration to let them know and they start to move in. All this time we've gone to the two story building to the 2nd floor, across the walkway where the principal shouts to me that she wants to talk to him "No, I'm going to class!" and then across to the three story building where he is finally corralled by one of the security monitors. I hope to find out what happened to him tomorrow.

And finally we have a pep rally on Friday, what's the over/under on cell phone confiscations? I am done playing with these kids, either they play by the rules or they pay the price. I plan on bringing a bunch of ziplock bags to stick the phones and iPods in with the form.

A Rude Shock Indeed...

'The Speech'

2009-09-04T19:21:00.000-07:00

Ever since this whole firestorm about Obama's speech started, I've been wrestling with how to approach this without destroying my plans for the week and without knowing what to do with the rest of my classes for the day.

Fortunately Dr. Rulffes helped me out with that one. He sent an email to everyone saying that the speech was not mandatory and that it would be archived for future use. His reasoning was that the speech was all well and good but only if it does not interfere with the day to day teaching. (Plus any parent who wants their child not to hear the speech can opt out, my daughter will watch the speech but she will do so with an open mind!) So what I am going to do is to watch the speech at a later time and then design my own lesson to use at a later date.

For once everyone wins!

Update: I found the text of his speech at Politico. Had President Obama released his text with the announcement this would not have been the firestorm that it was. You'd think that someone as smart as he is would have anticipated the concern this speech would cause amoung those on the right side of the aisle and done something to assuage those fears, but hey, I'm just an English teacher.

End of the honeymoon

2009-09-01T16:34:00.000-07:00

No, not the one Obama had with the country although you might be right about that as well. I'm talking about the one in the classroom when the students start testing the teachers and staff to see what they can get away with.

Today there was a Freshmen assembly in the gym and to say is was a mess is an understatement of biblical proportions. There was talking, flirting, sagging and oh yes, texting a plenty! I spent the entire assembly stalking the bleachers keeping the phones hidden and the shorts up.

When we got back to class I let my students know just how I felt. I told them that how they act in an assembly reflects personally on me and that I wasn't going to have any nonsense and that it did not matter if they were in my class or not, they're my students and I expect them to behave properly.

I've also get seven students in first period who think I'm kidding about tardies and detention, boy are they in for a shock tomorrow morning when they get in and receive their prize for failing to show up on time. One kid already has three tardies in eight days, which means he gets a phone call home as well. What's sad is in my other four classes I don't have kids showing up late, maybe 3 or 4 out of 35-40 students per class have 1 tardy which is not bad.

Finally I was able to get rid of three desks in my room which has allowed me to create a couple of 'Siberia' seats for the kids who can't figure out the rules, all three of them. Tomorrow some of my students will enjoy their trip to Western Russia, I'll let you know how their tours go.

Today was a good day...

2009-08-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

Yea, I know it's still the honeymoon period when kids pretend to like you and try, but it was still a good day. The first week or so where I teach is kind of a loss because kids are moving in and out of your room so frequently that long term projects/homework is pretty much out. So today I was planning on doing some writing assessment. One of my fellow teachers had found this one online from New York State.

Prompt: Youʼve been in school for most of your life, so you know different teachers decorate their classrooms in different manners. Think of your ideal of the perfect classroom. Is it colorful? Does it have desks or tables? What does it look like? How does it smell? Are there any sounds in it? Write an essay describing your idea of the perfect classroom. Your teacher may even incorporate some of your ideas into the room!

Now if you fell asleep in your Fruit Loops I don't blame you. So after first period, I started to interject a bit of commentary into the prompt to get them to look at it in a different light.

Prompt: Youʼve been in school for most of your life (well duh!), so you know different teachers decorate their classrooms in different manners (gee, ya think?). Think of your ideal of the perfect classroom (who the heck wrote this sentence anyway?). Is it colorful? Does it have desks or tables? What does it look like? How does it smell?(please don't tell me how it smells!) Are there any sounds in it? Write an essay describing your idea of the perfect classroom. Your teacher may even incorporate some of your ideas into the room!

In addition to my commentary (yes I aced my sarcasm classes!), we talked about things that kids liked to see in the classroom and then expanded it to different classes such as auto shop, art, music and PE. I loved watching them write down ideas and then start their drafts. When asked how long to make it I told them to completely cover the material. What I hope is that when they write about what is interesting to them, the length will come naturally and so far, so good. Tomorrow we finish the drafts, do some peer reviews and then start the final draft.

Now it's your turn... What do you like to see in a classroom?

Update #1: Looks like I need to get me some bean bag chairs! And more lava lamps too! Amazing what happens when you give students options...

Taking part in the process

2009-08-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that all of you have heard the mantra of "Contact your Senator etc." when you have issues with what they are doing. Today I did just that. While surfing on the web (and watching my son play Mater-National on the Wii, I found an easy way to contact our representatives and senators. So I decided to let my rep, Shelly Berkley, know how I felt about the health care plan currently in the house.

"I am writing to express my opposition to the health care plan currently put forth in the House of Representatives. I believe that it is nothing more than a government take over of the health care industry and will make things worse and not better. I am going to get to the point, if you vote for this bill not only will I not vote for you again, I will actively campaign to defeat you in every election until you leave office. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like to discuss this further. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

Sincerely,

Desert Art Guy"

Now I don't know if she is going to respond, since she supports is and I oppose it, but at least she knows that if she supports it, she loses my vote.

PS Here is the link in case you need it. http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

1 Week

2009-08-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

Yep, one week until school starts and I am totally overwhelmed. Now I do have my classroom 90% set up and I've met many of the other English teachers at my new school. But I have no unit plans, no teacher edition of the writing book for my room and the novels we use to teach may or may not actually exist on campus. Add in the fact that I don't yet have the template for the lesson plans, roster sheets and only a vague idea of what stories I can teach (so I don't mess up the other English classes) and you can see why sleep has been fleeting.

