i guess i should just LET IT GO about school, but i have just received yet another phone call about a student who flunked english for the year. in the case of the parent, the fingers are being pointed at me and i am accused of not wanting to meet with the parent, etc. and basically not communicating with the parent. i won't even begin to document all that i tried to do. i should just be able to blow it all off and be confident in what i have done. but instead, it makes me go to a place i hate, which is doubting myself and my standards in the face of overwhelming oppression.
i am just a dinosaur. i thought that when you set standards and goals, if they were not met, the consequences would be applied. apparently, that isn't so any longer in the public school system. it seems that only the grade matters, and just doing something/anything is good enough. i am supposed to bend the rules for kids who don't do the work just so they can pass. but what does passing mean? it used to mean that they had met the basic minimum of work and knowledge. now it seems it is all about just doing work, even if the student didn't read the book or participate in the project. just doing something to scam by is apparently the new code for the 2000's in education. it makes me want to puke.
i told the administrator that i was disgusted with all of it, and just do whatever they wanted to do, since what i thought and did didn't matter. and it doesn't. my problem is defending myself. i should just dummy down everything and let it roll. that is what the standards are, and i should save myself the constant stress of it all and just give in. it is a bitter pill to swallow, but it seems for my own sanity, swallow it i must.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
brisket, baseball, tv...
it is amazing how time flies when you are doing absolutely nothing...which i am enjoying. today was basically a day of doing a little cleaning, watching a bit of tv (stuff that i had saved on the DVR), doing some cooking (vegetable soup, teriyaki pork blade steaks on the grill, a brisket for my dad on the smokey cooker) and a little walmart activity ($63.00 for nothing much).
austin has made it to jupiter, florida for the USA baseball junior olympics. i think the combine starts in the morning and that will determine if he makes the team. i don't expect he will. in a way, i hope he doesn't. he doesn't have a passport and i am not sure how i am going to pay to send him to panama. plus, who would go? in any case, it likely won't happen.
bebo, dave and andrew hacker and austin left last night about 12:30 to drive all night for florida. when i talked to austin during the day, he was at various places (outside of jacksonville, daytona beach at the speedway). he called when he finally got there and said the condo was nice. they were going out to a KFC buffet, something we don't have here. in any case, i have forgotten when exactly i am supposed to fly, so i need to check up on it. i am going to the beach tomorrow to deliver the brisket and visit with the parental units and warnie. they are going to go and get her from the assisted living place on saturday afternoon and i will be providing the delayed father's day dinner of brisket, cole slaw, and rice-a-roni salad. they are moving her things to her room on saturday morning, and i don't know if i will be helping or not. daddy didn't seem to want me to go, although i don't know why. i thought i would be a good choice to go, sort of as a neutral between daddy and aunt grace. the can't agree on anything about warnie's alzheimers or moving her or anything. mom and aunt grace aren't speaking and it is a big mess.
austin has made it to jupiter, florida for the USA baseball junior olympics. i think the combine starts in the morning and that will determine if he makes the team. i don't expect he will. in a way, i hope he doesn't. he doesn't have a passport and i am not sure how i am going to pay to send him to panama. plus, who would go? in any case, it likely won't happen.
bebo, dave and andrew hacker and austin left last night about 12:30 to drive all night for florida. when i talked to austin during the day, he was at various places (outside of jacksonville, daytona beach at the speedway). he called when he finally got there and said the condo was nice. they were going out to a KFC buffet, something we don't have here. in any case, i have forgotten when exactly i am supposed to fly, so i need to check up on it. i am going to the beach tomorrow to deliver the brisket and visit with the parental units and warnie. they are going to go and get her from the assisted living place on saturday afternoon and i will be providing the delayed father's day dinner of brisket, cole slaw, and rice-a-roni salad. they are moving her things to her room on saturday morning, and i don't know if i will be helping or not. daddy didn't seem to want me to go, although i don't know why. i thought i would be a good choice to go, sort of as a neutral between daddy and aunt grace. the can't agree on anything about warnie's alzheimers or moving her or anything. mom and aunt grace aren't speaking and it is a big mess.
