Christmas Party Planning

We'll just have to continue this moving ...
from the Dipso Chronicles


FROM: Pauline, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: 21st October 2008
RE: Christmas Party
I'm happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will take place on December 23rd, starting at noon in the private function room at the Grill House. There will be a cash bar and plenty of drinks! We'll have a small band playing traditional carols...please feel free to sing along. And don't be surprised if the MD shows up dressed as Santa Claus! A Christmas tree will be lit at 1.00p.m. Exchange of gifts among employees can be done at that time; however, no gift should be over £10.00 to make the giving of gifts easy for everyone's pockets. This gathering is only for employees! The MD will make a special announcement at the Party.
Merry Christmas to you and your Family.
Pauline


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FROM: Pauline, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: 22nd October 2008
RE: Holiday Party
In no way was yesterday's memo intended to exclude our Jewish employees. We recognize that Chanukah is an important holiday, which often coincides with Christmas, though unfortunately not this year. However, from now on we're calling it our 'Holiday Party'.. The same policy applies to any other employees who are not Christians. There will be no Christmas tree or Christmas carols sung. We will have other types of music for your enjoyment.
Happy now?
Happy Holidays to you and your family.
Pauline.


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FROM; Pauline, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: 23rd October 2008
RE: Holiday Party
Regarding the note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous requesting a non-drinking table...you didn't sign your name. I'm happy to accommodate this request, but if I put a sign on a table that reads, 'AA Only', you wouldn't be anonymous anymore!!!! How am I supposed to handle this? Somebody? Forget about the gift exchange, no gift exchange allowed now since the Union Officials feel that £10.00 is too much money and Management believe £10.00 is a little cheap. NO GIFT EXCHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED.
Pauline.


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FROM: Pauline, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: 24th October 2008
RE: Holiday Party
What a diverse group we are! I had no idea that December 20th begins the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking during daylight hours. There goes the party! Seriously, we can appreciate how a luncheon at this time of year does not accommodate our Muslim employees' beliefs, perhaps the Grill House can hold off on serving your meal until the end of the party - or else package everything up for you to take home in a little foil doggy bag. Will that work? Meanwhile, I've arranged for members of Weight Watchers to sit farthest from the dessert buffet and pregnant women will get the table closest to the toilets, Gays are allowed to sit with each other, Lesbians do not have to sit with gay men, each will have their own table. Yes, there will be flower arrangements for the gay men's table too. To the person asking permission to cross dress - no cross dressing allowed. We will have booster seats for short people. Low fat food will be available for those on a diet. We cannot control the salt used in the food we suggest those people with high blood pressure taste the food first. There will be fresh fruits as dessert for Diabetics; the restaurant cannot supply 'No Sugar' desserts. Sorry! Did I miss anything?!?!
Pauline.


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FROM: Pauline, Human Resources Director
TO: All F***ing Employees
DATE: 25th October 2008
RE: The F****ing Holiday Party.
Vegetarian pricks I've had it with you people !!! We're going to keep this party at the Grill House whether you like it or not, so you can sit quietly at the table furthest from the 'grill of death', as you so quaintly put it, you'll get your f***ing salad bar, including organic tomatoes, But you know tomatoes have feelings too, They scream when you slice them. I've heard them scream. I'm hearing the scream right NOW!!
I hope you all have a rotten holiday, drink drive and die.
The Bitch from HELL!!!


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FROM: John Benson.( Acting Human Resources Director )
TO: All Employees
DATE: 26th October 2008
RE: Pauline Lewis and Holiday Party
I'm sure I speak for all of us in wishing Pauline a speedy recovery, and I'll continue to forward your cards to her. In the meantime, the Management has decided to cancel our Holiday Party and instead, give everyone the afternoon of the 23rd December off with full pay.
John Benson.

Those extended vacations

You know how the vacations are scheduled ahead of time? Coach Brown mentions this in the context of teacher accountability here at "A Passion for Teaching and Opinions".

Up here, it's "Our driveway was snowed in yesterday. I couldn't make it in. Can I take the test today instead?"

Great Expections, the eduWonk edition.

