Bad Idea Jeans

Is there anybody out there besides me and my wife who remembers that faux Saturday Night live commercial?

Bad Idea Jeans is a parody of the pretentious blue jean commercials of the time and it features a group of middle age guys in jeans hanging out. Each of them makes a statement of questionable wisdom that is followed by the words bad idea appearing on the screen. Here's an example:

"Well, he's an ex free-base addict, and he's trying to turn around, and he needs a place to stay for a couple of months."

or

"Now that I have kids, I feel a lot better having a gun in the house."

You get the idea. Anyway, all of that reminiscing was only to talk about what they are doing beginning this month in Illinois to stem the number of high school dropouts and unexcused absences.

A student in Illinois who misses 18 days of school, drops out, or is expelled will not be allowed to have a driver's license.

Bad Idea Jeans

As a teacher, I question the wisdom of such an incentive to keep people in school. In my opinion, if they don't want to be there, they should stay home. We don't need people whose likely behavior problems muck up the works in our classrooms.

There is nothing more frustrating to me than having to see the kids who know how to work and behave sitting there while I have to deal with those who don't. As a parent it riles me to no end that my kid--the good one--is being shortchanged because so much time is being devoted to someone who doesn't want to be there. (In fact, that is why my son is going to test out of H.S. and go straight to community college.)

I am all for working with kids and trying to reach them with the benefits of an education, but there has to be a point when you leave them to the logical consequences of their actions and direct your efforts towards the ones who show some promise.

It would be better if we had alternative programs for people who have proven that they are not suited to learning in the traditional institutional manner. We need trade schools where these kids will excel and experience success.

Taking away their licenses to keep their problems within the general population?

Bad Idea Jeans.

Like a Gold Ring in a Pig's Snout

If you can't do anything right, hire a marketing firm--that's what Pittsburgh Public Schools is doing.

Oops, sorry, make that Pittsburgh Schools because the marketing consultant thought they could improve their image by ditching the word public.

This is just wrong.

First of all, if I were a tax-paying resident of Pennsylvania, I would be outraged that my money was going toward mere window dressing instead of actual academic needs.

Second of all, if students weren't educated in an appropriate manner, maybe they should drop the word school.

What Makes my Students Proud

Boy was I surpised.

In my summer school class of eighth-graders to be, we were practicing writing and the prompt asked them to tell about an accomplishment they were proud of. I expected things like getting the big hit in a ball game, completing a difficult routine in dance, or earning their own money to buy their first bike.

I was waaaaay off. Here are some of the actual (unedited) "proud" moments:

"One foggy morning it was still kind of dark and it was Friday so I sneak a gun into my backpack it was an M9."

This one was titled, "Lights Out".

"I knocked that white girl out! It turns out she wasn't so tough but her army of skanks jumped me but I could take these clowns anytime."

And yet another.

"Jonathon started saying stuff about my mom so I said stuff back and he got mad. I punched him in the face and he fell. That day was one of my proudest accomplishments."

Just another reminder that I might have more important things to teach than writing.

The Tuesday Sampler

As much as I detest the agenda-driven slantings of the L.A. Times, as long as I view the stories with a degree of skepticism--I do this for all media outlets--I find many interesting, in-depth articles.

To borrow an advertising slogan from AM/PM, today they had "Too Much Good Stuff" for me to focus on just one story, so I will recommend a couple that might be of interest to someone besides me.

The first story is on one of my favorite subjects: immigration.It turns out that many border towns have students cross over from Mexico to attend U.S. schools. This means that they don't pay any property tax to support those schools. Here is the money quote:

"They want the American services," he said, "but they don't want to be part of the American system."

Two observations on this: As one who has traveled to many foreign countries, I can't imagine having the expectation that I could just show up at a school somewhere and expect them to take care of me.

Secondly, I am surprised that there are so many Mexicans who bother coming across to go to school because in my experience they are not that interested in eduction. The vast majority of my students show no desire to pick up a pencil, let alone sneak past the border.

But don't take my anecdotal evidence of how Mexicans often place a low priority on education. Read these comments from a post on Laura's Miscellaneous Musings for more first-hand examples. Focus especially on Dana and Laura's comments. Very interesting.

Next up is an interesting article from the health section.

It has been at least five years since I gave up on most natural nutritional supplements in my quest to remain healthy and fit. Always wary that I am being scammed, I gave up on various products that had scant evidentiary support.

I might have to re-evaluate after this article on the herb, echinacea.

The gist of it is that that a new interpretation of a group of pooled studies might have rescued the daisy-like plant extract from the discredited list of natural remedies.

