WTF

Why did the government think they could do something about a child trapped in a balloon except wait for it to fall out of the sky? I mean do something other than shoot the balloon down.

What's Wrong With Education In America Part Whatever: The End For Now

I pretty much have to close out this thread for a while but before I go there's this.

Describe What's Going On In This Picture And Win A Prize

The picture is from the white board in my classroom during a test review. It's a pictorial representation of one of the test questions. Guess what the question was asking and I'll give you a prize. I'll give you a hint, there's a transporter beam involved.

I Quit

Well, I did get rehired. The union threw a fit because the administration did not follow contract with my dismissal. I don't want to stick around next year if the principal feels he needs to keep me on a short leash.

I had a couple interviews. The town I grew up in was one. The other is run by one of my Brothers. The ring opened the door but I was really prepared. I floored them. I knew things about their department that they didn't. I was charming. I was 100% full on. I had 3 interviews with 5 people over 3 days. (I was also very aware that I was interviewing with the various secretaries at every door.) My last interview was to talk salary. I knew they pay better. We negotiated by the boxes and I got exactly the box I would have landed in at the old job. I could have gone down a box and still made more.

I have a verbal agreement waiting for a CORI check to clear and in a day I should have a contract. I'm going to one of the top schools in the state and one of the original US News & World Reports top 200 High Schools. I'm also getting an administration that supports the teachers. There is no duty in the first year I just teach. After that there is no lunch duty, just study hall. They pay 3% up to $800 in 403(b). They pay 80% (swamp pays 60%) of the health and 70% (swamp pays 0%) dental. I also got a $5,000 raise (when you take into consideration that 20% difference in the insurance payment.)

I am a happy man but also saddened. The commute is the same amount of time but it takes me even further away from Marblehead and the city. I am also walking away from a bullet proof reputation within the community. And I would float. I wouldn't have my own classroom. But I think I do get a private office. It's still a better deal.

So ultimately I win by losing. I am unwilling to risk my career as a pawn between the union and the principal. I can't stay. The upside is I got a fucking raise.

Where Ya Been?

A word and a number will answer that question.

XBOX 360

I find shooting the people on my buddy list (mostly my students) in the head on Grand Theft Auto 4 to be a far better outlet for my personal issues than blogging. At least it's more satisfying. (especially my students) I especially like stealing a helicopter, jumping out at altitude and then crushing people (again my students) with my corpse as I hit the ground.

So what brought me out of my virtual paradise?

It seems that some one somewhere is trying rile up my generation. These little blips are starting to be epidemic. Each comes just in enough time after the last so that it doesn't seem like we're all just copying each others one thought.

The only other bit of writing I've done is a detailed response to the staggering and appalling errors in my performance review. Perhaps when the dust all settles I can share it with you. Until then you can find me on Xbox Live under "TedKnedysCar".

All I Need Is Some Tasty Waves

I got fired again. This time I don't think I want to go back.

I'm Torn Between Titles For This One

I want to call it "I'll Give Up My Laser When They Pry It From My Cold Dead Hands" but "My Laser Has Killed Fewer People Than Ted Kennedy's Car" is too tempting to pass up. It's a slippery slope between banning toys that the cat loves and trying to stop Scaramanga and Doctor Evil from building a Chinese Death Ray on the moon and ransoming the Earth for One Million Dollars.

A Student Of Mine Made A Phone Call Today

No give me the phone. Hello. You mean this really is ______'s father. Yes this really is _____'s teacher. No she's feeling sick. You think it's strep throat. Well usually students ask for a pass to see the nurse and I give them one. Then they don't disrupt my class with a cellphone. Well no she certainly doesn't sound like she normally does. I'll send her down, the number of the main office is ########. They'll dismiss her from there.

Well that was awkward.

