Things Schools Should Teach (T13)

We probably all look back at our education and think, at times, "I wish they'd taught that in school."  There are things I wish my own children could have learned in school.  I guess I taught them some of it, but making it part of mainstream education would be a better way to equip our kids for their futures.

1.  Taxes.  What is taken out of our paychecks and why, as well as sales tax, gasoline tax, occupancy tax, and so on.

2.  How to choose an insurance plan (HMO, PPO, Vision, Dental, Critical Care, etc.)

3.  How the legal/court system actually works. (You can't just say, "I'm going to sue you!" Do you actually have a case?  What about attorneys, attorney fees,  witnesses, evidence, etc.? It's a long process.  Is it worth it?)

4.  How to recognize bias or an outright scam.

5.  How to conduct oneself in professional situations such as interviews as well as on the job whether it's at Pricewaterhouse Coopers or McDonald's.

6.  How interest works, both the kind you can accumulate from a savings account or the kind that accumulates against you from a credit card account.

7.   Why nothing is actually free.

8.  Basic car care (or if you're in a city that mostly uses public transportation, then a study of how that works).

9.  How to create a household budget with all of the essential categories.

10. How to use and take care of household appliances (stove, oven, dishwasher, washer and dryer,  air conditioner, etc.)  Seems simple in this high-tech world, but many young people have never had to do this.

11. How to open and use a bank account and bank terms such as minimum daily balance and overdraft protection.

12. Basic health care, nutrition, first aid, and mental healthcare.

13. How to develop and maintain healthy relationships in real life (not just on social media), platonic or otherwise.

We could probably all think of so much more!    Drop an idea in the comments below.  I'd love to hear them.  And visit Thursday Thirteen for more fun lists.

Random Tuesday

I'm linking up with Stacy.

I hope all of you moms had a wonderful Mother's Day.  As I sit here looking at the beautiful flowers my son gave me, the lavender plant, letter, gift card, and Bath & Body Works from my daughter, and flowers from my step-daughter, I realize how incredibly blessed I am.  Not because I got these gifts, but because of the way my children have grown into caring, generous, empathic adults.  I was able to see my mom on Mother's Day as well, making it close to perfect, except for not seeing ALL of the kids in person, and except for having to go to Lowe's.  But Lowe's turned out okay, too, because I got to choose new tile for my bathroom.  How lucky am I?

On the other hand, have you ever noticed when you take a day "off," you just have more to do the next day?  Whether it's shopping, cleaning, cooking, whatever... it's there waiting for you the next day!  But... that's okay, too.  It's what I signed up for when I decided to be a wife and mother.

We are in the midst of state testing this week at school.  I hate it.  For five hours, teachers are not allowed to be on the computer or phone, read a book, grade papers, nothing.  Monitor students.  Sit and look at them all day.  Walk around the room every few minutes.  Keep them quiet when they're finished until the whole school is finished.  That's difficult!  And my assigned testing group has some troublemakers in it.  Oh, what fun!  *sarcasm, in case you didn't know* 

I'm not even going to get into whether the test itself is worthwhile.  I could write pages and pages about that!   When seeing things positively, it does mean that the end is in sight!

How about some funnies?

Have a great week!

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Random Nonsense on Tuesday

I'm linking up with Stacy Uncorked for some randomness.  Wanna join us?

 It seemed like everyone had the MLK holiday except the teachers in my school district.  The surrounding districts gave both teachers and students a holiday, but my district had "professional development" for teachers.  Not fair!

On a positive note, the workshop was good, not something you typically hear a teacher say. The language arts teachers in my grade level (about 35 of us) had the good fortune of working with Jeff Anderson for the second time.    We did bits and pieces of his book Ten Things Every Writer Needs to Know.   I really like his approach to teaching!

And speaking of teaching, Our lesson plans are usually due on Monday at 8AM, but since we didn't have students today, I thought we'd get an extra day.  Not so.  Oh well.  I'm a day late and a dollar short as usual.  I prefer to have my ducks in a row where my job is concerned.

On a completely different note, this weekend, my husband and I went to Galveston just to walk around and do something slightly better than sitting on the couch.  I took some random pictures.

Galveston's First Presbyterian Church built in 1876.

