Since the Yankees demoralized the Boston Red Sox this weekend and for the past month. So to ease the pain, I have given all you Red Sox fans a gift here at RMTJ; SOXYCONTIN!!!
Enjoy!!!
Btw, Let’s Go Yankees!!!
I haven’t posted in forever and I know that you’ve all missed my stories from classroom. Like today in a parent-teacher-counselor conference when I told the parent: Your child needs to suck it up and drop the middle school behaviors.
But I digress… Today was the annual “Breast Cancer Awareness” assembly for the junior and senior girls. I’ve been to it - it’s good. They have young women who are breast cancer survivors talk about self exams, they have a powerpoint with pictures (hence no boys allowed). This year the assembly occurred during my planning period. I happened to wander into my friend’s AP Statistics class to talk to him about a freshmen he had last semester and the boys in there complaining about how they should have been allowed to go to the assembly, because boys can get breast cancer. My smart ass friend reminds them that based on the amount of breast tissue they have, statistically they’re not even close to the risk it poses to females. Then they start bitching about how they want an assembly about testicular cancer. To which I reply….
(more…)
I have heard it said a million times, “In a perfect world, we would pay teachers six figure contracts and professional athletes would hold bake sales to make ends meet.”
In a perfect world, I agree. But in our imperfect world of neverending budget cuts, it appears that when a teacher in a Suburban San Diego High School was told of more budget cuts, he took a new route to covering his out of pocket expenses. He is selling advertising on his exams! (click here to read article)
So when administrators at Rancho Bernardo, his suburban San Diego high school, announced the district was cutting spending on supplies by nearly a third, Farber had a problem. At 3 cents a page, his tests would cost more than $500 a year. His copying budget: $316. But he wanted to give students enough practice for the big tests they’ll face in the spring, such as the Advanced Placement exam.
“Tough times call for tough actions,” he says. So he started selling ads on his test papers: $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, $30 for a semester final.
San Diego magazine and The San Diego Union-Tribune featured his plan just before Thanksgiving, and Farber came home from a few days out of town to 75 e-mail requests for ads. So far, he has collected $350. His semester final is sold out.
Turns out that most of the ads are from parents but not all:
About two-thirds of Farber’s ads are inspirational messages underwritten by parents. Others are ads for local businesses, such as two from a structural engineering firm and one from a dentist who urges students, “Brace Yourself for a Great Semester!”
Principal Paul Robinson says reaction has been “mixed,” but he notes, “It’s not like, ‘This test is brought to you by McDonald’s or Nike.’ “
So my question is this: Is this novel idea/practice good or bad for the education system? And if this does become more than just a novel idea and knowing how strapped school budgets can be; does something like this start the education system sliding down the perverbial “slippery slope?”
And with that comes my annual griping about those damn schools who have not gotten on the Common Application. For those of you who graduated college more than 5 years ago, let me update you - The Common Application is ONE undergraduate application that is accepted to more that 350 colleges. Including Harvard and Yale. So here’s the griping: The following schools need to suck it up and use the common app, because either they ask the same freaking questions as the common app in a different order OR they want you answer specific questions about the kid, rather than attach a really well written letter that was proofread by terp20. Have you seen my handwriting? It’s bad. The letter would be easier on their eyes.
UPenn: You really think you’re so much better then Harvard and Yale that you need your own app? I think not. I am not answering all those questions on your form when I address them in my nicely typed letter.
Univ. of Maryland: *sigh*
MIT: see UPenn
I’m sure there are others, but that’s all I have based on the recommendations I am doing for kids applying early decision somewhere.
FYI, I don’t mind writing the letters. They’re good kids and they’ll all get in to good colleges. And thank you to the kids who kicked in the extra pennies for the self sealing envelopes. I appreciate not having to lick 12 envelopes for you.
Many of you know how proud I am of my alma mater. I had a lot of great experiences and met many of my closest friends, including my wife, Mrs. Jishman, there. Today marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of Brandeis University, and I’m more than a little bit proud of that fact. I wanted to share a few fun facts with our reading population, some of whom may not know these.
1.) Brandeis was the first, non-sectarian, Jewish sponsored university, but not the first university entity with the name Brandeis on it. The first institution with Louis D. Brandeis’s name on it was an upper west side high school named in his honor.
2.) There are more books written about Louis Brandeis, the Supreme Court Justice, than any other Associate Justice in the history of the United States.
3.) Brandeis has three chapels neighboring each other on Chapel’s Field. Regardless of the positioning of the sun, no chapel’s shadow will ever touch even the base stone of any of the others. Rumor has it, this was to signify that no religion was superior to any other on campus.
4.) WBRS was the first student run, community member participation encouraged radio station in Massachusetts. No non-students/alumni were allowed to run this station. It has no advisor nor staff oversight. (I’m rather proud of that fact.)
