Wednesday, 25 February 2015 at 2h 10m 30s |
My Thoughts about teaching for today -- with special guests |
The idea of standardization is so that computer and textbook companies can make a lot of money by
selling standardized products to TFA 3-year teachers. TFA is "Teach For America" which is a Temp
Agency of teachers that various and sundry school districts can hire or "pay" TFA to have for a 3
year cycle, after which the teachers are gone. The idea is to take recent college graduates and
have them do a 3 year stint to say ... pay off their enormous college debt and then they can enter
the work force or job pool after their "service". Which is ridiculous, because 70% or more of these
TFA teachers move on to another career, and so all that money is wasted ... BECAUSE TEACHERS ARE AN
INVESTMENT. TEACHING IS AN ART AND NOT EVERYBODY IS AN ARTIST. THAT'S WHY PEOPLE PAY FOR ART.
If you hire a good teacher, the "standards"
will be taught. Micro-management is what businesses do in order to intimidate the lower rung
employees and have them compete against each other. Education is about cooperation. If we create
cooperation the "problem" of student's learning a minimum of curricula will solve itself.
The movement for standardization is a bait and switch. They sell you on the "we just want to ensure
students are getting a minimum" so they can implement the standardization. Then they hold the
standardization over your head and constantly move the yardsticks while beating you over the head
with unrealistic expectations. This movement is not about education.
My curriculum & instruction teacher was not necessarily teaching standardization as she was allowing
us young teachers to find our own methods and means of achieving the most beneficial learning
environment for the maximum amount of children. You nurture the flower to find it's own beauty.
Or as my long-time teaching friend and comrade Alyssa Jenkins says :
Teaching isn't paint-by-numbers any more than great art is paint-by-numbers.
Amen sister. Preach it.
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Friday, 20 February 2015 at 1h 6m 15s |
Lesson from a Dandelion |
The will to produce art, do your own thing, and/or be an exemplar of beauty is difficult and beset on
all sides by hardness and irrational cracks in the cosmos of human potential. Be strong. Stay
strong. Find consolation in the bigger picture. Seek truth in circumstances. Have faith in your own
inner strength. Never give up.
Take a lesson from this dandelion.
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Friday, 13 February 2015 at 2h 7m 18s |
School is not a business |
School is about raising and teaching children. It is not about spreadsheets or profit margins.
School is about instilling children with self-confidence and leadership skills. It is not about
becoming an employee or being managed by a boss to do a required task for the job that you are paid
to do. School is about love and learning. It is not about top-down management or following business
procedures and protocols.
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Thursday, 12 February 2015 at 2h 19m 3s |
Another stupid post |
I almost have 1,000 posts (892). So this is a stupid post to get closer to 1,000.
When I was younger (2001 - 2003) I had this goal of reaching 1,000 posts in my mind.
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Thursday, 12 February 2015 at 1h 53m 49s |
Simple |
Common core sucks. I will not speak easy about corporate America trying to destroy real education
and our wonderful public system of schools in this country because they misrepresent statistics and
data and are well funded by voracious ideologues who could care less about the long term damage to
our nation that this will create. I love my country. I love public education in the United States.
Therefore I will resist and detest all efforts that do anything at all to harm or destroy the things
I love. Simple.
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Sunday, 8 February 2015 at 19h 21m 2s |
Today's Winter Storm |
Notice the counter clock-wise spiral. Notice how all the rain drags on the back side of the spiral.
Hopefully this will improve our snowpack. But the rainless January brought the April 1st average
DOWN to 14% of normal. According to California Department of Water Resources.
There's probably more rain tomorrow and later in the week -- another counter-clockwise cell is
coming West of Hawaii. But we need at least 6 more storms of rain before we even get that average
close to 70% of normal. That's how serious this drought is folks.
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Wednesday, 28 January 2015 at 3h 48m 1s |
Get Your Trillions Back America |
I hate this commercial. More than 50% of Americans can easily do their taxes, and not have to pay a
middle man to figure it out for them --- just so that they can get "their billions back".
Oh and now that we are talking about the subject of "BILLIONS". Hows about the "TRILLIONS" that are
protected by the caymen island psuedo corporation loophole. Get your TRILLIONS BACK AMERICA. Force
corporate profits and filthy rich people to pay their fair share of taxes. They are not investing
it in jobs or creating a diverse economy. They are just simply putting it in tax shelters and using
their stash to live lucrative wasteful self-indulgent lives. Which is fine really. Honestly, if
that's how they want to spend their money, they have that right. But they also have the right to
pay their fair share of taxes, and they are NOT doing that.
