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clearing up any confusion

Posted in Blogroll, crazy world, Education, politics, Random Stuff, teaching, Uncategorized on 2012, June 26| 2 Comments »

I was recently talking to a new friend, and I got the impression he didn’t fully understand the love I have for my students. To me, teaching is a calling, much like to the priesthood or convent. I don’t make a lot of money; I don’t get much respect. It is my fault if your child is unsuccessful in school. But there is NO other job I can think of that makes me prouder to claim as my profession.  I adore my students – good and bad, smart and simple.  They are just as snarky as I am.  Many of them overcome huge disadvantages just to come to my classroom every day.  I love my students.  When I am at school, I think of your child as being my child. I want only the best for them.  I want success in whatever form they can achieve it. I have had students go on to be successful in a huge variety of ways, professionally and personally.  I love seeing former students.   I have cried for them, laughed with them, been angry with them, been proud of them, but above all I have loved them.  I may be unhappy with the interactions I have with their parents.  I may be disappointed in their performance in my class or other classes.

I  want there to be no doubts about how I feel about my job and my children.  I may complain about certain aspects of my job, but who doesn’t?  When one of my students asked me what I would do if i won a big lottery amount, and my answer is the same. Start my own school.  My standards would be high, but my students would reach, and surpass my ideals for them.

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time flies

Posted in Blogroll, crazy world, dating, Education, Family, friends, Random Stuff, Uncategorized on 2012, June 16| 1 Comment »

So, my 25th high school reunion is next weekend.  I am going, though I was torn about it.  I feel like I have no accomplished the things I really wanted to accomplish.  I have three college degrees, including my Masters, and plan to start working on my PhD next year.  The first in my immediate family to graduate from HIGH SCHOOL much less college and grad school.

When I was younger, I used to daydream about my perfect wedding, who would be in it, what they would wear, where we would go on our honeymoon, how many kids we’d have, what their names would be, where we’d all go on vacations, etc.  NONE of that happened.  I have never been married, never even been asked.  A lot of my jaded, divorced friends tell me everyone else is envious of me, but the grass is always greener as the overused-saying goes.  I only sort of feel like I missed out on the husband, but I REALLY did miss out on the kids.  I always wanted to be a mom.  And not to toot my own horn, I’d have been an awesome mom. I see all these little teenagers, skanks, and Casey Anthony having kids they don’t deserve, and it stirs a little disappointment.  Yes, I know I can adopt or be a foster parent. Yes, I am close to my nieces and nephew, but it is not the same at all.

It is no one’s fault really.  I spent those years you use courting and breeding to take care of my grandmother, and have no regrets about that decision at all. I would do it the same way all over again.

So, next weekend, while everyone is talking about their families, I’ll just smile and get drunk.

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Why you have to deal with stupid people

Posted in Blogroll, crazy world, Education, Family, politics, Random Stuff, Uncategorized on 2012, June 11| 3 Comments »

If you find yourself wondering why you have to interact with stupid, uneducated, ignorant, and otherwise useless people, please blame school boards, school administrations and parents.  Yes, I said it. PARENTS.  Not all parents, but enough of them.   As a teacher, I have been told to give a student a packet of work and if he/she completes it, give him/her a passing grade. I have refused stating that I have allowed this same student the chance to make up work, re-do work, re-take tests, turn in late assignments. I have stayed after school, given up lunches and come in early.  Yet, I have not once gotten a parent to call me back, attend a conference, email me or otherwise contact me. The school board threatens NO SUMMER SCHOOL every year.  Every year, the students can attend 16 4 hour days and that is supposed to make up for the class they failed. They can do this for up to two classes. I promise you I have seen the worksheets they do, and there is no way they learn anything other than “Hey, I don’t have to do shit all year, and I can come get a free lunch, and they’ll pass me”. Then they get to high school and don’t know shit.