I ran across this assignment today:

Expectations: 7th Grade High Level Writing Assignment
Essay on Anne Frank
Your essay will consist of an opening paragraph which introduced the title, author and general background of the novel.
Your thesis will state specifically what Anne's overall personality is, and what general psychological and intellectual changes she exhibits over the course of the book
You might organize your essay by grouping psychological and intellectual changes OR you might choose 3 or 4 characteristics (like friendliness, patience, optimism, self doubt) and show how she changes in this area.

I'm no English teacher, but if this is for a 7th grade class, how much are we realistically expecting? I'll repost my comment ...

At first, I thought they were making fun of the grammatical errors in the first slide. Then I read the rest of the blog entry and realized they were praising this as the better of the two. Having thought about it, I'm not sure that I don't find the first to be one of those over-written and quite pretentious lesson plans that pretend to high expectations while grading everything easily and accepting anything.

I am always suspicious when obvious mistakes are made in a piece that is released to the public in this fashion - did no one check or notice?

High expectations need to be followed by high standards in grading. That is where I would focus in this situation. What was received and how was it measured?

Anyone can copy a good assignment from the internet and butcher the execution.

The second page is just silly, but maybe it was meant to be? I could see this on the first day of a new block class, second semester. At least it gets the subjunctive mood.

Math Tales from the Spring: The Avoider

Math Tales from the Spring: The Avoider.

Take some comfort: It's not just you, Mrs. H. These clowns are all over the place.

And their unfortunate kids, too.

Not so Touchy-Feely Herself.

In Time, Michelle Rhee,

"The thing that kills me about education is that it's so touchy-feely. People say, 'Well, you know, test scores don't take into account creativity and the love of learning.' I'm like, 'You know what? I don't give a crap.' Don't get me wrong. Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don't know how to read, I don't care how creative you are. You're not doing your job."

The curmudgeon smiles as he waits for the screaming to start.

The Enabler

Alcoholics and their support groups use this term, I think it applies to education in an equally insidious fashion. Some people incorrectly lump them in with helicopter parents, but they're too different. The helicopter parents are more annoying but the enablers are more destructive.

Had a parent-teacher conference the other day with guidance, parent, kid, Mme. Science and me. The topic was "What's going on? Baby boy is failing." My take on it was simple, "Not paying attention in class, unfocused, whispering and talking. Always misses the crucial details that make math easy if you know them and impossible if you don't."

He had a ready excuse - he only wants to be a helicopter pilot. "No college" means "no effort needed now." He doesn't see when he'll need any of this. Pythagorean theorem? Who cares? Right triangle trig? Useless to this flyboy. Critical thinking? Who needs that? All he needs is some flight courses after high school. A couple of hours of training and wham, he's got a glamorous job for life. Navigation? He doesn't care. Aeronautics? Useless. He only needs to fiddle with the stick. That won't take any training at all. He's got video games so he knows what it takes to fly.

Momma is on board with the whole pilot thing. She's got all of his dreams for him. She likes the idea. She's told him that it's his choice and she'll pay for all of it and pat him on the head. She didn't seem to see that she had given him this way out of working. Neither of them can see that there is a tremendous amount of work and studying that goes into a pilot's license - that spending the money is the least of it. I can't see him putting in the time and effort to make it in that field. He'll be competing against way too many ex-mil who have real skills and experience and who have gone to college on the GIBill and have a resume that isn't crap.

So he's failing.

Am I giving up lunch to tutor? Ummmmmmmm, no.
Am I keeping him after school? Ummmmmmmm, no.
Am I available after school? Yes and if no one shows, I'm outta here. ( I stay roughly an hour, longer if someone comes in.)

Here's the deal, kiddo.

First, if you screw around during class, I'm not going out of my way to somehow force you to come after school or get extra help during other times. The onus is on you to seek out the help.

Second, if I'm going to spend 1.5 hours of class time teaching you something, only to have you ignore it, then I won't be so happy about taking even more time to reteach you personally. I'll do it because I consider that hour or so to be an expandable "office hours" where I'm available for anyone, but you'll be lower in priority than those who were trying. I'd do the same during prep period, too, if you had a question during that study hall, but I know you won't.

Third, your grade stands. Earn your way out of the hole. You took a test and got a 20%. You took a retest on the same material with basically the same questions (only different numbers) and got a 25%. The rest of the class was in the As and Bs with a couple Cs. You knew the difficulties and the material and you didn't bother to do anything.

You asked no real questions, tried nothing, copied the classwork from the next kid, copied the homework from someone else and thought you'd put one over on me. Here's your rope, kid.