It's not like I don't have lesson plans either, but they are not in the right format and not in anything that resembles units yet. I'm not sure if 1 week is going to be enough time to really get everything together for the first day of school.

One of those days

2009-08-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

I had this great plan for the day and well, it didn't quite go as planned. My plan was to sleep in, work on my room and then go to McDonald's before heading home to relax with the kids. Yea, that was the plan anyway! My son woke up at 6:30 because he had a bad dream, they were waxing the floor at the school so I could not get anything done and so in reality we went to McDonald's and then went home where I entertained my son while my daughter played Wizard 101. So much for my plans. I also heard that CCSD has banned refrigerators in the classroom so I don't know if I'll be able to bring up my mini fridge after all. I may just bring it anyway and put it in an out of the way area. I see so many fridges in classrooms that it may be one of the things that is 'illegal' but ignored.

I did take the literature book and writing book home with me to look through yesterday. It looks like I may actually get some use out of it. It had some stories that I knew and liked such as "The Most Dangerous Game" and "Two Kinds". It's a good thing I have a short story elements worksheet that I took with me from my old school last year. All I have to do is change the name of the story and print it out. I won't do it every time but it's a good way to teach things like conflict, plot elements, and the like. I just hope that I will be able to teach some of my favorite stories like "A Jury of Her Peers" and "The Yellow Wallpaper". It depends on the rest of the 9th Grade English teachers though.

It will be kind of strange coordinating everything with other teachers when I was at the charter school I had total freedom, and when I was just a student teacher, coordination was something that I didn't have to worry about. I was just there to observe and learn.

Red Eye

2009-07-25T03:01:00.000-07:00

I am typing this in Detroit Michigan waiting for my connecting flight to Marquette where I will be on vacation for the next week. We took the redeye from Las Vegas and it is currently 6:03 AM I have now been up for about 23 hours so if I mess up some spelling or make a grammar error that's why. There were two wi-fi options here one was free and one was not guess which one I picked? Is Detroit so broke they charge for wi-fi now? Sheesh, Las Vegas is hurting and McCarran had free wi-fi there.

So tomorrow we celebrate my grandfather's 90th birthday party and then we'll visit my grandmother later this week to celebrate her 90th birthday party. There must be something in the water up there that makes them live long lives. So for the next week it's relax, swim, and enjoy myself.

Diversity

2009-07-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

It's the favorite word of the left, but while diversity of sex or skin color is important, what about intellectual diversity? How about a diversity of views and opinions? One of the problems with education is the fact that so many educators are left of center at best. Why so few moderates or conservatives? Is it because they have been scared away or simply driven out of their fields by the left? Is is because most people who are on the right side of the political side of the fence are in private industry? And education is not the only place where this lack of diversity exists, the media is overwhelmingly liberal and if you doubt me then why is Sarah Palin not defended by a supposedly impartial press when her AND her family is subject to constant abuse. I mean if a liberal had a child with Downs Syndrome and some attack was made on them could you imagine the firestorm?

I bring up ideological diversity because of an article I found on line talking about a student (who is a liberal) who is disturbed by the lack of intellectual diversity at their campus, and the nasty reaction they got when they published an article about this fact, and the comment I got in my previous post asking about giving both sides, in a way I'll be giving the other side and I may be the only conservative voice they hear this year. During the election last year there were only two teachers at the middle school where I taught out of 12 how voted for McCain and I have found that schools here are usually 75% liberal if not more so I know I am going to be in the minority.

Ah well, such is life.

I have an issue...

2009-07-10T08:29:00.001-07:00

And it has to do with decorating my room. You see all English rooms look pretty much the same. Posters of famous writers, genre posters, writing traits, a spot for student's work (I'm OK with that) etc... The details change but you KNOW you're in an English room and that's the problem. I don't want just another English classroom. I plan on bringing in politics, current affairs, popular culture and more. If a student doesn't know by 9th grade the difference between a mystery and science fiction, Putting up this isn't going to help much:

If they've ignored it for the last 4 or 5 years why would they suddenly pay attention now, not to mention that it's just to juvenile for 9th graders, sheesh.

I'd rather put up a poster more like this:

Che is something of a pop culture icon, but most kids have no idea about the real story of this murdering b*****d and the bloody legacy he left behind. This at least has the potential to make them think. Because the poster is made up of some (but not all) of the people that he executed in Cuba.

And I am definately going to have something like this in my room:

Many of my students will have some memories of this day but I want to remind them of what happened and why on 9/11/01. Again this type of poster will be there to make them use their brains. That is why they are in school after all. They'll be old enough to vote in a few years and I want them to be as informed as possible.

This one is also a must have for my room:

Need I say more? Actions do have consequences after all...

Needless to say the last thing I want is to have just another English room.

9th Grade English

2009-07-07T21:44:00.000-07:00

That's what I'll be teaching come this fall. I apologize for not updating what was going on but life and the 4th got in the way. Today I signed my conditional (pass background check for the 800th time) acceptance of the offer to teach at a local HS. This school is urban and will be a Title 1 school in the near future. It's also one of the oldest HS in the area although they have done a nice job renovating it. I'll be teaching 4 regular sections and one honors section of English and I am very excited about it. It will be an interesting switch to go back to high school after spending the last year and a half at the middle school level.

I'm already thinking about how to decorate my room...

Job Hunt

2009-06-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

So on my last post I had been waiting to confirm the teaching position that I was offered while on vacation in California. (PS go visit the Charles Schultz Museum!) The bad news is that I didn't get that job. The good news is that on the way home from California I got a call from an assistant principal asking me if I would be interested in teaching High School English so I made an appointment to interview while on the road home. The interview went very well and after the interview at a third school fell through I felt that it was time to pull the trigger. My next chore (pun intended) was to turn in my application for my license.

Easy right?

