Scholars and Rogues

Is one of my favorite political blogs out there. This is one of the reason's why:

On the murder of Benazir Bhutto, they had this to say:

Look at her killers. Look at her. Look at the people who lead us now and remember: evil is willing to kill for a cause. Good is only willing to die for one.

I think I would have more respect for our politicians if they were willing to put themselves out there like Bhutto did. That is not to say I think they need to put themselves in the line of fire, but how many are really willing to buck the system, make true change?

I believe that many politicians who are not "Christian" conservatives probably feel that gay people should have the legal right to marry. However, instead of standing by this belief, they come up with all types of excuses as to why they won't support gay marriage. This is because they are terrified of losing votes based on a minority opinion. It would be very refreshing if a politician of either political stripe would come right out and say that they support gay marriage, instead they hide behind convenient soundbites meant to offend no one.

Then we come to the war in Iraq. I've been more than just a bit disillusioned by our democratic leaders in the House and the Senate. They are in the majority and yet, they are afraid to stand up to the Bush Administration for fear, yet again, of offending someone. They don't want it to appear that they are not supportive of the troops (who faced their deadliest year in Iraq according to recent news reports) on the one hand, while on the other their rhetoric is that of not wanting to appease Bush & Co. Sorry folks, but actions do speak louder than words. Every time the Democrats pass more funding for this war, they are doing exactly what the opposition wants.

My husband is of the opinion that Obama is the only Democratic candidate that appears to be the most "presidential" because of how he carries himself and how he sounds. I'm still waiting to see and hear more from all the Democratic candidates before I make my final decision. Nonetheless, it is my hope that when the Democrats take back the Presidency in November 2008, whomever that may be, exhibits the courage of Bhutto.

Insomnia

I had a heck of a time getting to sleep last night. I think I drifted off around 1 a.m., only to awaken 3-1/2 hours later at about 4:30 a.m. I laid in bed until about 5:30, then traipsed downstairs and I've been awake ever since.

I think it might have been the Sudafed-type medication to ease my head/chest congestion that I took yesterday. Who knows. I'll probably crash out sometime this afternoon and no one had better disturb my slumber.

I am feeling better

thanks for the well wishes. Despite my claim that Santa must have thought I was a bad girl, in retrospect, Santa treated me rather well. Santa had a big box by the front door. It wasn't under the tree because it was too big. (He must have not been able to bring it down the chimney, so he had to haul it through the door.)

After all the other presents were unwrapped, I got to open my big present. It was something I've been wanting for a long time, but my dear husband always proclaimed, rather loudly, we simply didn't have the room. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I ripped slowly opened this humongous package.


Yes, my dear friends, santa brought me an elliptical. One that will be put to very good use to whittle away my thighs and buttocks make my heart more healthy. Now as I drool over watch Keith Olbermann, I can get all hot and bothered my daily dose of news while working out.

Yay me!

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The youngest was very surprised when he opened up his Wii as he had been prepped to believe that Santa wasn't going to deliver on the one thing he really wanted. Son #1 got his coveted electric keyboard, which can be hooked up to the computer. As for Daughter, she really wanted a new electric blanket and santa delivered. Husband loved his presents and we had a great get-together with about 20 people in our house for Christmas breakfast.

Dear Santa

I do not recall asking you to bring me a cold.

Perhaps that's a new twist of putting coal in one's stocking when they've been bad. I promise I'll be better next year.

love,
ms_teacher

Merry Christmas!

I hope you'll leave me some presents.

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Get Your Own! | More Flash Toys

7 Things

I think I might have done this meme before, but this time around Joel tagged me, so I'm doing it again.

The rules are:

- Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
- Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
- Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
- Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

7 Things About Ms_Teacher

1. I have talked on the phone to Bob Barker and Rob Reiner. This was when I was a receptionist for then-state senator and now our state superintendent of public instruction. Both gentlemen were very nice on the phone and actually took the time to talk to me.

2. One of my secret boyfriend's (wink to Mrs. G) is Keith Olbermann. He is intelligent with a sense of humor that I can truly appreciate. Oh yeah, he's handsome to boot. I love how much he ribs Bill O'Liely mercilessly. O'Liely takes himself way too seriously, imho, and Keith picks up on that. His commentary about our lame President and his cronies are on always on point.

