The things that go through my head

It’s pretty hard to watch this video without going “AWWWWW!”.

I saw this video over at Pharyngula and I had to share it. The situation in Iran is truly tragic and people need to hear about it.

There are some friendly internet do-gooders that are helping Iranians bypass the government’s internet blockers. I read those instructions and they look a little scary for a n00bish blogger who does not quite understand the technical side of these things.

Sorry that I haven’t updated the blog. I do know that there are a few people out there that care enough to check out this blog, despite its’ shoddy content and bad grammar, thanks to my email. I appreciate the fact that anybody cares enough about my opinions to miss my updates.

That being said, yes I am alive. I have just been busy and suffering a case of the end-of-the-year blues. This is a hard time to be an educator in the public school system and the proud parent of two children attending the public school system. I am overwhelmed by grade eight farewells, graduations, year-end parties, a birthday party, a beautiful horse to visit and ride and planning for a vacation. I also have a garage to clean so I can start my new career as a heavy-duty semi mechanic. Or maybe I can start by learning how to change the oil in my crummy little Geo Metro.

Now that I am bloviating into this post window (wordpress thinks bloviate is not a word) I have to admit that I miss this blog and I am thinking of all kinds of things to blog about. I want to build a doghouse this summer. My inept fumbling with power tools should be good post fodder. I wanted to blog about all that fuss about Safe Grad (much ado about nothing) but I got busy and tired. I am thinking of writing a novel, but I will probably end up chasing squirrels or frolicking around southern Saskatchewan.

But you will have to wait until summer when I finally get some time. Can you believe that I started this post yesterday but then I had Mom stuff to do which prevented me from publishing it? Unbelievable. This parenting stuff sure isn’t for wimps.

It will not surprise anybody that knows me or is a reader of this blog to hear me say that I have a complicated relationship with the public school system. I love teaching and learning but I feel like the educational system does a good job of making meaningful learning difficult, if not impossible. I consider myself an expert on school. It is true that I did not spend four years of my life in an institution of higher learning and did not get a Bachelor of Education. But I did spend my formative years educated in various public schools in small towns around the province of Saskatchewan. I also have spent many years employed by the public school system to educate many children as an educational assistant. I have observed the inner workings of a school, the various roles played by different people, I have seen how people teach and how people learn. I have two young children that I have sent to public school and have had the opportunity to see school from all sides of the educational fence. I have been the angry parent, the neglectful parent, the bored student who writes swears on her desk, the parent of the child that will not wear shoes, the advocate for a student, and the eater-of-words when things don’t go the way that I think that they should. I wear a lot of hats.

I could and really should write a book about all the ways that school fails people and society. But in the meantime I will just throw up the odd post to vent and see if anybody else in the blogosphere feels the same way.

Educators all talk too much. If you think of a classroom, what immediately comes to mind? Straight rows of desks, probably five rows of six desks, with the teachers’ desk at the front of the room. A chalkboard or possibly a whiteboard at the front of the room. More recently, smart boards have made their way into classrooms. I still haven’t seen one, except on youtube and I have no idea how the work, but there you go. Smart boards are a recent invention so they must be good. All the desks are facing the front of the room so that the students are all facing the teacher and waiting to have their young minds filled with wisdom.

I don’t think that this set-up is inherently evil, as long as the desks are occasionally moved around and the kids get to talk to each other once in a while. This traditional setup lends itself to the exact model of education that is so completely problematic: Teacher talks while students listen.

As a child, I used many coping mechanisms to deal with the boredom of listening to so many people talk on and on about mostly uninteresting things. Fiddling, fidgeting, passing notes, and pulling hair. Does anybody remember what the principal had to say during all those school assemblies? Nope, me neither. This also applies to a lot of the speeches and lectures that teachers present.

If you were to be completely honest, can you really claim that people are listening while teachers talk? By the way, I am including myself in this. I also talk waaaaaay too much. But I do have a proposal to cure this problem that currently has no name. I have decided to call it the 15-minute rule.

Never speak uninterrupted for more than 15 minutes. This includes reading out of books or giving speeches. Students must be allowed and encouraged to engage in class discussions and give feedback on whatever concept is being taught. How else can you tell if your students are getting anything out of your class?

I’m calling it the 15-minute rule.

What do you think? Is the 15-minute rule a good idea or am I full of bunk?

*I am reduced to hosting this image on my photobucket account because I still haven’t resolved my blog’s issue with Mozilla Firefox. Double ewe tee eff????

Once again my family dragged me to see another movie last weekend. Instead of a nerdular, sexist, futuristic drama, we went to see a family movie called Up. I always expect great things from Pixar and they didn’t fail to produce a heart-warming, squishy, family movie that is appropriate for children. I really loved the story, although it did fall for the token female bit, just like every other movie. The main character’s wife Ellie dies early on in the movie and we don’t get another female character until the boy discovers that the beautiful bird is a mom. “Kevin’s a girl!” he laughingly exclaimed. Why yes she is! Why there are girls everywhere but they aren’t good enough to be characters in a movie. But don’t worry kids, only uptight cranky feminists even notice little details like the erasure of half of the population. The rest of you normal people, the non-feminists, won’t notice a thing because male-as-default-standard is pervasive.