Not so fast... I needed a couple of things first before I could go down to the office and make everything official. I needed to get fingerprinted and I needed to get a money order for $161.00 for the license or so I thought. I also needed my transcripts of which I have plenty and I was off to the races. Now because I am cheap I went to one of those payday loan places that does not charge for money orders. There was one literally 3 minutes from my house so that's where I went first. Of course they moved their location down the street, about five miles from one end of Rancho to the other. So I track them down and then find out that you can no longer use your debit card for money orders so I head up the street to the bank pull out $180.00 and get my money order.

Only when she is counting the change that I realize that I should have pulled out $200.00 because the fee for the license is $161.00 so I am short a dollar for my fingerprinting. (which is why I teach English and not math) So I then head across town to the fingerprinting place aiming to hit the bank along the way to put in the $19.00 I have and withdraw $20.00 for the finger prints. Mind you the fingerprinting place is across the town from where I am and it's already 100 outside. I make my way across town find a bank and then get the proper amount for the fingerprints. Then I realize that I need gas and detour to make sure I don't have to spend the rest of the day walking. I finally (90 minutes later) hit the fingerprinting place and while waiting for my number to be called my daughter calls me up. Mind you she is watching my son so you can just imagine what's going through my mind when I see my home number pop up. I tell her I will call her back and when I finish my two sets of prints I call her back and breathe a sigh of relief when she wants to know how long to nuke a corn dog for my son.

So fingerprints in hand so to speak I hop into the mom-mobile (aka minivan) to drive across the valley again to the licensing office to get my license. I arrive at the location listed and don't see the office anywhere. After searching for a good 10 minutes I call them and find out they are on the second floor of the realty building (No there was no sign anywhere on the outside) park the mom-mobile and head up the stairs to the office. After a 20 minute wait it's my turn and I hand the clerk my paperwork, money order etc. She starts to type in my name and then stops when she sees that I still have a valid substitute license. She tells me that because I already have a license all I need to do is add the endorsement to that one and I am good to go. This was good news and bad news. The good news is that an additional endorsement costs a mere $50 and not $161. The bad news is that I have to get a money order for $50 not to mention the $20 I didn't need to spend on the fingerprinting. At that point I had already been on the road for 3 hours and I was at least 30 minutes from home so I decided to go home and finish up the next day.

So the next morning my son and I hop in the mom-mobile and drive to the bank for the cash (and deposit the $161 back in the bank) so we could then go get the money order so we could get my endorsement added to the license. That took about 2 hours so as a reward I took him to McDonald's for lunch.

Thank God that's over with!

Distance Blogging

2009-06-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

This week my family and I are in Northern California visiting my in laws and getting a few days of time with just my wife. The kids are really enjoying themselves and it's nice to see the color green as in green grass, green trees etc. The kids get to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and spend the night at the Asilomar Campgrounds on the beach. My wife and I get to go to wine country and will probably visit the Peanuts Museum as well. If you ever visit that part of California make sure you visit the aquarium because it's an all day event.

On the job front I left a message for the principal of the middle school to call me back so I can tell her that I really want the job. I knew I would take the job because I had started to think about lessons and how to take advantage of the technology at the school while driving from Lost Wages to the Bay Area. The clincher was when I did some research on the school and found out it was a 2008 Title 1 Distinguished School in the State of Nevada as well as getting recognized as a high achieving school for closing the achievement gap.

A Wild Morning

2009-06-11T22:36:00.001-07:00

So today started out as a normal day. My son and I were relaxing by playing Lego Star Wars II (OK I was playing and he was watching, the game was his idea) and my daughter was still sleeping. The only irritating thing was the phone would not stop ringing! My wife called which was cool, her and my son talked on the phone and put a smile on both of their faces, then it was call after call. Needless to say I was getting irritated and I was tempted to let the answering machine do it's thing, but I decided to answer it one last time. Good thing I did because it was a middle school principal asking if I was interested in an open position this fall and when could I come in for an interview. Now the interview part was the tricky part since I was the one staying at home. I relayed this to the principal who replied that it would be fine to bring them along, that this was an informal interview. So I then had 45 minutes to shower, get two kids dressed and get the three of us down to the school for this 'informal interview'.

Somehow I managed to arrive on campus right on time, kids dressed and on their best behavior even. The position is for 8th grade English at a Title 1 school in a mainly hispanic area of North Town. The school itself is old and has heating and A/C issues (what school does not?) but it also has plenty of technology and the class sizes will still be in the 30s because of it's Title 1 status (literally 99% of the school is on free and reduced lunch). I also got so see what a classroom looks like and I got to meet the librarian who was very nice and kept the library in very nice shape.

As far as the Title 1 goes, that does not bother me I spent the last quarter last school year subbing at a Title 1 school and really enjoyed it. The school is not too far away which is nice and I like the fact that they have ELMOs and Smartboards as well as LCD projectors. Plus the principal hates weekly spelling words. It's one thing to have a vocab list that is specific to your lesson etc., but another entirely to simply have them memorize 20 more words. Total waste of time if you ask me. What I might do is to see if there is a montage of Bill O Riley's word of the day and use that as a bell ringer of some sort since his words are fairly uncommon and it would certainly be a change of pace for them.

I must have said something right to her because she offered me the job at the end of the interview. She told me to think about it and to get back to her next week, she is going to be out of town on Friday for a long weekend. Looks like I may have a job in the fall after all.

Reading

2009-06-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

One of the benefits of being at home is getting to read more than usual and I have taken advantage of that by finishing up four books in the last few days. Two of them were historical and the other two were political.

As for the histories, I read Patton a short but interesting biography of the colorful and brilliant general from WWII and I also read The Coldest Winter the story about The Battle of The Bulge from the point of a platoon that bought the allies precious time and surrendered only after they ran out of ammunition. Both books were surprisingly good and easy to read. They were not my first choices to read because they were checked out but I was glad I took a chance on them.

On the political front, I finally got to read Bamboozled and Arrogance, two books that had been on my reading list for many a moon but had not been able to get to for various reasons. Both books were well researched and very informative to read. When I get the money I will add them both to my collection.