Etiquette

The rules are that the phone is to be kept off and in the students locker. Otherwise the phone is a constant distraction to the learning process. Either to the student using the phone or the other kid being texted in another class. Every time I take a phone off a kid it's always "a call from my mother." Sorry kid, Mommy needs to learn to call the main office and ask to have you dismissed. It's a system that worked for the 90 years prior to 9/11 and there's no reason it can't work for parents and their kids today.

That being said, if this kid had come to me before class and said he was expecting a possible call from his deployed father. I would let him answer and then take the call quietly out into the hallway.

The story is lacking in details but I'm going to give the school the benefit of the doubt here. The kid probably didn't discuss the possible call before class. The teacher would have no idea why the kid is answering the phone in class and past experience would be that the call is another in a long series of cell phone related disruptions. The teacher, needing to maintain classroom control probably ordered the student to cease their disruptive behavior and relinquish the offending device. The student being a child probably did not reason with the teacher effectively and mearly informed the teacher that they were talking to a parent. The teacher hearing that every time they talk to a child about illegal phone use probably did not assume that the parent was a serviceman and this may have been the last time the (from his own admission) troubled boy may ever hear from his father. Emotions most definitely got out of control. Probably by both the student and teacher. They're probably even more out of control as the kid doesn't sound like an honors student and the teacher probably has had disruptions from the boy before.

You and I know nothing of the past history of discipline issues the school faces with this student and classes in general. You and I don't know anything about the level of student commitment this class has. Today it's the cellphone from this kid. Tomorrow it will be the cellphone from another kid. Next week it will be an iPod.

That this made national news is an indication of how fucked up our priorities as a nation are. Snowflake there isn't going to learn that had he merely cleared the call with the adult in charge of the classroom prior to taking the call that things would have worked out. Instead the lesson is that kids can do whatever they want in the classroom so long as mommy goes to the newspapers to complain. What should have been a lesson in civility is now a public embarrassment for the school. Now every phone call is going to be from someones father in a war zone. Every disruption during instruction time is going to affect every student. The outrage here shouldn't from this one jackass kid and his parents. It should be from the parents of every other kid in the class over the loss of instruction time when these snowflakes lose control.

If the student had answered the call and said to me "This is my dad in Iraq. It's the only time he can call. Can I take this into the hall?" I would say yes even if he hadn't asked for permission before class. I doubt very much that is how the event played out.


(A side note here... If you are accused of disrupting classroom time and go on national TV to defend yourself, clean up. Every judge knows that criminals can borrow a suit but showing up to court in a dirty t-shirt shows either contempt for the seriousness of the charges or a lack of understanding about your end of the social contract. In either case, it's an indication to the judge that you may not belong in polite society. The same case is true here. I'm going to assume trailer trash dumbass and say the kid knows nothing about good manners.)

My Windmill Has Killed Fewer People Than Ted Kennedy's Car

Sometimes I forget why I do this. The Commonwealth very desperately needs this electricity. This is particularly important since we no longer have Salem Power online. They're trying to turn it back on but my clean car is proof enough of the filth they spew. I don't expect them to be online for long.

That means we really need more windmills. It's too bad Salem Power is so screwed right now. Too bad for Salem more so. They generate most of the city's operating revenue. With tax receipts falling everywhere and Salem's budget crisis I expect tough times for the city. Maybe this is too little too late.

I really do hope Salem keeps the teachers. I hate to think they're all coming after my job. Especially since we're looking at cash flow problems of our own. I have no idea how much money I can expect to replenish glassware that just didn't stand up to the 15 year olds the town hired to move us last year. We have dozens of expensive items that the movers trashed kicking around the building with no hope of repair or replacement. It's too bad. I hate having to buy things twice but we need these things. Especially the glassware. Prices for specialty glass have shot through the roof since the DEA and Homeland Security have effectively criminalized beakers.

I still have some hope though. No Child Left Behind hasn't totally snuffed out critical thinking. One of my students, during the midyear exams, pointed out that the periodic table she was looking at spelled sulfur wrong. I pointed out that there is the American english spelling and the English english spelling. She was looking at the British spelling which IUPAC has declared to be the wrong spelling.

