big storm aftermath

My ceiling just fell down!

Photos of the wreckage as soon as I find my camera cable.

NCLB

Setting higher standards doesn't help us educate our children. No Child Left Behind demands higher expectations without provisions for reaching that goal.

If a swim instructor demanded his students to swim twice the length of their normal workout, you would expect he would give them pointers on how to conserve their energy or increase endurance. Simply expecting them to aim farther does not automatically cause them to succeed.

I teach in a low-income, urban elementary school which is starting its second Program Improvement year. More than standardized tests and comparisons to other schools, what would help my students is a teacher's aid, vegetables besides iceberg lettuce for lunch, funding for fieldtrips, and better access to computers and other technology. Dare I even mention our mandated, scripted language arts program which de-humanizes teachers and bores students?

NCLB's intentions are good, but a carrot on a stick only gets you so far.

sexyback

new year resolutions

1. go Green
   

perfect apartment = not so perfect

I woke up early this morning, at six thirty, my soul in limbo between the book of life and the book of . . . not life, as my ceiling poured forth a shower of rainwater. Still dark, I rushed around frantically for a pot or a bowl to put under the leak. I mean leaks. Two. And then I went back to sleep on my gigantic, orange, velvet couch.

The manager of my apartment is so nice, I'm thinking of falling in love with him. He came upstairs to check out the leaks MINUTES after I called him (I waited until the more humane hour of nine), and then he immediately went out and purchased a plastic tarp to save my carpet. He made an appointment with a roofer and a painter and assured me that he would cover the cleaning costs if any of my furniture or other stuff got soaked. My old landlord would have waited a few days before bringing over a bucket to sit under the hole.

Here is where I admit that I am completely INSANE and still suffering post-traumatic stress, that when I first awoke to the dripping, I thought an animal had gotten into my apartment and was PEEING on the carpet. And for ten whole seconds, all I could do was curse, WHO LET A FUCKING DOG INTO MY BEDROOM??!??

yes they are Black

During Read Aloud time, my students were all lying on the carpet as I acted my way through The Enormous Crocodile. One particularly wiggly student called out and interrupted me. I immediately went on the offensive, took a deep breath to chide her rudeness, looked down and saw her face full of anxiety. The beads in her braid had gotten stuck between the pieces of another girl's braid. Like, her tiny little braid was all swallowed up in the twist of the neighbor's fat braid.

I cracked up.

smile

They (you know, "They") once did this study where they randomly divided up students at a school and assigned them to different teachers. Some teachers were told that they had the worst students, while some were told they had the best of the lot. At the end of the year, the students in the "best" class had made the biggest gains in achievement, while the "worst" students lagged behind.

Every day, I tell my class that they are the best third grade in the school. I tell them how proud I am that they work together as a team. I tell them how smart they are.

At first, I was totally lying through my teeth. Or not lying, really, it's not a total falsehood, I'm sure some of them entered third grade at the top of the class.

On Monday, we had a not-so-good day, students were restless, the afternoon just draaaaagged on, you know what I mean. I kept getting sterner and sterner, which made me more annoyed, which made every subsequent called-out remark more grating, and I went home hating my class. On Tuesday, I put Monday away and greeted my class with a very big smile. I told them how happy I was to see them, that the best class in school had some important work to do. Immediately, I liked them again. And we had an awesome day. And today was even more awesome.

If you say it enough, and you hear it enough, you become the part.

when hell freezes over

What a scary nightmare!!! I dreamt that I was getting a second Masters from UCLA, this time in BIOLOGY.

sing me to sleep

Nip / Tuck has the best music on TV, seriously. In just the first five episodes of season three, they've showcased Sia, Gotan Project, and Radiohead's Everything in its Right Place. (The latter during a surgery to dissect a Frankenstein-like cadaver and deliver limbs back to their original owners.)


Holy shit, AND SUFJAN STEVENS!!!!! Who is their music editor? James S. Levine, you deserve a plaque!

algebraic!

Sadly, I've already got myself a couch. But I kind of want a date. From Craigslist:

THIS IS THE COUCH THE PROPHECIES FORETOLD - $60

Oh jesus christ this couch is too much.

Imagine a more innocent time. A time where irony was hip and new. You could buy outlandish furniture and not bat an eye, because everyone around you assured you it would be hilarious. Imagine you've just purchased a large leather burgundy couch. It arrives at your house and its glorious. Truly a sight to behold. You eagerly call your friends to help you move it inside, and when they arrive you begin your task.

and then your couch doesn't fit through your door. your retarded friends scratch up the sides of your door, and your new leather couch. it is wedged so thoroughly that a layman's eyes would be unable to tell where couch ended and doorway began. Your trust in your friends shattered, and your innocence all but lost, you succumb to a depression so deep, medical science has yet to find a cure.

large. leather. burgundy. straight from bad 80's porn that you stole from your dad when you were 11. how much would you pay for the abomination? 900 dollars? your first born? your virginity? NAY.

for the low low price of 60$ this monstrosity can be yours.

