write...now

Bad sign: not here because I have anything to share. Only here out of obligation and wanted to knock this out before spending the evening in my comfy chair catching up on TV and, if the spirit moves, watching some basketball.

You've been warned.

Final full day of classes today before spring break. Not that we're there yet - still four more days to go. But next week is whack: Black History Month speaker on Monday means I only see half my students and have 4+ hours (7:15 - 11:43) before I teach my first class (to clarify, Mason is aware Black History Month is in February, but we had a snow day when the speaker was originally planned and I have such an open time because I have first bell plan, which is when the speaker is planned); Tuesday is a "make-up" day for the speaker on Monday, which means I don't get a plan bell but do get to teach extended-remix classes for my first two bells to make up for not seeing them on Monday; Wednesday, which I nearly took as a personal day since I can't take off my birthday because it falls the day before a break, is our usual shortened primetime day; and Thursday, the day before break, we have a shortened schedule for an afternoon pep assembly (which, unfortunately, was not planned to celebrate my birthday. Oh well). All that is far more information than anyone needs about my coming week, but I thought I'd let you in on the craziness. Turns out doing a unit focused mostly on students being self-directed was a brilliant move on my part. Can't imagine trying to teach a "typical" lesson next week.

Because I am wonderfully blessed with four hours on Monday, I left all my grading at school and will tackle it on Monday. If I'm feeling up to it, I might try to grade the wiki discussions on Sunday night, but we'll see how I feel after the weekend.

This weekend is Jeremy's wake up in Mansfield/Bucyrus. Looking forward to seeing friends and remembering Jeremy (or is that Jerry?). Not looking forward to the 6+ hours in the car. Still hard to believe most days that he's gone. Just feels like he's moved away and I don't get to see him as often as I used to. Of course, going to the grave site kind of brings it all home. I do enjoy the fact that every time I've gone to the site, it's been mostly filled with laughter, which is what I think Jeremy would have wanted. Not sure how that goes over with the other visitors, but then, that fits Jeremy, too.

Lethargy is settling in - too much Jalapenos, not enough sleep. Time to excuse myself from my office and get comfortable in my comfy chair. On the playlist tonight: FlashForward (yes, I'm still watching), Important Things with Demitri Martin, Spartacus and, if I'm up to it, the first disc of the first season of The Wire. Never seen it. Afraid I might acquire a new addiction - just in time for spring break.

Not sure I'll get here tomorrow - leaving at 9AM and won't return sometime after midnight. We'll see how wired I am from the drive. In the mean time, do me a favor: find a friend you haven't talked to in a while and send them a message telling them how much they mean to you. Life's too short and people connect too rarely to let friendships die. Æ

tie-errrrd

I am so going to get sick. Three hours dance rehearsal, sweating like a stuck pig, only to walk out into the nearly freezing rain. Hot cold, hot cold. Bleah. And I can already feel a lack of sleep coming on. Too wired to sleep, too tired to do much else. Lovely.

You know, I spend far too much time talking about myself on this blog, never taking a moment to ask you, my reader, how you're doing. So how are you? Life been treating you well? Seems like a lot of people's worlds came to an end this week - lots of skies falling, lots of praying for Jesus to return, lots of websearches on moving to other countries. Trust me, I've been there. For about eight years. You eventually get used to it.

My friend Brad, who teaches down in Florida, sent me a vision of my eventual future this week. Seems the powers that be, in an attempt to "improve" schools, have decided the problem lies with the teachers. Our schools would be successful if it wasn't for those selfish, lazy, overpaid know-it-alls clogging up the works. So they're in the process of passing a bill to solve the problem. The magic bullet? More testing, of course, paid for by the taxpayers and the school districts to fill the bottomless coffers of the test designers. There's a special interest group no one ever talks about but which wields incredible power in government. Below are some of the provisions, along with the commentary I sent along with it in italics.

The Florida Senate is right now working on a bill - SB 6 - that will seriously affect educators in the state of Florida. Here's what it will do if passed:

1. Takes 5% of all operating funds from each school district (estimated to be in the $900-$950 million dollar range) to be used to develop the tests which will be used to measure student learning gains and then to pay any performance pay benefits required by the bill. In essence, all teachers are paying for the cost of the test development and performance awards which may become due under this bill.

Yes, once again, testing companies have sold lawmakers a bill of goods, claiming they are the only way for true education reform. Because how do we know students are learning unless they can fill in bubbles and pass a test? To steal money from school districts to develop these tests is downright criminal. But you know, corporations now have more rights than citizens. Shows where our priorities are.

2. Places all new teachers on annual contracts for the duration of their teaching careers and the contracts may be non-renewed for any reason or no reason without recourse.

I know why they want this - too much "dead weight" according to them. But why can't they take care of the problem without punishing all teachers? Nothing like working with no job security and nothing to protect teachers from being wrongfully dismissed or pushed out (which happens more often than you think).

3. Requires 50% of performance appraisals to be based on student learning gains based upon end of course tests which don't yet exist.

