On The Run!

Today I...

1) Woke up worried about why I didn't get a call in the middle of the night.
2) Taught my very first lesson to public school kids.
3) Went to the store to get Fat Tuesday supplies.
4) Went in and out of road blocks on the way to and from the store.
5) Had SWAT Team search my car for raving mad escaped convict (or something like that).
6) Came home and ate chocolate.

Yes it's true, though. There is an escaped criminal on the loose and the road blocks are ONE BLOCK from my house. It's a large block, mind you, perhaps the size of two or three regular blocks, but still!

If you want to know what's happening click here for updates.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/28/2006 04:15:00 PM | (1) comments

(Not Titled)

.






O Love, Perpetual Mystery!
O Ever Blooming Flower!
Every petal unfolding
Revealing endless petals below.
And either sweet or sour,
Like a mirror, we are shown...

Whether we have chosen,
And choosing - thus become,
Every petal unfolding
Revealing Mystery beyond.

(c) Lois Johnson 2006

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/25/2006 10:04:00 AM | (0) comments

Barge In Where You Don't Belong

"But then the Church came to the front, with an ax to grind; and she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat - or a nation;

She invented "divine right of kings," and propped it all around, brick by brick, with the Beatitudes - wrenching them from their good purpose to make them fortify an evil one;

She preached (to the commoner) humility, obedience to superiors, the beauty of self-sacrifice;

She preached (to the commoner) meekness under insult;

Preached (still to the commoner, always to the commoner) patience, nonresistance under oppression...

Even down to [the nineteenth century] that poison was still in the blood of Christendom..."

Also, taken from the preface of the above book...

"That the executive head of a nation should be a person of lofty character and extraordinary ability was manifest and indisputable;

That none but the Deity could select that head unerringly was also manifest and indisputable;

That the Deity ought to make that selection, then, was likewise manifest and indisputable;

Consequently, that He does make it, as claimed, was an unavoidable deduction."

~Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1889.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/22/2006 10:30:00 PM | (0) comments

Fluff, The Magic Drag

"Differentiation"

Also known as Fluff, the Magic Drag, the education system's new pet.

Here is a quote concerning the definition of differentiation.

The model of differentiated instruction requires teachers to be flexible in their approach to teaching and adjusting the curriculum and presentation of information to learners rather than expecting students to modify themselves for the curriculum...Differentiated Instruction is a teaching theory based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse students in classrooms.

~taken from: http://www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_diffinstruc.html

What this means, practically speaking, is that teachers are required to consider such things as Multiple Intelligences, Bloom's Taxonomy, culture, race, gender, and ability and thus create several lesson plans for one subject.

Example: You're teaching the geography of India.

Option One: Students must correctly label the cities of India on a map and color it.

Option Two: Students must accurately calculate how long a trip from Madras to Calcutta would take - on a train, in the rain, with a goat and then a boat.

Option Three: Students must research the topography of India, build a model, bring it in to class and give a lecture on how environment affects culture and the socio-economic impact of globalization.

The students, of course, will tend to choose the option that fits their ability level best (cough, cough). The teacher then supervises this chaos. Then the 99% of the students finish their colored map and turn them in, while the 1% presents their mini-lecture and at the end of the day, those who did the map are equally as likely to get an 'A' as the one who spent ten hours creating a miniature of the country of India.

Now you may wonder why we would do this. What is the goal? Well, that is the question put forth in one the differentiation workshops I attended. Here was the situation presented:

A teacher of an English Writing class had a student who had difficulty writing. She asks how she should differentiate for this student. The answer is that she might consider allowing the student to dictate - either into a tape recorder on in person - what that student would have originally wrote. The writing teacher cautiously poses this timid question,

"I should do that in a writing class?"

The answer, given with a smile, a laugh and a shrug was,

"Differentiation!"

And then, the question put back to the writing teacher:

"I mean, what is the goal of your English classes?"

The writing teacher responds, "To make them feel good about English and to advance them to the next year."

Yes indeed. That was the correct answer. Followed up by reminding us that the most important aspect of the classroom was relationship between the teacher and the individual student and, once again, the classroom goal is to make the student "feel good about the subject."

Differentiation helps us meet that goal, so I think we may safely assume that the goal of differentiation is to make the student feel good as well.

From the above article, here are some more quotes.

"While no empirical validation of differentiated instruction as a package was found for this review, there are a generous number of testimonials and classroom examples, authors of several publications and Web sites [that] provide, while describing differentiated instruction. Tomlinson [the author of education books] reports individual cases of settings in which the full model of differentiation was very promising. Teachers using differentiation have written about improvements in their classrooms."