I can promise you when we get them from elementary school, they are already two, three, four years behind. I have had students who are reading on a 1st and 2nd grade level. You can only hold that struggling child back so many times in elementary school before you have to socially promote him.   The same goes for middle school. You can fail them once.  After, they get socially promoted.  For the kids who are “too old”, we now have a computerized program that students take a year or less to complete.  The district and the administration determines which lessons they must complete. NO, it’s NOT all of them. They are taught no research skills, which are higher level, critical thinking skills.  Mind you, if I am evaluated and found to NOT be teaching this skills, I can at the least be chastised and at the most be written up or fired.  Teachers are NOT failing your kids. The “powers that be” are.

I am teaching high school summer school this year.  It is all on the computer. Basically, I, and another teacher, re-mediate as needed.  Otherwise the students are on their own. they must complete a mere 50% with a 70 or better and they can be finished. If they do that in a week, they’re done. If thy do it in five weeks, they’re done. The group we have consists of 9th, 10th, and 11th grades.  The DISTRICT (which I will be happy to remind you is made up primarily of men and women who have not sat in a classroom in YEARS), determined the content.  It is maybe half, MAYBE, of what they should be learning for the year.   I do think it will take most of the students the entire time to accomplish their 50/70 goal, but then what? Next year they’ll be sitting in their next English class completely unprepared.

School boards need to quit letting a handful of high-maintenance parents control them.  They should also be made up of a broader range of stakeholders.  We have a school board member who was a clerk of court for her entire life.  WHAT does she bring to the educational table?  People voted for her, a familiar name, so we’re stuck. There are no teachers on the school board in my district, and it is my understanding that this is how it is in most school districts.  If you think this is only done in my district, you are SORELY mistaken. It is an epidemic in America.   It is why we have fallen behind “lesser” nations.  Our entire school system needs to be scrapped and revamped. I have no problem with computer learning, virtual classrooms, etc. What I do have a problem with is the dumbing down of a curriculum by the district and administration, but when test scores roll in, it will be teachers to blame.  If my students who are with me every day don’t do well on the PASS test or if i taught high school the HSAP and EOC, it will be unspoken that it is MY fault.  So, who is at fault when the student who did NOT pass MY standards in my class is passed along?

Know thine enemy.  Teachers and most parents are the only people looking out for your  children and their education.

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Laughing out Loud

Posted in Blogroll, crazy world, Family, Random Stuff, THE HOBB, Uncategorized on 2012, June 10| 2 Comments »

I am going to tell you now, if you fall, I will laugh at you. It’s a family trait.  When I was in college in Charleston, I laughed constantly.  For those of you who don’t know, the entire campus, and much of downtown is paved with bricks, which settle unevenly all the time.  People, including me and my friends, were constantly tripping, and yes falling.  Yes, I DID LAUGH.  It is unavoidable.

When I was younger, my gramma (THE HOBB) worked at the hospital in the canteen, she was the general manager, so whenever anything came up, she had to be there.  I spent late nights sleeping in booths because she had to be there when janitorial stripped and re-waxed the floors.  I went there every single day after school.  Everyone knew me because I was so NOT shy even as a kid.  Well, this one winter when I  was about 8, there was a rare snow/ice storm in Columbia. THE HOBB had to be at the hospital canteen because some of her workers couldn’t be there.  So, since school was canceled, my little sister  and I had to go with her.

Did I mention that we didn’t have a car when I was growing up?  We took the city bus everywhere. Well, on the way TO the hospital, the buses were running, but by the time we could leave, they were not.  We didn’t really live that far from the hospital – a little over a mile.  So, THE HOBB wanted to keep us as dry as possible for our walk home in snow/ice storm.  We had our normal coats, hats, mittens, boots (it was the 70s – boots were “in”) and scarves on.  THE HOBB decides to make us put a giant trash bag over our  clothes to keep us even drier. So, she puts the bags over us, and pokes holes in for our heads and arms.  She then puts her bag on as well.

We begin our trek from Richland Memorial Hospital to our little house behind Earlwood Park.   We get under the overpass, and we are right across the street from the drive in movie theater. If you grew up here you know.   It is now some abandoned warehouse, but was also a SAMS  Club.  OK, so across from the movie theater, but before the train tracks – THE HOBB slides on the slippery ice and down she goes.  She is in this giant trash bag and is just sliding along this decline, and I start laughing uncontrollably.  I can NOT help it.  I am just  laughing so hard I am crying.  My sister is getting so angry with me because THE HOBB has fallen. we sort of run/slide up to her and start helping her up. She is laughing, too.  It was quite possibly one of the funniest moments of my life with gramma. I still get giggly just thinking about it. She wasn’t an old grandmother, probably 46 at that time, maybe 47.