That leaves just one book that I checked out from the library that I have not finished. It's from Ray Bradbury and it's called From The Dust Returned and if it's half as good as Something Wicked This Way Comes it should be a really good book.

Tomorrow it's back to the library to return books and get some more. My daughter blew through most of the 13 books she checked out and I need to return mine as well.

I could get used to summers off...

I swear I was going to leave this one alone...

2009-05-27T20:18:00.001-07:00

But I can't! A student on another site posted this in her journal and I can't get this tripe out of my head. So I thought I would post this here and put in my comments and let all of you have a crack at it as well. If you have actual research to back your points up it would be helpful for my ultimate reply to her on the other website. Oh and if I'm wrong on something let me know would you?

1. Hitler and Stalin committed heinous crimes because they were atheists.
This statement assumes that (1) they were both atheists and (2) they committed mass murder and other horrible crimes BECAUSE they were atheists. Assumption 1 is false for Hitler; he was a Catholic who hated Jews!(Get it right, please) Since assumption 1 is false, then assumption 2 is false as well.
Assumption 1 is true for Stalin; however, assumption 2 is false for Stalin, so assumption 1 is irrelevant. What matters is not whether Hitler and Stalin were atheists, but whether atheism systematically INFLUENCES people to do bad things. There is not a slightest evidence that it does.

This one irritates me because she erroneously paints Hitler as a practicing Catholic which is false. I grew up Catholic and I know for sure that nowhere in their teachings did exterminating foes come into play. I find it fascinating that most of the mass murderers were atheists once they rose to power.

2. Founding Fathers were Christians. America is a Christian nation.
Lack of knowledge in history cannot reveal itself so blatantly in this statement.
The founding fathers were SECULARISTS/DEISTS, men of ENLIGHTENMENT. Thomas Jefferson would eat you for breakfast if you said such thing!
The 1796 treaty with Tripoli states that the United States was "in no sense founded on the Christian religion", This was not an idle statement, meant to satisfy Muslims-- they believed it and meant it. This treaty was written under the presidency of George Washington and signed under the presidency of John Adams.
"The priests of the different religious sects...dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight, and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subdivision of the duperies on which they live." - THOMAS JEFFERSON

Where to start with this one? Maybe that George Washington was the Chaplin for his troops for the French and Indian war and that he spent an 2 hours a day studying the Bible and praying to God. Of course the quote is taken out of context as well. It meant that there was no established state church in the USA, not that is was not a Christian nation. An odd statement considering that 99% of the people in the US were Christian. I also know that most of the founding fathers were either Christians or Diests and that even Thomas Jefferson attended church on a regular basis.

3. Many renowned scientists, like Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking, are religious.
Albert Einstein and Steven Hawking certainly do NOT believe in a personal god. Einstein was always irritated when people called him a theist or religious. He wrote a famous paper justifying his statements "I do not believe in a personal God." in 1940.

"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat of new kind of religion.
I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive." - ALBERT EINSTEIN

This one I am going to leave alone although I find it hard to believe. I do know that until the last few decades most scientists had religious faith.

4. Atheism is a Denial of God That Requires Faith:
The most common misunderstanding about atheism is the definition. Many insist that atheism is really the denial of the existence of God, but there are two errors here. First, it pretends that atheism is exclusively about their god, the god common to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Second, it focuses on a narrow sub-set of atheism and atheists to the exclusion of all others. Standard dictionary definitions list "denial of God or gods" second; first comes "disbelief in god or Gods." Disbelief is not the same as denial, it's either the absence of belief or the presence of skepticism.

Well, Atheists sure act like it's their religion they way they not only attack people of faith but try to convert people to their secular view. Secular Humanism is a belief system that acts like religion but is Atheist in nature.

5. Atheists Worship Satan, Themselves, Money, or Some Other God:
The claim that atheists replace worship of God with worship of something else ranges over man possible objects for worship: Satan, themselves, humanity, etc. In addition to being wrong, these myths share the belief that worship is somehow fundamental to human existence such that it simply isn't possible for a person to live a decent life without worshipping something. This is false, though. No matter how important religion or theism is to someone, this isn't a good reason to conclude that they are also important to everyone else, even those who deny having any god or religion.

Everyone worships something, it's human nature...

6. Atheists hate God/Christians and that is why they claim not to believe.

It's not a myth, has she actually read any of the books written by athiests? If they love believers they have a funny way of showing it!

7. More People Have Been Killed in the Name of Atheism & Secularism than Religion:
A common criticism raised by atheists against religion is how violent religion and religious believers have been in the past. People have slaughtered each other in large numbers because of differences in religious beliefs or because of other differences which are justified and intensified through religious rhetoric. Either way, religion has a lot of blood on its hands. Can the same be said for atheists and atheism? Haven't atheists killed more people in the name of atheism than religious theists have killed in the name of their religion? No: atheism isn't a philosophy or ideology.
"Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as 'Christ-killers', no Northern Ireland 'troubles', no 'honor killings', no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money ('God wants you to give until it hurts'. Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing an inch of it." - RICHARD DAWKINS

Go look at how many people Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Stalin etc killed vs. how many died because of religion. It's not even close...

8. Atheism is a Product of Rebellion & Pride:
There are many myths about atheism and atheists which claim that people are atheists due to some sort of rebellion (against god, religion, church, families, fathers, etc.) or pride. These myths come primarily from Christians whose religious mythology gives an important place to rebellion against divine rules as the origin of evil in the world (Satan is depicted as having rebelled against God). At most, these myths might be true of some but not all or even most atheists; even if true, however, none of these myths would have any implications for the truth or reasonableness of atheism itself.

This one may actually be correct in some way. Everyone comes to faith in different ways so I would assume that Athiests come to thier non-faith in various ways.