Unfortunately, this is the next wave of reform and I'm convinced the majority of the country will move to these end of course tests in the next five years. Mason has already started giving them. They claim it's to track students' progress, but we all know eventually it will be tied to our reviews. They also claim it will only be used to reward good teaching (think bonus), but I doubt it stays that way. The good news is, judging from our experience, the tests are way simple, which is usually how standardized tests work - they shoot for the lowest common denominator, which, judging from the test, is pretty low. Which is probably good because they'll have a lowest common denominator work force to teach to the test.

4. Removes local decision-making by elected school boards or through collective bargaining on matters which relate to wages, hours andterms and conditions of employment.

Yes, by all means, let's take this out of local hands, who might actually have an understanding of their district's population and its needs, and give it to ...who? State officials? Some new bureaucracy? Brilliant.

5. Prohibits recognition of years of service or advanced degrees in determining teacher salaries.

I...have no idea what to say. How would this help? What problem would this solve? How is experience and education a bad thing, especially in education? Oh right, we want to base teacher salaries on how their students do. So are we going to do that for all professions? If a doctor's patients don't stay healthy, will we dock their pay? If a politicians constituency continues to break the law, could we demand they return their paychecks? Just checking.

6. Permits non-renewal of a teaching certificate if a teacher cannot demonstrate student learning gains in 4 of the preceding 5 years.

Again, we're back to tests being the "magic cure" for all of education's ills. Gotta hand it to the testing companies - they learned well from their teachers how to manipulate the system through propaganda. This is the problem when decisions like this are made by politicians who have only tangential connection to education and not by educators themselves. Frustrating. Wish they'd listen to educators, those actually, you know, teaching. I don't have solutions to all the problems, but I know bad solutions when I see them.

Look, I realize schools aren't perfect and there are teachers who need to find their true passion in life instead of drawing a paycheck and screwing up students. But denigrating the entire profession because of a few bad apples is demeaning and ultimately going to harm the ones reformers claim they want to help the most: the students.

OK, that took much longer than I anticipated. Hopefully I didn't put you to sleep. Unfortunately, it didn't put me to sleep, either. I think there might be a basketball game on or something. Maybe that will do it. Night.

Æ

what's done is done

No beating myself up over missing the last few days. I know, I know, you're thinking, "Wait. Is this some impostor pretending to be Thurman. 'Cause he feels guilty like Kevin Smith tweets." Don't let this aberration throw you.Trust me, it's me.

Been an interesting week. And by interesting, I don't mean "Oh God, oh God, we're all going to die." OK, maybe not interesting. Odd? Does that work? Of course, my life is pretty odd anyway, so that doesn't help much. Ah, I've lost my adjectives. Screw it.

Been swimming through a sea of nostalgia this week. About a year ago, I gave my friend Steve all my old vinyl albums to rip into mp3s. They were sitting in my basement doing no one any good, but I couldn't just part with them. So he said he would rip them for me when he got the chance. Well, between foreign exchange students and adopting a son, he's been a bit busy. But on Monday he messaged me and told me he'd found a site I might want to check out: http://flipsidemn.blogspot.com/ So I did. And I was immediately transported to a time when I wore sleeveless shirts and headbands with no sense of irony.

I know this may be hard to believe, but I have not always been the indie musical elitist you see before you now. Back in junior high, I had a whole other obsession: Christian Rock. That's right boys and girls, I used to tow the line, refusing to purchase any music that didn't come from a Christian bookstore or wasn't featured in Campus Life magazine. In my defense, I stayed clear of bands that might be heard on what passed for Christan radio at the time. No Amy Grant. No Michael W. Smith. No Russ Taff. No, I stayed to the fringes of Christian music, which is why when I got older and moved from vinyl and tapes to CDs, I lost a lot of that music. Not like there was a lot of money to be made selling CDs by the obscure artists I liked.

But now, through this site, I've reliving my junior high days (ok, and some high school). Barnabas. Daniel Band. Undercover. Mad at the World. Messiah Prophet. Flock 14. The adult part of me wants to pick it apart, cringe at the derivativenes, mock the trite lyrics and bad theology. But the junior high me has been living it up all week. So strange to hear music I haven't heard for over 20 years. Scares me how many of the lyrics I still know by heart. I can't wait to get the batch my friend Steve has downloaded for me. Reminds me of a more innocent time, a time when the world wasn't quite so complicated and faith was as easy as yelling "God Rules!" at a concert.

Sometimes I wish it was still that easy.

The other event causing nostalgia overdosing this week is the loss of my favorite radio station - WOXY. I discovered WOXY about the time I realized listening to secular music wasn't going to send me to hell. Back then it was an over the air station from Oxford that barely reached Dayton. I was lucky if I got to listen to a whole song without static breaking in, especially if I was in my car. Even today, when I hear some of those songs I first experienced through WOXY, I half expect a burst of static to drown out the chorus. The music they played not only shaped my musical tastes during college, but in many ways sharpened my critical ear and broadened my horizons. I wouldn't be the person I am today without WOXY.

Now there's hope it will rise again - it's done so before, transforming into an internet only station. But until then, I will mourn the passing of such an important part of my life.

I have nothing else I want to share, so I think I'm going to try and go to bed early tonight, though last time I did that, I woke up in the middle of the night. I think my days of sleeping for more than six hours at a time are in the past. Guess the only thing left is to get my AARP card and start eating at Golden Corral at 4:30 in the afternoon.

Only one more week in my 30s. *sigh*

Æ