Ooops sorry, I lost my pretty little head just now. Where was I? TEE HEE HEE!!11 Oh yeah, I was reviewing a movie.

Up was pretty great. What I liked best about it was the fact that the hero protagonist was a cranky old man. I can’t for the life of me remember his name right now. I know I could use my google-foo to figure it out but it’s much more fun to refer to him as a cranky old man, so that is what I will do from now on. Every other movie has a hero protagonist that is young and dead sexy but not Up. We get treated to a cranky old man brandishing a walker supported by four tennis balls. The old man fight scenes were superb and magnificent. The plot was sufficiently complicated and interesting and they threw enough bones to the parents in the audience to keep us from losing interest.

By the way, let me interrupt this movie review to rant about society’s general fear and loathing of aging and the elderly. It’s a whole lot of bunk. I can’t wait to get old. I don’t care if my arm flaps drag on the sidewalk. I am going to be one of those old ladies that isn’t going to take any crap from anybody. If I feel like wearing ratty old sweat pants, then by gum I’m going to wear ratty old sweatpants. When I was a young teenager that the jerk-off young guys thought was sexy, I did not appreciate being hooted, hollered and leered at in public. I couldn’t wait to get old enough that the jerk-offs would never feel the urge to act that way towards me ever again and that sentiment has not changed. We should glorify all the elderly people and show them the respect they deserve instead of pretending they don’t exist. As for our collective obsession with youth, y’all can stuff it where the sun don’t shine. Throw away the Viagra and the Botox, you don’t need it. We need more movies with old people and interesting characters instead of always the same old white doods.

Back to the review. Up had talking dogs, the realization of a life-long dream and the creation of a brand-new family. It had all those things that make you go “AWWWWW” while the tears well up and you desperately look for a few kernels of popcorn to nibble on so that you’re kids don’t notice your over-emotionalness. (That is too a word. Look it up.)

Go and see Up. It’s totally worth the money.

As seen on a local fence, as I went to drop my oldest child off at her friends’ house. I have to say I agree with this sentiment. And pretty soon we will be getting nookyular power. That is just bad news, as Saskboy can tell you.

PS: I had to post this with Internet Explorer because Firefox is still not working.

Every time I try to upload a picture onto my blog, the browser crashes. I have the firefox browser and this is a really recent problem.

As you can understand, my inability to post pictures on my blog is painful. I have pics to share and I can’t do it right now. I have to rely on facebook to get my fill of spamming the internets. It’s not fair!

I’m off to read some support forums until my eyes bleed. I need to know if anybody else is having this same issue.

You might rightfully think that that is an awfully strong statement coming from someone who has never met the Great Oprah Winfrey, and hopefully, never will. But it’s true. I do hate her. Why do I hate her? Is it because she is a billionaire who is better-looking than me and gets more respect? No, not at all. I hate her because she promotes blatant bullshit on television. Newsweek has an excellent article all about why Oprah and the quackery she promotes is so terrible. I couldn’t have said it any better myself. When I heard that Oprah was promoting The Secret, I thought she had reached a new low.

Then she gave Jenny McCarthy a show. Ay-yi-yi! But enough out of my big yap. Just go ahead and read Newsweek. Then turn off the television, with all its’ Oprah Winfreys, Bill O’Reilly’s, Maury Povich’s and Fox news. You don’t need it!

Father Ted was a wonderfully delightful show that poked gentle fun at the Irish Catholic Church. Here is a quote from the creator of the show:

If all copies and records of ‘Father Ted’ were somehow wiped, I would find it impossible to summon up the affection with which Arthur and I initially wrote the show. Somehow, these days, The Irish Catholic Church seems a lot less cuddly.

I would go further and say that no religion anywhere is warm and cuddly. Nobody needs it. It’s just like that tupperware container full of moldy green food festering in the back of the refrigerator.

Throw that shit out!

If you check out the link you will see testimony from a victim of catholicism. I am quite impressed with his bravery. I think I could live a thousand years and still cringe at the thought of confronting certain people in my life.

This story really set off my old creep detector. Remember Mary Kay Letourneau, the teacher that was arrested and jailed for her relationship with her underage student? She and her husband hosted a “Hot for Teacher” Night. If you want to spew chunks on your keyboard, go ahead and check out the promotional poster. On the off chance that you don’t want to see the poster, allow me to describe it. It’s a picture of a scantily clad young woman wearing school-girl fantasy gear. Puke. This event creeps me out on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin. Glorifying child rape? Celebrating the abuse of your authority over young people? It’s a really creepy toss up.

I may have to post pictures of kittens after writing about this disturbing story, in order to cleanse my blog of evil spirits. YECH!