If a student teacher is to survive the blackboard jungle all by himself someday, he better get used to making judgment calls. At least, that’s what B, one of my students, has to say.
B (striking his level-best plaintive tone): Mr. R? I did the reading last night but...the thing is...I left my notes at home. Do I have to take the quiz, or can I make it up?
Me: Uhmm…is that true?
B: No, I just wanted to see what you would say. (Big smile). As a teacher you have to be prepared for that. Are you gonna be one of those teachers that says, “Suck it up,” or be like, “Awwwwww, don’t worry--here, I have some notes you can borrow”?
Me: *Smile*
B: No, really, what would you do? Say you had a kid who was really good, always did their work and you knew they were telling the truth. Would you let them take it later?
Me: Uhmm…let’s move on with our quiz, B.
Can you believe it? I had no ready answer, so I stalled and brushed the question aside. Of course, I did sincerely want to get on with the quiz and not drift into private conversation, but still. I’m not sure I have an answer that goes much farther than, “it depends.” In point of fact I have already made a couple of exceptions this year, so I have made some short-term decision toward leniency. Was it the right thing to do? I'm not sure. But I strongly suspect this question will come up again soon. And this time I'm going to study.
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Uh-oh
There is nothing so emblematic of a sudden turn of fortune than the fleeting flash of light that signals a power outage. It's the visual equivalent of the record scratch sound effect, I think, but because of its invariable consequences it hits you in the stomach a lot more suddenly. Life with power, meet life without power. At least, when you have been an apartment dweller who has seen this kind of problem mushroom into two- and three-day intrusions into regular life then that knot in the stomach is quite real.
My circuit breaker blues started mildly enough. I flipped on the light above the stove this afternoon, and it went out. It's just the stove light, so I'm think, "BFD, I'll get to that bulb when I get to it." When I checked the fridge a little later, however, I saw that it had stopped getting power. Again, not the end of the world if you know what you're doing. Perhaps because this problem started with that little stove light, I avoided the usual dread that this was something serious. I grabbed the flashlight from the side of the bed and the keys to the basement. As I made my way to our circuit breaker, making sure not to hit my head on the low metal doors leading to the basement door, I even came upon what might be a good discovery; all the downstairs neighbors' stuff was gone. Might those inconsiderate, shiftless, very likely thieving people be moving out? The first thing I did was check that our stuff was still in the basement, and it was. Were it not M's stuff that's down there but my own, I think I'd trade it all to be rid of these people.
Anyhow, all the switches were still in the "on" position, so I flipped the three kitchen switches off and on. I came upstairs to check on the fridge, and nothing. On my next trip, I tried every switch and when I got back upstairs, that sinking feeling made its appearance. In the three years M and I have lived in this apartment power outages have uncovered not only that our previous neighbors were stealing cable from us, but that this apartment's wiring is a mess. Downstairs and upstairs are in some sort of illegal mix that we thought was fixed, then it wasn't, and now I found out is still all wrong. I lost power to half the apartment's lights--essentially the outer walls in the front half of the apartment plus the inner kitchen wall that powers the fridge. I checked with the neighbors, and as I feared I had turned out half their lights despite touching only the switches for our second-floor circuit breaker box. I expected them to be annoyed, but the woman who answered the door was more detached than anything else. She seemed to be aware of the problem, which surprised me. I remember now, as I did not then, that this has happened once since she's moved in but I hadn't bothered to let her know. Intense heat exited their front door on what is a relatively mild day. Also, the woman was smoking. These things made an impression on me, as did the fact that my eyes were as yet so unaccustomed to the dark that I could barely make out more than her silhouette.
Back I went into the basement, taking extra care with the switches, and on my third attempt I heard through the thin ceiling that the neighbors' lights were back on. (A thanks to my buddy III, who recommended I get back down there and try each switch one-at-a-time. It was then that I discovered the offending one). Good. I marched back up with tentative hope, but after several careful entries and exits I was in the perfectly unsettled, hurried state to make a full-on head bang on that low ceiling. Just...of course.
