Author: Mensa Dropout

In Defense of Canada

Posted on by Mensa Dropout
Canadian Flag
Even The Canadian Flag is cool. Maple leaf, maple syrup? Consistency!

 

Apparently, The Donald has a problem with Canadians.  Not sure why he has this atavistic hatred for our friends in the North.  I mean, annexing the whole thing and making it one, giant snow park would be cool, but I’m not one to invade other countries.

In my little part of the world, calling someone a Canadian is not an insult.  Never have I been irritated with someone and said, “Man, you are soooooo…Canadian,” nor have I told my children, “Don’t play with them; they’re Canadians.”  Thems just not fightin’ words. In fact, I love Canadians.  I love Canada.  It worries me and makes me a little sad, really, that The Donald has a problem with Ted Cruz due to his Canadianism (which he forsook to become solely American, an act which I will never understand).

I am here today to extoll the virtues of all things Canadian.  Maybe Mr. Trump will read this little dittie and change his tune. I doubt it, though; he’s a little busy combing his barely-noticeable-toupee and being angry and…weird.  He’s weird.  Weirdweirdweird.

Here is The Dropout’s top ten list of  why Canada is Cool, and why Trump should take a chill pill:

10.  Canadians have Maple Syrup.

I could stop right here and be done with my list.

9.  Canadians are NICE.

Whenever I visit up to the Great White North, I am treated with kindness.  Even in Montreal, where the Francophones love the French language, all I have to say is, Bon Jour and then start speaking English.  No harm, no foul.  With those two words, it is understood that I tried to do the French thing, and everyone is pleased with my southern drawl efforts.  I never met a person there who was not helpful or who refused to switch over to English or whatever language the person was speaking to them (for me, it’s English…it’s all I got).

8.  Canadians Speak, Like, Seven Thousand Languages

So my Canadian friend Tom (also very nice, although I don’t think he grows his own syrup) speaks Italian, French, English, Hebrew, and Spanish.  I mean, come on!  Canada is as big and as landlocked as the US, and we Amerkuns speak English. Many of us haven’t quite mastered that language.  I was visiting a place in Montreal, when a lady said to her husband, “Oh, look, baby!  Even the little ones speak French!”  The boy switched to English and apologized for insulting her.  See?  Even the little ones are nice!  Tom’s kids, who are eight and six, speak three languages.  My kids, who are the same age, speak broken English.

7.  Canadians have Poutine

Check it:  French Fries covered in gravy, and sprinkled with cheese curds.  It’s like bacon and cheese fries but oooooooooh, soooooooo, much bettttttttter!  I have dreams about Poutine, and when I wake up and step on the scale, I’ve gained 12 pounds.

6.  Canadians are Rule Followers.

I was visiting there Before Children (BC), and while driving some folks to a ski resort, I think I may have been a touch over the speed limit (the metric system never stuck with me; I don’t think I ever really learned it, to be honest).  All three passengers reminded me to slow down!  I was going over the speed limit by like five KpH, but I was told to slow down!  What if I hit someone? We were on the highway, and no one was to be seen walking along the clean highway (another thing about Canada:  it’s really clean-I guess everyone follows the rules and puts trash in the trash can).

5.  Canadians Understand Both the Metric System and the English System.

It cracks me up that we Americans are the only ones who use the English System of measurement.  Even the English don’t use it anymore.  But Canadians, because they are so nice, use both. Even the baking mix boxes have both.  See?  NICE.

 4.  Canadians Aren’t Down with The Man

At dinner one night (also BC) while out in California, I struck up a conversation with a Canadian, and she had a theory as to why many Americans are so anti-establishment, but Canadians are so…not.  Her theory was that while American settlers forged their own path to land and wealth out west, the Canadians had their Mounties to go first and make sure it was a good place to settle.  Right from the start, the police and the settlers were pals.

3.  Canadians are Versatile

Let’s go back to the gloriousness of maple syrup, shall we? And slather it on a French pastry…umm, hello! But first, let’s have a plate of Poutine.

