Can you believe . . .

. . .there's a logical explanation for this?



Anyone care to take a guess?

Would you?

Jenny D has a couple of discussions going about teaching and the nature of teaching. Jenny usually provides thoughtful posts for her readers. Unfortunately, the same can not be said of some of the commentors. Below is some of the typical, emotion charged, factless beliefs of some members of the "reform" crowd:

Let's be honest, Ed Schools primarily appeal to those with low opportunity costs (i.e., the not very bright) in other professions.

Ed schools are necessary to help foster the illusion that K-12 teachers are professionals on par with engineers, doctors and lawyers.

Teachers are the low performers on the totem pole of college graduates. They have the worst test scores and the least competence.

It's purely and simply a lie for you to act as if teaching quality matters when the education program is an excuse to shovel illiterates through the system and pretend they graduated with some sort of ability.

Most of the kids in the LA school districts are stuck with teachers who couldn't reach 500 on an individual SAT section and almost certainly didn't pass the CBEST

experienced educators by and large are only skilled at teaching smart kids and some kids who are perhaps less smart but who get help outside of school.

All this had led me to think about my own two children and their future careers. I will not encourage them to become teachers. There is too much disrespect and downright lies about teachers being circulated by politicians and the general public to make it an attractive career choice.

Would you encourage your children to become teachers?

Dancing Administrators

From Joe Thomas over at Shut Up and Teach comes this hilarious video spoof of the cell phone commercial (can't remember which company).

Click here

As Joe Thomas said, trust me. Those of you who have administrators who seemingly have no purpose other than to annoy or keep you from actually teaching will find it especially funny. And for those of you who know what a "walkthrough" is, you have my sympathy.

Wrath of the Soccer Moms

Via the Texas Observer comes the story about the Soccer Moms, a.k.a. the Texas Parent PAC, that took down supreme public school hater Kent Grusendorf. Grusendorf was the number one target of the Texas Parent PAC, as he had treated

school superintendents and PTA members as if they were trifling little annoyances, going so far as to introduce a group of PTA members about to testify at a committee hearing as “a look behind the Iron Curtain.”

The article also contains an absolutely great cartoon, showing soccer moms and kids pulling down a statue of the grand exalted dictator the honorable Kent Grusendorf , ala Saddam.<

Grusendorf is a typical lying sack of #@$$, claiming he wants to give parents a choice when what he really wants is to line the pockets of his friends at the expense of Texas schoolchildren. Parents who disagree with him are labeled as left wing nut jobs.

Ahhhh, Spring Break

Spring Break is over and it was a very relaxing time. We spent two days at Self Creek Marina on Lake Greeson in Arkansas. We also spent two days on Lake Quachita near Hot Springs. I took a great deal of pictures, mostly of family members, but I am especially proud of the picture shown below.

I took this picture on the dock of the NorthShore Marina at Lake Quachita. I waited patiently for the fisherman and his boat to drift towards the center of the area in the background. Unfortunately, just as he reached the center the bow of his boat had drifted so that it pointed away from me. When I downloaded the pictures to my computer I found I really liked this one.

Snubbed

In the last month or so I've had my writing snubbed a couple of times. First, I noticed that Education News was looking for technology writers so I submitted a couple of samples of my work, my post on readability scores using MS Word and another on a very strange technical problem and how to solve it. I have not heard one word back. The professional thing to do was at least let someone know you weren't interested.

Just this past week I submitted a post for the 57th edition of the Carnival of Education and was snubbed for that too.

Good thing I have a Y chromosome and I think I'm the world's greatest teacher/writer/lover/rc pilot etc. etc. etc.

Grusendorf goes down!!!!

Kent Grusendorf, the anti-public school/charter crusader who is the head of the Texas House Committee on Education has lost in the Republican primary for his district. Grusendorf is almost singlehandedly responsible for making sure Texas schools are perpetually underfunded . Stories will follow later.

Over at Joanne Jacobs I managed to get in another pissing match, but this time I didn't even know I was involved! In a post entitle, "Out of Control" a group of "reformers" started hurling insults my way when I hand't even commented on the story. Ah, gotta love that "compassionate conservative" crowd!

Whatever happened to "slower traffic keep right"??

Ok, this is not an educated related topic, except for the fact it effects my morning drive, but what happened to the old traffic rule of slower traffic stays to the right?

Almost my entire trip is on a 4 lane highway and it ALWAYS seems to work out that some idiot in the left hand lane, generally doing about 5 miles per hour less than the speed limit, manages to keep perfect pace with someone in the right lane. These "obliviots" (not my term but wish I had thought of it) do not respond to flashing headlights or riding nearly up on their bumpers.

Sure, I may suffer from mild bouts of road rage, but I think most other drivers are to blame for it. If they just get their cell-phone talking, driving right next to someone, putt-putting selves out of the way I wouldn't have to get so mad about it.

Here's my solution: a constitutional amendment that allows your to ram from behind anyone doing less than the speed limit in the left hand lane. Who's with me on this one???

Whew, I feel a little better.