Back to square one at this point. The only sockets out were those powering the fridge. It was still early enough to call our landlord. I left a message. Then I drove to Home Depot where I picked up a medium-duty fourteen-gauge, fifteen-amp extension cord to power the fridge through the washer's outlet.
Now I'm back and this makeshift plan has done its job. The fridge is getting juice, my night laundry mission is delayed, and my landlord will be here at ten in the morning tomorrow. So now my night mission is to make this place presentable for company. Maybe not a dream Saturday night, but something that I should do anyway. I'm picking up M from work at six in the morning tomorrow, so maybe I can surprise her with an extra-clean home. Indeed, if I manage to pull off more than a so-so clean-up effort, then M has her own record scratch moment coming up.
Read more!
My circuit breaker blues started mildly enough. I flipped on the light above the stove this afternoon, and it went out. It's just the stove light, so I'm think, "BFD, I'll get to that bulb when I get to it." When I checked the fridge a little later, however, I saw that it had stopped getting power. Again, not the end of the world if you know what you're doing. Perhaps because this problem started with that little stove light, I avoided the usual dread that this was something serious. I grabbed the flashlight from the side of the bed and the keys to the basement. As I made my way to our circuit breaker, making sure not to hit my head on the low metal doors leading to the basement door, I even came upon what might be a good discovery; all the downstairs neighbors' stuff was gone. Might those inconsiderate, shiftless, very likely thieving people be moving out? The first thing I did was check that our stuff was still in the basement, and it was. Were it not M's stuff that's down there but my own, I think I'd trade it all to be rid of these people.
Anyhow, all the switches were still in the "on" position, so I flipped the three kitchen switches off and on. I came upstairs to check on the fridge, and nothing. On my next trip, I tried every switch and when I got back upstairs, that sinking feeling made its appearance. In the three years M and I have lived in this apartment power outages have uncovered not only that our previous neighbors were stealing cable from us, but that this apartment's wiring is a mess. Downstairs and upstairs are in some sort of illegal mix that we thought was fixed, then it wasn't, and now I found out is still all wrong. I lost power to half the apartment's lights--essentially the outer walls in the front half of the apartment plus the inner kitchen wall that powers the fridge. I checked with the neighbors, and as I feared I had turned out half their lights despite touching only the switches for our second-floor circuit breaker box. I expected them to be annoyed, but the woman who answered the door was more detached than anything else. She seemed to be aware of the problem, which surprised me. I remember now, as I did not then, that this has happened once since she's moved in but I hadn't bothered to let her know. Intense heat exited their front door on what is a relatively mild day. Also, the woman was smoking. These things made an impression on me, as did the fact that my eyes were as yet so unaccustomed to the dark that I could barely make out more than her silhouette.
Back I went into the basement, taking extra care with the switches, and on my third attempt I heard through the thin ceiling that the neighbors' lights were back on. (A thanks to my buddy III, who recommended I get back down there and try each switch one-at-a-time. It was then that I discovered the offending one). Good. I marched back up with tentative hope, but after several careful entries and exits I was in the perfectly unsettled, hurried state to make a full-on head bang on that low ceiling. Just...of course.
Back to square one at this point. The only sockets out were those powering the fridge. It was still early enough to call our landlord. I left a message. Then I drove to Home Depot where I picked up a medium-duty fourteen-gauge, fifteen-amp extension cord to power the fridge through the washer's outlet.
Now I'm back and this makeshift plan has done its job. The fridge is getting juice, my night laundry mission is delayed, and my landlord will be here at ten in the morning tomorrow. So now my night mission is to make this place presentable for company. Maybe not a dream Saturday night, but something that I should do anyway. I'm picking up M from work at six in the morning tomorrow, so maybe I can surprise her with an extra-clean home. Indeed, if I manage to pull off more than a so-so clean-up effort, then M has her own record scratch moment coming up.
Read more!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Dispatch from Student Teaching
Veteran Teacher: “How’s it going so far?”
Me: “Great. These kids are just so good. I don’t know if it’s just that they aren’t comfortable around me yet, but everything I tell them to do, they do it.”
