Wednesday, October 24, 2007
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I'd like to get all worked up over some situation or other and vent a lot on this blog like I've done in the past. Trouble is, I'm too occupied with starting my new job to take any time out to notice what I don't like about, well, the administration, Nevada politics, people driving Ford Exaggerations, whatever.
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Just this week I took over the duties of a biology teacher at Sierra Vista High School in Southwest Las Vegas. Well, it isn't in Las Vegas, but then neither is the Strip, so who's noticing. Anyhow, I don't teach biology, I teach forensic science. I have crime scene tape. I have evidence bags with evidence bag sealing tape. I have Luminol™. Did you know that the stuff works better and better as the blood ages? Here's a hint: if you commit a murder, don't bother cleaning up any blood. Better yet, don't make your victim bleed in the first place. You'll never get it out. I've learned a few things already myself. Such as, they don't dust doorknobs for fingerprints. I'll leave you to guess why. Also, the famous GSR isn't all that easy to find on somebody's hands because all you have to do is wash it off. Unlike blood, of course.
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So the upshot of all that is that I've been too busy to write anything, which could be bad with NaNoWriMo coming up, but I'm getting more even on my keel, so to speak, so I'm thinking it'll be okay for this year, like last. And, speaking of high schools:
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The students are about the same level of idiots that my friends and I were at in the mid sixties. They'll be fine, really, just like you and me. Okay, maybe not fine, but, well, they mostly won't be criminals and neer-do-wells, okay? And I get a lot of exercise writing restroom passes.
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So there it is. I'll try to get righteously upset soon, I promise.
I'd like to get all worked up over some situation or other and vent a lot on this blog like I've done in the past. Trouble is, I'm too occupied with starting my new job to take any time out to notice what I don't like about, well, the administration, Nevada politics, people driving Ford Exaggerations, whatever.
.
Just this week I took over the duties of a biology teacher at Sierra Vista High School in Southwest Las Vegas. Well, it isn't in Las Vegas, but then neither is the Strip, so who's noticing. Anyhow, I don't teach biology, I teach forensic science. I have crime scene tape. I have evidence bags with evidence bag sealing tape. I have Luminol™. Did you know that the stuff works better and better as the blood ages? Here's a hint: if you commit a murder, don't bother cleaning up any blood. Better yet, don't make your victim bleed in the first place. You'll never get it out. I've learned a few things already myself. Such as, they don't dust doorknobs for fingerprints. I'll leave you to guess why. Also, the famous GSR isn't all that easy to find on somebody's hands because all you have to do is wash it off. Unlike blood, of course.
.
So the upshot of all that is that I've been too busy to write anything, which could be bad with NaNoWriMo coming up, but I'm getting more even on my keel, so to speak, so I'm thinking it'll be okay for this year, like last. And, speaking of high schools:
.
The students are about the same level of idiots that my friends and I were at in the mid sixties. They'll be fine, really, just like you and me. Okay, maybe not fine, but, well, they mostly won't be criminals and neer-do-wells, okay? And I get a lot of exercise writing restroom passes.
.
So there it is. I'll try to get righteously upset soon, I promise.
Labels: Info, Social Commentary
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Teaching for Fun and, well, if you don't enjoy it . . .
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If you thought I was going to say profit you can forget it. They pay me, but that's all. Still, I'm not complaining. But, here are some true facts that you won't read about in the curmudgeon laden pages of your local newspaper, see in the idiot laden studios of TV News, or even view on most of your whatever they are laden web news sites.
The best way to improve education in America would be to throw money at it. We've never tried that, of course, but it would work. And here are some reasons why:
If you thought I was going to say profit you can forget it. They pay me, but that's all. Still, I'm not complaining. But, here are some true facts that you won't read about in the curmudgeon laden pages of your local newspaper, see in the idiot laden studios of TV News, or even view on most of your whatever they are laden web news sites.
The best way to improve education in America would be to throw money at it. We've never tried that, of course, but it would work. And here are some reasons why:
- More teachers mean more teaching, especially in the middle school arena. the difference between twenty sixth-grade students and thirty sixth-grade students is half again as many sixth grade teachers, but a completely different experience in terms of what they can learn. Twenty sixth-grade students will generally take care of doing what they need to do to learn something. Thirty sixth-grade students will spend most of their time following their raging hormones down one unproductive path or another. You can add ten to any group of twenty and watch the effect. It's amazing, and a real drain on your time if you have too many students for them to behave and learn. A few still learn, of course, but not very many, and not the smart ones like everyone thinks. In that situation the smart ones are just as smarmy (and that's the only word for it) as any of them.
- I have a Master's degree and a PhD, both in an Educational field. My Bachelor's degree is a a genuine Science Degree (take that Doctor Science). I start at about forty grand a year. I wonder when the last time one of those fine conservative pundits who badmouth education and educators last was willing to work for forty grand a year. Hell, even not allowing for inflation, I'll bet Rush wouldn't return a phone call for that little money. Like I enjoy proposing: since teaching is so damned easy and remunerative, why don't you go into it as a profession? What? "Don't want to eat at the public trough" my ass, you pompous idiots! The plain fact is that we don't pay teachers enough to keep good ones around. I can only do it because my wife makes a lot of money as a Vegas attorney. Thanks to her generous nature, I get to be a teacher of youth.
- Then there are the mandates a teacher has to work under. If you have a Special Education kid, then that kid must have an Individualized Education Plan so that he can be mainstreamed as much as possible. If that sounds labor intensive and intrusive, it is. Who's paying for all that time and effort, I wonder? Oddly, there are no such special plans for genius level kids, of whom there are, statistically, just as many as there are Special Needs kids. If you wonder why we're seen as technologically slipping, consider that we spend a fortune on the barely educable, but zip on our genius youth. Nice, that.
Well, one could go on. One does, at times, but you get the idea. I never have appreciated the tight-fisted pundits who lambaste schools without offering a lick of help, and I must say that being in the fifth largest school district in the country hasn't done a thing for my opinion of those tinhorns. Rush insults more people than soldiers, every single day. It's a disgrace to our society that he has an audience, and that's the truth.
Oh, well, later, gang.
Labels: Politics, Social Commentary