5.) In the 90’s sitcom Ned and Stacey, Stacey has a degree from Brandeis University. Debra Messing, who played Stacey, is a Brandeis alumna (1990). (Interesting sidenote, many people believe my sister, Jish-sis, looks like Debra Messing and thus nicknamed her Grace. This nickname did not stick for a variety of reasons.)
6.) Many celebrities have been linked to Brandeis for a variety of reasons: Alicia Silverstone, Woody Allen, Charlton Heston, Thomas Friedman, Robert Reich, Anita Hill, Ann Richards, Alan Greenspan, Shimon Peres, Mitch Albom, the creators of Friends, Boutros Boutros Ghali, and Abby Hoffman to name a few.
7.) Brandeis recently tore down the (now dearly departed) Ford Hall. Does your campus have a building that was taken over by 16 guys trying to prove a point during the 60s? I don’t think so.
8.) There’s a NASA research facility in the basement of the humanities quad. (Not sure if that one’s real.)
So, there’s a few things I am particularly amused and touched by. If anyone else has any, feel free to drop them here too.
So it’s June. The seniors are GONE. This is normally the time all the freshmen start acting like real humans and not the slime that represents a middle schooler. Not so much this year. Don’t get me wrong, 80% of my 9th graders have developed into tolerable, sometimes even likable, adolescents. The remaining 20% are, as Carlos Mencia would say, dee-dee-dee’s. I am trying to review for their final exam. 80% understand this is important. 20% are going, “Wait! We have a final in this class?? Snap!” Drastic times called for drastic measures. I made a new seating chart. I got a stack of referalls. I gave everyone their new seats.
20% Moron #1 goes, “I don’t want to sit there.” I go, “I’m not ASKING you to sit there. I’m telling you to sit there. This is not a democracy and we are not equals. You may chose to sit where I tell you or you can sit in your administrators office.” He moved.
Once everyone is seated, I took a referral, showed it to them, and proceeded to write my name, the date & period, and circled “class distruption.” I magnetized (is that a word?) it to the board and told them the first person to do anything that I deemed disruptive would have their name on it.
We review nicely for 5 minutes. Life is good. Then 20% Moron #2 begins bouncing a tennis ball. I ask him politely to put it away. He replied, “I will,” and continues to bounce it. Perhaps he thought I meant to put it away when he was done playing. Anyway, I make a big production of taking the referral off the board, writing his name on it, and replacing it with a fresh one. “Whose next?” I ask the class. They are silent.
We continue reviewing. 20% Moron #3 is asked to stop commenting on everything that is said. He cannot seem to do this. He gets his name on the second referral. Now the class, even the good kids, look a little scared. Good.
We make it to the end of the period without anyone else being stupid enough to act out. I go down to the freshman adminstrator and explain the situation. She agree they’re morons who don’t seem to understand that she and I are significiantly higher on the food chain then they are. She agrees they need some time apart from normal society and can spend a day in in-school suspension working on assignments they owe me.
Is it summer yet? 
MSNBC has this story this morning about a 19 year old professor:
World’s youngest professor can’t legally drink
Makes me feel a bit slow in my educational attainment and the relative slowness of becoming a professor (I was 29 when I was appointed).
CRAZY!!!
My parents forwarded this to me, I cannot attribute it because the author did not sign it…. therefore, I post it here as anonymous….. very funny, though.
A first-grade teacher, Ms. Brooks, was having trouble with one of her students. The teacher asked, “Harry, what’s your Problem?”
Harry answered, “I’m too smart for the 1st grade. My sister Is in the 3rd grade and I’m smarter than she is! I think I should be in the 3rd grade too!”
Ms. Brooks had had enough. She took Harry to the principal’s office. While Harry waited in the outer office, the teacher explained to the principal what the situation was. The principal told Ms. Brooks he would give the boy a test. If he failed to answer any of his questions he was to go back to the 1st grade and behave. She agreed.
I meant to post this on Monday but it has been an incredibly busy, busy week… and to be honest, I forgot. Josh T. had this idea that this little blog “about nothing” (sorry, do we have to pay royalties for that) would be a huge success.
Well, here we are two years later and we are chugging along. The ratings are so-so… and thank god we aren’t on network TV or we may have been cancelled 23 months ago…. but just in case you forgot, I bring you some of our posts from the past two years:
We Kicked off on Dec 3, 2005 with these:
Welcome everyone! (Josh, aka Jishman, summed up our sentiment here… trust us, rant away!!)
I have a question for all of the people who live in the Northeast: If you like living in a place because of the change in seasons and the various weather changes, why don’t you learn how to drive in various weather conditions?!
