Filters

As I am a teacher and as I am about to start school, I have recently sat through a plethora of professional development sessions.  As I am a teacher and as I am about to start school, I have not been excited about the vast majority of these presentations.  I daresay that boredom crept upon me; however, at no time did I feel the need to vocally address my colleagues about just how bored I was during any of these sessions.

That was not the case for the new football coach at the other high school in my district.  During the first presentation on the first day, the first of about six total presentations, the gentleman decided that he wanted everyone to know how he was feeling.  In a much-louder-than-necessary manner, he exclaimed, “Man, I’m bored!”  While I am sure that he was not making up these feelings, I doubt anyone around him or in the giant room housing all of the county’s teachers for that matter, cared how he felt.  And I am sure that at least 75% of the rest of us felt the exact same way.  The thing about the rest of us was that we have filters in our minds, which brings me to my point.

Often when I teach, I tell children that they need to develop filters in their minds.  This occurs when a student feels the need to a) state something totally inappropriate or irrelevant or b) state something that is utterly obvious everyone else is thinking.  Filters can be a valuable tool.  They can save you from looking like a total idiot, or they could even prevent you from being beaten as a result of saying something you shouldn’t.

As for the new guy, I have my opinion about him.  I try not to judge people, but I am coming to realize that my initial judgment is right about people at a rate of about 97%.  Maybe he’s a super guy, and I am in my 3% error; I really don’t care either way.  I just think he may need to work on the whole filter development thing.

No Ipods???

I was just looking at the information page for the St. Jude Marathon and half marathon to be held in Memphis in early December.  I want to run in this race (whether I do or not will only be told by time).  However, as I glanced at the restrictions, I saw that anything using a headphone is prohibited (including Ipods).  Now, as a runner, I realize how important my Ipod is.  Without it I should just skip the whole running thing.  I don’t know how these folks with St. Jude figure people are going to be able to run 13.1 or 26.2 miles without the joy of their listening device.  I talked to a buddy the other day who actually works at St. Jude Children’s Hospital, and he told me that everyone he has talked to who has run the race told him that they wore their Ipod.  What I’m wondering is that if I do run the race (probably the half) will race officials run out onto the course and halt my progress because I have headphones on?  Maybe I should try to conceal my listening with a tobogan.  All of this is probably irrelevant because I will more than likely not train the way I should to run in this race.

You know what I hate???

I hate it when you watch a movie, and you hear a great song that you’ve never heard before.  When you hear it, you say to yourself, “That is a great song.  I need to download/buy that song whenever I find out what it’s called.”  Then you watch the credits of the movie and search for the soundtrack, and, low and behold, the song title/artist is nowhere to be found.  Maybe I’m the only one, but that just kind of gets under my skin.

The Paradox of Being a Teacher

Since it is February, I have become accustomed to checking the local weather to determine whether or not there is a chance school will be cancelled.  Many times the local meteorologists get my hopes up with descriptions of treacherous weather that would make travel conditions too difficult for buses to run; thus, the children (and teachers) would get a snow day. 

As I have always been involved with education in some way (as a student or teacher), the prospect of having snow has forever been a good thing.  However, I have come to realize that most people (i.e. people who aren’t in education) don’t want snow to come to their locale.  My full realization of this fact came as my mother-in-law was leaving my house one night when overnight snow was a possibility.

“Maybe it’ll miss us,” she stated as she walked to her car.

They would still have to go to work, and that would suck for them because driving in the conditions that are too treacherous for school buses is not the easiest thing to do.  That’s why she wanted the bad weather to go away from or around us.  I get it now!

Now that I have gained perspective on other people who still have to go to work when it snows, I have this to say, “Take a sick day.”  I still want it to snow.

My Addiction Continues

Since I am either feast or famine with this blog, I’m going to stay at the table a little more today.  This post is a kind of sequal to another blog I wrote.  In it I wrote of my addiction to technology.  With that stated, I would like to say that this addiction has gotten no better.  In fact I think it is worse now than ever.

I got the new desktop computer that I spoke of in the previous post, so my need was satisfied…briefly.  It is a Gateway and has been a great computer so far.  After being happy with it for about a month, I received a letter in the mail that informed me of my Sirius satellite radio’s subscription status.  On December 28, my free year would be up, and I would no longer have this wonder of modern technology.  Immediately I saw to it that someone would obtain for me a new one-year subscription.  Thanks Mom and Dad!

That need satisfied, I next moved to one of the greatest things to happen to men: high definition television.  I have been and HDTV Directv subscriber since last October, but I “needed” to be able to watch my movies in HD.  So I obtained a Toshiba HD DVD player.  It is great, but during the first movie watched on it, my wife stated, “Can you really tell a difference between this and the regular movies?”  My answer, “Of course you can!!!”

While this fix satisfied me for a short time, I have come to the conclusion that Bluray DVDs are going to defeat HD DVDs in their war that brings me back to the days of VHS vs. Beta tapes.  Therefore, a Bluray DVD player will probably be in my future somewhere.