This video erks me because it makes it seem like their are so many "BILLIONS' out there for average
everyday Americans, when actually, these people are just predators taking a few squid from such
average everyday americans for something they can do themselves, and in the bigger picture really
has such a tiny miniscule impact when compared to the immense savings if our government ever decide
to enforce the tax laws on corporations and the filthy rich.
Because everyday Americans would pay half the amount of taxes if corporations and the filthy rich
would ever pay their fair share !!!!
But no .... you average everyday ordinary Americans gotta pay an immensely profitable corporate
called "H.R. Block" to know the insights and secrets on how to "get your billions back".
Do you realize that we are unique in the entire world on how taxes are collected? In other first
world nations, the government does your taxes for you. In other nations, if you disagree with your
taxes, you get to have an interview where you have the right to prove otherwise. In the USA
however, your money has already been taken, and therefore you have to find someway to finagle the
loopholes and tell the government how much they still owe you so you can get a check. It's a
pervertion leftover from the evolution of our government system in which government spending was
really a means of supporting a political party system .. akin to Tammany Hall in New York City. So
the collection of taxes has to become franchised to for-profit institutions, lawyers, and
accountants. A whole industry has sprawled around this dysfunctionalism.
This is not true in other nations. There is no middle man pretending to do you a wonderful service
by charging you money for doing what you could do for yourself if ... a) you did a small amount of
research , or b) if the government did your taxes for you.
But in the USA we have commercials and advertising to brainwash the citizens. And that's why this
perversion of economic common sense thrives.
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Thursday, 22 January 2015 at 4h 4m 10s |
My take on Abortion |
A mother will always have the choice to do whatever the mother decides to do. The issue is not
really about morality. The issue is about statistics. If you have a society that is open about
abortion, and does not penalize women who make this choice in their lives, THERE WILL BE
STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANTLY LESS ABORTIONS .. 75% LESS IN SOME CASES.
Education, information, free
services for female needs, and if necessary the right to choose abortion, actually results in less
abortions. THAT IS A FACT THAT HAS STOOD THE TEST OF TIME, AND WAS THE WINNING ARGUMENT IN THE
SUPREME COURT CASE "Roe versus Wade".
This is another false argument the elite use to divide our
nation into warring morality issues. It's sad. I'm crying as I type, because it never was an issue
until it got promoted in the 1970's by the ideological elite, stirring the middle class up to do
battle among themselves while they take over the government and dole out the national treasury for
themselves.
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Thursday, 22 January 2015 at 2h 53m 54s |
Global warming residues |
Do you see that rotating cell near Alaska at the top of this wind map of today?
Of course you do. That cell got created due to the effect of colder Northern air mixing with Warmer
Southern air. Right now the Arctic ice is diminishing so fast that the Arctic has less than half the
ice it used to have. Thus the colder air is more Northern than in the past. So that cell you see,
the one that spins the rain onto the west coast of North America, is about 1,000 or so miles more
North than it could be, would the Arctic ice not be less than 50%.
Hence, California now gets beset by the effect of the warm equatorial winds, which strongly blow
East to West and
dominate the Lower Northern Hemisphere wind patterns South and West of Baja California. (Did you
realize how long Baja California is? )
The result is that California gets clockwise wind cells now from January onward. The winds blow down
and force the rain up into Oregon, Washington, and Canada.
If we don't get any more significant rain before May, California is in serious trouble. We are at
16% of the April 1st average right now -- according to the California Department of
Water Resources.
All the life-long Californians that I know (some of whom are older than 60), all of them confess to
this current drought being worse than they have ever seen in their lifetime. Friends of mine coming
back from Tahoe recently, were "shocked" at how little snow there was where there had been plenty --
even as late as last year.
But don't worry, Global Warming is just a myth y'all.
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Monday, 19 January 2015 at 2h 20m 30s |
Behold the great mirror of thine self |
I have never had a problem with someone holding my face to a mirror ... because I figured
that this means either one of two things :
- they are correct, and I should be thankful for their willingness to attempt to help me out
with my own personal bullshit; or,
- they are completely off-base and are projecting themselves on me, in which case, they are also doing
me a favor, actually letting me know who they are themselves, in the guise of them saying it's all
about me.
LOL. It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned.
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