2.  Canadians Are Just as Capitalistic as We Are

Okay, I am making a gross generalization here, but every Canadian I have met likes money just as much as I, a capitalistic American, do, and believes that hard work will get you where you need to be.  My friend Tom likes money even more than I do, and that is saying something.

1.  Canadians Don’t Take Everything So Seriously, and Neither Should Donald Trump

Canadians laugh at the folly of humanity just like everyone else, but they don’t get all worked up about stuff. They don’t even get worked up when someone makes fun of them for being Canadian.  I’m sure that every Canadian out there in the free world is laughing at Donald Trump’s issues with The Great White North, eh?

So let’s show our Northern Friends a little love, and tell The Donald that there are bigger, less Canadian fish to fry.

Freedom!!! Nope, not for you, Mr. Spencer.

Posted on by Mensa Dropout

Ah, Jeremy…JEREMY!  What were you thinking, dude?  Well, we all know what you were thinking, but did you really have to say it?  Did you have to post it?  Did you have to keep the photos up on your Facebook page? Jer…e…my.  Jeremy, you, my friend, are what we would call an idjut here in my part of Georgia.

So, Mr. Spencer, a DOE Official (political favor by Mr. Woods for helping him with his campaign), put some pretty vitriolic posts about anyone who is not a straight white Protestant male on his Facebook Page.  I will give him credit for being an equal opportunity hater, but a hater all the same.  But here’s what I think (and since my salary from this blog seems to continually get lost in the mail, I can say what I think):  I think Mr. Spencer has the right to believe what he wants to believe, however distasteful those thoughts may be.  I believe he shouldn’t have gotten the job in the first place (so he passed around a lot of campaign ads for Woods, and he’s brothers with a Georgia Representative.  Those are not resume pieces that will get you hired where I live; just sayin). I also believe that we have become waaaayyyyy too politically correct here, there, and everywhere.

Where do we draw the line, though? At what point do we say, enough is enough, and let folks think what they want to think and say what they want to say? At what point does a company or an entity dismiss a person’s thoughts as just that:  thoughts?  I am of the philosophy that you can swing your arms around in a circle until you are blue in the face.  I may find it annoying, but you shouldn’t be arrested for swinging your arms around, even though you look stupid.  But the minute, the second, you hit me, we have a problem.  At that point, your arm swinging interfered with my right to go about my business.  At that point your annoying little arm swinging game turned into a hitting game, and I am the victim.

There are so many stories out there where some yahoo with too much angst spouts off about inappropriate (read: NOT ILLEGAL) stuff.  Recently, a teacher from Johns Creek High School was fired resigned from Fulton County because she posted about a student with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) taking too long on a final exam (to which he had extra time by law).  She was pissy because she wanted to go home at noon with all her other teacher friends, but the student took his time on his exams entitled to him through his IEP.   A teacher in Winder, Georgia went to Germany and took a photo of herself with a beer in her hand at pretty much every stop she took (She sued and won, by the way).  Are these things illegal?  No.  Neither of them is illegal, and, although I am not a lawyer, the way I read the Professional Code of Ethics, not a one of them defies those ethics either.  Neither does Jeremy Spencer’s gross misperception of humanity.

So Jeremy Spencer is an idjut, and he should not have been hired…but should he have been fired resigned for having thoughts with which others disagree?  He was swinging his arms on his personal Facebook Page, and he did not take down a post that I would consider seriously offensive (I’m not easily offended by much), but his arms didn’t do any physical damage to anyone or to anyone’s property while swinging.  At what point does the old saying about words not hurting anyone begin to take hold in grown folks?

At what point do we simply say to those people and about those people, “Bless your heart” and keep it moving?

Public School:  Where the Rights of a Few Trump the Rights of Too Many

Posted on by Mensa Dropout

One of the foundations of our Constitution is that the rights of many do not impede upon the rights of a few.  I get that, and I think it an imperative cornerstone of America.

But today I am writing about discipline in public school…stay with me; there’s a connection.

