How to make a teacher's head spin backward

Would you like to know how to make a regular kindly, fun-loving teacher turn into your favorite head-spinning horror flick character?

It's simple really, all you need is the following equation:

-One classroom full of roughly thirty, 12-13 year-old, hormone-filled students

-Add candy

-Make it a holiday based solely on the acquisition of more candy, other sugar-filled sweets and romance.

-Add cards, stuffed animals and balloons arriving in your classroom all day.

-Make it the day AFTER a dance.

-Make it Friday; the 13th.

-Make it the last day of school before a week-long vacation.

With these ingredients, you have yourself a recipe for complete teacher melt-down:

After spending most of the day trying in vain to still TEACH them SOMETHING, you finally acquiesce the last 30 minutes of the day and say "to heck with it!"

You let the students open their gifts and eat their treats, as long as they SIT IN A CHAIR. You really don't care which chair, as long as they are sitting.

This works for the first 10-15 minutes, but then you notice some kids are starting to toss chips at one another like monkeys and now two of the male students in your class are shoving full fist loads of sweet hearts in their mouths at once (apparently they are having a contest to see who can fit as many in their mouths as possible.)

You sternly tell them to go spit it all out, and they, on the way to the trash can, inadvertently knock over a cup full of orange soda, which you NEVER allow in your room, but another teacher HAS allowed them to have, so you are trying to go with the flow and not be a complete and total hard ass.

Now there is sticky orange soda spill on the floor, and you notice, while you demand the spill be wiped, that there are chips crumbs ground into the carpet, at which point you become your mother and declare:

"OKAY, THAT IS IT! everybody STOP what you are doing and start CLEANING UP!!!" You then stomp around the room like a wild maniac, pointing out all the spills, ground food particles and candy wrappers on the floor, demanding the children clean them up immediately.

Other students who were sitting and talking quietly are looking at you like you've lost your mind; some are laughing, some are rolling their eyes, and comments are being made about how the fun is now all ruined.

You then say, "Your RIGHT, the fun IS being ruined by people who cannot handle the privilege of food in the room! This is precisely WHY I don't let you have parties! "



Ahhh yes. You can see the eyes rolling now. I'm rolling my eyes myself.

But it was said today, and there is no taking it back now. The children were being wild sugar-loaded monkeys and I could see things were only headed to utter disaster, and so I, the big bad teacher, turned into Attila the Hun (or Dr. Kill Joy) and I ruined their good time.

Bring on the vacation.

It's all about timing

Scene:
I'm cleaning up after dinner, loading the dishwasher, Evie is playing in the Tupperware drawer inside the pantry. My friend Anna is over, hanging out, Bryan has not yet come home.

Anna and I are chatting when we hear a crash, we look over at Evie, who has pulled a clear plastic canister of pretzels down from the bottom shelf of the pantry; pretzels are now strewn all over the kitchen floor.

Evie: "UH-OH!!!

ME: "Evie, what are you doing?"

Anna: (Joking) "Evie, WHERE is YOUR MOTHER?!?"

Evie: looks up at Anna, puts both hands in the air, raises both shoulders, cocks her head to the side and says in a quizzical voice-
"I dunno!"

A new dance video

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

What I know so far

1) Trying to understand the food likes and dislikes of a toddler is a losing battle.

2) Routines are fantastic until you try to break them.

3) If provided the choice, the answer will be "no," more often than not.

4) Elmo has magical powers.

5) As soon as you brag that your child can do something or has broken a habit, they will make a liar out of you.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

"Miss Sassy Pants"

Evie is now known as "Miss Sassy Pants" at her daycare/preschool. She has become the self-appointed boss of all the other children, leading them in all activities, games and into all kinds of trouble.

She is often the first child in the class to try new things, such as climbing on to the top of the table, or scaling the outside of a playhouse.

When other kids get into trouble, Evie takes it upon herself to "teach" them.

The other day, her teacher was redirecting another child in the class when he was doing something dangerous, (most likely something her learned from Evie,) apparently Evie was standing alongside the teacher, "assisting." The teacher told Evie, "I don't need your input," at which point Evie turned to the teacher and continued jabbering, only now at the adult.

I have no idea WHERE she gets it.

The "look"

When she was born, the doctors and nurses commented on her already very apparent attitude.
At 19 months, she has a well-developed sense of self, and can cut a man down with a single look.

See exhibit A:

Pictures from the winter

Sticking to my promise...a picture of Evie and I @ Zoolights


Evie didn't stay in her stroller long:


Taking a self-portrait of the whole family didn't go very well (Evie is in there, somewhere)

Even though it's a fuzzy photo, I never stop being enamored by my husband's beautiful eyes.

Because she can...

How little we value education

My friend emailed me a job posting today, just for fun. There is an opening to be a secretary at the local naval shipyard. The pay scale for a secretary starts as an GS6, the salary range is $36,469 to $47,408. The salary of the secretary is higher than a teacher.

The secretary position is a government job, the salary comes out of the same budget as the education budget. Teachers are told on a daily basis that there is no money and this is why we are paid such a pittance, and yet, there is money to pay secretaries at the shipyard more than us.

While being a secretary at the shipyard would certainly have challenges, is it a job you can leave at the end of the day. You are responsible to your boss. You answer a phone, collate, transcribe and mange an office; I know this, I used to be an office manager. To be a secretary usually does not require a college education.