Monday, June 16, 2008
baseball: we go to a higher ground, literally
We spent the weekend in Lexington, Virginia going back and forth between VMI and Rockbridge High School for a tournament. we went up on friday afternoon to play at 5PM and my parents met us there. they were returning home after a week at massanutten on a time share (or massa-NOTHING, as my mother said, as there was just nothing to do there.) in any case, it was a strange trip because austin kind of made a new leap in the success of austin baseball story. first, he got to play for a change. he made a webshot kind of catch on first base, and that was pretty cool. he hit pretty well, nice night.
then saturday we had 2 games, and he was the DH in the first game. he hit one over the VMI fence, and that was pretty cool. my matron of honor from my wedding, rose tinsley, came over from stuarts draft with her son and stepson to see austin play. it was a very pleasant visit and a bit touching. her youngest, tim, went behind the stadium wall and found the ball austin had hit and came back and asked him to autograph it! austin was a bit freaked out, as he had never had anyone ask him about doing that. kind of cute. but the big shocker was when he went in to close the last inning of the game.
they have a permanent radar gun in that stadium that registers the speed of the thrown pitch. the numbers show up on the big scoreboard at center field. i wasn't paying any attention to this until my parents came over and told me to look. austin was throwing 90-93 mph fastballs. that is major league stuff. he snuffed out the opposition and then the speculation was on.
he ended up sunday DH'ing in the first 2 games and then the last game, championship, was against the lee davis bulldogs, a pickup team made up mostly of kids from the LD baseball team that andrew plays for and austin would have played with had i not moved him. taylor sandefur was pitching for them (he plays with austin at atlee) and there were a couple of other kids i didn't know. in any case, it got to be the nightmare of my life...erickson keeton, who was to be the ace, bombed out pitching. by the end of the 2nd inning, we were down to the LD team 2-6. then they put austin in. bigger nightmare for me.
he sucked it up. he pitched them out of the game and we won it. he had only 2 hits, and one of them was an error and should have been an out, but was misjudged by the center fielder and dropped. he struck out 7 people on the way and walked one, the first person he pitched to.
but the biggest deal was that taylor went out and they brought mike kluver in.
austin and mike have a long history and much of it is based upon animosity. the last time they went up against each other, mike struck austin out (ld vs. atlee, first time this season.) this was a big blow to austin, so when he got the second chance, he got to bat...and mike hit him with the first pitch. you have to wonder about that (or not, as most of us didn't, as it seemed pretty obvious what was going on.) well, nightmare continues in the new lexington venue. two outs and they bring mike in...and austin gets out on a called 3rd strike. however, this worked in his favor...he just got pissed and pitched better, and the team picked him up. we ended up coming back and beating them 8-6, with the final 2 runs coming from andrew, who really needed the boost. his RBI's were the ones that clinched it. austin had a 2 RBI double off of taylor before he got the called out.
it was kind of sweet, and gives us both cause to pause, thinking about what might happen, but trying to keep it all in perspective. it is fun to think about, but awkward to express....
worms in the apple...
picture this: trying to escape from school, but you're on the phone with the principal as you are being driven by your child over afton mountain on I-64 west. you are trying to remain calm due to the nature of the telephone conversation, but to vex you even more, the cell phone connection keeps dying. you cuss, you rant, and then you calm down, and call back later...i am writing this in great hopes that the phone does NOT ring in the next few hours or even the next few days. no news to me is good news, which means my principal did not cave in on the ranting parent. at the end of the last phone call with him, i told him to just pass the kid. he was stating that they were already threatening to go above our heads, which meant school board office. at this point, it became obvious that no matter what the right ethical thing is, you just can't expect people to do the right thing. so the apple becames a not so beautiful thing.
i am sure there are worms in every corporate apple, but which one is crucial in this country: education. how sad it is that people don't care anymore about learning. all they care about is numbers, grades, false little monuments to nothing much. what about creativity, brilliance, ingenuity? when did those things suddenly became so random as to be looked at as if they were the anomaly? those qualities are no longer standards...they are weirdnesses in life. mediocre and getting whatever you need to "get ahead" is the new standard. i can't imagine how any parent could be so determined about a grade as to miss the whole point of why there was a grade...a measurement of learning. the latest on parent #1 was that she wanted to be able to come to school with the project not turned in and have it graded for "quality." of course, as i told the principal, how do you grade for quality on a project based upon a book never read by the student? anyone can turn SOMETHING in for points just to pass. i have washed my hands of the whole thing, period. and i feel better about having done it. i can look myself in the mirror and feel at peace about it. i don't flunk students...they fail themselves...and are in turn, in my opinion, failed by the parents and the system. nothing should encourage students to just settle for things.
