Oscars, My 'Evil Yoga Plan' and More of What is Wrong with Education

Since it is back to school this week -- only other teachers can understand how it is not only possible , but justifiable, to grumble about going back to work after two months off -- this is a bare bones entry of some observations and thoughts (maybe even an insight or two . . . but no guarentees):

• Oscar Day in LA: It should be an official holiday, really. Do go hiking in Griffith Park if you want an quiet, uncrowded hike on the weekend. Do not go to Trader Joe's where all of LA is out in packs scavengering for the 'right' drink and snack to bring along to the Oscar party; such packs and such a heady agenda only exacerbate the usual chaos of Sunday grocery shopping.
• Know that after the first day, no matter how happy students seem to be to see you, no matter how healthy and rested they look, no matter how fun it is try to share vacation stories, it is all down hill from there.
  
• I challenge all the classroom management gurus to find a seating arrangement that will 'manage' 21 fifteen-year-old boys (out of a total of 32 students) in a two-hour English reading intervention class (meaning they are all reading below grade level) which is also a combined special education class. Just shoot me now. Really. What's the point?
  
• Maybe it is wishful thinking, but were more students actually focused and writing after opening class with a five minute meditation?
  
• Surely not. All that yoga is bad, bad, bad for our students. Or so you would think according to my principal, who could not have been more hostile and resistant to my suggestion that I start a yoga class after school for the students. You'd think I was suggesting setting up target practice.
  
• You'd also think any employed person with a college degree in the U.S. would know how to use email. Not at my school. As we switch over to e-attendance, our faculty meeting today consisted of much whining about how people didn't have email addresses and passwords and didn't know how to log into their computers. I think the bulldogs just needed a bone to gnaw, because, really, they should be ashamed to admit being so computer illiterate. Though, I'd bet our principal is among them.<>
  

The Procratination Chronicles

Day 1: Great success
Day 2: Success with some slightly creative definitions of procrastination and productivity
Day 3: Still working on gettin started at 11:59pm.

Conclusion: I'll worry about it tomorrow.

Lent revisited

My devoted readers will remember my life changing Lenten experiement two years ago when I gave up cynicism. That was the first year I realized that Lent was actually about nurturing my own spirituality, not just deprivation and sacrifice.

This year, I initially decided to forgo negativity about my administration (the one at my school, not of our country). See my recent blog about school murals and you will understand just how difficult this would be, especially as I begin a new semester in a few days, a situation rife with chaos that highlights the incompentancy of the administration.

However, during today's Ash Wednesday service our Pastor spoke about confronting our fears. Well, apparently, I have a fear of actually doing something "procrastination" popped into my head. Thus, my Lenten experiment for 2006: stop procrastinating.

Now, I must decide, is writing for this blog procrastination or productivity. I'll just say I am only writing this after I finally folded my clean laundry, outlined my plans for my first week back in the classroom, and rewrote a lesson plan. However, it is 30 minutes later than when I wanted to get to sleep.