Students are NOT multi-taskers

I don't know how many times I hear this each day, but it seems to be the excuse on everybody lips. "Students today are multi-taskers."

Bull. Students today are exactly like students yesterday, students a decade ago, and students in my generation. There is no physiological or psychological difference that makes them more able to multi-task than any other human. Individuals may be able to do more than others, but the differences are not age-based.

Watch your own students. Watch someone else's. Watch them in the supermarket, at the skate park, in casual settings. They are just like you were. They can focus completely on one thing at a time when they want to. Watch (if you can) four straight hours of practicing a particular grind on a certain rail configuration or repeated hikes up the halfpipe to do a McTwist or a frontside 1080 over and over. Watch as they practice guitar hero for hours. Today's teenagers are exactly like yesterday's except the music has changed (not it's attitude, only the names).

When we claim that students can multi-task, we allow them to excuse their lack of focus in the classroom and explain away their inattention to algebra. We reinforce flightiness instead of letting them find out what being "in the zone" is really like in academics.

Still don't believe me? Have them read Gould's article "The Median Isn't the Message" while you are talking about measures of central tendency. How well does that multitasking work out for them now?

Can they text/phone while driving? No. No one can do that. Attentional blindness is a human failing not a aged one.

Can they even have friends in the car during their first months of having a license? No, because the friends are too distracting.

Can they listen to music while typing a paper? Mostly no, but it depends on the music - always has.

Can they text in class and understand what you just said? No. Sure, they "heard" it but they weren't listening. All of you teachers know the difference.

Ask a simple question to find out who's listening -
"If I take the high value of a data set and change it to a number large enough to be an outlier, which of the following will change and in what way?
mean, mode, median, IQR."
"What if I made that same number SMALL enough to be an outlier?"

The debut of a new category!

Over at FoxNews they've got a story about a bus driver who asked the cheerleaders to lift their shirts for money.

"... Diamond approached the girls with his request ... The high school students found another ride home ...."

He's lucky they didn't slap him stupid.

"Diamond ... was described by co-workers as a quiet man who keeps to himself."

A sure sign of trouble, right there. I love the understated nature of this line, though ...

"He faces termination for the alleged incident."

Gee. You think?


Here's the whole story (sort of, it's Fox after all) ...

A longtime school bus driver could be fired after several members of a cheerleading squad in Lynnfield, Mass., said he offered them $40 to lift up their shirts.

Driver Bill Diamond, 56, was suspended without pay after the allegations surfaced, MyFOXBoston.com reported. Diamond has been at the job for 23 years.

"This clearly goes well beyond any bounds of acceptable behavior," said town administrator William Gustus.

Police said Diamond approached the girls with his request after a cheerleading competition in Lowell. The high school students found another ride home and went to authorities, who in turn questioned the bus driver, according to MyFOXBoston.com.

The driver allegedly didn't deny that the accusations were true.

Diamond has no record and was described by co-workers and his supervisor as a quiet man who keeps to himself.

He faces termination for the alleged incident.

Time redefined

I was just killing time talking with Mr. Sweater (History) and the subject turned to evaluations. He was being evaluated this month sometime and was looking forward to it (?!?). He then threw me for a real loop.

"I haven't been evaluated for at least three principals, maybe four. I'll have to go and look."

How about that? We've had so many that it's easier to discern which year not by the kids who were there (Sam's older brother's year - you know, when they decorated the ...) but rather by the principal. Oh, and this measurement system is more fine-grained than doing it by year, too.

AP in the News again

Jay Matthews feels that anyone can learn in an AP class and said so. "I was repeating for the 4,897th time my view that even low-income students who have not performed well in school can learn in a college-level high school course, like Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate, if given extra time and encouragement." I'll save his caveat until the end of my post because he did the same. It's a qualification of his argument that gets him off the hook but is always ignored by demagogues and administrators, or missed by anyone who doesn't read the whole article.

A commenter replied, in part, that access to such advanced material must begin early and " ... this kind of feel-good, everyone-can-do-it idea is valuable, but not at the expense of students who are not trying to game the system but who have worked solidly to learn and succeed .... ACCESS BEGINS IN KINDERGARTEN, not at the moment a child who has effectively been asleep in school for 11 years suddenly decides to wake up!"