We made it home without any other incidents or accidents.  We laughed about that for the rest of her life.  We would jokingly suggest giant trash bags  when it was snowing, etc.  It became part of the fabric of our story.

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Sidewalk Extinction

Posted in crazy world, Random Stuff, Uncategorized on 2012, June 3| 1 Comment »

Dear Citizens of Columbia or __________________ (insert appropriate city here);

There is this nifty invention called “The Sidewalk”.   Wikipedia defines a “sidewalk” in the following way:

A sidewalk, or pavement, footpath, footway, and sometimes platform, is a path along the side of a road. A sidewalk may accommodate moderate changes in grade (height) and is normally separated from the vehicular section by a curb (British English: kerb). There may also be a road verge (a strip of vegetation, grass or bushes or trees or a combination of these) either between sidewalk and the roadway (British English: carriageway) or between the sidewalk and the boundary.

The term Sidewalk is used for the pedestrian path beside a road. Shared-use path and multi-use path is reserved for use for ones available for use by both pedestrians and bicyclists.[1]

Here is my request: WALK ON THE DAMNED SIDEWALK!  It makes me insane to be driving through neighborhoods and people, usually with pets and children are stretched across the entire street – when there is a nicely taxpayer-maintained sidewalk, two to three feet away! Cyclists, yes,  I will share the road gladly.  Pedestrians, please use the sidewalk provided. If, for some, bizarre reason you feel that you are exempt from such usage, do NOT give me a shitty look when I get pissed because I have to come to a complete stop while you ineptly attempt to wrangle “McCarthy” and “Estrella” back to your side instead of running amok.  IT IS DANGEROUS!

More from Wikipedia: Research commissioned for the Florida Department of Transportation, published in 2005, found that, in Florida, the Crash Reduction Factor (used to estimate the expected reduction of crashes during a given period) resulting from the installation of sidewalks averaged 74%.[12] Research at the University of North Carolina for the U.S. Department of Transportation found that the presence or absence of a sidewalk and the speed limit are significant factors in the likelihood of a vehicle/pedestrian crash. Sidewalk presence had a risk ratio of 0.118, which means that the likelihood of a crash on a road with a paved sidewalk was 88.2 percent lower than one without a sidewalk. “This should not be interpreted to mean that installing sidewalks would necessarily reduce the likelihood of pedestrian/motor vehicle crashes by 88.2 percent in all situations. However, the presence of a sidewalk clearly has a strong beneficial effect of reducing the risk of a ‘walking along roadway’ pedestrian/motor vehicle crash.”

Walkway is a more comprehensive term that includes stairs, ramps, passageways, and related structures that facilitate the use of a path as well as the sidewalk.[2] The term pathway is used for pedestrian paths that are not next to a road.

So at the very least can you walk in a damned single-file line when you see traffic????

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Don’t think th…

Posted in crazy world, dating, Family, friends, Random Stuff, relationships and romance, Uncategorized on 2012, May 13| 1 Comment »

Don’t think that when you see me that you know me.  You don’t. I have secrets, fears and dreams that no one will ever know. I don’t even know some of them.  You’ll never know what words, images, thoughts will put a bitter knot in my throat and chest. You won’t mean to illicit that physical response, but you will.  You won’t imagine that your good news will chip away what little bit is left of a heart that has been superglued, stapled, trussed, duct tape to hold it together just a little longer.  You won’t imagine that i would love to have your problems – that I would change places in a heart beat.

You will know that I AM happy for your, even I am sad for me.  I will commiserate with you and help you plot revenge, solutions or just take part in a drunken night.  My heart is breakable, broken, irreparable in some parts, but my mask is in tact and flawless.