as all of this was going on, austin was driving the car and i was ranting and raving about why it was that i have never tried to grease the wheels for him. he has accused me a few times of hampering his baseball standing with the coaches by not sucking up. i have done nothing to make it easier for him, but that was for a reason. any success he gets has to be because he got it. if that doesn't happen, he will have cheated himself and will never really know if he himself earned it. i know that feeling of having earned things because of my own efforts, and despite the tendency in the world to the opposite, i think it is still important to rest on your own EARNED laurels.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
end of school...so why am i hiding?
well, the end of school is much like xmas for me...i wait for the grenades to come into the foxhole...i haven't had a bad end of year in awhile, but there is always something. this year...flunking kids and crazy parents. i have never had so many kids fail for the year...12 right now, five of them in one class alone. i have 2 advanced kids who have failed, and a few who did not expect to fail. the irony of this is that all of them managed to do this in the last 9 weeks.
well, you would think that the parents would understand that part of the responsibility of being a parent is keeping up with you kid and his/her grades. to do that, you have to actually be active in pursuit of the truth, and not rely on the kid. in involves actually parenting. but no, some of these people are not getting it, period. you would think that some sort of red flag would be going up if your kid has flunked the 3rd nine weeks and was flunking, again, at interims on the last 9 weeks. it is not as if you don't get some sort of warning here...we do send home report cards and interims and they are supposed to sign them. and we do make comments on there when they have low grades...you know, things like "major requirement not turned in" or "improve test and quiz scores " or the overly used "needs to do all homework assignments."
the shock factor for one parent led to her coming up to school in a lather this afternoon demanding that i let her kid make up the project that he never did and never turned in over the course of nine weeks. he was reminded repeatedly to turn something, anything in, but he didn't do it. nor did he pass his exam or the test that was given on the material. he also had so many absences and tardies to my class that i just stopped keeping them...same mother always wrote notes excusing him. do you get the feeling that she is probably wiping his butt for him too?
in the case of the other mother, her daughter had been absent beau coup times, at least once a week, and always returned with a note for the absences. i figured she was just one of our annual slackers who came to school when she felt like it. it wasn't until 2 months ago that mom decided to send out an email to all the teachers informing us that she had asthma and was frequently in the hospital emergency room. i understand all of this, and figured that mom had gotten an attendance waiver for the absences so that the kid wouldn't fail on those alone. i found out that she never did file that, but in any case, regardless, whatever work the kid had to do, she didn't do. she didn't make up work, and she did poorly again on quizzes and tests and she, too, did not turn in the project. this afternoon she said she had turned it in, but she had not. she might have done it, as her mother said, but she never turned it in. mother thinks this is all a big mistake and if i don't fix it, off to the principal. i say, let her roll. if education could be phoned in, ET, then we wouldn't need teachers. i think everyone has forgotten why the kids are here, which is to learn. how do you learn if you never come to school and you don't make up work or get the notes? in my view, if you don't want to come to school, don't do it. take online courses and teach yourself. if i thought these kids were smart enough and had learned all this stuff, then i wouldn't have a problem. but both have low skills, and sending them on i think would be a big mistake. if they can't do the work at 10th grade, then they are going to really, really be set up for failure in the 11th where they have an SOL test to take and a research paper to write.
the other ethical area we get into is if a lot of these kids failed english because they didn't do the project, then how do we decide who gets to turn it in and who doesn't? i would have to allow all of them to make up all of their work, and i think that is sending a really crappy message to them about responsibility. the irony of this is that the kids chose the grade, had their parents sign a contract with them saying what they would do for the grade. so much for the parents not being informed.
i think what scares me the most is not being backed by the administrators, and they can twist in the wind depending on the size of the storm. i did inform the ones that needed to know so that the best defense could be a good offense...prepare for the hurricane. i am hoping tomorrow i won't get called on the carpet with all of the parent accusations of what I DID WRONG. this isn't about me...it is about them and their kids and all of them taking responsibility for the education of the kid...and that doesn't just include grades. hard lesson, but i suspect if the parents have to pay for summer school and the kids have to go, maybe, just maybe, the kids and the parents will get the idea...