The periodic table in question was given to the school by The United States Marine Corp. Along with 500 foam fingers, the "we're #1" kind.

Fuck Ted Kennedy!

I'm Really A Teacher Now

The junior class talent show is going to present a skit poking fun at my teaching style and some of the things I've said and done in the classroom. Expect a video. The date of the show is TBD for now.

Hopefully the community will understand the fake rock fakeout, the air horn, the Tesla coil, the Chinese death ray, Conspiracy Theories, Zombies, Grand Theft Auto, and Mr Safety.

Individually they're pretty harmless except for the foul language in the Mr Safety story. Together they make me sound like a dangerous lunatic. I mean it's not like they all happened on one day.

OK, Mr Safety. This is pretty much the way I tell my kids the story. The context is in preparing them, many for the first time, to use a scientific calculator before the first test. I know it's not quite the language I should be using in the classroom but the story looses it's impact if I clean it up. It's not like we took he word 'nigger' out of "The Great Gatsby" and we teach "Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross." (Put that coffee down! What's my name? Fuck you! That's my name.)

The Legend Of Mr. Safety

When I was growing up I didn't like baseball or any other game (what you might call sports) and neither did my dad. He's big ups into camping and the woods and hiking and I'm not. As a bonding thing when I was a kid Dad took me up to this place a bunch of times up in New Hampshire to go paintballing. This was early in the sport when there was only one kind of paintball gun and the only safety equipment was painters goggles. It was long before face armor and gunpowder fired pellets. Back in the 80's before the frat boys started showing up, paintball was pretty much played by law enforcement or former military types and me.

One of the more colorful guys that would show up every week was this grizzled Vietnam Vet who was pretty likeable and not creepy for a guy who still had a mistake eating away at his soul. It was pretty clear something happened that he hadn't forgiven himself for, buddies didn't come back from patrol or something. Whatever. One thing he used to say before every match would be "Don't let Mr. Safety fuck you in the woods." It would be years before I understood what he was talking about.

Know how to use your equipment before you need it and be prepared to use it properly. In other words, the day of the test is not the time to be learning how to use your calculator. One of my top 10 annoyances about the job is the kid, and there's one in every test, who comes up to me asking which button does what. Then the kid proceeds to enter this into the calculator exactly as I have it written here 6.02x10e23!

They don't understand why they got the wrong answer for every question on the test.

Don't let Mr Safety fuck you in the woods.

The kids like the story. For some reason, especially the little wealthy stoners. I wouldn't be surprised if some kid names his bong Mr. Safety.

Then one day one girl asked me if I named my penis "Mr. Safety." All I could do was say no.

DodgeBall

That's me on the far left in the blue T-Shirt. I'm the last one left standing at the end. It was faculty against students. Faculty had our asses handed to us but I went out with honor. My strategy of dropping to the floor at the first sign of yellow flying at me worked. The video ran out of disk space but it goes on for two more minutes with me falling on my back. The kids were baffled. Every time I hit the floor the kids thought I was hurt and hesitated just long enough for me to get back up. Video is of sufficiently poor quality that I think identities of students are protected.

No Way, Not Even With Cleavage!

If you're a die hard GenX'r who remembers the little show which preceded "Freaks and Geeks" that I like to call "Square Pegs" and you live in Comcast land, look in the Tube Time section of OnDemand.

Now if only they'd show "Delta House", "San Pedro Beach Bums", the ripoff of "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" called "Fast Times" and "Parker Lewis Can't Lose".

OK, Here's One More

The first question of a 4 question final exam for my Freshmen Physics class.

What did we study all year and what did you learn? Please give specific examples.

I Feel So Much Safer

Yesterday I went to Target. I bought 36 explosive devices and a video game. The teenage girl at the cash register very politely asked me to see my drivers license. As I handed it to her she said it was to buy the video game.