And so, after seeing how much a government secretary made, I decided to look into other positions in the state. What I found was shocking.

A clerk for the social security administration (working at the front window, taking checks) starts at an GS7 rating, which starts at $40,000 and goes to $52,000.
An air conditioning worker starts at 47,642.00 and can make up to 60,064.00.
Finally, civilian "painter/paint worker" working here on the local military base starts at 41,113.00 and can make up to 54,470.00.

The Job description for the "paint worker" is as follows:

"Work is performed outdoors, often under adverse weather conditions.

Work requires frequent bending, stooping, walking, standing, working in cramped positions, and climbing.
Work requires exposure to high noise levels.
Work requires lifting and moving heavy items."
The salary of a fifth-year teacher in the state of Washington ranges from $36,000-$48,791. In order to make $48,791, that fifth year teacher would have to hold a PhD.

A "paint worker" with no education of any kind can make more money than a teacher of five years who holds a PhD.

To be a teacher, you are entrusted with the lives of 25-30 children at any given moment. The abilities of these children range dramatically from the highly gifted to the traumatically deficient. Some are well-off, with parents who care and work with them at home. Many others come to school hungry, living in the worst imaginable situations with various forms of abuse and neglect. Our classrooms are as diverse as a US city and are expected to keep them engaged, entertained, fed, clothed, protected and well behaved. Most of us provide our own extra school supplies and food and clothing items for these children out of our own personal funds.

In the meantime we are also expected to continue our own education, on our own dime.

As teachers, not only do we hold bachelor's degrees, but teaching certificates and have completed or are pursuing Master's degrees as is the expectation by the time we have finished our fifth year. Doctors, lawyers and teachers, we are the only professionals who are required to complete the stringent educations programs completed by culminating exams which determine our qualification to work. When teachers have finished with the basic education required, we have gone to school for a minimum of six years, but usually closer to seven or eight, (the same as lawyers.) Most of us have six to eight years of student loans to pay off, however, unlike doctors and lawyers, we will not have a salary to help us compensate for the education we have obtained.

Teachers are not paid overtime.

Teachers do get the summers off, but our summers usually start the first week of July and end the first week of August. Many of us spend those four-six weeks taking classes to continue our own education, or, we teach summer school or work other part-time jobs to supplement our incomes--we don't get paid for that time off, remember.

We know all of this before we join the profession, we do it anyway because we love and care for our students, and want to see them grow up to become successful, contributing members of society.

What is insulting then, is when jobs such as the job of a secretary or a painter are posted by the government, and the pay scale is not only the same, it is higher than ours. The same government that pays our salary and sets our budget, sets the budget for that secretary and that painter, and has determined that the job of a secretary at a shipyard or the painter on a naval base is more important than the job of a school teacher; a teacher who is responsible for the emotional, physical and educational well-being of our children and future.

What is insulting, is when at times such as now, we are in a budget crisis and once again the first thing to be cut is education. Good teachers are fearing for their jobs, and enrichments programs are being slashed and burned.

At the same time, jobs are being posted for clerical and labor positions within the same government, and those jobs pay higher than those of teachers; teachers who are being told they not only can't be paid a reasonable wage, their own jobs are in jeopardy.

Is it any wonder we rank so low in comparison to our global neighbors?

What will it take for teachers to be valued?

LOST-Recap: Season 5 Opener

WOO HOO! LOST has returned!

I'm far too tired to really do a full recap, but here are the highlights:

We open with Daniel Faraday "back in time," when the Orchid station was being built. We learn that if the workers disturb the area, time travel will be possible; after watching the entire episode we are left to assume Daniel's intention is to in fact destroy the Orchid station in order to create the ability to travel through time.

After we see Daniel, we learn it has been three years since we left the island, and then immediately flash back to the moment when the island "disappears."

We discover that making the island disappear actually means disrupting the space-time continuum. Every time we see a flash of light/loud noise, our friends go on another trip through time.

Much of the episode is spent catching up with all our friends: Sayid is trying to protect Hugo, who is being pursued by bad men (presumably Widmore's goons;) Hugo is also wanted by the police for the murder of four men who were actually killed in self-defence by Sayid. We find that Sun is in cahoots with Widmore. We discover that Kate is being hunted by someone unknown and decides to go on the run to protect Aaron.

Desmond is sailing around the world with Penny, but soon changes his plans after remembering a visit from Daniel at the hatch. The visit was actually after Daniel had the fore-sight to tell Desmond (still in the hatch) to remember to go to Oxford and find future Daniel's mother. Confused yet?

Meanwhile, Jack and Ben are working to gather the troops back together. Why? Because only getting all the Oceanic six back to the island will allow those left on the island to survive.

This point is made VERY clear with the appearance of the silver-haired woman (played by the lovely Finula Flannagan.) We have seen her previously in the London jewelry shop when she gave Desmond a grave warning about his own future with Penny. Not only is she someone who can obviously see the future, she also seems to be someone who can already jump through the space-time continuum.

She seems to be telling Ben what to do, and running his operation.

So...what to expect this season? A lot of Back to the Future action, with our friends jumping back and forth from past and present, but instead of going back and forth in flashbacks as in the past, they will literally be traveling back and forth on the time continuum.