And...

"...Based on this review of the literature of differentiated instruction, the "package" itself is lacking empirical validation. There is an acknowledged and decided gap in the literature in this area and future research is warranted."

So there we have it. There is no research to support the effectiveness of differentiation (though we may question whether or not we care to have effective differentiation based on its goal) and yet teacher evaluations (the thing that keeps teachers employed and dictates their salary) include a section in which the teacher is required to show that he/she "differentiates" in his/her classroom.

And, to think, the only "teacher strikes" I know of are conflicts between union pay and schoolboard budgets...

I don't want anyone to ever suggest that it would be a good idea for me to be a teacher.

Here's another quote:

What does it profit a person to gain the whole world [make 28,000 a year] and lose their soul?

(For those interested, I did find one article opposing differentiation. Here it is.)

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/21/2006 11:32:00 AM | (0) comments

Balem's Mute Ass, Christ The Plymouth Rock And Other Such Happenings

I first noticed Sam the Grocery Store Man a couple of years ago.

A scruffy redhead wearing those "intellectual / reading style" glasses, he was the perpetual entertainer for those who graced his checkout stand. Quick and efficient at his job, he effortlessly conversed with his customers about all manner of things. He was kind yet inquisitive, soft spoken but clear and modest but comfortable. Above all, though, he was incredibly quick and witty, and if the customer didn't leave laughing, they were laughing by the time they made it to their car.

It just takes some of us longer...

So I developed a "crush" on Sam the Grocery Store Man. I was seized with the desire to ask him out for coffee - if for no other reason, to figure out why were not already friends - but the results were a bit more like a seiz-ure. Not the grand mal flavor, with convulsions and such, but the kind where you just go blank and stare and drool a bit. One failed attempt left me with head in hands, while my diploma in communication mocked me from the wall.

Soon after, he disappeared, which was just as well for I was avoiding his lane with the type of zeal that brought forth language from the unlikely mouth of Balam's ass. Too bad I wasn't operating in it when I tried to ask him out to coffee...

Regardless, I had long since forgotten Sam the Grocery Store Man when suddenly he reappeared - wire rimmed glasses and the green apron of the goddess. I gulped. Just how bad did I want that Caramel Macchiato?

I summoned up the courage and ordered my drink.

"That'll be $3.13."

"Oh, is it possible to ring up these other three things here?"

"Sure... Ok, that'll be $16.20 - the year they landed at Plymouth Rock."

How could I not laugh at that?! So I asked him what other dates he had stored away in his head. He effortlessly obliged me and with a sheepish grin began rattling off various other dates concerning King William and Charlemagne, atomic bombs, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and others.

Snap!

The lid is on the cup, he reaches out to pass it to me...

"Zero..."

"I'm sorry?"

"Jesus is born."

Having lived here in this Reformed Church culture, I furiously attempt to repress in that moment the response "He is born indeed!" But in less than a second (sweet mercy from heaven) I get it.

1620 - Plymouth Rock.

Zero - Jesus is born.

I think I'm in love...


(This is a mostly fictional work based loosely on actual encounters. If you are Sam the Grocery Store Man, please don't sue. If you're a friend of mine, please save your time and energy and don't try to find him or set me up with him! All rights reserved...or whatever they say. The opinions expressed here...)

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/19/2006 10:25:00 PM | (2) comments

Highway Robbery!

Internet *Super* Highway, that is!

Do this! It's fun! Git 'choo one too!

Johari Window

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/14/2006 03:38:00 PM | (1) comments

Happy Valentines!

(I love you too, Peter!)


"H'm!" said Wimsey. "If that's the way your mind works, you'll be a writer one day."

"Do you think so? That's what I want to be! But why?"

"Because you have the creative imagination, which works outwards, till finally you will be able to stand outside your own experience and see it as something you have made, existing independently of yourself. You're lucky."

"Do you really think so?" Hilary looked excited.

"Yes - but your luck will come more at the end of life than at the beginning, because the other sort of people won't understand the way your mind works. They will start by thinking you dreamy and romantic, and then they'll be surprised to discover the you are really hard and heartless. They'll be quite wrong both times - but they won't ever know it, and you won't know it at first, and it'll worry you."

"But that's just what the girls say at school. How did you know?...Though they're all idiots - mostly, that is."

"Most people are, " said Wimsey, gravely, "but it isn't kind to tell them so."

~Dorothy L. Sayers, from The Nine Tailors, a Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 2/11/2006 02:20:00 PM | (0) comments