This one will be short, because I’m going to bed early. It was a rough weekend. The wife went out of town this weekend, leaving the boy and I to our own devices. We went to the climbing gym, and were literally the only ones there. It’s a co-op, so there aren’t any employees, and we used our keycards to get in. We cranked up the house sound system, and (literally) rocked. I wish I could say it was midnight, but it was closer to noon. Then I took a nap while the boy worked on his web site. We ate fries. We played Wii. We read books. Mine: David Lee Roth’s autobiography, Crazy from the Heat. One of my fave books of all time. It’s out of print (a shame) and not even available in e-book format, so I’m reading an actual hard cover book! My friend got it on Amazon after I had raved about it awhile back. I’ve almost killed it in a weekend. The boy’s: He finished the last of the Hitchhiker’s Guide books this weekend. We watched football. Oh yeah, and I took him to a punk rock show. The old 80′s silly punk band,
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More grumbling… How about this classic? You give in to much pleading and allow something to be turned in very late. After-everyone-else’s-has-been-graded-(none-too-quickly)-and-returned kind of late. And then…THE NEXT DAY, you start getting pestered, “Have you graded that yet?” I’ll get right on it. Grumble… Or this one: You get handed a pile of stapled work. “What’s this?” “My mom said I needed to get my grade up, so she made me do all this work.” “When did you ask what you could make up or even IF you could?” “We thought I could get some extra credit.” I’ll get right on it. Grumble… More seventh grade straight lines… We’re still grooving on The Midwife’s Apprentice. They were cracking up at Jennet’s “economies” at the inn where Alyce works. The over-yeasted bread, the weighted mugs, the fakie on the clean sheets… Oooh they gross out at that one. “Better not be sleeping on the bedspread at a motel…” “Ewwwwww.” They also can’t believe the sawdust in the piecrust. “Ewwww.” “Sometimes they put cellulose into those high fiber breads. You know what cellulose is? Wood fiber.” “Ewwww.” They also can’t believe how they used to drink beer at every meal back then. Even
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“How long have you been doing it like this?” “Years and years.” “And you’ve never had a problem before?” “Never.” I don’t know about you, but this is my 21st year of teaching and my 18th year at the same school, and I have been having the above conversation more in the last couple of years than all my previous years combined. The term that is currently in vogue is “helicopter parenting.” It always begins with kicking out my servants. My servants work during my prep, and that’s when the principal comes for me. “Could I talk to Mr. Coward for a minute?” D’oh! What have I done (or more likely in my case, not done) now? “Well, I got an email.” I used to hate seeing that red light on my phone that meant I had voice mail. As I have said many times before, I hate talking on the phone, so I was stoked when the light stopped working. But these days, most people jump straight to email. And they like to try to jump straight to the top of the chain of command. Here are a few snippets of what comes next… “They don’t like how you have
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Just a little circle-time sharing… One of my classes just loves to share. I keep telling them I don’t care, but…they keep sharing anyway… I’ve had to institute the “WTP?” rule. What’s the point? “Last night, I ate Chinese food.” “Thanks for sharing. And the point is…?” “Ummm. I thought the Kung Pao chicken was tasty. But it was realllly hot.” “Still waiting…” “Ummm. The point is…if you eat Chinese food, you should probably order Kung Pao chicken, but make sure it’s not too hot.” sigh. But every now and then, they share too much, even for them. One period a day has an extra 10 minutes for school bidness and handing out paperwork and etc. Any extra time, they want to spend sharing. A while back, during “circle time,” we were talking about nicknames. “I have a nickname for pretty much every one of you.” “What’s mine?” “You don’t want to know.” “I hate nicknames. In elementary school they called me Pi_ er Diaper.” (I swear, I still can’t even type it without cracking up. That just rolls off the tongue.) After everyone in the room had expired from laughing continuously for five minutes, I managed to say, “You
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First off: Ok, Ok. I’m starting to find my happy place with research. Thank you for the comments and suggestions; I think next year will be better. You guys gave me some good ideas. We’re working on outlines this week, prepping for research. Among other activities, I give them partially completed outlines and word banks to fill them in with. I strategically place a few clues in the outline, and they have to determine the hierarchy of the various entries I provide, and fill in the blanks. Like this (the stats are kinda dated, but it’s a topic near to my heart): Topic: The automobile has become the American Nightmare kills 265,000 and injures millions annually, road rage and reckless driving have increased, better city design to decrease auto dependence, leading source of air pollution, alternatives to the automobile, main means of transportation, too many people dependent on the car, large SUV’s: rollovers and danger to smaller cars, more cars and more roads mean more traffic congestion, average car: 5 tons of carbon dioxide each year, contributes to acid rain and smog, leading cause of death and injury, new dangers with 2 recent developments, public transportation I. Main means of [...]
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