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Flashback

Posted in Blogroll, crazy world, friends, politics, Random Stuff, teaching, Uncategorized on 2012, March 10| Leave a Comment »

 

In January of 1986, I was in the 11th grade at Dreher High School in Columbia, SC.  I was a library aide for one of my periods.  It was during this period that I was in the library when the Challenger Space Shuttle was scheduled to lift off. In 1986, there wasn’t cable television in every classroom to watch important events like this.  Our special education teacher brought her classroom to the library to watch.  This wasn’t a classroom of children with normal learning abilities, but behavioral disorders.  It was a class with lower IQs and some other disorders.  I remember one little girl in the class was very excited to be watching the take off. With those students, their teacher and aides, the library staff and me, there were less that 20 people in the library, which was very large.  We were all sitting and standing around the television to watch the Challenger take off.

A little over a minute later, what we thought was part of the normal procedure was actually the malfunction and explosion of the shuttle.  A couple of minutes later, the announcer – I don’t recall if it was a reporter or an actual NASA employee – reveals to the spectators on site and the television viewing audience reveals that there has been a “major malfunction” and the shuttle has exploded.

I remember being shocked and sad for the people who were killed. The thing I remember most, however, is this little girl in the class that was watching becoming hysterical and inconsolable.  She just kept yelling, “No, that can’t happen. There is a teacher on that shuttle!”  That’s all she kept saying.  She was crying and yelling. The other kids were being really sweet and trying to calm her down while the teacher was doing the same thing.  The aides took the class back to their room, but the teacher had to take the girl to the office to the nurse so her parents could come get her. That stuck with me more than the image of those curling plumes of smoke I saw on TV.

A few years later, after I was out of college, I saw this girl with her parents at a baseball game I had take my grandma to.  Immediately, I was taken back to that day in the library and wondered if she ever thought about that day, if she ever got sad thinking about it, how it effected her over the years since I’d seen her.  I spoke to her because we had known each other in high school.  She remembered me, and seemed happy. To me her reaction was so pure and raw, so genuine because she didn’t have the constraints and reservations placed on us by how society expects us to act and react.  There have been plenty of times in my life where I wanted to yell “No! That can’t happen like that!”  Unfortunately, I have to hold that in and do my yelling later into my pillow or in the privacy of my house.

Today, on Yahoo!, I saw this link and it reminded me of that girl and made me wonder about her again.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/first-amateur-video-challenger-shuttle-explosion-revealed-185802006.html

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Membership Undesired.

Posted in crazy world, politics, Random Stuff, Uncategorized on 2012, March 5| Leave a Comment »

I’ve always eschewed groups that required membership: fan clubs, sororities, etc.   I’m not sure why, I get a physical reaction when I think about some elitist clubs. I don’t WANT to be a part of any club that is that uppity and disdainful of others.  Ok, I lied.  i was a member of the Key and Latin Clubs in high school, but seriously, how popular are those clubs?  I was also a charter member of the Benjamin Franklin Philately Club. Yes, that’s what they called it.  I was 9.  (That’s stamp collecting for you not in the know.) I was also a Les Coquette in high school. That was the high school sorority at Dreher that you could be a member of when you were in 11th grade.  I didn’t do the LTA or LPT sororities because they had actual humiliating initiations and hazing.  Not my speed.

Fast Forward to adulthood and the club that matters. Politics. I don’t have any official affiliations to any specific political parties.  I do see myself as more of a Democrat that any other group, so I guess it’s all a matter of semantics. I can not imagine how I could be a supporter of the Republican party. I realize they are all defective in many ways.  That being said, as a woman whose rights are constantly in jeopardy by the right wing groups, I can’t imagine putting my future solely in their hands.  I can’t imagine how any woman can.  I can’t imagine being black, gay, female or poor and being a supporter of Republicans. At every turn, they are working to undermine those demographics. I wonder at how informed those groups actually are or if they’re just spewing what parents and husbands have told them is “the right way” to think.  I don’t need everyone to comment and try to explain to me your reasoning for allowing old white men to dictate how you live your life, what you do with your uterus, who you marry, all while hording away money in tax shelters and the Caymans as your family loses their home.

