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1937. arkymalarky - 9/24/2017 5:18:52 PM

Sly Stone was right.

1938. arkymalarky - 9/24/2017 5:21:12 PM

And something has got to be done about severe mental illness in this country. Tossing them out on the street after closing the admittedly failing State hospitals doesn't seem to be working after 30 some odd years.

1939. Ms. No - 9/25/2017 5:45:19 PM

You've got that right. I'd say fully half - and probably more - of the people living on the K-Street Mall suffer from severe mental illness. You can tell because everyone on the Mall looks like their talking to themselves, but only the people in suits are actually using a Bluetooth.

On a positive note, we just had a bunch of alumni come back to visit and present to our Freshman class about the jobs their doing in health care. It's always so great to see what fine adults they've become -- and to know that they still love their school!

1940. Ms. No - 9/27/2017 12:13:13 AM

"they're" not "their"

jeeze

and they let me teach Englush.

1941. Ms. No - 10/27/2017 11:32:25 PM

Quite pleased with myself for having designed and successfully run my own BreakoutEDU game. Both of my Government classes did this activity as their final assessment on our Media and Propaganda unit.

I was a little let down when it was over because it took me so long to write all the puzzles and put the materials together, and then it was all done in two class periods. I'll recoup the time in future executions, though. Once it's built, it's built.

I'm most proud that I hit the mark correctly with the difficulty of the puzzles. Both classes successfully broke out, but it took them almost the entire class period to do it. Hearing them talk about the concepts and argue using their knowledge showed that they really did learn something. Waaaaaay more fun than grading a written quiz.

I don't know if I have ever mentioned this site before:

BreakoutEDU.com

It's free, but you do have to register. They've got lots of games already made, but also instructions on how to design your own games.

1942. Ms. No - 11/4/2017 3:48:26 AM

So this is happening

Sacramento teachers plan to strike Wednesday if no deal. Last walkout was in 1989.

We're all hoping for the best but planning for the worst. I've heard from a very reliable source that word at the district is "It's going to be a long strike."

They're prepared to issue 1000 emergency credentials and pay those teachers $500/day to cross the picket lines.

So, the ongoing effort to break the union continues.

They use our love of our students and our schools to fuck us over and then call us names in the press.

If it weren't so devastating to so many families I'd say, break the union. Lose all your qualified teachers to other districts instead of just the 30% you've already lost and then see if you can get anyone to come here and teach.

Come on in TFA. They're making room for you!

1943. Ms. No - 11/4/2017 3:50:59 AM

What to know about the Sacramento City School District teacher strike

And this is how they see teachers -- a paycheck, not a professional. Clearly, any warm body who went to college can replace a veteran teacher.

Wonder how many of those emergency credentials will still be teaching after the first week?

1944. arkymalarky - 11/4/2017 5:48:51 AM

How cool! I was out all week sick.

Wow. We both showed up in here the same time, so I'll leave the above comment for your post on breakout EDU, and read what's going on now, but my initial reaction to that is damn!

1945. arkymalarky - 11/4/2017 5:52:58 AM

It's really discouraging to see how stupid most people are and how easily manipulated they are by arguments that don't make any logical sense, much less have any kind of facts or data back them up. I always used to joke about how they're going to get rid of all of us and hire good teachers who just can't get jobs because we bad teachers are taking them all. All these good teachers would just slide right in and make it a better system if they just get rid of the bad ones. It's like all these people who are pro fetus and anti children. I'm so sick of their simple stupid hypocritical lines of reasoning that it's hard for me not to spew everytime I hear them.

1946. Ms. No - 11/4/2017 8:50:54 PM

yep and yep and yep

Here I am hoping we have a 3 or 4 day strike so I can get caught up on some curriculum planning and design.

So lazy and selfish. They should definitely replace me.

1947. Ms. No - 11/7/2017 1:33:55 AM

Hooray! Strike averted!

We got the raise, but not the additional nurses, counselors, and arts programs. Class sizes will stay the same -- 24:1 for K-6, and 35:1 for 7-12. It's not so bad for our school since we're small already, but some of the comprehensive high schools are struggling.