The US Customs House built in 1861

Blue sky and palm trees.  It was a gorgeous day!

Have a great week!

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Texas Colleges that Made the Princeton Review Rankings

Join me for Thursday Thirteen!  The second Thursday Thirteen site is pending deletion, so I thought I would try to keep it going.  You can link up below.  You can read more about Thursday Thirteen here.

Every year, the Princeton Review ranks college on upwards of 62 different categories.  Here are thirteen Texas  colleges that made this year's list.

1. Rice University right here in my hometown - best rankings for financial aid, best run, happiest, and several other categories.

2.  University of Dallas in Irving - ranked best for study abroad program, library facilities, and "stone cold sober" students.

3.  Austin College in Sherman - rankings for study abroad program, food, and easiest to get around.

4.  Southwestern University in Georgetown. I wish I could have afforded this university! Ranked high for best career services and best food.

5.  Southern Methodist University in Dallas - I also would liked to have attended here, but money and social status were an issue.  Ranked high due to beautiful campus, career services, athletic facilities, and several other categories.

6.  The University of Texas at Austin - ranked because of their student health services.

7.  University of Houston in Houston - achieved rankings for the way races and classes work together and sober students,

8.  Texas A&M University in College Station - This is where my sister, her husband, and my nephew graduated from - ranks for having many religious and conservative students as well as dedicated athletic fans.

9.  Baylor University in Waco - ranks high for having religious students (it is affiliated with the Baptist denomination) and conservative students as well as good relations with the university and the city.

10. Trinity University in San Antonio - ranks high for having nice dorms.

11. Abilene Christian University in Abilene - best overall in the western region - This is where my daughter attends!  Go Wildcats!

12. Angelo State University in San Angelo - Ranks high for having religious students

13.  University of Texas at Dallas in Richardson - ranks for having sober students and for having students that aren't obsessed with athletics.

You can see these rankings or you can purchase the Princeton Review's book that contains the 379 best colleges in the United States. My college (Sam Houston State University in Huntsville) didn't make any of the rankings.

Where did you go to college?

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Right Now

It's my birthday, and once again, I have a major event. My grandfather died two days before my 11th birthday. My 40th b-day was spent in a crummy motel room in Port Lavaca during Hurricane Rita. Last year, Hurricane Ike had ravaged our area shortly before my birthday. This year, on my very own birthday, I "get" to attend a hearing to discuss child support issues/medical reimbursement/and possibly, visitation. I'm nervous about it. I need a favorable decision. The hearing was partially my choice. It may keep us from having to go to court, which is helpful. I'm just nervous.

Since the hearing is in the afternoon, and I had already signed up to take a whole day off, I'm going to spend an hour or two with DH in the morning then take the kids to lunch. They will only miss their lunch period and homeroom class. And I get a free sandwich from Firehouse subs!

Next subject in my jumbled brain is TV. I am usually on the computer and not really watching TV, but I decided to try two shows I'd heard were good. One of them is Castle. I remember Nathan Fillion from his One Life to Live Days. It's hard to picture him with a teenage daughter now. But even harder to picture is a grown-up Doogie Howser dating, having sex, later getting married and having children on the show How I met your Mother. I also watched it for the first time. Neither show really grabbed me, but I will give them another chance.

Yesterday with my advanced classes, I used the "shared inquiry" technique for class discussion on a reading selection, and it went so great! The first group did extremely well leading themselves in discussion, and the second group did reasonably well. It was a good day with my classes. I need to have more of those. And I went to watch one of our 7th grade teams play football. They didn't win, but that's okay. They get so excited when a techer attends a game.

Those are my thoughts for today. Thanks for taking the time to read them.
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Testing Week at School

Where I teach in Texas, we are at the end of a grading period which means nine weeks' tests were this week. My twins (7th grade) also had a field trip - yes, a field trip during testing week (whose bright idea was that?), which caused some of their tests to be post-poned.

So, as it turns out, my daughter has to take 5 - five - FIVE! - tests in one day - tomorrow! Her language arts teacher, on a whim, decided to post-pone her test. They're designated a certain day to give tests by subject. She can't just change the test day. But she did. And she missed the science test Thursday due to the science field trip today, so she will have to take that on Friday. And her PE teacher is giving them a test on their tennis unit and health issues. Last, social studies is giving her TWO tests, a nine weeks' test and a chapter test, on the last day of the grading period. It boggles my mind!

