February 28, 2012
-
1 Yesterday I saw some guy in a red van speed up and ride some other guy, then without signaling, swerve into my lane, and then swerve back over, only to arrive at the stoplight one car away.
2 This no longer bothers me, with the exception of the safety factor. When my daughters were learning to drive and we’d see a guy like that, I used to say, “Where ya goin?” WHERE YA GOIN’? See ya at the light.” Always worked.
3 I also told them that should we get side-by-side, to take a peek, because that’s what a moron looks like. It was like being in a Goofy cartoon.
4 I don’t know about anyone else, but either I’m just turning crotchety, or driving has become ridiculously dangerous in the past four years.
5 I’m convinced it’s a little of both. I’m also convinced that it has a LOT to do with cell phones. People can’t seem to put them down. It’s almost as though the Facebook/Twitter/Tumbler society thinks it needs to be communicating at all hours or they might miss something.
6 That’s just plain stupid.
7 My extended family goes to Tahoe every summer, and I spend two weeks up there. I have always jokingly said that when we reach the peak that gives the first view of the Lake off Highway 50, that we should all meet on one of the lookouts, and on the count of three heave our cell phones into the canyon.
8 I came close to doing it one year. I used to have a cardinal rule that when I was in Tahoe, I was on Mars. Can’t be reached. I would bring a cell phone up, but would avoid all things electronic, at least all things that would put me in touch with the rest of the world.
9 Last summer I broke that rule. I brought my phone and my laptop. I had nothing but trouble not only with those items, but with all things electrical. It was uncanny. My laptop kept turning off. My phone wouldn’t allow me to unload pictures to the laptop on the rare moments when it worked. My iPhone dock simply stopped right in the middle of a song. My electric fry pan went kaput. My car battery died.
10 I think someone was trying to tell me something. I took a hike in the woods, and my feet worked. The fresh air worked. The splendor of the mountains worked. At night, the stars worked.
11 So this year I’ll probably haul all those things back up. I’ve replace each item, but for some reason we have this absolute need to keep them near us. But I will try to avoid them whenever possible.
12 How did we ever get by without these things before they were invented?
13 Moving on, Part the First: Not really moving on, just dove-tailing. Yesterday I ran into our Activities’ Director, Virginia Yenter, who is awesome. I instantly remembered how all school activities stop during vacations. I remember likening it to dying and floating up into the clouds.
14 I asked her how her break was, and she looked like someone had lifted the world from her shoulders. I expected to see her levitate. I personally had a great week, actually worked and was remarkably productive. But I remember the days of doing activities, and how those breaks were true breaks.
15 She had gone somewhere where cell phones don’t work well, and she totally loved it. No internet access, no outside world. It’s almost unheard of in 2012.
16 It’s almost unheard of that it IS 2012. And in 2017, I’m going to re-read this and say, “Oh, brother!”
17 Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana, so they say.
18 Moving on, Part the Second: Is it Friday yet?
19 Moving on, Part the Thoid: Teaching!
So the ESUHSD ELA people have decided to launch an English benchmark test beginning today. The big word around education these days is “data”. Every time they need accountability, they go to testing. So today my students are going to have a sort of pre-test on what we are going to teach them for the rest of the year; at least that’s what I think it is.
20 They will take the same test the last week of school. Hopefully we see an improvement which will show that they learned what we taught.
21 Makes sense on paper.
22 What kills me about a lot of testing is that there is a lot of testing. A LOT of testing, especially in the second semester. So while we are trying to hit all the standards, we keep getting interrupted with testing, with weekends, with holidays, and with anything else that can slow students down.
23 I remember learning about variables in science. One variable that doesn’t seem to play into all of this is common sense: the last week of school, the students are pretty much checked out. It’s a benevolent death watch. All they want is for the year to end. They are burnt out on tests. My Mom once told me, “There is nothing common about common sense.”
24 Isn’t it possible that after all our work trying to get those scores up, that they might just go down? I know my support class last year had LOWER scores, even when I rode them to do well on one of those tests. I monitored, stood over them, pointed at their answer sheets, and some of them still yawned and stared blankly.
25 Districts run on data; it seems to be our number one means of accountability and placement. And there is much to be said for data; it does indicate some things.
26 So I will again be watching students take bubble tests today.
27 I wonder if the District is going to pay me back my sixteen dollars plus tax I had to spend on number 2 pencils? Yup. Opened up the testing packet yesterday and no pencils. I made a special trip to Walgreens on the way home. I treated my students to sixteen dollars worth of Ticonderoga number 2′s. They declare these “The World’s Best Pencil”. Only the best for my students.
28 Data, baby.
29 I can’t wait ’til I can start teaching again. Do-do wop. Do-do wop.
30 Well, maybe I could spend my day Twittering, Tumbling, Stumbling, Facebooking, or heavens, monitoring.
31 I sometimes look at all the silliness in education and have a laugh.
32 Testing, testing, testing. Standards, standards, standards. Data, data, data.
33 That stuff’s all fine and good, but when we get down to it, engaging students, pulling them in with laughter and good times, listening to wiseguys yell out, “CAW!” when I say, “And what did the Raven repeatedly say?” It’s those things that make it happen. Too bad our time is taken from those sorts of moments.
34 But I will march in today and do what they want me to do. The students will be monitored. They have sharpened Number 2 Ticonderoga pencils, neat in their boxes.
35 The Great Big Mean Education Machine will crank up, and I will watch over it to see to it that we remain strong as a nation. I won’t let these young people down. I will stay off Twitter, off Tumbler, off Stumbler, off Facebook, and I will monitor like a goose protecting its hatches.
36 I do this for youth, for God, and for Country.
37 I am, after all, that Yankee Doodle Boy.
38 <Yankee Doodle plays>
39 Go into this day with everything you got.
40 I know I will.
41 Happy Tues, everyone. And God Bless America.
42 Peaceout.
~H~
