The Median Sib

Surfing blogdom again instead of sleeping. Found some good posts that are worth a look-see.

Are You Conservative has THIS post about rewriting history.

And the new issue (#44) of The Carnival of Education just came out. Once again, one of my posts is included. YEA! Go HERE to read all the great articles in this week’s carnival.

And for fun, check out Darren’s post of the greatest movie line of all time at Right on the Left Coast: View From a Conservative Teacher.

I hope everyone who visits THE MEDIAN SIB will also click on the link to Sanity’s Bluff which is on the sidebar. Sanity’s Bluff is written by a trucker who has strong feelings and opinions about what’s going on in the world. He definitely leans right and tells it as he sees it. Whether you’re on the right or on the left or in the middle, you’ll find something you can agree with or argue with on Sanity’s Bluff. Sanity’s Bluff also includes some great photos, art prints, cartoons and drawings to go along with the posts. What do you think of John Kerry? You’ll find one strong opinion HERE. And how about news reporting these days? He’s got an opinion about that, too.

Yesterday morning on my way to school I listened to the Steve Gill Show on WTN, 99.7. I have to admit that my feelings were hurt. Steve was talking about Williamson County School’s consideration of a balanced calendar. Steve does not like the idea.

A few weeks ago every school in our district had a mandatory faculty meeting where the proposed calendar was presented and we were given the opportunity to express our feelings about it and vote on it. The vote turned out in favor of it. Elementary teachers tended to vote for it. High school teachers tended to vote against it. The majority of the arguments against the balanced calendar centered around how it would affect high school athletic programs and band camp, and how it might negatively impact scores on college entrance exams.

Steve raged on about how our director was trying to push things through without giving anyone other than teachers the opportunity for input. Quite simply, he didn’t know what he was talking about. After the teachers voted, there was more discussion and then meetings were set up to get parent and community input. Via our new phone communication system, each family with children in the school system was notified of the proposal and how they could voice their views about it. A discussion board was set up weeks ago for teachers and administrators to debate the pros and cons of it. All along it was stressed that the proposal was simply that - a proposal. Not a done deal. The school district wanted discussion and input in order to make an informed and fair decision.

It’s fine to believe that a balanced calendar is a bad idea. There are many teachers who feel the same way. Here’s where Steve went too far, though. He went into a rant about how STUPID the teachers must be if they thought this NITWIT idea would result in fewer days of school. There isn’t a single teacher who believes that we would get more days off with the proposed calendar. We are intelligent, well educated people who work exceptionally hard at our jobs. Most of us could make much more money and have more opportunity for advancement if we had gone into another field. However, we chose teaching because we care about children and want to make a positive difference in their lives.

Another of Steve’s rants was about how many days off teachers get. He feels that teachers get too much time off. Remember the old joke: What are the three best reasons for being a teacher? June, July, and August! First of all, this past year teachers were back at school the first week in August. Secondly, teachers are ten-month employees. We are not paid for those two months off in the summer although most of us work many days during that time without pay.

So, lay off the teachers, Steve. The balanced calendar is a proposal, and everyone in the community has the opportunity to provide input. It isn’t being forced on anyone. It has been proposed, and now it is being discussed and debated. The final decision will be based on that discussion and debate.

In my never-ceasing crusade to keep my readership well-informed, I am providing documentation for a previous post of mine about the adhesive pest traps in my classroom. I took my digital camera to school today for my documentation effort. The photos show two of the five (that I’ve found) adhesive traps in my classroom. The others were in locations that were too difficult to reach for a photo - and I SURE wasn’t going to move the traps to a more photographic location. Lovely, isn’t it?

I only have five minutes between reading groups, but I had to log on quickly to share the following story.

My third graders were writing in their journals this morning. Jason wrote the following in his:

“Yesterday I pooted up the Chrismis lights. It was fun.”

I loved keeping a straight face and smiling as he eagerly shared his writing with the group. None of the other children noticed anything unusual about it. And haven’t we all felt like pooting up something every now and then?

Just got this from my friend, Dorothy, in Birmingham.

If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a totalof 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000. The rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000.That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our nation’s capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq. Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of Washington D.C.

I have NO idea if the statistics are true or not. Either way, I still love the logic. I heard a very similar comment on the radio the other day, except they referred to San Francisco’s murder rate instead of D.C.

I’m staying up WAY too late! I started surfing blogs, and suddenly several hours have passed! However, I had to go ahead and post the following item.

I saw this post by Darren at Right on the Left Coast: Views From a Conservative Teacher. Here’s an exerpt, although you’ll want to read the entire post.

So we trust teenagers to make some medical decisions for themselves (abortions) but not others (aspirin), and we don’t trust them to drink alcohol. We must keep secrets from their parents, but expect the parents to be responsible for them and their actions. And we help the children keep secrets from their parents. Wow!

Charmaine at Reasoned Audacity has this post related to the topic.