How exactly is a teacher supposed to grade 170 term papers in any reasonable amount of time and really do justice to the comments?

1948. arkymalarky - 11/12/2017 10:28:02 PM

Glad y'all avoided the strike, but don't see how some teachers do what they're doing. I spent the weekend being Grandma, after spending the last 2 weeks sick, and I'm ready to retire. I've never felt that way before now, and I still love teaching, but I'm sick of not being able to do anything else.

1949. Ms. No - 11/13/2017 2:53:09 AM

Yeah, I found that if I put another 5 years --- probably 6 since I had to half-time years --- in for this district, I'll have health benefits for life after retirement.

One the one hand, that's really great. On the other hand, it's depressing as fuck to think I might still be here doing exactly this 6 years from now.

Unless I really don't find anything else I want to do or anywhere else I need to be.

It's just that my family is far from me and my mom and dad will be in their mid-70s at that point. I don't want to miss out on time with them when they're still active and able to do things.

And my brother may find a job out of state and move his family, in which case I REALLY don't want to stay behind.

It's almost depressing to think that I want to plan my own life around the choices that other people make, but it's not so much that as that I'm a lot more flexible because I don't' have the same obligations they do.

Ah, well. None of it has to be decided tonight. :-)

1950. wabbit - 12/7/2017 5:56:30 PM

Thought this article might be of interest:

American children are drowning in self-esteem

1951. Ms. No - 12/8/2017 3:15:23 AM

He's not entirely wrong, but he's not entirely right either. Comparing the average American public school --- or even the above average American public school -- to the test scores of private school children in Shanghai isn't a very useful measure, not so much because of the differences in educational theory -- which are significant -- but because of the differences in student pool and overall cultural philosophy.

The focus shouldn't narrow to "what's wrong with American education," when what is really being looked at is how American culture is different from Chinese culture -- neither of which is in any way homogeneous enough to talk about in any but the most general of ways.


That being said, I think America has veered off into the silly-lands with the lack of honest critique. We are either "kind" to the point of dishonesty, or dishonest in the pursuit of crushing our adversaries at all costs. All of it is lying.

1952. Ms. No - 12/18/2017 8:53:15 PM

One. more. week.

Time has slowed to a crawl and the natives are restless. This will be a fairly light instructional week for me, but the kids are working hard on Thesis papers and final projects, so they're all freaking out and I'm doing a lot of hand-holding.

Wednesday will be fun --- they've created Breakout puzzles to test each other, 1st period against 3rd, and then we'll do a potluck during English while I do individual consultations with students on their senior projects.

I'm so sick of the senior project. Gotta restructure this thing for next year. Still spending waaaaaay too much time on the research paper, but for most of them, it's only the second one they've ever written of any length. The last one that was more than five pages was when I had them back in sophomore year --- and for about 85% of them, it was the first they'd ever written.

Yikes!

I'm looking to teach research papers more like journalism in the future. Maybe that will be more fun and make more sense.

1953. arkymalarky - 12/25/2017 5:56:55 PM

Taking my Junior High to the cemetery for the last time. I really like that little Excursion as a core for introductory research.

Not marking x's on the calendar or benchmarks, but it pops into my head some this year when I'm doing things I enjoy that I'm not going to do them ever again. Yesterday I was saying that to stan about teaching poetry after I was talking to him about an Emily Dickinson poem, and busted out crying.

1954. Ms. No - 1/19/2018 7:24:58 PM

Just found out that one of my students has been asked to speak at the Sacramento Women's March! She's been working as a peer educator with Planned Parenthood for the last year and the director for the Sacramento region asked her yesterday if she'd be willing to talk about her experience as a patient and then volunteer at PP.

She's not even 18 years old yet and she will have spoken at the capital of one of the most influential states in the nation as well as the wider world. I'm so proud of her! and so excited!

1955. arkymalarky - 1/20/2018 6:10:49 PM

How cool is that!

1956. Ms. No - 1/21/2018 4:34:57 AM

Turns out TWO of my students spoke today. So fucking cool!

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