All children have a right to a free and appropriate education (FAPE). FAPE gets tossed around a lot.  What it means is that the school is bound by law to serve every child, whether he or she has a special learning need or not.  Again, I agree that we need to ensure the rights of a few.  But when do the rights of a few trump the rights of many?

I’m sure that we have now all seen the video of the South Carolina Resource Officer who flipped a child onto the floor.  Was he wrong?  Absolutely!  Should he lose his job?  Yes!  Was it overkill?  Probably.

What got him to that point, though?  A teacher had to call in an administrator who then had to call in a police officer (and yes, they are trained officers…with vests and guns) to deal with a child who allegedly would not leave a class of 25-30 students. ONE child kept a class of 25-30 kids from learning.  ONE child kept instruction from other students who also have a right to FAPE.

As a mother and an educator, though, I am growing more and more concerned that students who are “average” are being pushed out of public school by those who need special attention.  Gifted students get extra money from the coffers; students who don’t speak the language get extra money from the coffers; students who are medically fragile get extra money from the coffers; so do kids with ADHD if they have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).  They get special testing plans and extra time on tests; they get extra resources; some even get their own teacher.

How has it gotten to the point that schools must use resources such as a full time, certified  teacher for one student, or an assistant to a teacher of five students when the “average” child is stuck in a classroom with 30 other “average” kids?  When one reads about student teacher ratios, averages are used.  Meaning, when a parent reads 12:1 ratio, the school or school system is not taking into account that some of the children in that school have their own teacher, or there is a class of three students who are highly special needs.  These children need special attention, and I appreciate that.  I understand that they are either medically fragile or at such a place that their education depends upon those resources.

Brenda Wood has some comments about public school’s discipline problems that I found refreshing.  I appreciate her thoughts, but I don’t think that Ms. Wood understands that students who have an IEP can be as “mouthy” as they want to be because those students can only be suspended ten days of school…period.  If a child who has a special need of Behavior Disorder (BD), s/he can cuss out a teacher or even threaten to hurt a teacher, and before anyone can do anything, a hearing must be called to see if the behavior is a “manifestation of disability”.  That means that if Susie cussed me out and threatened to kill me, it may have been something that set her off, and we as a school just need to be better at handling Susie’s disability.

I have a couple of little people who are “average”, and they sometimes come home and tell me about their day, saying, “No we didn’t have much reading (or fill in the blank) today because Susie was having another one of her bad days.”  I then ask what they did, instead.  Sometimes they go to another classroom until Susie calms down (lost instruction), or sometimes they just wait until Susie calms down (complete waste of instruction).  Sometimes the principal or assistant principal gets called in to remove the child in a way that they have been trained.  But then the principal or assistant principal has to sit with Susie until mom or dad arrives.  Sometimes they do; more often, they don’t.  So what do I do?  I get angry because there’s nothing I can do.  I find it unfair that now the rights of one are impeding the rights of the rest of the class, my child included.  Before I had kids, I was much more inclined to be understanding and inclusive, but that was before my children’s rights to FAPE were trumped by that of one child who was not “average” but special.

One day, some crazy parent might decide to sue because their “average” child is being lost in the masses of “special” children. That crazy parent may just be me.

Mom? Dad? Let Go of your Kid – You Are Doing More Harm Than Good.

Posted on by Mensa Dropout

Because I am an EduGeek through and through, I still read about my biz even when I should be with a buzz…or at least at the pool with my kids. But I read this article which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt  sheds more light on everything we educators already knew about education: Parents really need to back off their kids’ lives and let them do something crazy, like, oh, I don’t know, fail every now and again. This is not a new concept that I discovered just recently; in fact, I see more and more articles about the increase of suicide in our best and brightest kids because of the pressures put upon them by their parents.