The jury is still out on the subject, but I think I will pick some up since it is relatively cheap, unlike that Airborne stuff that is also unproven to have any affect on the frequency and duration of the common cold. I guess as long as it is cheap, I will give some snake oil a try.

File under strangely ironic

The German government--which many left-of-center leaders hold up as a model of tolerance the U.S. should emulate--has banned Tom Cruise from filming a movie because he is a Scientologist.

Germany has gone through a long self-flagellation for the horrors of WWII and is usually seen embracing a much more liberal attitude these days. It is just bizarre that they would take such a stand. Oddly enough, the movie is about about the plot to assassinate Hitler.

Smart in a Bad Way

In their best Mister Rogers voice, professors in teacher certification classes will happily tell you that "children have a natural desire to learn."

One teensy little detail that they leave out is that children don't desire to learn what we have to teach them.

The real natural desire they have is to screw things up so badly that teachers run screaming from the classroom. One way they do that is by messing with the computers so that the technology-challenged teacher thinks they are broken.

Here are the things they have done to computers in my summer school class:

*Used the function key to make it so that certain letters will type numbers instead. "Look, somethings wrong with the computer; I can't log in because the keys are all messed up."

*Activated certain keystroke combinations so that whenever the computer "sleeps" it emits a high-pitched lazer-gun sound. This always makes the whole class laugh and I am the only one allowed to make people laugh.

*Used a differenct function to make something called "sticky keys". I don't have any idea what the real purpose of this is, but they do it so that when you hit the shift key, it too makes a nasty loud beep.

*Made it so that the display is turned ninety degrees (or completely upside down) on the screen.

*Disabled something (not sure what yet) so that the computer can no longer find the educational software we are using.

*Pretend that they don't know how to plug in headphones so that all of a sudden in a quiet room whatever sound plays is audible to everyone. What they really do is pull the plug out ever-so-slightly when whatever noise they want to make comes on.

They have the amazing ability to do these things very quickly even though I have them seated in such a way that I can see them all. Of course, they NEVER have any idea how it happens and when I tell them that they did it, they act like I called them an ax murderer.

It is amazing what they can accomplish when they really want to!

Business as usual

It never ceases to amaze me how inefficient, ineffective, and inept public schools are.

So I needed the money to pay for my parent's 50th wedding anniversary bash and I signed up to teach summer school.

Today I was ready to quit.

Even though I was never a very good Boy Scout, I do live by their motto of "Be Prepared." If I so much as show a video clip for a class, I make sure that everything is set up and ready to go so precious time is not wasted.

You would think that something as important as a new computer-based summer school curriculum would be given great care and preparation. Yeah, right.

I worked over the weekend and came in earlier than the administrators to ensure that everything was ready for a smooth start.

I wish the school district cared as much. Not only was the software not loaded yet onto the computers they would be using, but once it was loaded, it didn't work.

Yep, I had to wing it for three hours; a lot of good being prepared did.

So Day Two would be better, right? In a word, no. We were still unable to use the curriculum and I have severe doubts that I ever will.

This is going to be a long three weeks.

Day Three update: I guess I am an optimist because I actually thought it would work today after talking to our district technical experts who would be working feverishly on the system.

Wrong. No improvement whatsoever. But here is the most amazing thing: the highly paid district mucky muck in charge of summer school came in to check this morning and she said, "I might have to call the company's representative to see what can be done about this."

MIGHT? You mean the vendor rep wasn't called the first day! How is this possible!

Cruel and inhumane?

People's opinions are split on what the right thing is.


At my school, the eighth-graders practiced Wednesday and Thursday for today's graduation. Those who did not meet the meager standard required to walk the stage (1.5 GPA) sat in the back of the gym by themselves while the rest of their peers marched to "Pomp and Circumstance" and practiced shaking the principal's hand.

Some think it is a shame that the non-grads have to sit there in shame, while others think it is something they need to see.

What do you think? Is it "mean" to make them watch, or is it justice and a good life lesson?

Learning to get off on a technicality

More end-of-the-year theatrics by parents looking to absolve their offspring of the consequences of their bad behavior...

A particularly nasty student of mine--we'll call him Donald--is learning some skills that might prove useful later in life when avoiding, say, a prison term or other unwanted consequences.

With a huge assist from his mother--it's always the mothers--he managed to whine his way back into the end-of-year privileges he lost because he had two unsatisfactories for citizenship.

It turns out that one of the teachers who had to deal with his disrespect this year neglected to fill out the proper paperwork. Mom pounced on this technicality and the administration melted in the heat of her scorn.

Once again a toxic parent protects a child from the consequences of his actions and another real learning opportunity goes down the drain.

Sigh.

Let the whining begin!

Now they care...