well, you would think that the parents would understand that part of the responsibility of being a parent is keeping up with you kid and his/her grades. to do that, you have to actually be active in pursuit of the truth, and not rely on the kid. in involves actually parenting. but no, some of these people are not getting it, period. you would think that some sort of red flag would be going up if your kid has flunked the 3rd nine weeks and was flunking, again, at interims on the last 9 weeks. it is not as if you don't get some sort of warning here...we do send home report cards and interims and they are supposed to sign them. and we do make comments on there when they have low grades...you know, things like "major requirement not turned in" or "improve test and quiz scores " or the overly used "needs to do all homework assignments."
the shock factor for one parent led to her coming up to school in a lather this afternoon demanding that i let her kid make up the project that he never did and never turned in over the course of nine weeks. he was reminded repeatedly to turn something, anything in, but he didn't do it. nor did he pass his exam or the test that was given on the material. he also had so many absences and tardies to my class that i just stopped keeping them...same mother always wrote notes excusing him. do you get the feeling that she is probably wiping his butt for him too?
in the case of the other mother, her daughter had been absent beau coup times, at least once a week, and always returned with a note for the absences. i figured she was just one of our annual slackers who came to school when she felt like it. it wasn't until 2 months ago that mom decided to send out an email to all the teachers informing us that she had asthma and was frequently in the hospital emergency room. i understand all of this, and figured that mom had gotten an attendance waiver for the absences so that the kid wouldn't fail on those alone. i found out that she never did file that, but in any case, regardless, whatever work the kid had to do, she didn't do. she didn't make up work, and she did poorly again on quizzes and tests and she, too, did not turn in the project. this afternoon she said she had turned it in, but she had not. she might have done it, as her mother said, but she never turned it in. mother thinks this is all a big mistake and if i don't fix it, off to the principal. i say, let her roll. if education could be phoned in, ET, then we wouldn't need teachers. i think everyone has forgotten why the kids are here, which is to learn. how do you learn if you never come to school and you don't make up work or get the notes? in my view, if you don't want to come to school, don't do it. take online courses and teach yourself. if i thought these kids were smart enough and had learned all this stuff, then i wouldn't have a problem. but both have low skills, and sending them on i think would be a big mistake. if they can't do the work at 10th grade, then they are going to really, really be set up for failure in the 11th where they have an SOL test to take and a research paper to write.
the other ethical area we get into is if a lot of these kids failed english because they didn't do the project, then how do we decide who gets to turn it in and who doesn't? i would have to allow all of them to make up all of their work, and i think that is sending a really crappy message to them about responsibility. the irony of this is that the kids chose the grade, had their parents sign a contract with them saying what they would do for the grade. so much for the parents not being informed.
i think what scares me the most is not being backed by the administrators, and they can twist in the wind depending on the size of the storm. i did inform the ones that needed to know so that the best defense could be a good offense...prepare for the hurricane. i am hoping tomorrow i won't get called on the carpet with all of the parent accusations of what I DID WRONG. this isn't about me...it is about them and their kids and all of them taking responsibility for the education of the kid...and that doesn't just include grades. hard lesson, but i suspect if the parents have to pay for summer school and the kids have to go, maybe, just maybe, the kids and the parents will get the idea...
Sunday, June 8, 2008
hot, hot, hot and a picture of thing...
shelley sent me a picture of thing and bart that she took when they were here for vacation in march. i don't have too many recent pictures of him or anything for that matter, so i was glad to get it. the latest update on cats is that the girls are enjoying their wet food in the morning and they are all three sleeping in my room at night. i am a little tired of olive having to sleep on the highest point of my body or in the middle of my back, but i am also used to the flinging of said cat across the room numerous times.
the weather here is setting records, with the temps at 100 degrees and the heat index even higher. fortunately, we haven't had the smoky smog hanging over the area the last 2 days. on friday we were treated to smoke from a wildfire in north carolina 150 miles away. the wind just blew it our way, lucky us. it hasn't been hazy since then, but it sure has been hot. however, not as bad as i have experienced in the past. i don't think the humidity has been as awful as it can be. thank god. i was able to get out this morning and do plant watering (which i am now doing twice a day), as well as putting down spectracide on the weeds. that worked well. by tonight the weeds were already brown in a lot of places. that was something i had wanted to do and got done.