"But whats the catch, James?" you say to yourself, hoping the people around you won't think you've got the crazies. I in no feasible way, will help you move this couch. I am defeated. I've moved it like 3 times, as I myself have moved, and never again am I even going to look at it. We're done, couch. Its not you, its me. Honest.

No really. You're gonna have to pick it up. Tie it down, all that. Cause seriously. If I'm not capable of getting in my own house, what makes you think I want anything to do with getting it into yours? HUH? HUH?

60 bucks for a ugl- uh, SWEET leather couch thats been sitting in a garage for 5 years. Thats a better deal than that time I paid my sister to show me her privates.

OH GOD WHY AM I SO AWKWARD I can be reached (and i used that phrase very liberally) at *** ask for James. Or if you're a hot lady, ask for mmmm. yeahhh, Jaaaames Or more realistically, leave a message.

Indy Shmindy

Jesus Christ, is car racing the most boring sport EVER?!?!? So little happens that they show commercials DURING the race. Perhaps people twiddle through hundreds of laps to get a glimpse of the magic that is the pit team. Changing all four tires and filling up the tank in five seconds? THAT deserves an Olympic event.

first week of September

Some randoms:

I forgot how awesome Talib Kwelli is until I heard his new song Hot Thing / In the Mood. One of his lines is, "Dudes don't get it, cool it like Colonel Mustard in the study with a candlestick." Anyone who sneaks a Clue reference into a love song gets my vote. The video is pretty tight, too.

I absolutely love being a teacher. It is so much easier / funner / more satisfying the second time around. I have a couple of wigglers but nothing compared to the anger issues from last year. We have not done any academic learning yet, just rehearsed routines and procedures. On Thursday, I spent ninety minutes explaining and modeling what we do for the first ten minutes of class. Then everyone put their chairs up, put their backpacks on, and walked outside to practice entering the classroom in the morning. Spend time to save time!

Netflix is awesome. I am not getting cable in this new apartment (much to the surprise of everyone, for some reason), which pretty much means no TV, since I don't stay up late enough to watch prime-time, but I still need something for late afternoons and evenings, so Netflix it is. Right now I'm watching season three of Nip / Tuck. No commercials. Glorious.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers is really hot and I just want to lick him.

Last weekend a few of us teachers came in to school to set up our classrooms, and the programs coordinator gave us his password to use the xerox machine. I have never felt like more of a dork than when I realized how excited I was to go to work on Sunday so I could MAKE COPIES.

This morning I "slept in" until seven thirty and it was heavenly.

*Sigh*

It's totally weird but also hugely comforting when someone you have never met pens your exact thoughts.

all the more difficult in triple digit temperatures

I thought I'd give you a glimpse of what has been taking up all of my time. Here is my Master To Do List that I compiled at midnight a few days ago, when I couldn't sleep. Who can fall asleep when they have forty-four tasks to remember? Not I.

(Some of the items on this list appear to be written in a non-standard English dialect. It is called Elementary School Teacher and I didn't know most of the words until a few years ago, either.)

* indicates must be done before first day of school

1. Tear / staple / rubberband decodeables
2. Put together Unit 1 reading folders with lined and blank paper
3. Put together science Log Books
4. *Desk name tags
5. *Names on labels for writing journal, math journal, crayons, white folder, reading folder
6. *Buy and sharpen pencils
7. *Letter to parents
8. *Student Bingo – write and xerox
9. *Scavenger hunt around the classroom – write and Xerox
10. *Example self portrait
11. *Welcome Team 18 sign
12. *Behavior color cards chart and clothespins
13. Centers rotation chart
14. *Calendar / morning routine + flow chart
15. *Flow chart for entering class
16. *Chart explaining marble jar, table points, CCC, weekly desk behavior charts
17. *Weekly desk behavior charts
18. ***FIRST DAY SCHEDULE
19. Addition / subtraction bingo cards
20. Daily schedule
21. Finish illustrating job chart
22. Unit 1 vocab – print, cut out, paste, illustrate
23. Done List
24. *Make / Buy actual Calendar
25. *Cubbies nametags
26. Make Look and Learn
27. Data box with student info – make tabs on hanging files
28. *Compile Read Alouds for first week as OCR Getting Started examples
29. Print and burn songs for Friendship unit
30. Xerox and compile sight-word related an easy beginning fluency
31. Print holiday packets (enchanted learning and edhelper subscriptions)
32. *First day homework questionnaire
33. OCR strategies signs
34. parts of speech signs
35. *Buy plants for science center / gardener
36. OCR unit 1 opener
37. *Community Circle guidelines
38. Spelling Word Study strategy
39. Materials to make a kite and example kite
40. Print / cut / laminate sight words
41. OCR skills signs
42. Make sure computers work
43. Storyfolders
44. *Line Order