The Set-up and the Surprise

Guitar Teen is home for the week-end. I drove up to the halfway mark where I meet my parents and we do the Guitar Teen swap. On our way home, I tell GT that after we get home and he gets settled in, we need to run over to the neighborhood grocery store to pick up some snack food for him this week-end.

I get home, call my husband and ask him if he needs anything from the store. He tells me that he needs to call me back in about 45 minutes. After about 50 minutes, the phone rings and my husband gives me his "list." GT, Artist Girl and I head off to the store. As we pull into the parking lot, I notice a really nice SUV for sale. It is in the same color, make and model that GT has been interested in. He gets out to take down the details, I find parking, he meets up with us and GT gives me the details on Cherokee. He has already taken pictures and tells me how clean it is. I ask him if there was a price listed, but he says there wasn't, so to him it means it's probably too much.

We go into the store, buy some stuff for the week-end, and head home. GT asked to drive my car home because he has his learner permit. Imagine his surprise when we pull around the corner and he sees this . . .








in the driveway. The same vehicle that he had been looking at in the parking lot of the grocery store. He was blown away.

Happy Birthday Guitar Teen!

Memorial

Please keep these four police officers and their families in your thoughts and prayers tomorrow. I have a hard time understanding how anyone can justify the killing of four people who were just trying to do their jobs. Oakland has to be one of the toughest places to work as a police officer.

Teaching Babies to Read @ $200 bucks a pop!

There are times when I wish I had no scruples. It would seem that if I were such a person then as a teacher, I could perhaps convince people to shell out a whole lot of money for something that is totally unproven.

Y'know, like this guy, Dr. Robert Titzer, PhD., who will probably make a lot of money on his program, "Your Baby Can Read®." Too many will buy this product because the man is a doctor! How many overly anxious parents wanting to have the perfect little baby who they can proudly brag to all of their friends that their baby can read will shell out $200? I'm betting and I say this regrettably, probably too many.

For an excellent write-up on this ridiculous concept, please read the Skepchick's Blog.

Teacher Tip on Saturday

Borders is having a "Educator Appreciation Week" from March 19th to March 25th. All you need is proof that you are an educator :) The offer is for 25% off almost anything.

So, head on over to your local Borders for a good deal.

Hello my Peeps :)

I've been SO lax in posting anything, mostly because I've been insanely busy. Just this week alone, I have had 3 meetings and one family event. Thank the good god(s) that tomorrow is a minimum day and then it's Spring Break. I have two main goals while I'm on break for my blog. They are the following:

1. Get some ready to go Teacher Tips. My schedule has been so crazy that even trying to get my brain to function to think about teacher tips just have not been working.
2. Get some ready to go Sound Off posts as well. See above for rationale.

In other news, Guitar Teen competed in a speech contest on Tuesday. That was my family event. It was held at the rotary club by where my parents live. He ended up winning. People were blown away with his speech and one county supervisor who was a guest speaker mentioned Guitar Teen several times when he was speaking about how much he was touched by what GT had to say. We were very proud.

The theme for the competition was something along the lines of making your dreams come true. GT spoke about how he is making changes in life so that he can accomplish his dreams. More importantly, he spoke about his own personal growth and making sure he is making the right choices to his achieve his goals. When he talked about how a year ago, he was worried about being jumped at school to a year later being worried about his contact in his eye, it was very poignant. Of course, as his mom I knew that I was going to tear up as he spoke, but I what I wasn't expecting was for several other people in the room to have the same reaction.

He will be speaking again in two weeks for a larger competition. In this round, four rotary clubs meet and their first place winners each give their speech. The top prize if $500 and then speaking to a larger group of rotarians. I think this whole experience has been worth so much more than any of the money. For him, I know he was definitely thrilled with the $100 win on Tuesday :)

For Debbie in Japan

I thought you would appreciate this!

Presentation to New Teachers

On Tuesday, I get the pleasure of speaking to new teachers in the BTSA program. My task is to give them information on different parts of our contract. I always know what I want to say, but don't always know how to say it. Anyone else have this problem? I really want to make the sections I'm responsible for as accessible as possible. Anyone who has ever read a contract knows that most contracts have a lot of verbiage that makes you want to poke your eyeballs out.

As part of my bargaining team this year, I know the contract pretty well, better than most people that have been with the district longer than I have. That being said, there are times when I get stumped and sometimes just looking at the contract doesn't make it any easier.

In writing new contract language for our contract, we have been drawn into long conversations between the gist of such words as "may" and "shall" and "will" seriously! It is enough to make anyone go a wee bit crazy (something that I don't necessarily need).

District Spokesperson Impacting the Lives of Students

Just as much as teachers do every day in the classroom! At least, that's what our high paid District spokesperson (@ approximately $130,000 a year salary) stated when I questioned in front of news camera rolling.

Of course, I told him that I would wager to guess that if I said his name to the students in my District, most would not know who he was. The arrogance of this man to actually think that he directly impacts the lives and learning of my students is astounding.

In the meantime, we get to deal with the potential laying off of almost 200 teachers with possible elimination of class size reduction. Now, the District will also send out notices to their administrators, looking at eliminating ALL counseling positions at the high schools and all VPs. None of the administrators working at the District office were willing to say that they would accept a reduction in their salary to reduce the number of lay offs. In fact, when the same high paid District spokesperson was asked directly by a first year teacher (who was as cute as button, btw) if he was willing to take a cut in his salary in order to save jobs, his reply was that he needed to get back to the board meeting.

We say we want young people, especially young people of color, to become teachers. We crave the energy and the enthusiasm that they can bring to a classroom and yet, we repay them by allowing them to be faced with the possibility of being laid off every single year for the first five or so that they teach! Why would anyone go into teaching at this point in time with all of its uncertainty?

Can I just say?

Thank you to those of you who are choosing to follow me. You are very much appreciated by this blogger :)

Have you noticed?

Since the crisis in the banks have hit, I've noticed a significant decline in credit card offers that I receive in the mail. We used to get these offers in our mailbox daily and now, I haven't noticed any in the past two weeks.

How about you? Have you noticed a similar decline in your mailbox?