Saturday, April 08, 2006

still looking to post

I want to have yet to figure out to find a way that I find is comfortable to post.

I've tried out some software, but what happens, I keep going back to writing with Nisus Writer Express then cutting and pasting into the blog. I guess that is okay, but it seems like there should be an easier way. I am trying out MarsEdit right now. I think I would rather take a nap though.

Went to school and had an hour of batting practice for one player. I had several players say they were going to show up, but no. It's interesting how many will argue about how the would show up if this or that.

One girl said if there would be practice at 11 a.m. she would be there. She even went so far to say that when i asked who was showing up (on Thursday) that she raised her hand. It was my fault for not seeing her and it is not her fault for saying anything when I said: "There are all the players showing up?"

I found out at practice, my aide told me this, that that girl was baby sitting at 10 a.m. and couldn't make a 11 a.m. practice. Why the drama? is there some thought in your head where you have gotten away with every dishonest thing you have ever said.

Another argument from a different girl was that if I showed up at 11 she would have been t here. When I suggested she just hang out in town after her piano lesson for half an hour until I showed up it was as if I asked her to remove her big toe, not the little toe, but the big toe on her kicking foot. She didn't see the irony that I should show up for one person at 11.

Well enough complaining...it is senseless. I have 19 players who want to look good in a uniform.

I will let them drive the bus from now on. I am not going to have extra practices for those who really don't want to practice

Twice a week, I will "Practice for those who want to get better." And see who arrives.

It seems like this works, but there is still the need to go back and edit, I am not sure why I don't just want to paste it on line...



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Friday, April 07, 2006

keeping the stream of conscious still

I am finding the percentages working against me.

I would say I really like 95 percent of my job, but the other five percent is ever so annoying, it seems to be on my mind about 81.3 percent of the time.

It's like coaching softball. Most of the time, I like working with the girls and teaching them how to field and throw. And while all the girls don't just do exactly what I say, they do listen and try. After a while I am sure they will get it.

But there there are the girls who say: "no." And there are the girls that ignore me. And there are the girls who argue about the coaching.

So far that would be a analogy for how things are in the library.

I'm wearing thin and I don't know how to revive myself; to make it so I am not just clamming up and ignoring the 'players.' I want to stay here, until I am not.


My little theatre group, Gem*Boy Productions was suppose to play at the Mohawk Casino, but it seems to be hard to work out a deal. I had offered them about six dates that they could pick. I didn't hear from them, so I sent them a contract for a date, and they just contacted me saying that wouldn't work, but some time in June would. Now I have to survey the group and hope we can find a date that six actors can make and the casino feels will work for them.
It took three weeks to get the dates that didn't work out, I can't imagine how this is going to work, when I don't see the actors much. When you add to this mix that it isn't what the cast does for a living. What seems to really bring me down, one of the cast members was willing to work out the deal, but he would not actually book a date, so it put it onto my shoulders. The shoulders who would rather be carrying a back of catcher equipment.

It seems like it is the buddhist saying, "You step into the stream, but the river has moved on."





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Thursday, April 06, 2006

bad year for horses

Kind of interesting article, in light of me complaining about the rudeness of the world right now

I didn't realize this, but four staff/faculty members have horses, before the previous music teacher left we were a five horse community.

I guess I am surprised that there are so many horses. Mostly because I never think of the Adirondacks as horse country. There are a lot of horses though.

And now three of the horses have not been so good, in fact one --- Legs --- needed to be put down last night. Sad. I see the bond with horses is different, perhaps stronger, than the one people have with their cats and dogs. Two others are going through difficult times, one with a nasty leg infection, the other perhaps suffering a stroke.

One of the difficulties of this is where I live is in the middle of nowhere. I say it is not needed to say: "drive an hour and turn right" when giving directions, since everyone knows, that is how far you go before you really are close to some place. When you need a large animal veterinarian, they make a four hour house call or you trailer the animal to the vet.

It's a long horse ride out of Dodge.

Which is one of the most difficult things for alternative education in a small school. Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) is suppose to serve rural schools like us with services that would be difficult to afford in a little town of 1,700. Like auto mechanics, cosmetology and some special education services. Our BOCES is centered an hour and a half away from us, most of our BOCES students are on a bus for two hours a day. There are 4-5 small schools in a 30 mile radius of my school and all of them need to put students on a bus. How nice it would be to have a BOCES facility that is in the middle those schools.

As fuel prices climb, the cost to educate six to 10 students escalates. The downfall of a small school is it will eventually costs more to educate a third of the student population as it does the other two thirds. Worse, if a small school can't survive, then it costs that much to educate everyone, as you put all students on buses to the next town.



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Tuesday, April 04, 2006

reading the book

I'm floating in a dilemma.

Just searched out our student's myspace sites. It is clear, the prevailing sense is all the kids want to be older and to be drinking. On the other side they also are proud to be from a small town and like all their friends. I guess they don't think about what they don't have, when they think about the fact that they have friends. It's funny, because I think that for most of them, once they are out in the real world....if they go to the real world --- they will find new (dare I say better) friends.