9. You cannot prove that God doesn't exist; therefore, atheism is based on faith

Is the existence of "God" a subject which science cannot answer? That depends entirely on how "God" is defined by believers. Some can be proven or disproven empirically or logically and some cannot — but those which cannot are defined in ways which are too vague or incoherent to properly evaluate. In such cases, it also isn't very reasonable to believe in them, and religious theists are only fooling themselves if they think this is a way to avoid providing rational defenses of their claims.
Any alleged deity which is claimed to interact with the world we live in is a deity which should have empirical effects — and that constitutes potential evidence for or against the existence of said deity. Only gods without any impact on our world are beyond empirical investigation, but such gods are also without any real relevance for us. Even if they are somehow not unreasonable to believe in, they certainly aren't worth basing an entire life around.

I'm not sure this even makes sense so for now I will leave it be. I will say I have seen enough evidence in my life to make me a Christian and nothing to make me turn away from my faith.

Never Forget

2009-05-24T18:05:00.000-07:00

Let us remember why we get a three day weekend, and it's not for BBQs, trips to the YMCA to swim or to spend time with our families. It's to honor those people who paid the ultimate price in defense of our country. To any veteran who reads this post. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. To those who lost a loved one in the line of duty, you have my heartfelt sympathy and deepest thanks. And to those who currently serve or who have loved ones who are in the military, may the good Lord keep you safe and return home, and once again. Thank you for your service to this great country of ours.

That drawing is simply entitled "Memorial" and I did that in 2006 for a local art show commemorating the 5 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Chocolate Dipped Ice Cream

2009-05-20T20:54:00.000-07:00

Now I'm not a chocolate fiend like my wife or my dad, but I make an exception for the chocolate dipped ice cream cone, something that I've enjoyed for as long as I can remember. It's also one of the few times that I order the same thing just about every time I go to DQ, I love them that much, especially in the summer when it's 100º F by 9am in the summer.

Today my four year old son had to get some cavities filled and after last week's debacle I decided to reward him if he was brave with his very own chocolate dipped ice cream cone. So after he got his fillings done with minimal tears and after the 30 minute (40+ actually) waiting period I took him and my daughter to DQ for a treat. And as promised he got his very own chocolate dipped ice cream cone which he devoured in about 4 minutes flat! He also helped me eat my cone and some of my daughter's Arctic Blast. All in all it was a good time for everyone.

In other news, my job search is progressing, I have one more reference to get back from my student teaching and my official transcripts from NSC and my application is complete. Hopefully I will be able to schedule some interviews and maybe even get me one of those job thingys by the fall, but first the flipping legislature has to get it's collective head out my wallet and pass something that approaches a budget first. But hey what do I know?

Finally, I really need to finish the books I checked out from the library, but I've been lazy which is too bad because 1776 is a really interesting book and I've barely gotten past the first couple of chapters.

And don't forget the real reason we have Memorial Day because some really did give all.

Real Christianity

2009-05-17T18:47:00.000-07:00

Yea, I chose that title completely on purpose. You see there are two kinds of Christians, those that talk a good game and those who actually do. Today our church went and did. There is an apartment complex that houses refugees from around the world. Most of them came here with only the clothes on their backs to start a new life here in Las Vegas.

Our church held a block party for these refugees and anyone else who happened to live there. We provided all sorts of things like toiletries...

Free haircuts...

Lots and lots of food... LOTS of food...

It was just too much for some folks to take in...

We also gave away clothing, silverware, glasses, a microwave oven, furniture, shoes, snow-cones and balloon animals and more. That table you saw earlier was empty within about 60 minutes. Aside from showing up, my family helped with the balloon animals, clean up and my son started to give the kids who lived there balloons, but since he can be shy he would leave them next to them while they were eating, stealth generosity if you will. When people start banging on Christians, just show them those photos, because this is what real Christians do, help those in need without making a big deal out of it. There was no news conference, no press releases just Christians doing what they do best.

Mr. Mom and more

2009-05-14T16:36:00.000-07:00

So this week I've been playing Mr. Mom, running the kids here and there, running errands, that sort of thing. I've also been busy with applications and trying to figure out what I am going to do for the summer for work etc.

The real joy today was taking my kids to the dentist where my son decided to throw up in the sink and all over his shirt. Oh, joy. We managed to finish the examination but will have to go back next week for the fillings, and I have a limit of one vomit per day per office visit. Tuna fish the second time around is not very appetizing if you know what I mean.

CCSD finally got two of my references where they are supposed to go, I'm working on the third one as well but the folks at NSC can't seem to figure out how to answer the phone. My tax dollars at work I suppose. Oh, joy. The good news is that I got my final grades and I finished my time at NSC with a 3.70 which is a nice reward although a teaching job would go further towords paying the bills.

NASA is repairing the Hubble Telescope as you read this, or was depending on your time zone. Keep those brave men and women in your thoughts as they literally risk their lives so we can get even cooler pics of the cosmos than we already do.

Finally, Nancy Pelosi has done a wonderful job of making a fool of herself with the whole 'torture memo/hearing/waterboarding thing'. It's been amusing to watch the latest developments as her version and the truth continue to miss each other by that much. Nancy, maybe next time you should start with the truth and not with your version of it, but what do I know?

Finished!

2009-05-05T20:46:00.000-07:00

I thought I would NEVER finish college and actually get a degree but here I am simply counting down the days until commencement Saturday night. To think that I went back to school for the 5th time in January of 2003 and now all that work has paid off. My last official assignment was to do a presentation today about my education and student teaching at Nevada State College. I was volentold to go first by Karlana and Kristi, presumably because mine would be so bad theirs would look great by comparison. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! It feels wierd not worrying about summer classes, registering for the fall semester or stressing about tuiton.

Tomorrow I am keeping my 4 year old at home and we're going to spend the day together. I see a lunch at McDonald's in the future. Now I need to update my resume, call the flipping district to see why the references never got sent and try to find a job. Hopefully the id10ts in Carson City will agree on a budget so the id10ts at the district will know how many openings there will be come this fall. Good thing I am getting reinstated for substitute teaching. I also got to visit the school I subbed at last spring that went from 6 weeks to the rest of the school year. I got to say hi to the teacher who taught next to me as well as the staff. All of whom recognized me and were happy to see me. The attendence lady was so excited that she jumped up and gave me a big hug! Too bad she couldn't get me a job.