3. One of the places my dad was stationed during his time in the Navy was Butte, Montana. Butte has been in the news lately due to the fact that it was the birthplace of Evel Knieval. When we moved there, we moved into a lovely two story house, which we found out was the boyhood home of Knieval. My mom actually talked on the phone to and met his grandma who had mostly raised Knieval.

4. I do not like iced tea or lemonade at all.

5. One of my most favorite things to do is to play The Sims 2. I hate to admit it, but I have all of the expansion packs and will more than likely their new expansion pack, Free Time, when it comes out in February. During the school year, I try not to play it too much because I can easily get sucked into it for several hours.

6. I have only received two traffic tickets since I began driving when I was 17 years old. The first ticket, I am embarrassed to admit, was for riding on the hood of a car. I have an explanation! I had been holding my car keys in my hand talking to some of my friends at a local hang out. One of the boys thought it would be funny to grab my keys and run to my car. He proceeded to jump into my 1976 baby blue Ford Maverick and start it up. In my young, teen age brain, I thought that perhaps if I blocked his view, he wouldn't take off. I was wrong and had it not been for the cop sitting on the corner of the block, I very well could have ended up seriously injured or dead. (Of course, back then I didn't fully appreciate how stupid I was for doing this.) I ended up having to go to court with my mom and go to traffic school after that.

7. When I was 7, I got the mumps. I ended up missing school for almost two months. My mom told me that the doctor told her it was one of the worst cases of mumps he had ever seen.

Usually, I don't tag people, but I'm making an exception this time. I tag the following:

• Mrs. G
• Ginaagain
• Chucheria
• Frumteacher
• Liz
• tamasha
• Michelle
  

Of couse, if you want to play, feel free! (I hate doing this because I never want anyone to feel left out!)

More on my Compare/Contrast Unit

My husband got up an hour before I did this morning, did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. This is one of the things that make him such a great guy. He actually got up earlier than me to specifically make sure that when I woke up, I would come downstairs to a clean kitchen. All together now . . . Ahhhhh, how sweet!

This week-end I will have the honor of grading approximately 60 essays on chocolate. Students finally completed their final copies of this essay and grades are due next week. On Monday and Tuesday, they'll be expected to turn in their final copies of their compare and contrast essay on the two versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In order to help them with the latter, yesterday in class we went through the the things that were the same and different in both movies. I then stood at the overhead projector and as a class we wrote an essay.

I told them exactly how I wanted their introductory paragraph to look and modeled it for them. I explained again (which I already explained in their chocolate bar essays) that their introductory paragraph sets up for the reader an expectation of what they will be reading. So, I showed them that in their first sentence they would explain that they were comparing and contrasting two movies and they would put the title of the two movies, making sure to underline them, which I demonstrated on the overhead. I did this for the whole the paragraph and they actively participated. After we were finished with the introductory paragraph, we wrote the rest of the essay as a class.

I am hopeful that this demonstration will help them this week-end as they work on their essays. Of course, I told them they could e-mail me or post a comment in our class blog if they had any questions. Remember they were told that their chocolate bar essays were practice essays and I followed the exact same format for this essay. Hopefully, most of them will "get it."

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I have a student whose mother is writing her essays for her. The chocolate bar essay started in her handwriting, but a paragraph into I noticed a distinct change in writing style. When I questioned the student about it, she admitted that her mother wrote it but that she had "told her mother what to write." I knew that wasn't possible because the writing style just wasn't that of a 6th grade student, especially one who had difficulty with writing.

So, yesterday her dad shows up with a type up copy of her compare and contrast essay on the two movies. Mind you, students were told for homework they were to do a rough draft first so that we could go over it in class. When her dad handed me the type copy, I immediately noticed that first it was perfectly formatted, second the language (yet again) was not that of a 6th grader and finally, it was a six page essay.

She was told yesterday during lunch that she had to re-do the essay and she needed to make sure that she wrote it. I also made a general announcement to the class that I would not read anything that was more than 2 pages (they are only required to write five paragraphs) and anything beyond those two pages would not be read.