I'm just glad that this turned out to be a non-issue.

BTW can anyone guess why I labled this post "School Shootings?"

Who Fucking Cares? What Fucking Difference Does It Make?

Call me a cynic or even a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist. As a GenX'r, Kent State always seemed to be one of those "so what" moments in history that people get disproportionately bent out of shape over. Yeah 4 people got killed by the government. People who look for trouble find trouble. Hippies looking for trouble found it and luckily the bloodshed was limited to a handful. Those same hippies who think that America and her innocence died that day then went on to vote for the Brady Bill. In a staggering show of both historical and constitutional ignorance the Boomers traded safety from government for the Bush administration. Sure not over night, it took a house in the suburbs, a Subaru and the fear of losing the security of being the favored lapdog of power but my parents generation has done a fine job of burying their head up their asses. Now instead of getting bent out of shape for the fuckup they've inflicted on the world by selling out they're lining up to protest what's safe to protest against. I never doubted that the National Gaurd was ordered to shoot Americans. Anyone who thinks that the National Gaurd isn't willing to turn their guns against their friends and family again doesn't deserve the Second Ammendment. I'm not the least bit afraid of getting gunned down by some nigger crackhead. Frankly I don't believe nigger crackheads really exist. Cracker tweakers maybe but I'm not bothered by the thought that someone not as white as me might own a gun. I'm worried about the under educated hillbilly willing to shoot in whatever direction they're told to. Or maybe I should worry about the smart ones.

The Boomers are getting bent out of shape that they've been lied to about events that happened when they were pot smoking kids. Now that they're adults they need to be pissed off about the lies heading their way today.

The real irony is that a bunch of Nigga's With Attitude livin' the hip hop dream are going to be the only ones who could stage a modern day Warsaw Ghetto Uprising when the National Guard is next ordered to fire upon me and you.

All the same assholes that are getting bent out of shape about the government shooting civilians are also bent out of shape that some chinamen shot some college students in a gun free zone. It's OK for the government to bring guns into a gun free zone. It's not OK for you and I to defend ourselves. Don't worry, when the next Kent State occurs the government will own up to the truth... in 40 years... when they need another limited hangout to distract America from what's really going wrong. The honored dead can rest peacefully knowing that they served their master well.

A Minor Ray Of Sunshine At Work

They put a lock on my classroom door. Now psychopathic criminals will have to shoot the lock off before they come into class to shoot me. I feel safer already.

Look At That

Another place where guns aren't allowed and the government has a heavily armed presence and the police still failed to protect innocent civilians.

And again, why April?

A Question

How many near misses will it take before this girl learns to stop relying on luck and a police force that waits outside until they're sure it's safe to go in before she takes ownership of her own defense?

And why does this shit always happen in April?

Nowhere To Run To, Nowhere To Hide

So after the police presence on the Virginia Tech campus went through the roof the police were still helpless to prevent a second attack. What the fuck do the police protect us from?

Wouldn't it have been better to allow students to carry weapons to protect themselves rather then wait for the police to arrive on campus and save the day? What do you mean they were already there? Then why didn't they save the other 30 lives?

For crying out loud. The gunman only killed 2 people in the dorm that morning. Then two fucking hours later when an army of police officers were on the scene the guy kills 30 more. Where were theses 30 other people? Locked in their labs? In a big open cafeteria? No they were in a classroom. Sitting like ducks with no way to defend themselves. In a gun free zone.

There are two things in the back of every teachers mind. Two possibilities that we're always dreading. One is having a student who accuses us of sexual assault which even if it is proven untrue will still end our career. The other is getting shot.

I teach in a room with no door knob. It broke a month ago and the physical plant is in no hurry to fix it. My classroom connects without a locking door to two other classrooms. That's 60-70 kids sitting like ducks if we go into lockdown again.

If I had the chance, I'd be willing to carry a weapon. I'd have no problem returning fire. It beats dieing with my hands in front of my face cowering behind a desk.