Skip to main content

S-A-T-U-R D-A-Y Night

Sometime in July (remember July, when summer seemed so to stretch out before you?) I got an email from the teaching placement department of my college. A student who graduated from the same masters program was hired by a district close by... there are approximately six school districts within a 20 mile radius of me. The placement department asked me if I would offer help or information on finding a place to live, things to do, etc. So I sent off this long letter about the crapy quality of housing (shockingly bad!) and the equally crapy quality of real estate professionals (ie. no professionalism). Yesterday, we met for the first time - apparently, she recognized me from the presentation I gave about classroom management (ha! I still can't believe anyone would believe that I should give advice on that topic!) and we went to see Wedding Crashers. I think she's going to do really well. She seems really prepared and capable. They even offered her a coaching position to bump up the salary!

Have you heard about A Treasure Trove? Subtitled "A Fairy Tale about Real Treasure for Parents and Children of all Ages... the story is a full of clues that would lead readers to a real treasure! One million dollars worth! In the story, a dark magical cloud turns insects into crystal gems... in real life, the author hid 13 gold hearts in various state parks in the US. Each heart represented an insect, which the finder could collect and keep. The last to be found, this summer, was the spider. The most expensive prize, it is valued over $400,000! Talk about incentive to read and use higher thinking skills to figure out the clues. FYI - the guys who found the spider are rocket scientists. How they figured it out is listed here. However the author (Michael Sadther) insists that "anyone" can find the clues.

Mr. Sadther is working on a second book - The Secrets of the Alchemist Dar - will contain clues to find 100 fairy rings. The rings are valued up to $3 million dollars. No date as to when it will be finished, but I'm guessing it will get as much fan-fare as a Harry Potter.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“They Don’t Get It”

I hear that a lot these days. It used to be mostly from various teens trying to negotiate the drama unfolding in their lives as they wandered into that no-man’s land between adult and child. These days it’s from adults trying to navigate the education scene these days. So many people talking and no one listening. The other day I was reading a post by a blogger I’ve been following for several years. Before there was such a thing as “blogging.” We all know spring is IEP review season. This blogger wrote about his daughter’s. Among the various elements, there was the discussion about the state assessment tests. She did not pass. There was discussion about what this means… and why said student needed to pass this test. Would she be taking a modified test? While reading, all I could think about was what would happen to that child as she entered middle school and high school. A history of not passing the assessment test vs. teachers who will now be evaluated on how many students pass t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Cruelest Month

I know T.S. Eliot favored April as the most cruel, but we teachers know that May is… even more so these days. Most importantly, it is the final testing month. National ‘assessments, state ‘assessments’, district ‘assessments’, school ‘assessments’… on and on. It’s impossible to actually get anything done. Toss in graduation activities, planning for the upcoming year and the 2011 bonus, lay-offs and transfers, and you have to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to save money by simply shutting down school entirely except for a few test proctors. Meanwhile, there seems an air of hopelessness permeating the education world. Plans to lay-off thousands are coming to fruition. Schools are being closed, despite protests. Charters are increasing where they can whether they should not. Unions have lost a lot ground and teachers are trying to decide if it’s even worth it any more to continue talking about education . ( not that I blame anyone for that, we all have lives to live ) For myself, I...
Post a Comment
Read more

Campaign Promises

While purusing the Sunday paper, I came across an article describing some local candidate forum held over the weekend. Apprently they either weren't able to say a lot or what they said was pretty boring because the article was skimpy on specifics. What caught my eye was a position of Randy Dutton. He wants "higher standards for teachers." My interest was piqued... what kind of standards? In looking at his website, apparently those standards will be raised by carrying a gun to school, finally; "full days of school"-whatever that means - personally I'd love to put in business hours. No more 5 am wake ups; increasing the number of k-8 schools - because those kindergartners don't swear enough; sending disruptive students to placed like Habit for Humanity - babysitting is what people volunteer for; and teaching more American History- too bad that with all the testing, no one ever gets past the Civil War... I'm not sure how any of these apply to teachers, ...
Post a Comment
Read more