I’ll keep my usually open mind and tolerant attitudes closed and intolerant in this one instance.  Thankfully, thinking and voting are illegal yet, so I can denounce who I want when I want.

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Music to Live By

Posted in crazy world, Family, friends, Random Stuff, relationships and romance, THE HOBB, Uncategorized on 2012, March 4| Leave a Comment »

Like so many other people across the eons, Music has been a huge part of my development into the adult I am.  As a small child, every Saturday morning, after breakfast, Grandma put the stack of LPs on that big stereo that was a piece of furniture.  Some of you remember them, wooden, long, almost like a side board for the living room. Her tastes were as eclectic as mine are today.  The selection would include, Ray Charles, The Statler Brothers, Tammy Wynette, Elvis, George Jones, The Temptations, Liberace, Slim Whitman, some polka album she loved, etc.  I think to this day, Grandma is the reason I can’t clean without music pouring out of the house.  Obviously as I grew older, I began to make my own musical decisions. Grandma never, ever censored what we listened to, watched on television, movies we saw.  She would explain to us anything we had questions about.  Along with Grandma, I had my aunt, my mom and my best friend’s sister as musical influences.  They all listened to such variety. Between all of them, and the radio and my friends, I learned to love The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, KISS, Aerosmith, AC/DC. Loretta Lynn.  It runs the gambit.

As a small, small girl,  like 4 and 5, my favorite singers were Charlie Rich and Tom T. Hall. Charlie Rich was my all-time favorite.  “The Most Beautiful Girl” and “Behind Closed Doors” were always played for me at my request.  Of course, I had NO idea what “Behind Closed Doors” was really about, but I loved The Silver Fox, and so it didn’t really matter. We weren’t really allowed to park in front of the TV too much with Grandma, but we did get to watch Hee Haw. I can remember see Charlie perform on there.Tom T. Hall had an album “Tom T. Hall Sings for Kids”.  It had those songs “I Love” and “Sneaky Snake” on it. Grandma would play that album for me all the time.  It often made it in the Saturday morning stack.

Obviously by middle and high school, I had been exposed to hundreds of songs and bands. I have always had a different drummer to march to, so as much as liking mainstream music, I often went against the grain, and there ain’t no shame in my game.  Yes, I love bands like N*Sync and performers like Nelly, but I also like the Violent Femmes, The Clash, KISS, Metallica etc.

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Of all the music I have been exposed to, bought, downloaded, seen live, loved and hated, it’s almost impossible to pick out favorites because songs mean different things to you at different times, and sometimes, it’s just music for fun.  In March of 1987, I turned 18. That year, I had come to love Beastie Boys, much to the disdain of my best friends, until I just forced them to listen so often they caved in to the awesomeness.  There weren’t many preppy white kids at Dreher loving hip hop and rap, but I grew up in a multicultural neighborhood and was around black kids and white kids alike, so as my black friends were discovering rap and hip hop, I went along for the ride.  Beastie Boys “License to Ill” is still one of my top ten albums of all time.  But it wasn’t Mike D or Jam Master J who was invading my brain, heart, soul, bones.  It was as band I had been listening to for years, thanks to WUSC and MTV’s 120 minutes. That March, Bono, The Edge, Larry, and Adam moved in to my being, and never left. My best friend bought me the cassette “The Joshua Tree” for my birthday, and I was done.  From the first listen to that album, every song resonated with me in some way.  Even now, some songs can get me choked up, make me want to dance, laugh, get angry.  “With or Without You” got me through a broken teenaged heart. “Trip Through Your Wires” helped me realize yes, broken hearts are survivable. “Where the Streets Have No Name” made me want to explore my own small world and stretch it like a canvas.  I have owned dozens of copies of the cassette and CD because I have played the different  copies so often, they’ve needed to be replaced.  I will never change the radio station if one the songs on this album comes on.  I have heard Bono sing those songs to me in person, knowing that he IS singing them just for me while The Edge mesmerizes me with his guitar.

