Saturday Football

This is the part of the stadium that I live in - the Press Box!

This is my friend, colleague and team statistician - Joe Marks.

This is me getting ready to do my job!

Well, it wasn't the ending that I would have hoped for but it happened just the same. We lost 22 to 42. Our kids run fast, hit hard, and really try to do their jobs - sometimes it just isn't enough.

I find that I look forward to the kids football games. And not just because I am the videographer. I get to go to the games with a friend, Joe Marks who keeps the stats. Sometimes, Carol Zortman comes along. The air is crisp sometimes. The sun bright and occasionally hot, occasionally cold, sometimes dreary (like last year at Eastern!), and sometimes just perfect. The sound of the National Anthem and the kids at attention, team and cheerleaders, spectators with their hats in their hands make my eyes burn. I feel hometown/small town America.

This is the field during the National Anthem. The only thing that was missing was the fly-over by the US Air Force! When you attend the Protective Services graduation, you get the fly-over!






Then the ref blows the whistle and we are playing a game full of sounds - grunts, armored bodies hitting armored bodies, whistles, cheers, the banter from the press box and lots of other sounds that are so familiar to me. There are smells too - the fresh mowed grass, hot dogs, and sometimes I think that I can smell the sweat of the players.

This game has lots of benefits too but the one that I cherish the most is the comraderie of the staff and the kids on the field. I put the diecut helmets on the Media Center window and soon they will be signed by the team and their friends. The kids wave at me through the windows that separate the Media Center and the Mall. I get high fives from the players when they come to use the library. I was amazed when the 9th grade team stopped in to mark time waiting for a bus to take them to an away game. It was on Thursday and the Math tutoring program was in progress. The team kids enjoyed the extra Math help on their homework. That was GREAT!

These are a few of the dedicated teachers at Tech who take time to come to the games on a precious Saturday morning. Smiling faces all the way around!

We have a sports program that is working. Kids participating in the educational community that is York Tech. Teachers too. We are teaching kids to be productive citizens. We are not waiting for Superman!

Need a Break

In this life, God occasionally sends messages that aren't really good. I got one of those on Friday. It has made me think about what is really right about my life and there are lots of things. I have a wonderful family, friends, a fabulous job that I really enjoy and the accoutrements that go with that. But as I was sitting enjoying the calm of the evening, I thought about the quiet that the ocean can bring into one's life.

I sat listening to the surf. The waves making their way to shore and I could see the mist rising from the waves as they caressed the shore. I could taste the salt from the ocean on my lips. I felt the gentle breeze as it touched my face. Life is good when you think of life's simple pleasures. I hope that there are many more of these kinds of moments.

Just checked with Wordle and that is what it is all about today!

Did you know . . .

Nope, I didn't go to ISTE 2010. That is the BEST national conference on the planet - if you are a computer GEEK! My friend Carol loves the Swag that we come home with and my friend Josh B., who is there, has bags full already! But I have been monitoring the conversations that have been ongoing since Saturday through my PLN (Professional Learning Network).


Anyway, I came across this blog entry and was thinking that I am failing someone or something at Tech. Many of us have seen the video shared on this blog. It made me think about how I would do things when we get back to school later this summer. The teaching to the test thing is driving me nuts! I no longer desire to enable the kids at Tech!


Here is the short blog entry. I have posted this to the Diigo account, too. And, yes, I have read several other blog entries at this site and will be adding this to my Google Reader.


I know that it is summer and just thinking sometimes hurts. It helps to lay in a comfortable shady place under the trees in my park like back yard with a breeze going to help clear the head!


Continue to enjoy the summer.


Marge


Educating our Kids to Solve Problems that Don't Exist Yet
http://blog.k12.com/2010/06/22/educating-our-kids-solve-problems-dont-exist-yet

I Wonder

Yes, I have been awake for hours. I have been following my Twitter and reading my RSS feeds on Google Reader. I have been listening to the sounds of the snow storm. I have been waiting for the cardinals to come for breakfast. I have been listening to Jeff snore (It scares me when I can't hear this sound!) I have heard from one of my children and know that she and her husband are safe. I am waiting for the ABCD's to make contact. I wonder if they will take a picture of David in a snow bank. He is only one next week and is going to be a holy terror! I know that Collandra will be holding him in the picture because she is very enamored and protective of her baby brother. I wonder if she will let him have some of the fun experiences that she had when she was small. I wonder if I recommend a really great bog entry, will some of my colleagues read it and understand the enormity of the task they call teaching truly is. I wonder if my colleagues know that teaching is the greatest thing a person can do. I wonder if the staff thinks that I am crazy when I say that I am the luckiest person on the planet! I have the bestest job ever! I work with kids! I teach kids! I laugh with kids! I cry with kids! I pat kids on the back! But . . . I do the same thing with my staff - work, teach, laugh, cry, praise . . . I have a GREAT job!

Isn't that what it is all about?

Here is a recommend for reading. It is part of the Lessons Learned from Students series

I Only Thought I Knew My Students (by Ric Murray)

And that is what I think this morning!













Yep! It was all about wondering!

