Spring Break

Sorry to all my Profs, I'm not missing school. I do, however, miss my students. I saw one of them walking the other day, I didn't want to scare him so I refrained from rolling down my window and hollering at him. He is so funny. He's middle eastern, and I'm pretty sure he has been in the country less than two years. I think his parents must be freaking out as he wears rock t-shirts in the vein of Tool, Korn, and other heavy headbanger stuff. He wears black and even paints his fingernails black. Can you imagine coming here from a relatively conservative country and your child going totally headbanger. It's hard enough for me and my kid grew up here. I don't censor my kid, but sometimes I wonder if that's the best decision. Oh my son has never painted his nails black, and he listens to all kinds of music, sometimes I don't approve, but I keep it to myself. I let him know if I feel music is sexist or racist. I cannot abide hate or misogyny. He's pretty good about censoring himself in that regard.
Well the husband has his Harley. He is sooooo happy. He goes out to the garage just to look at it, that is when he's not riding it. I now know the meaning of Hog heaven.
Hey Bernie I'm a little intimidated by the powerpoint thing. But then aren't I intimidated by most of this techie stuff. Oh and thanks for letting me know about the Lederer thing at the Don Powell. I got to see about an hour of it. He was great, but the part I liked the best was when he said something to the effect of; "Congratulations you all speak 300 languages, it's called English." I cracked up. I'll have to tell that to my ELLs.
Finally bought the one and only CD by Frou Frou. I'm really digging it. Bought my husband the new Jack Johnson CD.
Just heard the drummer from Crowded House died. He was only 46. Feeling more sad than mean, out for now.

Bored

I'm ready to get going. I guess in the interim I'll talk about music. I have been spending some quality listening time with my new Flaming Lips CD. My husband asked me if I knew where the band was from and listed some exotic places as well as OK city. That was so out of context I chose Oklahoma. He said yeah, what else is there to do there but make good music.
I'm also listening to the soundtrack from the movie "Smoke". It's a great little film starring Harvey Keitel and Forrest Whitaker. The sound track has some stuff by Jerry Garcia before he left us all behind. Also some stuff from Tom Waits a SD native son. Well Bernie has spoken, so mean as ever is checking out.

CAHSEE Redux

Well, I spoke with several of my students who took the test. Some felt confident, other's bemoaned the difficulty. The Kurdish student I mentioned in an earlier post said it was hard. I asked him about the essay section, and he said he did not even try to write the essay. Guess what folks, this young man is not incapable of passing this test if indeed it were offered in his native language. In just a year this young man has accomplished huge strides in learning the English language. Where the essay is concerned I'm not even sure the prompt would be culturally relevant to him. I asked the department chairperson how the test would translate with regard to student assessment. The reply was that it is unclear. What if a student passes all of their required courses and not the exit exam? What if a student failed all required courses and passes the exam? Is the test relevant to college acceptance when community colleges do not require a high school diploma to gain entrance? These were questions the chairperson proposed with no idea what any of this testing means. So why test? Generally students take on the role they choose in life, college, jobs etc. Without regard to how well they did in high school. I think the test is negative and discouraging and plants the idea in the minds of young people that they are "less than". In truth they are full of potential, that may not translate to what some group of business people and educators define as acceptable. AGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@##$%$%^^&.
The Mean One is about to explode. Enough frustration for one day.

Active Learning

Well long time no blog. Life gets particularly crazy at times. I have two major assignments due this week. One is done the other has been procrastinated upon almost to death. I have it in my head and my school is on spring break, sooo more time is available for finishing up. Is that terrible or what? I mean, I don't want to know if my students do that when I am teaching them, I know they will.
Went to look at Harley Davidson motorcycles with my husband. He has always had a bike, (has never had a Harley) until the last few years and he's jones'n. He is so excited. We picked out one we could afford. We figure why pour our dollars into Chevron with no return on our money. I hate paying it out to the oil companies. We didn't make the purchase, giving ourselves a week to think about about it, but I can't see us not heading back to the dealer to finalize the deal Saturday.
Saw a movie "Code 48" Interesting futuristic love story. One line really grabbed me. The woman asks her love interest if he has children. He says yes and she asks him if the child is very special. Of course he responds that yes the child is special. She replies, of course all children are so very special. She then says how it is curious that all of these special children grow up to be such ordinary adults. I really liked that line.
Okay, what is active learning? I invision it as all parties involved participating in each other's education. I invision that prior to a lecture I would have my students bonepile. Bonepiling is introducing a subject and allowing the students to call out words or phrases that relate to the topic. At the point I have a proper bonepile I can see what we already know as well as what we need to know. I can then progress into the lecture. I do like the idea of breaking at strategic points to allow formulation of ideas the students can share at the end of the lecture, either in groups or classwide or both. This allows the students to teach me and their classmates. I also see as part of homework, that each student formulate one question on the study topic. I will then use these questions as well as my own for assessment purposes. This way each student can contribute what they feel is important about the lesson. It is good to know some techniques to enhance lectures, thanks Bernie. (I bookmarked the site you provided, it will be good for future reference.)
Time is just flying by.
I picked up an older disc from the Flaming Lips "Soft Bulletin". It has a couple of bug songs on it. I like that. I really like bugs, not all bugs just the beneficial type, like Praying Mantis. Once my husband, an intimidating looking man entered our local pharmacy. He said everyone looked at him with shocked expressions. He said he was used to people looking at him warily, but this was excessive. A young woman pointed to his shoulder. There was the largest Praying Mantis my husband had ever seen sitting on his shoulder. He smiled at the huge creature and calmly said, "I told you to wait outside." He then walked the creature out of the store. Everyone was pretty tickled about that. Me too.
Mean One out

