Sounds vaguely obscene, doesn’t it? FINALLY! I have a working computer (a most excellent deal from Costco.com and it really screams) and my net connection is working again. Dang that dang Norton. I swear, I’m betting that almost all the antivirus software out there has been secretly created by virus-makers, in order to make us so frustrated with anti-virus software, that we shut it off and leave our machines unprotected. I know that’s pretty convoluted logic, but it’s been a long day wrastling with my computer and not teaching. I was at a district scoring session. Cue the Twilight Zone theme. Our district is trying to get out ahead of the curve with regard to the coming common core standards. Out new supe got the board to give him 6 mil to jack up test scores, and it looks like we’re trying to game the test in advance of it even being created (which is about 2014). Much of the money was spent on what we call TOSA’s (pronounced TOE-sah): Teachers on Special Assignment. These are teachers that leave the classroom for a year or two or three, and move up to the DO and try to get the rest of us
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I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions. (I’ll wait while you go read that post. Really, you should. Then you’ll understand when I say, “Well at first I was like…”) OK. But I have made a December 7 resolution. I’m going to post 12 times between now and Christmas Eve. So here we go. On the first day of Christmas… I’m hoping we have some DEVO fans out there. I’ve been feeling a little crabby lately for various little reasons, and so the idea of ”Whipping it good” is rather appealing lately. So along comes this handy flowchart. But first you might want to rock to the song a bit before tackling the flowchart. NOW, you’re ready. Click for the full-size. Feel free to implement the procedure in your classroom. You’re welcome.
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(to: my vice principal - 11/18/11) Joe, You know I was reluctant to let my room be the holding cell for your permanent lunch detention crew. At first things were pretty good, so I thought I was being a bit hasty in worrying so much, but in the last few days… There’s been some food on the floor. Mostly those large grapes from the cafeteria. A pizza crust Tuesday, but almost every day this week there has been a grape here and grape there. I think they’re mostly concentrated close to that stage area that I have by the front door. Two got squished on the floor, one got squished on a desk, and Jimmy N. ate one from under his desk today. He said it was tasty. I know, eww. But he was too quick for me and we all thought he was joking. Could you please have the wardens in charge start having the crims detail the room before the bell rings? And please start opening the doors a bit before lunch ends to air the place out. It smelled like chicken yesterday. Other than that it’s been ok. Thanks a lot. mark
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I was cleaning out the back room all weekend. You might well ask why, considering that my regulars know the state of my classroom. (Here are a couple of flashbacks to last year’s picture tour: Part I, Part II.) The answer is… My wife bought me a pinball machine for my 50th birthday (still a little over a week away, but close enough when a machine goes on Craigslist only 25 miles away) and it’s being delivered on Wednesday, and I have to make room for it in the pantry/junk room. I have wanted to have a pinball machine in my house for over 40 years. Finally! Here’s a picture of the kind I’m getting. Mine’s a little more “well-used,” but plays beauty. I CAN NOT WAIT. Anyway, while I was hauling shtuff out of the back room, I came across an “artifact” from one of my BTSA training sessions a few years ago. We were supposed to be brainstorming with our table groups about what teacher behaviors we would be looking for to cover each of the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP). We were, I guess, supposed to watching our BTSA charges, and encouraging said behaviors. It
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It never gets old; the first day of school. This is my 21st year of teaching–19 at my present school–and still I didn’t get more than four or five hours sleep last night. And it’s not like I don’t know what I’m going to do or anything. This morning I was talking to another English teacher (the one who got me hired 19 years ago, and she had already been teaching for more than ten years before that), and she told me she didn’t sleep a wink last night. “I never do,” she said. “My wife didn’t either, what with the boy coming here today, and being in my class and everything.” “Oh I know all about that. Just tell her that I always need ‘volunteers’ in my classroom. You know, here at school, but not too close to your room…if you know what I mean.” I do. And Mom is stoked on the idea. Meanwhile… IF I had time to “tweet” about what I was doing today, and IF I had the inclination to interrupt what I’m doing in order to tell everyone about it, this is probably what it would have looked like: #Almost forgot seating charts; there goes the morning
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(Sung — way off key, and sort of warbley — to the tune of “Oh Christmas Tree.”) I guess we need to talk about the King. On Wednesdays, after we go over the vocabulary homework, and discuss the words, I give them a vocabulary pretest. If they ace it (100%), they are exempt from the vocabulary portion of the Friday test. I used to have one of them flip a coin to decide whether or not I let them use their “cheat sheet” — the homework page we just went over and corrected — on the pretest. What they don’t believe when I tell them — even though it’s true — is that, on average, their scores on the pretest are lower when they use the cheat sheets, and fewer of them get an exemption. But they like to think it’s a security blanket, so I play along. Then I discovered the King. I would give you the URL of his creator’s web site, but he has some other, shall we say, inappropriate shtuff. (You can do a Google search if you really want to check it out.) So I took the liberty of “cloning” the King. If you click [...]
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