Now granted, when my own children have typed things on the computer and have asked me to proof it, I have had the desire to make it better. However, it is not my paper that I'm turning in. That being said, I do correct their spelling mistakes and glaring mistakes in grammar, but I do not change the content of their papers.

So fellow teachers, how do handle something like this?

It's Been a Crazy, Hectic Week

I apologize to my loyal readers of this blog for not being as faithful in posting since NaBloPoMo ended. I had three meetings this week and doctors appointments, along with my already overloaded scheduled, it made for a busier week than usual.

One of the things that I've hesitated about doing is posting too much that would reveal what school district I teach in. However, something happened that was in the news that I want to blog about, which will reveal where I teach. So the dilemma is do I blog about it or not? I guess the question then becomes why do I want to blog about this particular event? It is mostly because there a couple of issues surrounding this event that I feel are vitally important to the safety of our children.

A few years ago, I had the privilege to teach a very brave young girl. This girl had been kidnapped by Curtis Dean Anderson. Anderson had kidnapped and murdered another young girl, Xiana Fairchild, previously and so surely his motive would be to do the same to his next victim. The girl that I taught was smarter than him and she managed to escape, outwitting a grown man who thought it normal to have sex with children.

I taught this student three years after this traumatic event. When I took roll that first day and said her name, I thought it sounded familiar, but it was only after talking to my team teacher that we both realized who she was. Looking back, as a relatively new teacher, I wished that I would have been more equipped, but how well prepared can you be when you have a student who has so bravely managed to face death at the tender age of 8?

I am sure that there are many things I did wrong, but she taught me so much. She was definitely a fighter. The most unfortunate thing about this incident is that so much of what happened to her was played out in the news, through television reports and our local newspaper. Many of the kids knew she had been molested. As a result, some of the kids actually would taunt her, saying cruel things to her.

One day, she had had enough. Her teachers did not know that after her abduction, her parents had enrolled her in boxing. One girl had come up to her, taunting her. My student quickly turned around, looked her tormentor in the eye, and gave the perfect right hook. It took barely seconds, but it felt like it was in slow motion. Word quickly spread that she could hold her own, something she had already proven when it mattered most.

Mind you, she was never a bully. While many in her situation might very well have ended up thinking they were a victim, she never appeared to think that way. I am sure that there were times where she might have been depressed and there were days when I would write her a pass to go to see one of our counselors (when we still had counselors at our middle school) to talk. I think she sought normalcy when so many of us probably expected so much more because after all she was the little girl who escaped death.

It is my hope for her that perhaps she can sleep a little bit easier at night knowing that Anderson has finally died in prison.

Going to sound snarky here

One of my pet peeves is when people who are supposedly educated repeated use the word "alot" when they are writing. It annoys the all-mighty heck out of me, especially when teachers do it! I know that there are times when I have typos or when I may not be grammatically correct, but using the word "alot" repeatedly throughout your e-mail, blog post, etc., simply should not be done.

Remember, a lot is two words. If I can get 6th graders to understand, hopefully I can get others' in the blog-o-sphere to understand as well.

(I never, ever point this out in an e-mail or blog post because even though I can be snarky, I am not a troll.)

Joel has opened the midway - 148th Carnival of Education

and you really should go over and take a looksie. He has done an excellent job.

Thanks Joel!

When the Emperor was Divine

When the Emperor was Divine is a story of a family that is evacuated during WWII to an internment camp. The main characters in the story are the mother, her two children (sister/daughter and brother/son) and the father. The characters names are never revealed, perhaps making it a story that is universal to all of those of Japanese ancestry, living in the United States during this time.

The story is stark, told in a very restrained, stoic fashion. There is an undercurrent of emotions that is always held in check. The name of the first chapter was "Executive Order 9066" and starts out from the mother's point of view. Upon reading the governments order, she immediately sets out to start packing up her daughter and her son. Her husband is already gone, picked up in the middle of the night by the FBI for questioning and interned in a separate camp for the entirety of the war.

Each chapter is told from each family member's perspective, giving the reader an idea of the heartbreak experienced from an adult's point of view and the point of view of a preteen girl and her young brother. At the end of the story, the devastating effects of internment and a family torn apart by government hysteria are tragic.

