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26788. arkymalarky - 2/14/2012 6:38:03 PM The last part of the serenity prayer is what always trips people up. 26789. Jenerator - 2/14/2012 10:45:21 PM Arky,
I love your directness and that you're unaffected by other people's politics. I need to be able to do that - to remove myself emotionally.
I get frustrated.
Long story short - here, at my campus, one of the lead saboteurs is my department head. He has the administration fooled because he knows just enough more than they do about technology. He knows how to work them. With me, and everyone else in the department, he would stab us in the back (and has) in a heartbeat.
He gets the majority of the funding, so his program is stellar, and we are all pieced together with things here and there. And by stellar, I mean he has the newest, best and highest quantity of equipment.
He evades questions, and if you email him, he will call and answer in snippets.
As a result, I have had to sneakily bring things to others' attention, all the while trying my best to not appear as a complainer.
We were audited by an outside agency a few months ago, and the only room in our department that the auditor visited was the Dept. head's. So, of course, it appeared perfect - like a model technology classroom.
I practically begged the auditor to see my room/lab. He obliged and came to my room. His jaw dropped when he saw my equipment and how outdated it was. I pretended my invitation was meant to simply show him around, but really, it was to show him how unequal things are around here.
The auditor told me that he would do what he could to help me, and he wanted to know if there were other teachers in my position. I said yes.
Well now. It's been four months, and guess who is getting more brand new equipment? The Dept. head.
What pains me is that there are area teachers that have such fantastic programs. If I had the kind of support and camraderie that they have, this program could totally rock. Instead, though, there are few people with power, and they don't want anyone else to do well. As a result, I, and others are stagnant
Honestly. What would you do? 26790. arkymalarky - 2/14/2012 11:28:22 PM I would document and complain and determine how far I was prepared to go and start heading that way. It's not nearly the tech you're dealing with, but Stan uses a Smartboard a lot. It was messing up and hr got no satisfaction from any corner. So he started telling his classes that next year they would have a new smartboard or a new teacher. They have a new teacher and he has a new job in a new building with state of the art equipment. That was his hill and he told everyone, and his rep as a math teacher got him snapped up. 26791. arkymalarky - 2/14/2012 11:36:33 PM Iow, he drew a line in the sand snd when they continued to ignore it ge left for a much better situation. But he was very public about it. Broke his heart to leave his kids, but his bad technology made him hate his job. I've had similar clashes with people who have little titles or a bit of authority and I fight when I have to, but them I ignore them. In fact, I work with some of those very people. Cya is VERY common in education technology. Epidemic, in fact. And most admin can't tell when they're being fooled. I just tell them, straight up. 26792. Jenerator - 2/15/2012 12:10:51 AM I am a *lead* technology teacher and I do not have a smartboard.
I wrote a grant and bought 5 iMacs two years ago. They are *still* not connected to the network, nor functioning.
He has 30 new iMacs with 27" screens and they all work.
I have 15 PCs that have 512 MB of RAM. He has 30 i5 work stations with split screens. He has a smart board, too.
In order to teach what I teach elsewhere, I will need another degree since I do not have industry certification. Here, if you have seven years of experience, you are Trade and Industry certified. I am competing against the best in industry - maybe not the best teachers, but technology pros.
As for the department head - he has one alternate teaching certification (not in technology) and he's been in this district for 25 years.
Thank you for letting me vent. I need to figure out my plan and say the Serenity Prayer to myself and become detached. 26793. arkymalarky - 2/15/2012 1:06:14 AM That's really bad. He needs to be exposed imo. That's iiexcusable. Do they not audit and monitor that stuff at the state level? We can't do anything wrt tech spending that's not in writing and oresented to the board and approved by state monitors. In fact our head techie is a nervous wreck because she's dealing with that right now. Jobs and how they're done in tech positiins in schools are what suck here. No standards at all, best I can tell. 26794. arkymalarky - 2/15/2012 2:46:47 AM Happy anniversary Judith and Keoni! 26795. vonKreedon - 2/16/2012 6:31:20 PM Going through the mail last night and suddenly had my heart in my mouth when one of the mails addressed to Reid was from the Selective Service. Apparently his taking, or perhaps just applying for, student aid requires him to register for the draft. Reid and I, after an initial bought of, "Wait, was that in the loan contract? WTF?" Decided that it's worth going ahead and registering since there is no draft at this time and we can deal with an actual draft if that occurs. Then Blair came home and declared that she would investigate if this is really as iron clad a requirement as the SSS letter claimed. 26796. vonKreedon - 2/16/2012 7:00:30 PM And on further review I find that I am mistaken in my belief that the SSS registration requirement for all 18 year old males was repealed years ago. Reid is required to register because he's 18, not because he applied for student aid; they noticed he hasn't registered because he applied for student aid. 26797. iiibbb - 2/17/2012 2:37:08 PM Several of my female friends have applied just so they could get the rejection letter because they're female. 26798. iiibbb - 2/17/2012 2:38:51 PM Get the card laminated, and don't lose it. You have to show it for a lot of state and federal jobs.
It is an acceptable ID for a lot of those places you need a half doesn't proofs of ID for. 26799. vonKreedon - 2/17/2012 6:45:11 PM If he gets it laminated it's going to make it much harder to later burn on the Pentagon steps. 26800. judithathome - 2/17/2012 8:05:27 PM Har!!!!! 26801. iiibbb - 2/18/2012 4:06:39 AM You don't know how to burn stuff... 26802. iiibbb - 2/18/2012 3:21:59 PM 
I never got this. I am so left-handed it isn't funny, but I am everything on the left-side in spades.
Can any psychology people explain why the brain's expression of these traits are not a cis/trans thing rather than right/left.
26803. arkymalarky - 2/18/2012 6:54:08 PM Before I have a migraine I have visual auras on the opposite side. They're always on the left, headache always on the right since I was a teen. I'm left handed too. All that stuff confuses me no end. 26804. wabbit - 2/19/2012 4:42:50 PM I have a vague recollection of reading a recent report that says the left/right brain thing as far as personality traits goes is largely baloney. Wish I could remember where I saw that. I am right-handed, but I would fall smack dab in the middle of the descriptions in the ad - some, but not all, of each side. Just like most people, I suspect. 26805. thoughtful - 2/21/2012 3:42:27 PM Studies I've read on epileptics who have had the halves of their brain severed find that women are better able to perform left and right brain activities on either side than are men. Also that women tend to do both simultaneously more than men who tend to operate in one hemisphere at a time. But of course each person has both left and right to their personality and thought patterns. Love the ad though as it do expresses the difference. 26806. thoughtful - 2/21/2012 3:52:12 PM If you haven't seen it, Jill Bolte Taylor's powerful stroke of insight is a fabulous exploration of experiencing right-brained ness. 26807. Wombat - 2/21/2012 11:01:16 PM Wombette got into Quinnipiac University's BS-Doctoral Physical Therapy program! One more to hear from. She also--finally--passed her driver's license road test.
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