VT (looking at me quizzically): “I’ll keep my mouth shut about that one” …*reconsiders*… “that will change.”
Two hours later
Me (in my invariably calm tone): I need you to keep your voice down.
Study Hall Student: I don't know why you’re being a fascist.
I suspect this young man and I will be exploring this issue again. Like, tomorrow. Still, that's not my favorite quote of the day. That honor goes to one my ninth-graders explaining to his classmates why sometimes violence is the only answer to a problem. He said, "So, if two countries are having a border dispute and one of them charges into the other one’s territory, is that other country just going to sit there and take the punches in the face?". I really got too much of a kick out of that.
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Me: “Great. These kids are just so good. I don’t know if it’s just that they aren’t comfortable around me yet, but everything I tell them to do, they do it.”
VT (looking at me quizzically): “I’ll keep my mouth shut about that one” …*reconsiders*… “that will change.”
Two hours later
Me (in my invariably calm tone): I need you to keep your voice down.
Study Hall Student: I don't know why you’re being a fascist.
I suspect this young man and I will be exploring this issue again. Like, tomorrow. Still, that's not my favorite quote of the day. That honor goes to one my ninth-graders explaining to his classmates why sometimes violence is the only answer to a problem. He said, "So, if two countries are having a border dispute and one of them charges into the other one’s territory, is that other country just going to sit there and take the punches in the face?". I really got too much of a kick out of that.
Read more!
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Go Figure
I actually fixed that expandable post problem. I had to get past a couple red herrings first, and procrastinate on a couple of other things, but this blog is safe to use again. Turns out that the blog had something called javascript:void(0) built into the "Read More" link. And my understanding is that part of what this coding does is prevent links from opening new pages. What I'm not sure about, though, is what changed from one day to the next. I regularly update Firefox, but not IE. So if was a browser update, I'd expect the old version to work. My best guess is that since I've come back to the blog I may have updated a blog layout, messing up this widget.
Upshot: we're good to go, friends. Read on.
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Upshot: we're good to go, friends. Read on.
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Technical Difficulties
It looks like something's up with the Read More function that allows you to read beyond the intro section of blog posts. Nothing happens when I click to expand the post.
For now, just click on the title of any post you want to read. I'll see what I can do about this, but not tonight.
Read more!
For now, just click on the title of any post you want to read. I'll see what I can do about this, but not tonight.
Read more!
Conscientiousness Objections
I was looking up the word painstaking today on dictionary.com, and I read down to the note on synonyms, which discussed the shades of meaning in the words thorough, scrupulous, careful, meticulous, and conscientious. I have always enjoyed the dictionary very much, and tonight occasioned one of those pleasures of reading crisp, economical description. Take a look at the entry on the word careful.
CAREFUL, the most general in sense of these words, implies serious intent to perform well and accurately whatever task one has in hand: a careful housepainter; a careful study of the social structure of gangs.
It really is so pleasing. Not one wasted word.
What I have to relate tonight is an episode wherein I am called out for careless writing.
I don’t know if there’s anything more navel-gazing to write about, but…I received back yesterday. I am in the student teaching semester of my program, during which I take a once-a-week course with the sixteen other student teachers. It’s a light load, and so perhaps I have the luxury of saying that I wish it were more of a challenge. The assigned readings are so rarely discussed that I doubt anyone prepares with any consistency. Instead, most of our time is spent in ad hoc discussions of what’s going on out in the teaching world. Which is okay. This isn’t always fruitful, but oftentimes it is. My fellow student teachers are generally sincere people who have enough trust in each other to bring forth interesting episodes that are real challenges for them to solve.
Anyhow, my grade in this class has three equally weighted components: 1) participation, 2) a seven-to-ten page textbook analysis paper, and 3) an eight-to-ten page personal reflection paper about our student teaching experience. Thankfully, student teaching itself is pass/fail. So, I got the first paper back and the professor tore it to pieces. In the last several years I can only remember one time that anything like this has happened to me. That other instance was in a course on ancient Chinese history in which the professor asked us to write about the Ming dynasty with reference to Gavin Menzies’ 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. Some quick Googling suggested to me that this author was a quack, and so I merely alluded to him in a paper otherwise faithfully sticking to Chinese shipbuilding history. And boy did he lay into me. I remember his calling me out on the “defensive fine phrases” I employed so as to avoid engaging Menzies. I suppose he had a point about my following instructions, but he was a real pain in the ass about it.