Educational Philosophy

Tom Whitby’s post struck a discordant note in my head. I teach at a comprehensive vocational-technical school that has all of the accoutrements to provide an excellent base for any child to get and maintain a job. But, as a staff, we know that these kids will hold many positions in their life for which we have not given the specific skill subsets. What that means is that we must provide these kids with the means to retool, learn, unlearn and relearn, and move forward in jobs that, may, for the most part, as of this moment in time, do not exist. It also means that we, as educators of the upcoming workforce, have an obligation and a responsibility to make these kids realize that in order to succeed and have a modicum of a lifestyle for maintaining a family and a community, they must be the chameleons of the “new” workforce. That means that they need to be the “life-long” learners that Dr. Whitby has identified in his most recent post. Chameleons change with their environment and so must our students.

I not only think that Dr. Whitby is right, I know that he is right. We are preparing kids for employment, and, yes, layered systems of employment defined by education, collar color and pay, but what about the other 16 hours in the day? What about a person’s soul. That can’t be fed by a job.

This has made me think about my Dad. He was a plumber – a very good plumber, and plumbing is not what he wanted his children to do! He read extensively and he was a voracious reader of everything. He was an eloquent speaker, philosopher, and debater. But that was because he had music in his ears, poetry in his heart, a love of all things unknown, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Everyday brought new questions. His question to us each day at the dinner table was “What did you learn today?” And we clambered and competed to answer that question so that we had bragging rights to who learned the best thing that day!

I don’t think that the education that we are giving the collective today reflects a philosophy of what is best for the soul but what is best for the wallet. That is not bad but it is sad to not have a legacy of the quest for knowledge or that which would render the soul fulfilled. Education for the soul. Would this kind of education keep kids in school? Give them a love for learning beyond the school room? Give them tastes of what could be?

Standards - O Captain!

Wow! It has been a long time since I wrote on this wall but tonight I felt compelled to chat!

I was following my Twitter feeds and came across a reference to the new national standards proposal. You know that very rarely have I been out of the educational initiative loop, but this took me aback. I have known that this was coming but I thought that it was farther in the future. How very interesting these standards are and they could be coming directly to us soon!

Have a look! The reports are in PDF format. I am listing the link to the CCSSI site. They are looking for feedback. Anyone interested?

I was just thinking about the guys who are taking course work now with the PSU/Workforce Ed peeps. What would the discussion be in class about these tentative standards? Would these standards even be a topic for discussion? Would anyone question the validity of the need for these particular standards on a national basis?

Just where would we stand when these are the mandated standards? Would it affect our curricula? Hmmm . . . Or would it . . .

The Common Core State Standards Initiative
http://www.corestandards.org/

And they used one of my very fav poems by Walt Whitman as an example and it is only on page 10 of the following document! I am liking this!

College and Career Readiness Standards for Reading, Writing, and Speaking and Listening
http://www.corestandards.org/Files/ELAStandardsSources.pdf

And that is how I feel today!

I did ok! It is all about "Standards"!

"The Speech" and Me

Tomorrow, Tuesday, 8 september 2009, will be a day for me to remember long into the future. It is the day that President Barak Obama will address the children of the United States of America about their responsibilities toward their own education. The alarm was sounded on Friday before I left the building when I was asked about "The Speech" by an administrator. What did I know about it and what was the staff discussion about "The Speech". Yes, I knew about the speech. and, yes, I had heard other staff members discussing "The Speech". Some were concerned that the President was going to press his agenda on the kids of America!

Alarm bells should have begun to ring then but I must have been in another time zone. After all it was Friday afternoon and I was on my way to a movie with my nine year old granddaughter. I was looking forward to a weekend with the family. As I was leaving the building, I was stopped by another staff member asking about the Obama speech on Tuesday. Another set of bells.

When I got home I quickly Googled the topic of "The Speech" and found the overview, lesson plans, and the contest that would capstone the whole event. It was easy to deduce what "The Speech" would entail - education, responsibility, goals. . . Some wonderful thought provoking questions and activities. I wasn't worried. There would be nothing subversive in "The Speech". Alarm bells! I should have paid more attention to the whispers - propaganda, subversive material, socialism, Hitler, social state, mind control, brainwash, etc.

The Sunday News was a real shock to me! Front page, above the fold! How were the schools of York County going to handle such a critical speech from the President of the Uniter States. I can't remember a time when I have felt so very distressed about my personal belief that the President would never attempt to brain wash the children of this country, a general shame for the citizenry of this country. The article was definitely an eye opener. And I became curious about the comments that were attached to this article and those alarm bells rang with a clarity that would have frightened even the faintest of heart. I have kept a watch on these comments as they have grown from less than 20 to more than 160.

Those comments rang of fear, racism, facism, and a host of other ideologies, epithets, untruths and threats.

"The Speech" will be watched by myself in my Media Center and I will record it so that it is part of the collection for all to watch, dissect, and perhaps applaud! It is refreshing that someone is going to address the children of this country and ask them to be the best, do better, be responsible, learn, be respectful, do a good job, have educational and life goals, work hard, become educated citizens, not burdens on this society. The comments have warned me to be very circumspect about "The Speech".

"The Speech", I am thinking that it just may be a catalyst for US children to do better. I remember another time in the history of education in these United States and Sputnik was a menace that only education could resolve. Were we really a second rate country then? Are we one now?

What can "The Speech" do for education tomorrow? Will the alarm bells continue to ring? What will the alarm bells fortell? Is my country that fractured?

"The Speech"

And that is how I feel today! Alarmed!

Ps Today was about the Speech!