50 book challenge

2009-04-30T21:21:00.001-07:00

I have almost completed the 50 book challenge. Here is the list of all 42 books I have read so far.

If By Sea
All Quiet On The Western Front
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Lord of The Flies
The Trial
I am Scout
Big Mouth and Ugly Girl
Robinson Crusoe
War of the Worlds

Crime and Punishment
To Kill a Mockingbird
American Lion
What's so great about Christianity
Ike, an American legend
"What we carry"
"The making of a poem"
Shade's Children
Speak
Kidnapped
Elfstones of Shannara
Pool of Radiance
Pools of Darkness
Silent Sea

These three I'm counting as one book
The Bottle Imp
The Body Snatcher
Markheim

Ranger's Apprentice Book 1
Flight of The White Horse
Old man and the sea
My Grandfather's Son
Sharks over China
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Screwtape Letters
Catcher in the Rye
The Coldest Winter
Mere Christianity
Count of Monte Cristo
The Black Arrow
Dragonflight
Dragonquest
The White Dragon
The Great Gatsby
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Grapes of Wrath

A change of pace

2009-04-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

While watching "Jack's Big Music Show" with my son, I was pleasantly surprised by a group called "Nuttin But Stringz" that mixed violins with hip-hip. Normally I only half watch the show but something made me put down my book and pay attention. Boy was I glad I did. The first clip is the one from the show itself.

And yes this is the group from "America's Got Talent", here is the clip from their initial performance.

Enjoy!

You gotta be kidding right?

2009-04-22T17:11:00.001-07:00

Last week I sent a letter to the school district to get reinstated as a substitute teacher for the remainder of the school year as I was no longer at my apprentice teaching position and my student teaching assignment would be ending in early May. Today I received a letter from the district stating that I would have to do a few things. First I would have to complete on-line training and then I would have to get finger printed (again), bring down a copy of my sub license and then I could sub for the remainder of the year.

Now the first thing that irritated me was the fact that I would have to pay $50 I don't have for the finger printing, even though they have my records for student teaching, and the thing that really pisses me off is the fact that I have to pay another $12 for the on-line training. I would understand doing this if I were new to subbing, but I subbed all last school year and was in the classroom all this year teaching as well! Can you say money grab? I knew you could!

Can you effing believe this? Bad enough I gotta pay the fifty clams for the finger prints, but then I have to pay for on-line substitute teaching training on top of that? Seriously?

This is not the change I was hoping for, that's for damn sure.

Almost done

2009-04-20T19:18:00.000-07:00

I am down to my last two big projects and then my time at Nevada State College will come to an end. It's hard to believe that just 6 years ago I went back to school to become a teacher, and I am just one paper and one presentation away from reaching that goal. And then it's up to the jackasses in Carson City to get their crap together and pass some sort of budget so the school district knows how much money they have for teachers.

But hey at least I'll have a degree in May!

This really p***es me off...

2009-04-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

I have not done much political posting lately with all the great stories to relate from the classroom but I had to talk about something that really has me pissed off.

No, not my students, they're great (just don't tell them that), it's the report released by the KGB er Department of Homeland Security dealing with Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment so now instead of dealing with the actual threats facing this country, the KGB, er DHS will be dealing with such threats:

"Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration." (pg. 2)

OK, so that's pretty much 90% of the conservatives in this country and includes everyone who participated in the 'tea parties' that took place today. And people thought that Bush was a dictator? In what flipping universe? Nothing that Bush did during his 8 years ever came close to this horse crap, and when they did issue reports like this they were very specific with group names and specific threats not this broad brushed jackbooted book burning Che loving hammer and sickle waving garbage.

And since I like to save the best for last, here is one more little gem for you to chew on.

"DHS/I&A will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months to ascertain with greater regional specificity the rise in rightwing extremist activity in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive rightwing extremist radicalization." (pg. 8)

Vast right wing conspiracy anyone? And we thought that died when Bill Clinton left office.

50 Book Challenge

2009-04-03T20:09:00.000-07:00

Update #3 4/14/09: It's 38. I finished "The Trial" and "I Am Scout" today and forgot to add "Big Mouth and Ugly Girl" from last month. Only 12 more by July!

Update #2: It's 35, I finished Robinson Crusoe on Friday and I'm reading "The Trial" right now.
And Happy Easter everyone!

Update #1: It's 34 I finished War of the Worlds today and I'm half done with Robinson Crusoe...

So I have now finished 33 books out of the 50. Here is the list so far.

Crime and Punishment
To Kill a Mockingbird
American Lion

"What's so great about Christianity"
Ike, an American legend
"What we carry"
"The making of a poem"
Shade's Children
Speak
Kidnapped
Elfstones of Shannara
Pool of Radiance
Pools of Darkness
Silent Sea

These three I'm counting as one book
The Bottle Imp
The Body Snatcher
Markheim

Ranger's Apprentice Book 1
Flight of The White Horse
Old man and the sea
My Grandfather's Son
Sharks over China
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
The Screwtape Letters
Catcher in the Rye
The Coldest Winter
Mere Christianity
Count of Monte Cristo
The Black Arrow
Dragonflight
Dragonquest
The White Dragon
The Great Gatsby
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Grapes of Wrath

To Kill A Mockingbird

2009-04-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

At my new school my cooperating teacher had just started To Kill A Mockingbird so after spring break, that's what I'll be teaching as well. I had forgotten how good that book was until I picked it up again and the movie is not bad either. I mention this because I decided on a whim to do the novel for my literary theory class because I just was not interested in redoing my paper on Ursula LeGuin.