A relatively short read of only 160 pages, I highly recommend this. If you are interested in learning more about this time in our history, this is definitely one to add to your list. (It would make a wonderful addition to anyone teach at the high school level or college level that touches upon WWII and the internment of Japanese Americans.)

Ms-teacher, why are you at home today?

It's probably presumptuous of me to assume that anyone cares about the fact that I am home today instead of at work, teaching.

Well it appears that someone forgot about me. On Thursday, I received a phone call from one the co-presidents of our union. She wanted to know if I would be interested in attending a hearing on Monday (as in today) to speak as both a teacher and a parent in a district that has been taken over by the state. Of course I was interested.

We spoke more in depth on Friday and she sent me some background information via e-mail. During our conversation, she told me she would call me back on Sunday to work out how we were going to meet up so that we could ride in together.

I never received a phone call nor an e-mail. I still woke up in plenty of time today in case she happened to show up on my doorstep. Thus, ms-teacher and the youngest are home today, somehow forgotten. I am keeping my fingers crossed that she didn't forget and is awaiting my presence at today's hearing!

We are having a bargaining meeting today, so I'll see her there. I'll find out exactly what happened and why I was forgotten.

Keep you posted!

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What I would have said:

When the District I work in was taken over by the State of California a few years ago, I along with a lot of my colleagues felt hopeful about the changes. We thought that perhaps our new state appointed administrator would come in willing to work with teachers and parents. The State came in to bail out the District due to the fiscal mismanagement of a highly paid administrator, not because of the poor quality of its teachers or for that matter, our sagging test scores. It came in to provide a loan to save a sinking ship mired in fiscal mismanagement.

While many of the employees of this District recognized that some sacrifices would have to be made, I do not think that any of us fully understood the full implications of a state takeover. Instead of working with teachers and parents, our State Appointed Administrator (SAA) and those who work closely with him has set about to divide and conquer. Teachers no longer feel comfortable working closely with their school site administrator in fear that the words they say in confidence may be used against them. Likewise, school site administrator’s work in fear; they must not rock the boat, lest they anger the District office and find themselves out of a job.

As a parent with a child in the District, I have to question the rhetoric. The SAA and his people keep saying that they are working hard to improving the quality of education in the District, but I am not seeing it. Where are the extra-curricular activities for students in middle schools or electives? Why are some students missing out completely on Science and Social Studies curriculum for their entire middle school education? Why do none of the middle schools have counselors? Lastly, why is one person solely responsible for all discipline issues at the middle school level?

There is a lot of dissatisfaction in this District because too many feel as if their voices are not being heard or are stifled for fear of speaking out. When the State came in, we thought collectively that finely things were going to change for the better, instead we are witness to ballooning administrative costs for District administrators, while school employees are working harder for much less. We have lost teachers, counselors, support staff and custodial staff at all school sites, while we have gained more special consultants and administrators at the District office. We have been asked to make sacrifices it appears only to line the coffers of those who never step foot in a classroom, yet take home three figure salaries, bonuses and benefits.

Japanese Literature Challenge - 2007

The ever so lovely Bellezza is hosting a challenge, The Japanese Literature Challenge. I purchased a couple of books today from B & N to get me started.

They are:

• Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
• When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

I've started When the Emperor was Divine this afternoon. This is a story about a family that was torn apart by WWII. The father was taken away by the FBI to an intern camp in New Mexico, while the mother and her two children are taken to another intern camp. The mother and her children spend three years at the camp. After their release, they can never quite rebuild their lives. (A brief summary from the synopsis on Amazon.)

Snow Country is a story of an affair between a wealthy dilettante and a mountain geisha. Amazon reviews say the story is a "haunting novel of wasted love." He has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Customer reviews are mixed, so I'll have to let you know what I think.

I'm still on the look out for my third novel, which I'll obtain after perusing Bellezza's list again.

Fahrenheit 451

Is on in about 20 minutes on the Sundance channel! I read this book about a month ago and hadn't realized that there was a movie based on the book. I'll let you know what I think about it.

(Almost done with the two teens' laundry. Now let's see how long before it ends up on their floor.)

Clothes, clothes and more clothes

There is nothing like agreeing to do the laundry of two teen-agers to make one realize when too much is just that, too much.

The one thing they ain't getting from me this Christmas is more clothes.