I wish I knew FB better ** updated

A boy I taught last year asked me to be his friend on FB. Anthony describes himself as a goon, and he appears that way to a large number of people. A lot of teachers are afraid of him and he had several court appearances during the year for assault.

I loved him!

Anyway, I accepted him as a friend and a post from his website appeared on my wall. The vocabulary was - awful.

I sent him a note "I would love to have you as a friend on FB. But, you use language that I don't want to read every day, so I am going to have to pass. My email is **@**.com and I would love to have you email me. I just do not want to read those words on my FB. Does that make sense to you? I hope so. I understand you need to talk that way for your friends, and that's fine." When I checked his FB - ALL OF THE FOUL MOUTHED POSTINGS WERE GONE.

Did he just make it so I can't see them? (That would be fine with me) I really do like him and hope he invests more in school than he has.

His response to my note was "Oh, OK". And then he told me that another of my bad boys said he loved me. I think this is so cute!

Updated: He deleted the offending posts from his page.

Wow.

Probability 2

I spoke here about state tests and students Christmas-treeing the tests.

I was speaking to a teacher from a state north of us, a state held in high regard and used as an example (as in, we should be more like them)to the educators in this state. This teacher mentioned the pass rate of their test, then laughed and said it meant nothing.

1) One student got 11% of the answers correct, but her adjusted score was over 70%

2) Another bubbled in B for every answer and got over an 80% (adjusted).

The teacher went on to say that you didn't need math to pass these tests, you needed to know how to use a calculator and you needed test taking skills.

Isn't it nice to know how we as teachers will be graded?

Weird - so, what would you do?

The other day I was in a bookstore. It's summer, so we're talking about 3 in the afternoon.

A man (forties or fifties, dressed business casual) walked up to me and kept asking me questions that seemed to me to be the kind you would address to a store employee. So, I kept saying, I don't work here.

He finally said "I work at AT&T. I am embarrassed but I left my check card at home. I have a flat tire and NTW wants $24.75. I have the $.75."

I told him I couldn't help him. He kept insisting until I walked off.

I keep coming back to the idea that IT WAS 3 IN THE AFTERNOON.

I would have called my son, my husband, my friends, my neighbors, thumbed home, walked the 10 miles before I would have walked up to a perfect (thank you very much) stranger and asked for $24.

If he worked at AT&T, why didn't he call them? SOMEONE would be in the office at 3 in the afternoon. On a Tuesday.

So, what do you think?

My husband made disparaging remarks about this man being a alcoholic and the panhandling price has gone up.