Matthews is wrong because he's confusing ability to learn and the quality and quantity of that learning. When you are talking AP, it's not a matter of equal rights through equal placement, measured by enrollment numbers. It's rather "What is most appropriate?" In APCalc, for example, one can teach trig and logarithms and advanced algebra along the way, but it's better if students already have learned it because calculus builds upon previous knowledge like no other subject. Those who cannot do the preliminary work CAN learn calculus but aren't really doing college work. They're dilettantes, in a way. There's nothing particularly hard about rates of change and accumulated areas and anyone can learn these concepts. Using them is another matter.

Matthews says "can learn" is the criteria to use, but he's repeating this too-often repeated educational canard. Anyone CAN learn SOMETHING in any class, but an appropriate placement means that the same "anyone" will be able to learn FAR MORE.

The first commenter, on the other hand, is wrong because he's starting way too early and because he's confusing "gaming the system" and behavior with ability. If you are talking about "not performed well" because the kid got bad grades but knows what he is doing - APCalc will be fine. If the "not performed well" is due to a lack of knowledge and skills, why not put him into a class that's appropriate?

There is no reason why a kid can't start with nothing and work up to AP level during the high school years. Escalante proved that - just remember that Escalante didn't do magic, didn't do it in 1 year, put a strong linearly-progressing curriculum into place, and demanded the world from his kids every day.

You CAN go from worst to first - but it takes a boatload of work, a competent teacher and a good teaching-and-practice curriculum, not the constructivist stuff. It takes work.

The first commenter is also correct when he says that students who do well and work hard should not be held back by those who don't work hard and who lack the necessary skills and knowledge.

A second commenter criticized the first - "Scary to think this person is a teacher. It appears he/she does not teach in a public high school ... The notion that access to AP classes should begin in early childhood education is absurdly myopic. Recently my colleague Mary Ann Bell and I gave a presentation to approximately 40 parents and 8th grade students who wanted to learn more about our AP Network here at Wakefield. ... We have AP Summer Bridge, AP Study Seminar, AP Lunch Lab, Academic Cohort for Minority Males, United Minority Girls, etc. ... the overwhelming majority of our AP students have never been identified as gifted. We also have AP students with individualized education programs that require hosts of accommodations."

Firstly, if AP access doesn't start early, why are you giving presentations to 8th graders? Saying "Early childhood" is silly, but preparation is hugely important.

If the AP is the right placement, then why do you need all the Bridges and Summers and Lunch Labs? Because it wasn't the right placement. They weren't ready for Calculus and you knew it. If the kid doesn't know what's in a typical Pre-Calculus course, why not schedule him for Pre-Calculus?

If the overwhelming majority were never identified as gifted, that's your fault as a school. It takes a superior student to be able to gain college credit in a high school setting as a younger age. Putting weak students in the course may satisfy your need to prove non-racism, but it doesn't help the students.

If the kids' IEPs provide accommodations that modify the environment, then I couldn't care less - that's not a concern, just something that is done and no one thinks twice about it. If the IEPs modify the material or the teaching methods or the requirements, then the student is mostly likely better placed in another course.

Having said all that, what was Jay Matthews's caveat?
"For some courses, particularly calculus and foreign languages, unprepared students should not be admitted." It's correct but it is buried in a paragraph from which a casual reader (and administrators and reformers and critics of pre-requisites) would take the opposite meaning.

The whole paragraph ...

The AP and IB teachers with the best results in the classes, for both fast and slow students, have told me they don't need to grind the whole thing to a halt to help kids at the bottom. For some courses, particularly calculus and foreign languages, unprepared students should not be admitted. But in most AP classes with students at different levels, some will grasp more of the classroom discussion than others, but for nearly everyone there is a net gain. The data show that opening AP to anyone who wants to take it does not reduce the number of students getting the top scores on the exams, one indication that the fastest students are not hurt.

To finish, I'll add an experience of my own - a girl who scored 480 on the math SAT and was placed in an AP Calc class. I argued that it was the wrong placement, that she was doomed to failure. I was overruled because "teacher can individualize the education" and low scores on a single test should not prevent you from taking a course." Bull. If you can't score at least 600 on the math SAT, you will probably not do well in AP calculus. It's not fair to place a student into a situation which will be forever frustrating. She wound up failing because she didn't have enough background. She was trying to learn the algebra when the rest of the class was trying to use the algebra to learn a calculus idea. Failure.