I'm glad I switched because I found out a very interesting thing. Lawyers use Atticus Finch as a role model in their law schools, and that one professor wrote an article in the Michigan Law Review that asked some hard questions, which were answered by other professors and lawyers. One of those responses came from Ann Althouse who has an excellent blog of her own.

Funny how things just kinda work out sometimes. Today I'll do my prewriting and the rough draft(s) and then tomorrow I'll finish it up.

Oh, and spring break is next week.

YEE-HAW!

8th Graders

2009-03-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

I really like teaching 8th graders. They're more mature than 7th graders and I've been able to give them more challenging lessons successfully than 7th graders. Plus, they're not 7th graders. Don't get me wrong, Ive had some great 7th grade students and classes, but they're just wacked out as a rule. It's all those hormones raging through their bodies, they discover the opposite sex in a big way. They're happy one second and mad the next. Grown up one minute and a 3rd grader the next. And don't get me started on the drama, er D-R-A-M-A. It makes Desperate Housewives look like Dora The Explorer. Spare me, please.

Now 6th graders are just too immature for me, they're too clingy and needy. Plus it takes them pretty much a whole quarter before they even get the hang of middle school, and generally speaking you can't challenge them with lessons like you can 8th graders. Thanks but no thanks.

I'll take 8th graders any day of the week. The hormones have settled down some and they have a better sense of self, not to mention they really want to get out of middle school, especially here in NV where middle school is 6th-8th grade.

Next week I am going to start doing some teaching in my English classes. We're doing "To Kill A Mockingbird" and it's going pretty well so far. We'll see if it lasts.

Finally I got my confirmation from NSC for graduation. After 6 long years, I'll finally have a four year degree. And if I get an A in my Lit Theory class, I'll graduate Magna Cum Laude. Go me.

Finally!

2009-03-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

After literally a week, I'm finally back in a classroom. I'll be dealing strictly with 8th graders this time which I can deal with. But here is the ironic part. Two of my new students know two of my old students, in fact one of my new students is related to an old one. Wait until I tell my friend at the old school that one!

There is one thing that I really miss though, and that's the laptop. It sucks not being able to sit in bed and work while my better half is relaxing, and it really sucks having to share a computer with the family.

But hopefully I'll be able to afford my own laptop this year.

The Waiting Game

2009-03-23T21:12:00.001-07:00

So it's been almost a week since I've been inside a classroom interacting with kids, and I'm really ready to start teaching again. This enforced vacation that I have been on is not relaxing in the least. However, my professor told me that he was merely waiting on news as to which teacher I'd be pestering, er torturing, er working with for the next several weeks. The school is about the same distance from my house as my previous school although I have to backtrack a little bit due to the location of daycare but it's not a huge deal. At least I'll be teaching again and not sitting around the house feeling sorry for myself.

Also can someone please explain why 'Crime & Punishment' is considered to be such a great novel?

Please?

A Fresh Start

2009-03-20T14:07:00.000-07:00

So I thought that last week was a challenge, boy was I wrong. Monday morning I had a verbal confrontation with a student that turned ugly. This student butted in where he was not wanted and totally lost his temper when I told him to go away. Eventually he managed to push the big red button and I lost my temper as well. I had a meeting later with my principal about what happened and figured that it was resolved as did the principal.

Tuesday afternoon I get a call from the chancellor of the school telling me that she had heard of the incident and that until her investigation was complete I was banned from the campus. So I go from getting ready to graduate and lesson planning and all that to looking at a teacher career that was about to come to a screeching halt. To say I was shocked would be the understatement of the year. And it wasn't just me, my cooperating teacher and the principal were both shocked and in the case of the principal, really angry that the chancellor felt the need to investigate what had happened. I think he was also angry that she was usurping his authority in what he thought was a private, not to mention closed matter.

So Wednesday passed and I found out that my inquisition er interview would take place Thursday at 1pm, at which point I would be able to tell my side of the story, then finally learn my fate.

So after a 2nd sleepness night, I arrived at the school to tell my tale and attempt to save 6 years of work. I arrived at the school and flanked by my principal (who fought very hard for me) and my adviser from Nevada State College, I told my side of the story as honestly and accurately as possible. I explained what led up to the incident and as much of the incident as I could, because most of it was a blur.

After that was over, I got a call from my advisor who explained that my career was not in jepordy and that I would finish my 'student' teaching at another school. I put the '' around student because in reality I had been teaching there since the first day of school, and in no way shape or form was I a typical student teacher because I took over a class that had no teacher until a replacement could be found so my 8 weeks was more like a semester and a half, literally. The reason that I am going to switch schools is to give me a frest start. To say I was stressed would be another large understatment, try teaching two subjects, go to school and try to be a dad and husband all at once. So going to a school were I could just observe and help out is going to be nice, even if it will be unpaid. We do have a bit of money saved up so we should (with God's help) be OK until the summer.

So today after school I went to turn in my laptop, badge, key, etc and collect my belongings. I arrived right after school let out to talk to the chancellor and get my fingerprint reports and I got mobbed by my (sadly) former students. They all came to say goodbye and to wish me luck at my new school. The chacellor was very nice and told me what a hard decision it was for her to make and that if there was anything she could do for me to let her know. She then told me she could see how much I cared for the kids and that my next school would be lucky to have me.

I also got to see some of my colleges on the way to my room. The principal and some of my students (funny how I can't bring myself to say former) had boxed up my belongings to make it easier for me. Some of my students also wrote me letters saying how unfair it was that I was leaving because they were misbehaving. (Hopefully that lesson will stick, mess with the good teachers enough and they may leave for greener pastures!) One asked me for my lava lamp (It's at home) and reading them brought tears to my eyes. They'll go on the wall by my computer with the letters from previous teaching stops.

What I could not believe was how much stuff I brought home with me. 1 packback, 1 office depot bag and 4 paper boxes worrth of books, lessons, posters, coffee cups and more. And that was just from the middle of August to today! I did leave a few books for three students who need to be reminded to put the books away until they finish their work. A good problem for an English teacher!