As a parent, I totally get not wanting to see your child, the little person you literally grew from seed, be hurt in any way. I get it. I get why we want our children to be successful (I totally want my own old person Au Pair and live off of my stinking rich kid). But what I don’t get is why parents would be so selfish that they allow their children to be placed in a situation where not only will they fail, but they will also fail epically. The data is coming in that not only are we producing these “excellent sheep”,  but businesses are having to train these excellent sheep to actually think because, well, they can’t! We haven’t allowed them to make decisions, good or bad. Students are now entering college and taking classes like the “Success Academy” at Georgia State University because they have never had to take the initiative or to make a decision.

And parents aren’t the only ones who are to blame. Educators began the testing mills in the early 2000s, and now we are pushing this out to businesses. Students are great multiple choice test takers, but they are not good at making their own decisions.

Because we want our offspring and our students to be successful and live a life that is pain free, we over-parent and over-protect them into a corner, and these wonderful, creative, problem solving, vibrant little people grow into anxious, scared, depressed, and often suicidal young adults.

So, for the rest of the summer, I say let your kids fall and scrape their knees. Let them bow out of that mission trip to Zimbabwe. Let them ride bikes, eat Popsicle, walk to the neighborhood pool, and sleep in late. They’re kids, and they should be able to be kids with all the rights and privileges of kiddom. Don’t worry…you wont be like my mom or other moms of the 70s. But if you might lean that way, I don’t think I suffered too much from the lead poisoning by drinking out of the hose.

Southern Snow Days and Clichés

Posted on by Mensa Dropout

There are two things that we Southerners are famous for:  our aversion to snow and our propensity to speak in endearing clichés.   Saturday Night Live produced a pithy little skit poking fun at both.  Stay with me, folks; you’ll understand this post soon enough.

On February 23, 2015, while we were all heading for home and stocking up on the essentials of bread, milk, eggs, and “beverages,” Senator Hunter Hill and Senator Fran Millar’s Senate Bill 152 was set to read.  In essence, this bill takes away Teacher Retirement System (TRS) for any new teacher hired after December, 2017.   I won’t bore you with the numbers, but if Georgia wants to have teachers who are the best and the brightest, giving them the short end of the stick is a road paved to hell, even though the good intentions are questionable.

The Universe has a lovely way of telling people things, and our friends Senators Hill and Millar may want to take heed.

On January 24, 2014 Senate Resolution 782 was read in the Senate.  Guess what happened on January 28, a mere four days later?  Snowmaggedon.  You know, that day when children were stuck on buses for hours and teachers stayed at school and took care of the young people whose parents couldn’t get to them? Yeah, that Snowmaggedon.  With SR 782, Young Senator Hill wanted to mess with not only active teachers’ retirement, but also that of all retirees in Georgia.  Since those retirees were already home on January 28 with their bread, milk, and beverages, they gave down the country pretty quickly.  I am fairly confident that the four sponsors of SR 782 had headaches from all of those phone calls.

When the teachers actually got home from spending the night with other people’s children, the phones started ringing again.  The resolution never made it to the floor, and teachers thought that it was dead and cold in the ground. We thought Hill and Millar read the writing on the wall, or in the snow as the case may be, and were going to leave well enough alone.  Senators Shafer, Mullis, Bethel and Jones dropped that thing like a hot piece of corn bread, but Hill and Millar?  God love them.  These boys were counting on the fact that even a blind dog finds an acorn every now and again, bless their hearts.

Senate Bill 152 dropped and was read on February 23 this year.  This time, the Senators left off the retirees and only included those of us who are still teaching children.  I guess these Good Old Boys figured that since the retirees don’t have a dog in the race, the bill would be fine and dandy.  Teachers were in school, so Senators Hill and Millar thought they are sitting in high cotton, right?  RIGHT????  Well, on February 24, 25, and 26 these fine gentlemen got another think coming.  Why?  SNOW DAYS! Sorry Senators, but you got caught with your pants down.  Teachers got wind of your shenanigans faster than two shakes of a sheep’s tail, and we were pretty hacked off at the news of your silly little bill. Teachers don’t sit around like bumps on a log even though that seems to be the general gospel for y’all up there in the Dome.