i have watched a lot of movies, eaten a lot of ice pops and drunk a lot of tea. very lazy. not much you could do when you can't get outside and do anything. even going in the car has been miserable as you have to wait awhile before it gets cool. i did do some shopping at walmart yesterday and today went to kroger and treated myself to a jack daniels burger from TGIF fridays. exams start tomorrow and this is the last week of school. this year went by fast, but i am looking forward to some down time. time for me to make my honey-do list for myself. some of the things on it will be:
1) sandpapering and then painting the patch on the wall where austin punched his fist
2) putting in the above ground beds next to the fence
3) planting the hostas down by the pond and the purple fountain grass
4) putting down weed blocker sheets and then mulch on the shore by the pond; moving the picnic table and chairs on top of the mulch once that is done.
5) switching the winter and summer clothes and taking stuff to the goodwill
6) tying up the branches of the butterfly trees, as they are now into the porch and almost making it too jungle like
7) making a website for GO WEST and starting to see if i can transfer the webpages to a new website.
8) making more headers for the blog
9) transfering last summers journal to the REB blog and starting this summer's blog
10) looking at the Ancient Molly character for curriculum stuff for elementary school textbooks. need to see laura samuels about that one.
11) transferring pictures off the camera to the computer and getting the two computers in sync
12) learning how to do MX flash
13) read the concrete book and make the flagstones patio for the smokey cookers
14) investigate getting a new smokey cooker
15) make some flagstones
16) get the vienna hot dog kit for my parents and do their birthdays with it
17) visit the aunties
18) get on the beach at least once
19) get the pushmower fixed
and there will be more to the list!
the weather here is setting records, with the temps at 100 degrees and the heat index even higher. fortunately, we haven't had the smoky smog hanging over the area the last 2 days. on friday we were treated to smoke from a wildfire in north carolina 150 miles away. the wind just blew it our way, lucky us. it hasn't been hazy since then, but it sure has been hot. however, not as bad as i have experienced in the past. i don't think the humidity has been as awful as it can be. thank god. i was able to get out this morning and do plant watering (which i am now doing twice a day), as well as putting down spectracide on the weeds. that worked well. by tonight the weeds were already brown in a lot of places. that was something i had wanted to do and got done.
i have watched a lot of movies, eaten a lot of ice pops and drunk a lot of tea. very lazy. not much you could do when you can't get outside and do anything. even going in the car has been miserable as you have to wait awhile before it gets cool. i did do some shopping at walmart yesterday and today went to kroger and treated myself to a jack daniels burger from TGIF fridays. exams start tomorrow and this is the last week of school. this year went by fast, but i am looking forward to some down time. time for me to make my honey-do list for myself. some of the things on it will be:
1) sandpapering and then painting the patch on the wall where austin punched his fist
2) putting in the above ground beds next to the fence
3) planting the hostas down by the pond and the purple fountain grass
4) putting down weed blocker sheets and then mulch on the shore by the pond; moving the picnic table and chairs on top of the mulch once that is done.
5) switching the winter and summer clothes and taking stuff to the goodwill
6) tying up the branches of the butterfly trees, as they are now into the porch and almost making it too jungle like
7) making a website for GO WEST and starting to see if i can transfer the webpages to a new website.
8) making more headers for the blog
9) transfering last summers journal to the REB blog and starting this summer's blog
10) looking at the Ancient Molly character for curriculum stuff for elementary school textbooks. need to see laura samuels about that one.
11) transferring pictures off the camera to the computer and getting the two computers in sync
12) learning how to do MX flash
13) read the concrete book and make the flagstones patio for the smokey cookers
14) investigate getting a new smokey cooker
15) make some flagstones
16) get the vienna hot dog kit for my parents and do their birthdays with it
17) visit the aunties
18) get on the beach at least once
19) get the pushmower fixed
and there will be more to the list!