Why does snow and/or rain automatically mean that my four and a half mile commute to work will now take over sixty minutes?!
Here is my solution. Since we live in the wonderful world of the “tax and spend” northeast, I would like any legislator with the gumption to present a radical bill to suggest the following:
The State of xxxxx (pick a state, any state) will build a universal driving condition geodome/biodome (one of those things from the Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show) that will fall under the administration of the Registry of Motor Vehicles. All licensed driver’s will be required to pass a road test in summer, winter, fall and spring. The weather conditions will include snow, sleet, rain, ice, sun, mild flooding, etc… once a driver has passed the required driving test in each of these weather conditions, then and only then will the State of xxxxx issue a license to operate a vehicle within our state.
I know it will never happen but after an extremely long four and a half mile commute this morning, a person can dream.
It’s Monday morning. You just had a long weekend and well, the last place you want to be right now is at work. Well my Aunt Marie sent me a link to this wonderful web site that will alow you to have fun at work for a few minutes at a time. So when your boss isn’t looking or you should be working on a graduate school paper (Jish, you know you should be working on that paper) but you don’t want to and need a diversion, click on the following link and have some fun at work:
We have this great web application at my school where I can email all the parents (who have registered for the service) of my students. Before each test or quiz for my freshmen classes, I send out a email to the parents telling them the date of the test, what sections of the book it will be on, what the review assignment is, and to remind their child to bring their graphing calculator and pencil the day of the test. My hope is that these emails will spark a dialog between parents and teenagers about what is going on school. And of course, it doesn’t hurt my ego at all that I always get a bunch of thank you emails from the parents for the information.
However, in the past 36 hours I have learned that the apple doesn’t fall from the tree. I get emails from 2 of less then brilliant students’ parents that go something like this:
Does **** have a graphing calculator? Where can I buy one? I need to be informed of any materials needed. I’m not able to purchase things on short notice.
Umm…. are you kidding me??? Let’s address the problems with this email one by one:
1. I don’t know if your child has a calculator. Hey!! Why don’t you ask them????? (although I bet that they know if their kid has an iPod or a cellphone)
2. They sell graphing calculators everywhere - Staples, Target, Wal-mart, etc.
3. It’s almost DECEMBER!!! Having a graphing calculator has been a requirement since AUGUST. Kids were informed of this the first day of school, I sent home numerous emails about it, talked about it at back to school night, and in one instance, told the parent of it at a parent teacher conference.
This was my response to both parents:
I don’t know if they have one. Ask them. If they don’t, you can buy them at Staples, Target, Office Depot, and Wal-Mart. (TI-83+ or TI-84+) Students have needed a TI graphing calculator since the first day of school. I told ***** this the first day they enrolled in my class. I have continuously reminded students of this in class. This is not a new requirement.
Neither parent wrote me back.
After a law suit by a newspaper in Harrisburg, PA, Penn State was forced to make Joe Paterno’s salary public. We already know what Nick Saban makes at Alabama (~$4 million/year) and that other coaches make more than $2 million. So what does a major university pay for a coach that is the second winningest coach in D-1 (BCS), has won them 2 national title, and paid for an expansion of the library?
From time to time, the school I work at runs out of white paper in the xerox room and we resort to xeroxing everything on colored paper until the shipment of white arrives. I was passing out Algebra 1 review sheets today and it just so happened that half of them were on pink paper and half were on green. I told them they were the same worksheet, but on two different colored papers. And oh yeah, the pink ones smell like strawberries. Wouldn’t you know, a whole bunch of kids with pink ones sniffed their worksheets and thought they did smell like strawberries! The rest of them rolled their eyes and informed the naive children in the room that I was kidding. Which of course, led to a little fight about whether I was kidding or not. Which of course, I let go on for 30 sec for my own amusement before I told them that yes, I was joking and no, the paper was not scented.
Danica McKellar, all 80s kids’ favorite, cute “nerd-ess,” wants everyone to know, Barbie/Mattel was wrong when she said her favorite quote for feminists everywhere: “Math is hard, Ken.”
“But I want to show them that being smart is cool,” she said. “Being good at math is cool. And not only that, it can help them get what they want out of life…I want to tell girls that cute and dumb isn’t as good as cute and smart,” she said.
That’s right, folks, Winnie Cooper has written a book on everyone’s favorite topic: MATH!
No, no, don’t go clamoring to your favorite bookstore for this PAGETURNER, folks, because Amazon has got your covered. I know this is going to drive Amazon’s already SKYROCKETING earnings THROUGH. THE. ROOF!
Seriously, though, contrary to popular belief, I am not female - yes yes, make your jokes here - yet, all of the math teachers I know in my age group are women! I only hope this trend continues…as apparently does Winnie Cooper/Elsie Snuffen/Danica McKellar.