I will find out early next week were my next school will be. I'm sad that I won't be able to finish the year where I was but I am thankful I can still teach. Which brings me to why I won't finish at the same school. There are two reasons actually. The first is that I'd be second guessing myself everytime I try to correct a student's misbehavior. After all I'd been suspended once, the second time I'd be done both there and as a teacher. Secondly, for the rest of the year I'd be 'the teacher who got suspended'. And when there are only 190 middle school students everyone would know who I was and it would seriously inhibit my ability to teach.

BBL

2009-03-17T21:05:00.001-07:00

Too many balls in the air, to many things going wrong at the same time, to many stupid mistakes on my part, be back later.

Worst. Day. Ever.

2009-03-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

Somebody remind me why the f*** I became a teacher would you? It's a good thing I have a co-teacher because I would have gotten myself fired today because of the way I was treated by my students. I tried from 8:00 to 8:07 to get my first class settled down so they could watch a movie and they refused so I said no movie. Then they got all indignant and asked for a class discussion, which went nowhere. They were telling ME that I had to be more respectful to THEM, as if I were the student and they were the teacher. I did my best to answer them, but of course they reverted to form and it was so bad the principal had to come and talk to them. I am so sick of getting rescued by my principal I could throw up.

Plus the kids actually got a treat today, they got to watch a movie to celebrate the end of the CRT tests and they screwed that one up as well. I was so mad that I literally had to leave the room for about 20 minutes and vent.

I refuse REFUSE to kiss the backside of a seventh grader just to get them to sit down and shut the hell up. Boy are they in a for a surprise on Monday.

131 million and counting....

2009-03-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

That's how much non gaming money my city has lost in the last 90 days. As the Las Vegas Review Journal reports "Forget apology-seeking letters. Maybe Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman should send President Barak Obama a bill."

A couple of notes to the 'enlightened' one:

1. Spitting in the face of a state that voted for you in the last election, especially one that relies heavily on tourism and the convention trade is very very stupid, especially considering that the same state voted for Bush the last two elections. You're costing the state jobs and once the GOP rightfully pins the blame on you for this, good luck in 2012...

2. Conventions help both businesses and customers, not to mention the cities and states that host them. I should know, I've been on all three sides of the equation and it's a great way for companies to get new products and services in front of customers.

Of course I'm sure it's much easier blaming Rush Limbaugh for your issues than looking in the mirror, but you may want to think about things like this before you speak without your teleprompter.

CRTs: AKA Uber High Stakes Tests

2009-03-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

The CRTs (Criterion Referenced Tests) are what the Silver State uses to see if the schools are making AYP (adequate yearly progress) in regards to NCLB (No Child Left Behind). Today was our first of 4 days (6 for the 8th graders) of fun testing. Today and tomorrow are the math tests, Wednesday and Thursday are the English tests and next Monday and Tuesday are the science tests.

Now the nice thing was that our students didn't seem super stressed by them, probably because they've already taken so many tests similar to this one, and because although we've told them the CRTs were coming, we as a staff didn't freak out about the tests and this was passed on to our students. We did have them review one from 2006 so they would be used to the wording, and we did make sure our lessons applied to the standards the CRTs were going to be testing, but freaking out was not in the plans.

I have mixed feelings about NCLB. I like the fact that schools are accountable for all of their students regardless of grade or ability, but I don't like the all or nothing tone of the law, nor do I like the fact that eventually all schools will fail to make AYP, especially once you get a vast majority of your students making AYP, because there is no way 100% of your students will make AYP no matter how much the school rocks. Imagine being in a school were you have 75% or more of your students making AYP and yet getting put on the watch list because you didn't improve from the year before or that your scores went down a bit. And spare me the righteous BS about educating everyone. That assumes (a BIG assumption) that your students are ready and capable of learning, and that (an even bigger assumption) those parents are on board with you as well. I'm all for accountability but at some point reason has to prevail, but like so many other things the federal government does, reason never entered the equation.

I'll keep you posted on the rest of the week. Maybe I'll be able to finish my unit on Letter From a Birmingham Jail, now that the copier has toner AND staples. I swear the kids eat the handouts when I'm not looking. No wonder their backpacks weigh 800 pounds...

Calling home

2009-03-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

It's one of my least favorite things to do as a teacher. I really dread the thought of ruining some kids week, but at the same time these same kids need to know that I am in charge and that when you don't do as I ask that consequences follow. So yesterday and today I made phone calls, lots of them. I hate to admit it but some of them are LONG overdue but hopefully the kids will show up on Monday with a better attitude, because I am sick and tired of the whole 'persecution complex' where the student thinks that they're somehow being persecuted because I asked them to face the front (gasp), tuck in their shirts (the horror!), and actually stop talking (OMG!) so I can conduct a lesson.

Now it was not all bad, I did get to make a few of the 'good calls' where I got to tell a parent how hard their kid was working on their behavior, or their missing work, or both. Those calls I love and I wish I could make them more often, my fear is that the kids will start to backslide and I'll have to get their TVs pulled from their room, their cell phones yanked and the switch pulled off the tree.

I just wish some of these kids were a bit faster on the uptake...

Making Changes

2009-02-27T16:19:00.000-08:00

One thing that teachers do is to make changes to lessons that don't work. Yesterday I started the unit on "Letter From A Birmingham Jail" and it went over like a lead balloon. The students complained about the letter and said this was better suited for history than for English. So today before we continued the lesson I played a short video on the civil rights crusade from the 60's and got the desired result.

Once the students saw the photos and heard the eye witnesses, it was much easier to focus their attention on the task at hand. I knew I had them when I asked for a volunteer to read and had a plethora of volunteers. since the letter is 17 double spaced pages, everyone will get a chance to read.

We also do biographies on a daily basis of famous people. Today I did BB King and on a hunch found this video of "The Thrill is Gone" and played that for the students before they did the assignment. So today I was 2 for 2, not bad considering I have a nasty cold right now.