Why do keep making this mistake? Inflated grades are part of the problem, as is the group work is a cure-all fallacy. This girl did a lot of group work in her previous courses (read: she followed along while others learned). Mostly, it was an administration who wouldn't say "No" because they thought that anyone can learn in a calculus class.

Tolerance and Acceptance

I have fears for this country. People spent 8 years ranting about the hardline right running the country into the ground, ruining civil liberties, destroying political freedom, etc., ad infinitum. Then, a few hard-left nutjobs promptly recreate the tyranny and intolerance from their side of the park.

If liberals want to be taken seriously, then Liberals and Libertarians need to denounce the radical morons who make everyone look bad. Sure, you've got the right to say it - but not the right to overreact and get violent and get nasty when someone else says it.

"I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to the Death your right to say it." attr. to Voltaire, but actually written for him by Hall.

The college girl punched and screamed at because she wore a McCain button - is this how civil discourse works in colleges these days? The 8th grader with conservative father and liberal mother who decided to test her classmates and teachers. The kid who wore a McCain t-shirt to an after-election street party and was arrested for it? The grandmother whose cross was taken from her and stomped upon by a group of Prop 8 opponents? The NYCity people willing to let themselves be filmed swearing and cursing someone quietly standing - simply because his shirt says Palin on it? Students who can't help but criticize another's choice, saying, "Palin is a religious freak and a danger to society." without knowing anything about her, other than she's on the Republican ticket? The Racist Right has it's mouth open with brain shut moments, too. Cool it, people. You're not clever and you're not making much sense, but you are making videos that compare Obama to Hitler and Jim Jones. Rein in your psychoses and have a civil disagreement. The Black Panthers "standing guard" (one of whom is holding a nightstick) at the polling place giving certain people a bad time -- Gee, didn't someone think that might be misconstrued by a camera with an axe to grind?

To be taken seriously, to be American, we must all denounce these actions and the millions of other occurrences great and small, anti-republican and anti-democratic alike. We people who claim to be tolerant of diversity? How about some true tolerance? Be tolerant except of intolerance.

I work in education - surrounded by people who are knee-jerk one way or the other. I have one message. Grow Up.
Be the token liberal in a group of redneck friends.
Be the Red-State diehards on a BlueState campus.
But talk to each other. You're friends, or you ought to be.

Why can't we see that the country split nearly 50/50 on this election - if you isolate and demonize those with whom you disagree, you will never achieve consensus nor will you ever achieve peace. If we can't rein in the extremists, we will trade one set of pedagogical fools for another.

Just sayin'.

SmartBoard follies

SmartBoard professional development presentation at our little hole-in-the-wall consisted of:

District tech coordinator.
School tech dude.
Computer Teacher.
Chemistry teacher.

20 minutes passed while they tried to hook up the smart board. Comedy of errors mixed with Keystone Kops choreography.

Finally machine was up and running but Science teacher (only one who used it regularly) didn't have her files on this computer - it wasn't networked because the wireless card was fritsy.

So she showed us how to doodle on stuff and kept apologizing that she couldn't show us any of the really cool things she did with it everyday.

Computer teacher showed us the dice-rolling animation thingy. She didn't apparently have any other ideas or suggestions.

District tech has never used one except to tap to advance Powerpoint.

School tech never used it because he had admin duties.

That's it. That was the PD that wound up being PDS (pretty damn stupid) and PDI (pretty damn irritating) and PMAWOT (pretty much a waste of time).

Later, in my classroom, I read an online manual and played with the software for an hour (downloaded for free).

Guess which was more informative and useful?

Rectangle of Squares 1

Boosted from JD2718

Clarence the Clever Contractor cleared a rectangular plot of land and covered it with gravel. Then he purchased 9 square wooden sections of side-length 2, 5, 7, 9, 16, 25, 28, 33, and 36. By placing the squares on the gravel with no two overlapping, Clarence built a patio which exactly covered the graveled surface. Find the perimeter of Clarence’s new patio.

I have another from an Informal Geometry book, which drew out the squares, labeled the 7 and 9 and left finding the rest of the sides for the students.

If you get the first, try this one ...
7, 9, 16, 19, 26, 28, 33, 44, 45, 60

Try using total area and prime factorization as well as the visual method, which I likened to a sunflower in that you start in the middle and work outwards.