Friday, June 6, 2008
thinking about thing...
this afternoon austin and i cleaned around the house, emptying cat pans, vacuuming the cat hair off the first floor, cleaning the bathrooms. of course, everywhere you go, there is thing hair. we had to both sit down and get the hair off of the rollers on the vac to make sure it didn't mess it up. as you are sitting there, pulling long ropes of hair off, you can't help but see him and be sad. i have done pretty well this week, sort of switching into a mode where i am not crying and staying busy not thinking about him. i guess that is the stages of grief thing kicking in. i am not over it all that completely, but i am moving on...and i feel guilty about that. does that mean i don't love him anymore because i am thinking about getting another kitten? does that mean i don't care as much because i am now feeding the girls wet food? (i couldn't have possibly feed them that when he was alive because he ate so much!) i am probably going to retire one of the buddah domes (cat pans) as i see we don't need 2 anymore. things are considerably smaller in a lot of ways around here.
i am supposedly on a list for a kitten with a breeder in virginia beach. i haven't heard back from her, but it will be at least 3 months before i get the kitten anyway, so it works out i guess. by fall i should be ready for one. right now, the girls are a bit wacko and i don't know how they would react to having a kitten here. they are all sort of needy and i am indulging them with lots of one on one time with each, wet food, letting them sleep in my room, and generally letting them sit on me all the time. freckles stays to herself most of the time, but is getting better about being around the other two when they are with me. olive and freckles are fighting more, but i think that is because olive is establishing herself as alpha cat around here. olivia meows a lot and talks, olive has to be right on you at all times, and freckles is content to sleep on the bed or be near me when she can. even if she is there first, freckles will usually retreat when olive shows up. about 50% of the time olive will make freckles leave me.
i haven't been back to the vet to pick up thing's collar. i haven't been ready for it, although i guess i could do that now. a lot of people have seemed a bit surprised that i didn't get thing's body and bury it. i just don't find that having them buried around me makes me feel any better. if anything, it makes me sad, and it makes me worry that some animal will dig up the body and drag it around. this happened with my first cat, jenny, and i couldn't bear to have that happen again. when i buried phantom years ago in the backyard, i always worried whenever i was out there if something would get to his body. nothing ever did, but it never was a comfort, only a reminder of being sad. so no bodies for me. i have plenty of pictures, videos and hair to remind me. even now, i can remember what the inside of his ears felt like since he loved having them rubbed. my hands are like things that can see, and i have a visual from having touched him, how skinny he was along his backbone, and how his hair was all matted under his belly. he had those big tuffs of hair between his toes and the long whiskers. i know as time goes on, these feelings will fade a lot. that happened with santini. but, still, i know i can remember some things, and i don't want them to always make me feel sad...
well, i am sad now that i am writing this, so i think i will quit.
i am supposedly on a list for a kitten with a breeder in virginia beach. i haven't heard back from her, but it will be at least 3 months before i get the kitten anyway, so it works out i guess. by fall i should be ready for one. right now, the girls are a bit wacko and i don't know how they would react to having a kitten here. they are all sort of needy and i am indulging them with lots of one on one time with each, wet food, letting them sleep in my room, and generally letting them sit on me all the time. freckles stays to herself most of the time, but is getting better about being around the other two when they are with me. olive and freckles are fighting more, but i think that is because olive is establishing herself as alpha cat around here. olivia meows a lot and talks, olive has to be right on you at all times, and freckles is content to sleep on the bed or be near me when she can. even if she is there first, freckles will usually retreat when olive shows up. about 50% of the time olive will make freckles leave me.
i haven't been back to the vet to pick up thing's collar. i haven't been ready for it, although i guess i could do that now. a lot of people have seemed a bit surprised that i didn't get thing's body and bury it. i just don't find that having them buried around me makes me feel any better. if anything, it makes me sad, and it makes me worry that some animal will dig up the body and drag it around. this happened with my first cat, jenny, and i couldn't bear to have that happen again. when i buried phantom years ago in the backyard, i always worried whenever i was out there if something would get to his body. nothing ever did, but it never was a comfort, only a reminder of being sad. so no bodies for me. i have plenty of pictures, videos and hair to remind me. even now, i can remember what the inside of his ears felt like since he loved having them rubbed. my hands are like things that can see, and i have a visual from having touched him, how skinny he was along his backbone, and how his hair was all matted under his belly. he had those big tuffs of hair between his toes and the long whiskers. i know as time goes on, these feelings will fade a lot. that happened with santini. but, still, i know i can remember some things, and i don't want them to always make me feel sad...
well, i am sad now that i am writing this, so i think i will quit.
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