Not a happy day (somewhat)

At least 14 of the ELL students I tutor took the CAHSEE today. Don't ask me what I think of standardized testing. I'll tell you anyway. When schools, teachers students and their parents are standardized then, and only then, are standardized tests applicable. One of the students barely has his English skills in place. He is from Kurdistan. I doubt his language was accomodated on his test. He does not even share dialect with most of the other Kurdish students. I am not a happy Meanie. End of Tirade.

I should be taking a nap

But here I am. I just read a few blogs recommended by Bernie that were written by teachers. What is it with English teachers and football. Aren't we supposed to be more cerebral than that. But nooooo, we love football. I'm not going to name the team I generally root for as it may tend to incriminate me. I did find the blogs interesting, but I think I have the most in common with the football (Eagles) fan. I do see such amazing things in the school I am with. I get to be the proverbial fly on the wall. I am the extra pair of hands when an ADD student needs some one on one. I am trusted, I was after the first three days. I love these kids, every one is filled with potential and I see my job as pulling, no, yanking that potential to the surface. I know it will not always be possible, but I sure as heck am going to try. I say the word college, I tell students they can get there. One of the students likes to doodle basically what is graffiti lettering. It's good. It's artistic. I told him about a community college with a great graphic arts program. He doesn't need to think about a university. He may be inspired to that goal someday. A small step (push) in the right direction can make all the difference to this young man. I don't think anyone has mentioned the word college to him. I've heard some talk that he will probably end up in a gang. I think he is better than that and he has a talent. After I talked to him about graphic arts he seemed to step up a bit to the challenge of learning English. Why not, now he maybe sees a reason for it. He even shows me his completed assignments. I'm so proud of him. One young girl was reading Roald Dahl's Skin. I asked her if she was going to college. She didn't think so. I told her anyone who reads Roald Dahl has to go to college. She just smiled at me indulgently. She would love studying Literature, I just know it. I feel like a kid in a candy store (do you think I use too many cliches?) Maybe I should say I feel like an artist with unlimited time and canvas. Can you have too many metaphors or similes?
Cliche=commonplace platitude. Platitude=trite remark. Hmmmm I don't think I was being trite, It didn't feel particularly tritish.
Anyhow here's some news from the six disc ( by the way, the football fan loves music too) I have added the new Chemical Brothers "Galvanize" to my collection. It is getting a lot of play on the six disc. Also this Jules guy who collaborated with some other artist to put together some old torch type songs. It's okay. And lastly The Why Store. They do some ballady old timey rock and roll kind of stuff. The lead singer has this great deep gravel pit voice. Love that. Almost reminiscent of Joe Cocker. A tad more controlled. Well love to all and peace, or as we said in the 70's "peace, lub dub"

For Pete's sake Bernie, now you want funny?