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The only other album that has come close to this level of intense connection for me is Pearl Jam’s first album, Ten.  I obtained a promo copy of this album from my friend and neighbor in college, Rob.  He wanted some sweatshirt I had, so we bartered.  I gave him a lime green champion sweatshirt for the CD that revolutionized my senior year in college. from the first note that came out of my shitty stereo, I fell in love.  Head over Heels in love.  Those grunge boys had nothing on Kurt and his crew, as far as I was concerned.  I loved Nirvana, but I absorbed Pearl Jam.  Again, another album that ANY song can take me back to that senior year.  My college boyfriend broke up with me and pulverized my heart that spring.  “Black”, “Oceans”, “Why Go” and “Alive” nursed me back to some semblance of sanity so that I was able to survive that once in a life time event, the moment your first love breaks your heart and leaves you stunned.  I could be angry and rock out “Evenflow”, “Porch” or “Deep” and just be loud and crunchy – Oh stone and Mike with those guitars.

No two albums will ever replace these as the albums that shaped my life and attitudes about so much.  I often wish my life was “The Kentucky Fried Movie” so I could have my own personal soundtrack as I moved from highs to lows, successes and defeats, boredom and excitement.  These albums would have a starring role.

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My Day Care Center

Posted in Education, Family, Random Stuff, reading and writing, teaching, THE HOBB, Uncategorized on 2012, March 4| 6 Comments »

Growing up, we were pretty poor.  I didn’t really notice it so much because Grandma always made sure we had great Christmases and Birthdays.  I did know we didn’t have a car, but I just chalked it up to “Grandma doesn’t like to drive”.  She was a child of The Depression, a woman of a young marriage and divorce, two unruly, heathen children and as a result had learned to be crafty in her solutions to tricky situations.

When I was a little kid, several factors left me and my little sister unsupervised from about 2:30 to 4:30.  When I was ten, we moved from the Earlwood Park Area to the Melrose Heights area. We continued to go to McCants Elementary School (the best school I ever attended) because I wanted to finish up there.  It went to 6th grade and I was at the end of my 5th grade year.  We would get up before early and take a city bus downtown, transfer and then take another bus to McCants.  After school, we would need to repeat the process.  Mind you, this was in 1979, and the gentrification of the Heights hadn’t begun yet.  We lived on the last block of King Street, right down from many drug dealers and bootleggers.

Grandma didn’t really want us going home alone, and she certainly couldn’t afford someone to watch us. As a result of all these circumstances, Kelli and I took the bus downtown, but instead of transferring to the next bus, we went to Richland County Public LIbrary on the corner of Sumter and Washington streets. That was my day care center.  I knew every inch of that library.  I would wander around the art section on the second floor near the Children’s Room.  When I was tired of that, I would go look through thousands of albums.  I wandered from floor to floor, following Dewey, enjoying the smell and feel of the books.  All of the workers at the library knew us.  We were well-behaved and obviously we appreciated the books.  More importantly, we respected the sanctity of The Library.  Always easily bored, but eager to learn new things, and never shy, I befriended the women who worked in the children’s area.  Eventually, they taught me to check out books using a crazy machine that took a picture of your library card, a white paper card similar to a bi-fold business card with the map of Richland County that was represented in metal sculpture on the wall outside of the library and now resides in the new library on Assembly street, and a picture of the book from the back of the book.  They let me shelve books because I did a good job at it.  It was very important to me that books be in order and in the correct areas. I would help other little kids find books they liked.  I adored every minute of it.  I loved learning how to use the card catalog, which I can still do very well, and taught many classmates over the years how to use.

At a certain time, Kelli and I would go across the street to meet Grandma at the bus stop to go home.  I was safe every day and learned an immense amount of useful knowledge and skills.  My love of books continued to grow. My grandmother barely had a high school education, but she was had  love of books that she passed on to every one of her children and grandchildren.  No matter what our shortcomings, insanities, poor choices and mislead lives, we all had and have a love of reading and books that is nearly an obsession for some of us (me).

We only did that until I started 7th grade and walked to Hand.  I loved that year and a half spent in the stacks on Sumter Street.  It’s one of my favorite memories of being a child.  The only card I have loved as much as my first library card is my first voter’s registration card.

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