School lets out next week and the beggars are at the schoolyard gates, pleading for grades that will allow their children to graduate from the eighth grade.

I think the fact that I now have three mothers whining, complaining, and blaming is a beautiful illustration of why they are in the position of having to do so in the first place.

I mean, if your mommy can come in and save the day at the last minute, why bother lifting a finger yourself with tedious things like reading and writing? It seems that one thing some kids do learn is that their parents will always support them by finding someone else to blame. They might be in trouble for a few days, but it beats the heck out of actually working for nine months!

How many other years have they made this mad rush, pulling out all the stops in order to save their babies hides academically? I'll tell you how many: plenty.

Of course it is my fault, just ask their mothers.

It is my fault that one kid writes more on the desk than he ever did on a piece of paper.

It is my fault that in spite of intense personal attention--George, go ahead and open the book and get started. George, please put that away and start your work, George, can I help you get started...--I have students who turn nothing in, but still expect to get a grade.

It is my fault that I have the audacity to actually keep track of the times they are tardy.

It is my fault that the parents "had no idea" even when I send home progress reports and e-mails regularly.

The problem these days is we have too many no-fault parents and students.

Can I give just one example?

I have one student who will scribble a few things on the paper if I hover over him constantly (never mind I have 30 other students). When mom finds out he is getting an F, she pleads that I give him a C. She is shocked that I would be so callous as to not comply with that request.

She calls again towards the end of the year: She understands that he hasn't done anything the entire trimester, but would I please be so kind as to give her a list of the assignments so he could turn them in late?

Instead of saying no, I tell her that we should just start with seeing how he does with a couple of extra credit projects. I do as the mother wants and hand the student a list of extra credit assignments that very day. I explain the simplest of them to him and make sure he understands that this is the first step toward getting out of the hole he is in.

I occasionally check with the student to see if the assignments are done and he gives me a smirk that clearly says, "Yeah, right. Like I had any intention of ever doing them."

Now there is a week left in school and he is at 30 percent. Mom is hopping mad that I plan to give him an F. She says that if I had only e-mailed her the list of assignments (easily available from my website which I always told her about), he would have done them.

She just informed me that she is going to complain about me to the district. Maybe it is because my last words to her via e-mail were: "If you are unhappy about the grade that your son will be getting, maybe you ought to talk to him about that."

Only four more days til the end of school!

Bad student, great kid

The bad news with schools is that they aren't good places for kids who are different.

The really bad news is that everybody is different.

My student Nolan is one of 161 differences I encounter five days a week.

Nolan is in the eighth grade and he does a number of things that drive teachers and his parents crazy:

He can't seem to leave his neighbors alone with his incessant talking. He often blurts things out in the middle of my lessons. He turns in work that looks like hieroglyphics--that is, when he can find the work in his backpack or remembers to turn it in. He struggles to earn higher than an F.

In spite of this, I insist that Nolan is a GREAT, GREAT kid who is unfortunately stuck in an institution that wasn't made for him.

The words, "Individually tailored to your specifications, to meet your unique needs," is not the mantra of institutional schooling, public or private.

Don't get me wrong: I place great value on learning to follow directions, figuring out how to work within a system and adapting to situations that aren't exactly a natural fit. We need to know how to get along in various life situations.

What I am not so sure of is whether there is much value in learning how to fit into such a system as we currently offer. Let me tell you what distresses me most about the Nolan situation:

Like I said before, Nolan is a handful. This means that his parents continually hear what a pain he is from his teachers, and they always have to be cajoling him, threatening him, and begging him to be different.

By the sound of his voice over the phone and in the tone of his e-mails, Dad is none too pleased with this continual struggle. It is clear to me that this puts a strain on the father/son relationship.

What if Dad focused on something else? What if he thought more about how lucky he is to have an adolescent son who genuinely looks up to him, enjoys being with him, talks about his day to him, brags to his teachers about him?

What if he measured his son by something besides his school performance? Is that what we reduce our kids to, a GPA and a citizenship mark?

It really saddens me that Nolan's dad is missing out on some precious time spent with his son because he has to constantly ride him about being something he is not.

Nolan is a friendly, caring kid. He is one of just a handful of my students who doesn't act as though talking to the teacher is the most uncool thing a 13-year-old could do. Also, I would be willing to bet he is among the top students as far as IQ.

I think this kid will go far. I think he is way too smart for the state-mandated pablum we have to shove at him year after year. He needs something different.

He needs to be an apprentice and do some work of some kind; he needs to go out into the forest and run around, exploring nature; he needs to build something side-by-side with someone who can guide him and teach him; he needs to go to the library and find something he is interested in and become a 13-year-old expert at it; he needs to build a rocket, a race car, a computer...