This one was different. The professor mentioned the irony of grading papers from a group such as ourselves who have often complained about student writing. He said that he was frankly disappointed with the carelessness of many of us. As you can imagine, you had a roomful of people thinking it’s someone else who mailed it in. Me included. When I first read his note that my many stylistic and grammatical errors were of great concern to him, I did not know what to say. That’s just not who I am to make such elementary mistakes. As I looked it over again today, however, I think he is a lot more right than I could have ever believed. As regards grammar, I strongly suspect he is imposing his preferences upon me.* But as to how unclear and awkward I was at several points in the paper, I think he has me dead to rights. Really, I just condensed some points to such abstraction that the reader would have to make a best guess at my meaning. Just ugh. Though it will affect my grade in this class, I am glad this happened before I have to write something for a more serious occasion. True, writing the paper in a night was probably part of the problem. But that’s been my m.o. for these shorter papers without incident for who knows how far back now. Something different happened with this textbook analysis, and I’ll be curious to look on it again.
*Just in case you are curious about the grammar, here is a representative example. He objects to the red comma in the following sentence: “I sometimes consult a college-level history survey textbook, and, by contrast, each of its chapters begins with a prominent list of focus questions.” Is this a genuine error? Or is it simply ugly enough that it merits changing? I haven’t consulted a reference work, but my first reaction is that I am always free to use a comma to join two independent clauses. Thoughts?
Read more!
CAREFUL, the most general in sense of these words, implies serious intent to perform well and accurately whatever task one has in hand: a careful housepainter; a careful study of the social structure of gangs.
It really is so pleasing. Not one wasted word.
What I have to relate tonight is an episode wherein I am called out for careless writing.
I don’t know if there’s anything more navel-gazing to write about, but…I received back yesterday. I am in the student teaching semester of my program, during which I take a once-a-week course with the sixteen other student teachers. It’s a light load, and so perhaps I have the luxury of saying that I wish it were more of a challenge. The assigned readings are so rarely discussed that I doubt anyone prepares with any consistency. Instead, most of our time is spent in ad hoc discussions of what’s going on out in the teaching world. Which is okay. This isn’t always fruitful, but oftentimes it is. My fellow student teachers are generally sincere people who have enough trust in each other to bring forth interesting episodes that are real challenges for them to solve.
Anyhow, my grade in this class has three equally weighted components: 1) participation, 2) a seven-to-ten page textbook analysis paper, and 3) an eight-to-ten page personal reflection paper about our student teaching experience. Thankfully, student teaching itself is pass/fail. So, I got the first paper back and the professor tore it to pieces. In the last several years I can only remember one time that anything like this has happened to me. That other instance was in a course on ancient Chinese history in which the professor asked us to write about the Ming dynasty with reference to Gavin Menzies’ 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. Some quick Googling suggested to me that this author was a quack, and so I merely alluded to him in a paper otherwise faithfully sticking to Chinese shipbuilding history. And boy did he lay into me. I remember his calling me out on the “defensive fine phrases” I employed so as to avoid engaging Menzies. I suppose he had a point about my following instructions, but he was a real pain in the ass about it.
This one was different. The professor mentioned the irony of grading papers from a group such as ourselves who have often complained about student writing. He said that he was frankly disappointed with the carelessness of many of us. As you can imagine, you had a roomful of people thinking it’s someone else who mailed it in. Me included. When I first read his note that my many stylistic and grammatical errors were of great concern to him, I did not know what to say. That’s just not who I am to make such elementary mistakes. As I looked it over again today, however, I think he is a lot more right than I could have ever believed. As regards grammar, I strongly suspect he is imposing his preferences upon me.* But as to how unclear and awkward I was at several points in the paper, I think he has me dead to rights. Really, I just condensed some points to such abstraction that the reader would have to make a best guess at my meaning. Just ugh. Though it will affect my grade in this class, I am glad this happened before I have to write something for a more serious occasion. True, writing the paper in a night was probably part of the problem. But that’s been my m.o. for these shorter papers without incident for who knows how far back now. Something different happened with this textbook analysis, and I’ll be curious to look on it again.