Even better news the myspaces were not filled with: "I hate school," "school is stupid," or "the librarian is a jerk." I am especially happy about that last one or the lack of the last one.

The dilemma is I think the world and the kids in general swear too much and many of the books that are available, contain swearing. I don't swear much, but I am not a prude. The books either reflect society or leads it, either way it isn't a pretty picture. I never thought about it much when reading. I just figured that, sure there are words not suitable in school, but are alright in the library --- in the books. But the more I hear the kids swearing, the more I wonder.

There is a Vermont radio station, the Buzz, that I occasionally listen to on my seven minute drive to school. I am guarantee to hear two or three words what would lead to a write up (referral) if a student in my school said them.

Should I lead the censorship?

And the irony of this comes just as I was patting myself on the back. I think, of the books I have ordered this year, 80 percent have been looked at or checked out. The 'looked at' relates to the reference books that don't often get checked out. For the highschool students the more the lifestyle you don't want them to emulate, the more popular. I think there is a waiting list for Hunter Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

I don't suppose there is an easy answer.

Monday, April 03, 2006

drifting on the sleep in my eyes

<--- I really like this little cartoon.

I am kind of tired, well more than kind of....daylight savings is expensive on my routine. I didn't go to bed until 2 a.m. I wrapped up the yearbook today, so from 6:30 a.m. to about 6:30 p.m. I was operating on fumes (as they say in the fume factory). I think I have looked a a computer way too much today.


Because I worked past the IL market closing time ---- 6 p.m. (welcome to small town usa) --- I have little to eat in the house. It's raining here, which is good school-wise. Nothing seems to calm down students more than rain. We need more of it.

Had the fifth graders go to some poetry websites and they really wanted to read poems out loud. It was kind of fun to see. Even the shy kids wanted to read. Some of that has to do with the fact that it is a stellar class.

Just as interesting is there are a lot of links on my poetry page, but the students all headed straight for "poetry for kids." Which was perfect since there are a lot of cute little peoples filled with comical irony. Like there is a poem about how a teacher eats a students homework, and in the end it turns out the homework is a cake that the teacher devours. I like to see how they get amused by and enjoy the poetry.

I hope it fires them up for the poetry lesson they are starting in class.

sweet dreams....

Sunday, April 02, 2006

I want to reverse the ratio

I have been told that you spend 80 percent of your time with 20 percent of the students.

The statement was accepting that one fifth of your students are going to be trouble and you will devote much of your time with discipline.

Discipline is an interesting concept when it comes to education you can look at the word in two different ways, one would be how you correct/punish students in hopes they will perform better and then there is the concept that perhaps students should have a certain amount of discipline that will help they to work harder and get the job done. USA Today had an Article on american student discipline and it wasn't very promising.

Basically the editorial presents the thought that the American work ethic doesn't compare to that of other countries. It makes all the thought, work and theories about No Child Left Behind moot.I know I have mentioned this article a couple days ago, but once you read it and look at student performance, it makes you realize what really needs to change.

The only thing it does kind of say that supports NCLB is that our students are doing better on High Stakes Testing, at the expense of knowledge.

This is pervasive. I spent at least 25 percent of softball practice arguing with three of the 20 girls on the team. Three girls that other faculty members have pointed out that spend 80 percent of their time not doing what they should and basically sucking the life out of everything. Worse they argue for 20 minutes over a five minute task.

I would like to think if you gave people a choice between a high test score or knowledge, they would take knowledge. (Or a choice between playing softball or arguing with the coach about how many practices they have attended (out of 15 practices these young ladies have only been to five each) they would chose playing.) I would, but I am not so sure others would.

I would like to spend the next 15 years helping students grasp for knowledge. I would like to spend about 90 percent of my time with those who have not closed their minds.

how do

How do people do this blog thing.

For one, I imagine they don't. If you noticed at the top of this page or most that are on Blogger, is a button for next blog. I have noticed when you just randomly go to a blog, you will find it inactive. go to my profile and click on an interest, then surf around to all the others that have a similar interest that haven't posted since 2004.

There is a lot of take about wikis and blogs and what great technology they are, yet it is idle and not much productive. And worse, it is lame, just like me.

Mostly what I see is men and women starting something, with the interest of recording their life as it happens. They start out strong, but it is never explained why after two posts or so they are done.


And those who do post, I don't know how they do. They have links all over the place. It's like they must spend half their life writing, and the other half searching. You learn a lot of things, but man the time consumed. For example or speaking of, I was able to add a clock to the opening page, because I noticed someone had one. When you hold your mouse over the clock it links you to a site where you can get your own clock.

I got it from the talking Initiative blog run by a seemingly 17 year old lesbian (or at least she was 17 at one time). Her last post was: Wednesday, November 03, 2004. She mentions W wins, so maybe she gave up on life after that.

Plus to make a lot of the different blog features, you need to know html tagging or spend the time figuring it out.

Like anything and everything you take it one day at a time. It's like reading, if you read a page a day, you will read a book in a year. People read so little on a whole that it is amazing.

UK reading statistics. from this site.



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