He does not need to sit in a chair for six periods a day, straining to sit still and be quiet. Someday he must be able to master this, but now is not the time for him.

The time is different for everybody. That's why school sucks.

Not Inappropriate??????

Somebody is out of their mind and I don't think it is me.

Has our society become so base that the once intolerable has not only become tolerable, but no one even understands why anyone would object?

I gave my eighth-graders an assignment where they were to find a poem and read it in front of the class. The first instance of cluelessness occurred when I was explaining the task and a student asked:

"Can we choose a poem that is inappropriate?"

Just ponder that question for a moment.

This would be one reason why I never tell people that there is no such thing as a dumb question.

I think my response was something like, "Exactly which part of inappropriate do you not understand?"

That was a few days ago. Today was the day when the reading would be done. Get a load of the poem that I pulled the plug on (and my advanced class didn't understand why):

My First Time

The sky was dark,
The moon was high,
All alone, just her and I.

Her hair so soft,
Her eyes so blue,
I knew just what she wanted to do.

Her skin so soft,
Her legs so fine,
I ran my fingers down her spine.

I didn’t know how,
But I tried my best,
I placed my hands on her soft sweet breast.

I remember my fear,
My fast beating heart,
But slowly she spread her legs apart.

And when I did it,
I felt no shame,
All at once the white stuff came.

At last I finished,
It’s all over now,
my first time to milk a cow!

When I shut it down, all of my students were laughing and telling me, "It's about a cow, it's about a cow; it's not what you think!"

How is it that they didn't understand that it doesn't matter what it ends up being about? And don't they know that cows don't have blue eyes?

But wait, the most disturbing thing is that I later found out the math teacher loved it and read it to his own class of 13-year-olds!

Do you ever get the feeling that you are the only sane person left on earth?

Bad education memories

I was reminded today of a very unpleasant experience that I had to endure in order to change careers and become a teacher: the state-required brainwashing otherwise known as a credential program.

The vast majority of a teacher's training in California is pure B.S. that in no way prepares one for the real world of the classroom teacher, but I digress. What really got my dander up today was a co-worker's recollection of one particular professor.

I am going to tell you her name because the rot she preaches simply can't go unpublicized: Dr. Mary Salisbury at Cal State Stanislaus. This lady is so left wing that my left wing friends were stunned at her comments.

Ms. Salisbury had some interesting things to say in order to prepare us as educators. My co-worker recalled how much of her required training consisted of telling the class how the U.S. deserved 9/11.

And I guess that while she ranted about the big bad evil U.S., she practically worshiped at the feet of a Middle Eastern student in the class who was also very vocal that we had it coming to us.

By the time I had to take the class, she had moved on from the subject of 9/11, but the America bashing continued. I mostly remember how she talked incessently about her recent trip to Uganda and condoms--that's right, Uganda and condoms.

I remember the overall message went something like this: "Uganda good, U.S. bad; condoms good, U.S. bad." It was pretty heady stuff, as you can see.

Oh, how I wish I had the time to go back and take another class from her now that I don't need her approval to get my credential. It would be so much fun to say all the things that I couldn't say then for fear of retribution.

I did actually disagree a lot compared to other classes where I kept my mouth shut and toed the company line.

I remember her going off on evil corporations--again, what this has to do with teaching 8th graders I will never know--who operate "sweat shops" in third world countries.

She never had any answer for me when I pointed out that the people in those countries are ecstatic about those jobs and communities actually lobby to have the opportunity to host such shops. (Logic is not a required subject in the credential program.)

Oh, how I wish I had a blog back then. You wouldn't believe the stuff they try to pass off as education these days.

Diversity: gotta love it

So my local school district is looking to hire a new superintendent and the local paper has an the rundown on the fantastic possibilities that await as the interview process begins.

I read the article anxiously to see what marvelous qualities they must possess. Maybe they have experienced success turning around under-performing districts; maybe they have some innovative ideas to boost student achievement; maybe they are financial wizards with plans to better allocate taxpayer money.

Maybe not.

It turns out that the main thing the newspaper seemed to be touting was that half of the candidates "represent minority ethnic groups" and "one woman was chosen."

How exciting.

No mention of accomplishments, no trumpeting of their superior abilities, no glowing testimonials of effective leadership.

Imagine if your favorite sports team operated on such a silly system (fake quote coming):

"The Yankees announced today that they are looking for the pieces to build their next championship team. Owner George Steinbrenner has ordered GM Brian Cashman to pull out all the stops to find a Pacific Islander and perhaps a Norwegian or two in order to improve team chemistry."

We live in a crazy, crazy world.