Getting the uglies

It's that time of year, with major testing breathing down our necks, the kids coming down with a case of the stupids, and the pressure that everyone seems to be feeling this year. I am noticing that people are coming down with the uglies.

There is rampant jealousy - people who could very comfortably live in their own skin because they are really happy with where they are in life, cannot help themselves when someone appears to have more. You buy a dress that really flatters you - but someone gets THE KILLER HAIRCUT - that haircut which was JUST MADE for the person wearing it - and you start having the uglies.

Or your friend, after years of barely making it - lucks out in some regard (meets the right guy, gets a better job, whatever) and, instead of being happy for your friend, you are overcome with the uglies and try to screw it up.

Or, you are a teacher that the students really like - and you are more concerned with running to the administrator and tattling on one of your co-workers, thinking it will place you in a better light. Nope - you look like someone overcome with the uglies.

God, I hope the uglies aren't contagious!

Fardels

I am trying to clean up the vocabulary of the students I teach.

Mostly because it is unseemly if a woman of a certain age looks at you and lets fly with %^&#%$^*&^$%!

I think I will start teaching Shakepeare.

Any of you English majors feel free to add to my vocabulary so I can change the world, or clean up my little corner.

Georgia does it again (SMH)

I read this todayGeorgia is cutting the time for instructors at the Technical Colleges.

And this at a time that we are encouraging students to use the technical colleges instead of high school AND college. (The ones that do well in high school can do joint enrollment and the technical colleges are cheaper than the universities) And we are cutting the state scholarship.

Wow, let's say more about Georgia's focus on education.

Saw in another blog: Georgia. First in bank closures. Last in education.

Question authority

"Question authority" was one of the things I remember learning as I was growing up. I read the consequences of not questioning when I read about the Eichman trial, My Lai, Watergate, others.

I try to teach that as I teach math. Just because I say something is true, if I cannot defend it, do you believe it?

In other words, think for yourself.

I have more trouble with this than with anything else.

I sometimes feel like I am teaching lemmings.

Apparently others feel the same.

Turning

Turning, turning, turning through the years
Minutes into hours and the hours into years.
Nothing changes. Nothing ever can
Round about the roundabout and back where you began.
Round and round and back where you began!
Les Miserables

Six Word Saturday

Queen of Denial - living in Delusion.


For more Six Word Saturday participants, click here.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

I wonder if I see myself - my limits, my failures - as clearly as I think I do.

I watch students and teachers say, and do, things that clearly show they do not see themselves.

I talked with a girl earlier this week who is catapulting to the nowhere and warned her that the Powers That Be were growing tired of her antics. It wasn't one class later that she was cussing out a teacher and on her way home - again.

I had been telling her that she needs to be in class to learn. Her behavior was her choice and the consequences are her consequences.

Funsucker and Highmaintenance are doing a wonderful dance that seems more highly scripted as time goes on, as each fully expects the other to change. HM expected she would get an assistant to kowtow to her and do HM's work. FS expected she would have the same. It would be a match made in heaven if each would do the work assigned to them - but each one figures that is what the OTHER is for.

They complain to everyone. Since we have the same complaints about each, we're just watching the dance.

But the Queen takes the cake. We have no teaching unions in Georgia - at least not in this part of Georgia. Even if we did, I think Queen has set herself beyond their purview. She violated one of the basics about being a teacher - but cannot help herself as continues to careen around.

It would be as if a bookkeeper embezzled money and came in late on the day the embezzlement was discovered - and then figured all the hoorah was over the tardy and not the embezzlement. (Any more specific and I would give the game away).

Queen tries to pull us into her web - er, the game, and we don't want any part of it. The sad thing is, I believe that she believes it is all about the tardy, when that is the minor piece of the discussion.

So, my goal is to see myself more clearly, to provide a shining example so the students can aspire to this as well. And to improve.


Lest I be concerned that denial is merely an educational activity, Dan Rather can always be counted on to provide comic relief and to prove he is King of Denial.

Students overreact.

Students overreact - and it is the teacher's fault.

I asked a young man to take a test today. It was given a week ago on a day he chose not to come. He has been in my class several days since the original test date.

When I was in school, when my children were in school, if you missed a test, it was up to you to schedule the test, usually within a day of being out, on your own time (before or after school).

Young man was unhappy. He wasn't ready. I made him take it anyway.

We have crippled these kids.

In the link above, the teacher rattled a desk to get the student's attention - the student called 911, and the teacher is on paid leave......