What do teachers do all day “trapped inside” while Satan’s Dandruff swirls around us?  We get on social media.  What did we find on social media February 25?  Lord have mercy, we found A LOT!  The news of SB 152 spread like wildfire, and Hill and Millar were in the middle of it all…again.   Young Senator Hill’s bill dropped at the worst possible time…again.

I think that it’s Jesus’ way of saying, “Boys, that dog won’t hunt.”  Next year may be snow free, but teachers have been bitten way too many times by these gentlemen, and we are a little shy of what might happen less than a year from now; we will be burning the midnight oil to ensure that these boys keep their dogs in the shed, their foxes out of our hen house, and their fingers out of our retirement pie.  Senator Hill and Senator Millar will soon realize that the sun don’t shine on the same dog’s tail all the time.

I hope that these gentlemen will actually speak to those who have reached out to them; otherwise, they are in for a very rude awakening from a sleeping giant.  Hill and Millar may want to talk with former Governor Roy Barnes about the power of the teacher’s vote.  They can take that to the bank.

#teacherretirement

#HunterHill

#FranMillar

#Teachersnowdays

 

The Great School Take Over Debate

Posted on by Mensa Dropout

Schools come in all shapes, all sizes, and all levels from, “Oh my goodness, I want my kid to go there!” to “There is no way on God’s Green Earth that I would let my child darken that door. I don’t care if I live in a hovel; we’re going to private school.”

That being said, I believe that something has to be done to push our bad schools out of business. I also firmly believe that the free market will take care of failing schools on its own.  BUT!  What makes a failing school?  Is it the teachers?  Is it the administration?  Is it the central office staff?  Is it poverty, lack of money going to the school, lack of money getting to the classroom, lack of salary for the best and brightest teachers, lack of__________?  Or is it too much money going to the big dogs’ salaries, too much money spent on things outside of the basic education of our kids like testing, too much of ______________?  Ironically, it’s none of that.

What makes a failing school is this little thing called the Georgia (please note:  not National…Georgia) College and Career Readiness Performance Index (or, what we in the biz like to call the CCRPI Score). The CCRPI Score is based on a lot of factors, and one of those factors is how many kids pass a test.  Another part of it is how many of our most vulnerable and underserved kids grow academically in a year.  You get bonus points if teachers log on to the state system and mess around with it; points for AP classes being offered and taken, especially by minority students.  Although old, this is a user friendly score guide.  For you Education Wonks, check out the DOE Site and dig deeper.

A school that has a CCRPI score of less than a 70 is a big, fat failure.  If that school is a big fat failure for three years, it is taken over by Big Deal and Company.   What are Big Deal and Co. going to do, though?  Is there a plan beyond the “Great Takeover”?  Whom will they hire?  How will those teachers get paid?  Will they be paid more than their peers because they took on the challenge?  What will the class size look like?  What will become of the facilities? What will the Full Time Equivalent (FTE) funding be for the school population? Books? Technology? Supplies?

Here’s my prediction.  I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Big Deal and Co. will take over the school (s).  Student:Teacher ratio will be ideal in all classes and not an average (20:1); facilities will be updated; teachers will be compensated on a higher level; administration will be held to a higher standard; our underserved population will be put into higher level classes and expected to perform at higher levels (because they CAN, and we forget that sometimes). Test scores will jump dramatically because the kids have the best and brightest working with them in smaller classes, lower student teacher ratios and higher expectations.  IT’S a miracle!  And then the best and brightest, the money, and the expectations will move on, and the school goes back to what the government has allotted it in the beginning.  Guess what happens next?

Wouldn’t it be easier to simply hire teachers and administrators who are the best and brightest, pay them well, treat them well, and hold them to a higher standard?  Give them a smaller class size so that they can get to know their kids and personalize learning.  Give them support in areas they need support .  Give them time to collaborate, to plan, and to give everything they have to the kids whom they serve?  I’d say so.  Jim Arnold of Pelham City Schools agrees.  What say you?