*Just in case you are curious about the grammar, here is a representative example. He objects to the red comma in the following sentence: “I sometimes consult a college-level history survey textbook, and, by contrast, each of its chapters begins with a prominent list of focus questions.” Is this a genuine error? Or is it simply ugly enough that it merits changing? I haven’t consulted a reference work, but my first reaction is that I am always free to use a comma to join two independent clauses. Thoughts?
Read more!
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Live Blogging the House Health Care Bill
Has anyone else noticed that Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner sounds a lot like Tom Hanks? I think this is a solid asset in American politics. What I can't settle on is who Charlie Rangel sounds like. And this bring to mind, of course, the question of how the rest of our Congress stacks up in melodiousness. Arlen Specter comes to mind as someone I've enjoyed hearing. Harry Reid's skills need no comment from me. And that Sessions from Alabama is just so annoying.
On these things I feel on sure ground.
11:08 p.m. House passes bill with 220 votes (219 Dems and Louisiana Rep Joseph Cao)
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On these things I feel on sure ground.
11:08 p.m. House passes bill with 220 votes (219 Dems and Louisiana Rep Joseph Cao)
Read more!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Class Dismissed
I was looking through blog posts that I drafted but never posted and found this one that really transported me back in time. Do you remember that almost three years ago now I took an English course at the local community college? It was a real joke of an experience, mostly because the professor asked so little of us. What sticks with me most is his habit of coming up with quizzes right in front of us--hand on his chin, looking up to the sky for the inspiration to ask us such deep things as naming an author we had read that week. Toward the end, I think he picked up on my annoyance. As for my fellow students, I remember very little about them. One was an adamant conservative who scuffled with the professor in tangents that ate up class time. Another claimed to have been engaged five times but never married. The person who half-made it into my blogging that winter was a young man who was too cool for school. He had made an appearance in an earlier post for a similar reason. Read on for a dispatch from February 17, 2007.
I showed up early to class last week, which gave me the chance to finish the week's reading. I got enough of the way through before everyone else arrived. Soon we were all there waiting for the professor and a mass grumbling formed about what an imposition it is to trudge to this sorry class in the dead of winter. Five-minute rule this, and "If we all leave he can't say anything," that. Our resident faux-hawked hipster led the charge of disaffection and mischief. The talk of taking off if the professor didn't show continued straight through his arrival about five after six. As soon as the professor put his stuff down, our hipster told him, "Man, if you let us out early, I'll give you a ride home this time." Another student added, "Yeah, me too. I don't even have a car, but I'll find you a ride if we can leave early."
Class got underway, and went on without any incident until we were dismissed twenty minutes early. It was then that the professor looked to the hipster and said, "So, I got us done early; are you giving me a ride?" To which he replied, "Uh, I was joking...I thought we were both joking."
And then a sustained awkward silence.
Read more!
I showed up early to class last week, which gave me the chance to finish the week's reading. I got enough of the way through before everyone else arrived. Soon we were all there waiting for the professor and a mass grumbling formed about what an imposition it is to trudge to this sorry class in the dead of winter. Five-minute rule this, and "If we all leave he can't say anything," that. Our resident faux-hawked hipster led the charge of disaffection and mischief. The talk of taking off if the professor didn't show continued straight through his arrival about five after six. As soon as the professor put his stuff down, our hipster told him, "Man, if you let us out early, I'll give you a ride home this time." Another student added, "Yeah, me too. I don't even have a car, but I'll find you a ride if we can leave early."
Class got underway, and went on without any incident until we were dismissed twenty minutes early. It was then that the professor looked to the hipster and said, "So, I got us done early; are you giving me a ride?" To which he replied, "Uh, I was joking...I thought we were both joking."
And then a sustained awkward silence.
Read more!
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