It's almost midnight, and my twins finally went to bed. We were slowed down after school by the torrential rain, had errands to run, piano lessons, and dinner - then it was on to crazy-busy review sheets and studying. If they're asleep soon, maybe they'll get 7 hours. It's not enough, in my opinion. Me? I don't know when I will wind down enough to sleep. Could be 30 minutes, could be two hours. I never know. Needless to say, I will be tired tomorrow, but thankful that testing week is over for nine weeks.

Wordless Wedensday

My Classroom, except the program that I used to collage didn't work the way I thought it would. I should have done a little more editing. I hope you can click it to make it larger, though.

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Dialing 9-1-1 and other crazy 6th grade shenanigans

I haven't blogged in over a month, but I have to tonight. Oh, what an awful day at work! I swear I feel like a total dummy. I have been teaching middle school (intermediate, junior high) for almost 19 years, and I have never been so terribly embarrassed in all my career as I was today. And not embarrassed in front of the students, but in front of my superiors. They must think I can't manage my classroom and that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do, and that is not the case.

I have the same students for two class periods. Between the two periods, there is a five minute break in which they can go to their lockers, restrooms, whatever. Teachers are supposed to step into the hall to monitor, and let's face it, sometimes we have to go to the restroom, too.

Today, I did just that. I went to the restroom then stood in the hall for the remaining minute or so. All of a sudden, shortly after the bell as I was going back to my room, all hell broke loose. Two separate incidents. First, I had three boys running around the room. One of them lost his shoe, so they picked it up and started using it as a football. The biggest fellow is running, trips over the legs of a girl sitting on the floor actually doing her work, and falls into one of the smaller fellows who has been out sick for three days with fever and just got stitches in his chin about 5 days ago. Well, the boy with the stitches got knocked into the wall, and his stitches popped open and started bleeding. If that weren't enough, before this even happened, I had a student make five 9-1-1 calls from my teacher phone in a matter of 50 seconds. This was not in response to someone getting hurt. When the boy got hurt, the calls had been made already, so the two incidents were unrelated.

Needless to say, the students are all talking about it, and they never get their facts correct. Due to the 9-1-1 calls, the on-campus police officer was at my room in the course of one minute, and I was totally clueless as to why he was there. I didn't know the girl had made those calls. He was followed in the next minute by an assistant principal and the head-honcho principal. So, I have them there, a kid bleeding while I write him a pass to the nurse, and I have no idea what happened still.

All the students had to make statements, and they were very clear in letting the principal know that when I am in the hall, there is horseplay on almost a daily basis, and that this isn't the first time the girl has played with the telephone. Remember, I am supposed to monitor the hallway between class changes, and I can't see inside my room and do the monitoring at the same time. I will not be doing hall monitoring anymore while these kids are in my room, needless to say.

I was in a meeting about this for 45 minutes after school, and it's not over yet. I can just tell the principal thinks less of me. I've always been the "good" one who is where she's supposed to be at all times, who is on time, who turns in everything on time, doesn't send kids to the office on a regular basis, and so on. Well... these two incidents totally wipe all that off my slate!

I am so angry. And embarrassed. And frustrated. They want us to do things that will make learning fun for the kids, but how can I do that when they can't control themselves for five minutes? I don't know the consequences for the students yet, but I can guarantee I will get some parent phone calls - and why? For doing what I'm supposed to do by monitoring in the hall. They are supposed to go in and sit down, but they obviously don't. The student statements made it clear that there is frequent horseplay in the room between class changes. I guess I won't get to leave to go to the bathroom anymore, and they won't be doing anything but sitting at their desks and working from now on. I know it's not my fault since I was doing what I was supposed to do, but it will appear that I have never told them not to do this - which I have - countless times. The statements from the students make me appear to be an idiot. At least, that's how I feel. And in this litigious day and age, I am afraid someone is going to sue me for being negligent whether I was or not.

I had to get this off my chest. Thanks for reading.