 Finally, I receently obtained a new yearning for technology.  On New Year’s Eve, I went to a friend’s house to ring in 2008.  Low and behold, what did he have at his house??? A Nintendo Wii.  This quickly became my new obsession.  You actually bowl!  You really box! You swing the controller like a golf club!

At the beginning of my search, I came to the realization that I am not the only person who weally wants a Wii.  There were none of them, anywhere, except on Ebay.  I did my share of bidding but could never get one for less than $330, and that was too much to spend.  Last Monday, while making my regular check of the electronic department at Wal-Mart, I discovered two of the hallowed machines.  I quickly retrieved the eager W-M employee and got my Wii.

My addiction has been satisfied….for now.

Inquiry Update

Okay, so the weekly entry idea crashed like a plane with one wing.  I’m going to blog my inquiry update since the follow-up meeting for WTWP is fast approaching.  I got a comment on my last update from John from ck-12.org.  He stated that he was part of a company that is trying to deal with the problems of our textbooks.  This company wants to create “flexbooks” that are online, affordable, and flexible (able to be changed).  What their website talks about is similar to what I am interested.

As I have used my textbooks, I have become more of a fan of them.  There are really some excellent resources in them.  However, they are probably pushing five pounds and are 4-5 inches thick.  Also, I have probably 10-15 other resources on top of my teacher edition from which I can pull information and resources.  While this is probably a good thing, I really don’t know where to start, so the supplemental material just sits in my room and is unused.

I have been researching textbook information and found a text from one of my graduate classes that compares textbooks in Japan to those in the United States.  The differences are remarkable, but I think a happy medium between the two would be the most beneficial type of textbook.

I have pretty much come to the conclusion that I will spend more time in the class text next year.  There are enough for each student to have one, so, despite their size and weight, I will make more use of them in the coming years.  As for the other supplemental material, I’m not sure what I’ll do.  There are probably lots of good activities.  Maybe I’ll just pick one and go with it.

I do still want to use novels in my class, but I will probably stick to shorter ones that don’t take quite as much class time to read because I am going to read pretty much everything in class.  While I may be able to fit in a couple more projects if students read more at home, they do still do a large number of projects throughout the course of the school year.

Inquiry Update

I think I have come to the conclusion that textbooks are not quite the devil.  However, what we have to work with (at least at my school) is much too big.  I wish that I could choose exactly what I want to go into a textbook.  That way the students wouldn’t have to lug around these monstrous volumes.  One thing that is growing on me with textbooks is the connections (through questioning, other forms of writing and literature, etc.) that are easily made.  I am sure that everyone knew this, and I’m not just figuring it out, but I have begun to use them in my class.  I think that my main problem with the texts we have is that they are like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  Pardon the expression, but that is often what I feel like I am doing when I am looking for something in them.  While I know that my wish for textbooks is fit for a utopian society, it would still be nice if we had the ability to put them together in that way. 

I Suck at Blogging

I’m going to write a blog about writing a blog or my inability to keep writing a blog.  I began using this site because I like blogs and want to write them periodically, but almost two months have passed since my last entry.  I also wanted to be on this particular blog site because I can keep up with some of my Writing Project friends and what they have been up to.  With that said, I’m going to try to do better (small steps)!  I think I’m going to set a goal of at least one blog per week.  That is an attainable goal.  I definitely have enough to say, so material to write about won’t be a problem.  Now that I have given myself a pep talk, I’m going to try to write a blog that isn’t about writing a blog.

My fledgling inquiry

For my teaching inquiry, I’m looking at textbook use, or lack thereof, in my classroom.  One of the problems I am having is that I want to read everything in class because I don’t trust but about 3% of my students to read at home.  I would enjoy doing more activities, but we spend much of our time reading.  Am I crazy for trying to read everything in class?  Should I just try to read one short novel and use the textbook for the shorter stories and the ability to have more class activities with less in-class reading?

BOO! I Hate the Dress Code!

Our dress code is about to drive me crazy!  I was going to simply go through the motions because I have a set of beliefs about dress codes and how much time should be spent dealing with them; however, I think it is going to be the “big thing” this year, so I’m going to start being a jerk about it.  If anything is in question, I’m going to send the kid to the office.  I actually made one of my best students mad at me today because her shirt was not right, and she needed a belt.  I told her that if I let her slide because she was a good student then others could (and would, I’m sure) reference my ignoring the dress code in her case.

Ever since my first student teaching placement at Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences, I have had a strong view of dress codes:  they are pointless.  CSAS went by the “3B” dress code.  As long as butts, boobs, and bellies were not visable, that student was acceptably dressed.  One male student even wore a dress to school one day and was not penalized.  I asked him if he had lost a bet.

The point I’m making with CSAS is that it is easily the highest performing school I have ever seen.  I think around 98% of the class that had graduated the previous year had gone on to some form of higher education.  That alone made my mind up.  Dress codes are not needed to get students to perform; higher standards from teachers and administrators are.  That is a whole different blog for a different day though.  Alright, I’m stepping down from my soap box.