Things that occur in my world; or maybe just in my mind, that may or may not be of interest to you. Sometimes these thoughts revolve around my perception of the world; sometimes not. I just try to have fun and enjoy my time. Welcome to my world as I perceive it. An added plus is that I will share my Notgeld Collection occasionally.
I remember watching these when I was a wee little lad. I suppose some of these shows are the reason that I took such an interest in science. This led to experimenting with my brother's chemistry set. Wow, all of those wonderful chemicals. They were begging to be mixed together. So.......I mixed them together and came up with the best looking purple a kid had ever seen. Better yet, using the scientific method (translate this as "best guess") I concluded that it was also the best spider killer ever devised by man; or so I thought. I know this because I threw the mixture on a spider that was crawling on the brand new white aluminum siding of our house at the time. It didn't kill the spider, but gee.....that sure was a pretty purple! Unfortunately, my father did not share my enthusiasm for my new discovery or..........the color.
Fortunately for me, the siding people were just finishing up with their installation and were able to take the newly "decorated" section out and cut-in new pieces. Yay for me! It just goes to show you that 7 - 8 year old boys don't think much past the present. You could say that they live for the moment. You know, that sounds like guys of all ages.
Anyway, so much for my reminiscing and philosophizing. Let's watch the video. It's a classic.
This time it is Science training. The district is implementing a new science program called Loose In the Labs. I am attending a training of trainers session. After the training today i will need to train the other Kindergarten teachers on our campus how to properly use the kits and the lab materials.
This training thing could actually be pretty good. I went to training one day last week and taught for four days. This week I have training today and Early Release tomorrow. Three and a half days teaching and one and a half going to training. Not bad.
I don't know what I'll do next week. No training and five days teaching.
I have been in the field of education for 22 years. In that time it has never ceased to amaze me the things I hear from the kids. Often times they will be brutally honest. Other times, they are showing their shear innocence. Many times, they end up teaching me that in many ways their lives are vastly different from mine and the way I grew up. You see, I teach at the school in town that encompasses the largest subsidized housing in the city within it's attendance zone. Our attendance zone also has the lowest Socio-Econimic Standard (SES) in the district.
For instance, I will never forget last year when one of my students saw my wife one day and asked if she was my girlfriend. I said, "No! She is my wife." Then the student wanted to know what a "wife" was. I tried to explain, but in their world "Daddy didn't have a wife, Daddy had a girlfriend."
Also last year, I had the student that announced she wanted to be in gang when she was older because her older brother was in gang. Wow! And she was 5 years old at the time. I also had her in my class this year. I haven't heard a mention of a gang at all this year. But I do know that her step dad is not in the picture now and the family has moved from the nearby subsidized housing to another area. Hopefully, she and the family will be able to live in a better environment.
This year has been eye opening also. I remember an assignment I gave my class a few months ago. I asked them to take a piece of drawing paper and draw their house. After all students were finished I asked them to bring their pictures to the carpet and we would look at and discuss them. I got to this one little fella that raised his picture and showed the class a large black box that had been divided into many smaller squares. I asked what the squares were and he proceeded to explain that "....this is the jail where my Daddy is. I went to see him this weekend!" A few days later this student's older sister in middle school came to me to ask if I would write a letter to help get their Dad out of jail. She came to me because The Dad had met me before on a visit to school to discuss his son's behavior. This same boy was absent on the day after Memorial Day. When I asked if he was sick he said he had been to Mexico. I never heard, but have since wondered if Dad got out of jail and has gone back to Mexico.
Yes, that has hit our school very hard also. The teacher next door to me has lost two students this year because one of the parents has either been deported or has otherwise had problems with documentation and couldn't get back in the country.
Last Friday after school I left my truck running in the school drive as I went in to get something I left. I left it running so that it would get cool. (No it was not going to get stolen. I left it running but I didn't leave the keys in. I have remote start with a safety interlock.) Anyway, one of the older students noticed the condensation dripping from the AC and thought it was oil. She comment that my truck was leaking oil. Then she said, "All our new cars always leak oil like that."
On a good note; it appears that our campus will be Academically Acceptable on our latest TAKS scores this year. That is good because everyone at our campus, students included, have worked very hard this year to remove the stigma of "Academically Unacceptable."
Chris and I were running errands yesterday. As we were driving to and from we began discussing the various bond elections that area school districts had over the weekend. Waco ISD, where I work, passed a large bond election to build new schools and remodel aging facilities. This has been needed and will certainly be appreciated by all staff, students, parents, and community members. It is always nice to be proud of your local schools and your place of employment. Over the course of several years the district will build new schools, remodel some, and combine others in an effort to bring more cost efficiency to the district. I look forward to this time as an exciting time to be with the district.
Now back to the conversation I had with Chris. Chris asked about University High School and I told her that they would build a new University High at another location and then University Junior High would relocate to the old high school. I then stopped and corrected myself saying, "I guess it is University Middle School now. They don't call them junior highs anymore, they're all middle schools."
This prompted me to recall how the names of schools and other institutions change with time and our perceptions of the older names. For instance, "Grammar Schools". I'm sure they taught more than just grammar, yet they were called 'grammar school" and not math or social studies schools. Another term from long ago was having a "liberal education". Nowadays that would upset many conservatives because you would expect someone is being indoctrinated with a socially and politically liberal ideas. But years ago it simply meant getting a "well rounded" education.
Another good old fashioned name was "sanitarium" which denoted a health retreat or hospital. Nowadays I think of a sanitarium as being an "insane asylum". Of course the "insane asylum" was ubiquitous many years years ago. Now we have "psychiatric hospitals" or other less offensive terms.
Again, this is just another example of how I can start down the road to school and end up at the insane asylum.