So you want funny stories. I don't have many jokes that aren't archaic.
Okay I like this story, I have several, but I'll start with this one. It's short.
I had the opportunity to work with young children that were around seven or eight years old. We were discussing dreams. One little redhead piped in with her dream. She stated that her dream was somewhat frightening and that it was about aliens. My science fiction mind popped into action, and I explained to the child how her dream may have seemed frightening, but it was only a dream. I tried to reassure the child by explaining aliens were imaginary and usually part of movies or TV shows. She looked up at me earnestly with big blue eyes and argued, " No they are real! My daddy works with them all of the time!" I was taken back a bit before I remembered her father worked as a border patrol agent. Yes folks, context is everything.
When I want to smile I just remember this story. It has to do with size and gender.
I was leaving my place when I saw a very tall, very structurally sound CHP officer ticketing my neighbor's car for towing. I asked him why, and he very gruffly explained that we had to park horizontal to the curb. We had assumed since the road recessed into our property we could park as we pleased on private property. He assured me that the indent was indeed part of the city street. I tried to further defend my neighbor by explaining that he was a police officer for the city. He responded by churlishly explaining that my neighbor the officer was especially without excuse. So I offered to go get the neighbor. The hulking officer shrugged his response. The neighbor went out to his offending car and heatedly discussed the situation with no positive results. He made a purposeful commentary on the attitude of the CHP to me as he went back into his home for some paper work. I returned to the street and looked up at the imposing man and realized that he had a smear of lipstick on his cheek. I told him so. He shrank and demanded, "No there is not!" He completely fell apart and denied the existence of the smear even as he reached up to rub it off. Funny, he knew right where it was. He ran to his car and looked in the side mirror. He rubbed the spot even more aggressively. He stood back up to his full stature and smiled like a twelve year old and said. "There better not be!" He then yanked open his car door, jumped in and sped off without leaving the ticket. I stood astonished as my neighbor returned. We shrugged and went about our routine. Later I learned that it was against procedure to have something such as peach lipstick on your face while in uniform. Wow, must be some heavy penalty to make a hugely full grown man shrink and run from a four foot eleven inch woman. Mean little woman.
Bye for now.

You don't want to know what I'm thinking right now

I just spent about twenty minutes on an entry that was totally deleted by a pop-up from my web sweeper service. Heaven help me. The difference between what ? Natives and Aliens (I feel more like an alien than an immigrant). It's a culture thing. Some people take to a new culture easily, some are not so easily assimilated, and some resist completely. Age doesn't matter except in the sense that if you grow up in a new culture, you don't really know how the previous culture functioned, the benefits or difficulties. I have friends older than I am who love all of the new technological advances, I am a little overwhelmed by it, my son finds it both stimulating and relaxing ( I can think of nothing relaxing about it), and my husband thinks you carry the mark of the beast if you can navigate all of this stuff (although recently he has acquired both an Xbox and a Playstation). The students I work with have no idea that people actually got along very well without video games, or digital media altogether, but I have noticed many of them enjoy reading. One of the young men in the class actually ordered The Count of Monte Cristo from the book club. It is a huge tome. I showed some amazement at this and he replied, "I really want to read it." Bless his heart. Actually many of my friends who enjoy the techie stuff are actually very prolific readers. Well there it is, culture, or maybe I didn't answer the Alien/native thing at all.
My daughter left a phone message for me today. My seven year old granddaughter Zoe now weighs 43 pounds. This may not seem like such a great achievement to most, but Zoe has Cystic Fibrosis. Every pound is a milestone. CF was a pretty scary thing to us at first. It is what you do not expect and you know nothing but the worst. Then you learn and everyone goes on living. Life is a fatal illness, some of us are more critical than others. That may sound pessimistic, but it's not. We have a greater appreciation for life because of Zoe. We count each day as particularly precious. Zoe has missed a lot of school. She only attended two weeks of first grade. Not because she was sick, but she developed something many disabled kids face, school phobia. Her teacher made her share her gastrointestinal tube with the class. A G-tube allows Zoe to receive nutritional fluid when , or should she become to sick to eat. It looks a little like a plug on a beach ball. We call it her plug. You have to have a sense of humor about these things. Well anyway the response was not good. Kids threatened to pull it out and were inordinately curious. This action by the teacher actually put Zoe at risk for her physical safety. Please, please, please, as teachers do not bring attention of any kind to a student's disability. In a happier year Zoe is learning to read, last night she spelled the word "read" to me. Of course her favorite author is Theodore Giessel, (Dr. Seuss). I like reading the poems of Shel Silverstein to her. She just looks up at me like I am the craziest person she knows, she may be right.
Cystic Fibrosis=a hereditary disease of the exocrine glands, usually resulting in respiratory infections and impaired pancreatic function.
Exocrine glands= duct system which functions to move secretions through the body.

http://www.cff.org

I got to watch some Chaldean students practice their dance routine during lunch at the high school yesterday. They will be dancing in the school's cultural program in a couple of weeks, I could watch them forever, simply marvelous. So get out from behind the machine some time and attend a cultural fair. So you are ordered by the mean one.