Did You Know…?

A few topics from CNN.com that I found interesting and how it relates to my life:

First, the one that my students don’t have a comment on.  There’s an article discussing how teleportation is possible, just not in the way that you think.  The basics are that teleportation of information is possible in a quantum sense (quantum meaning “world of atomic particles and smaller” for you non-sciency types) but not Star Trek teleportation.  So, while we may one day soon have incredible super-computers in labs if not our homes, we will not be beamed from one place to another.  Not only does that have physical problems bordering on impossibilities, but it’s not ethically sound either.  Weird, right?  I mean, who ever thought teleporting would be an ethical issue.  To me, it’s the same as cloning.  Let me explain.  In order to teleport, there are two possibilities.  One way is to break you apart into your constituent atoms and then send them to another place, only to be put back together in the same exact way.  Trillions of atoms need to be moved to a remote location and then put back exactly in the same spot.  Good luck with that.  The second way would be to copy the exact location of each atom and send that information to a remote location, where a mass of atoms would be rearranged to be you.  A facsimile of you.  I call it a clone.  Either way, it isn’t you anymore, it’s just a copy of you.  I’m sorry, but the chances that tens of millions of your atoms (less than 1%) show up in the wrong place is just too great for me to entertain this idea.  Try taking a chunk of your lung and putting it in your foot, or in Idaho for that matter.  Either way it’s of no use to you anymore.

Back to the computing part, this teleportation of information takes away the problem of data storage.  It’s strange stuff, but apparently increasingly practical.  Instead of storing info on bits (0 or 1) like current computers, the atoms can store info in multiple states at the same time.  The article puts it this way:  current computers can store 300 pieces of info on 300 bits.  These computers can store 2^300 (that’s two multiplied by two…three hundred times) in the same space.  That gets rid of any computer hard drive problems.

Here’s the next article, and it really hits home.  Here’s what I overhear every once in a while.  “Did you know the world is going to end in 2012?”  Holy crap?!  It is?  Good thing I know now.  I have a good amount of time to live my life before we all go.  The problem is that it’s the same crazy, headline-grabbing, conspiracy-theorist believing crap as Y2K.  Remember how terrible that was?  No?  Didn’t you hear that all the computers on Earth failed because the calendar wouldn’t switch to the year 2000?  All the planes crashed and nuclear missiles were launched by mistake.

Same deal here.  If you haven’t heard of the 2012 situation, here it is quickly.  Hundreds of years ago, the Mayans (masters of astronomy) were obsessed with time.  They had amazingly specific calendars for many different cycles.  One such calendar was called the Long Count calendar, and, just like we went from 2008 to 2009 a month ago, that calendar is set to turn from 12 to 13 in 2012.  Specifically December 21st.  Whenever a nice round number changes on the calendar, people like to think the end of the world is coming.  This calendar cycle is 5126 years long, and that’s pretty impressive.  Here’s where the paranoia sets in: The Maya apparently saw the end of this calendar as a time of transformation.  They do not say what type of transformation.  So, because people are crazy, it’s become apocalyptic death transformation!  Kinda like this article (sorry, had to work it in somehow).

There’s a whole lot of debate as to what this date coincides with (winter solstice, solar flair maximums, aligning the Earth with the center of the solar system, etc.) and a whole lot of books written about it.  I read the book Apocalypse 2012 by Lawrence Joseph that’s mentioned in the article.  If you are interested in the whole ordeal and what it may mean, I think he does a good job explaining.  I also read a book called 2013: The End of Days or a New Beginning.    That book was an embarrassment.  It read like a high school students’ semi-researched/semi-fiction report complete with typos and quotes from Wikipedia.  The premise of that book was that lots of bad things could happen, but what if it happened in 2012?  I almost threw it away but couldn’t because of the stupidity and entertainment factor.  At one point, it was quoting some proclamation of the UN and wrote  that one goal was to decrease child morality, I guess instead of mortality?  That’s a pretty big difference in my mind.

My students don’t bother to look into these ideas (like I decide to do so I can tell them how wrong they are educate them on topics they are interested in) and like to spout off things like “the world’s gonna end in 2012″.  I guess I see it as my duty to know about these things so I can dispel rumors, hype, and generally bad information that they believe.  I guess after 2012, there’ll be a new end of the world scenario to deal with.  Maybe a Kurdish profit?

How Do Teachers Get Paid?

The answer to this question is pretty straight forward.  For example, if you wanted to know how much a teacher makes in, let’s say, Seattle, you go here: http://www.seattleschools.org/area/hr/sal.xml (it’s a pdf).  How about Boise, Idaho?  http://www.boiseschools.org/jobs/payscales.html

How’d I find that information?  It was easy, I searched for the city’s school website and went to the HR page.  Did you know you could find out exactly how much a teacher makes?  It’s public information.  So what’s the point?  Teachers get paid by their level of education and the number of years they’ve worked.  That’s it.  No matter how good or how bad a teacher is, they get paid by these two criteria.  There’s an upside and a downside to this, as a teacher.  The upside is that I do not have to improve or do a good job at all to get a raise.  In fact, I could decide that next year, I’m going to teach physics through movies.  And no tests.  If they show up they get an A.  If not, a C (because too many kids failing would trigger people asking questions).  I could conceivably do that and still get a raise.  (As a slightly long aside to this, my raise depends on the school system having a big enough budget to support raises.  This is not usually a problem, but in the currently economic climate, none of the teachers in my district are getting any kind of raise next year.  And, unlike private businesses, if the economy picks up by the end of the year, we won’t be getting bonuses either.  In fact, since I’m currently doing a project that pays me extra money, I stand to get a pay cut next year.  This is not good for a young person trying to pay off student loan and other debt.)  The downside, as a teacher, runs along the same lines.  There is absolutely no reward or benefit to being a good teacher.  No need to go above and beyond.  No need to stay after to help students.  No need to plan elaborate and interesting lesson plans.  Why should I put in the time?  I already spend hours grading and planning.  Why would I do more?  Every teacher gets the number on the pay scale, end of story.

Before I get into the debate of whether this is a good idea or not, let me add this one thing.  We do get evaluated by the administration.  I believe the process has much more to do with not being able to randomly fire teachers more than rewarding them.  Ours goes something like this:  Every few years we are on evaluation, and we have to meet certain criteria.  We either do not meet, meet, or exceed on each of the 2o something ways to measure us.  As long as we meet, we get a continuing contract.  If we do not meet, they have to come up with a performance plan to help improvement, and then if there isn’t improvement, you can get fired.  The joke is that there’s no benefit to getting exceeds.  In fact, they say you have to show proof of exceeding to mark it down.  Therefore, I can get “meets” and not have to do anything, or “exceeds” and go through and document things I do.  Again, why do extra work for no reason?  They don’t even decide which teachers to keep based on their evaluations.  If they have to make a cut, the newest teacher goes.  I could have all “exceeds” and another teacher could have all “meets” but if that teacher was hired even 1 day before me, I get fired.  I could go on about this but I want to make my main point.

Shouldn’t there be a system that rewards good teachers?  It’s called merit pay.  Here’s the gist of merit pay:  Teachers whose students perform better get higher pay raises than other teachers.  Sounds great on the surface, right?  I mean, here’s a way to guarantee that teachers will try harder, and even get rewarded for their hard work!  I’m here to tell you it’s a bad idea.  These are the reasons:

I survived my first year because nice, experienced teachers basically gave me their worksheets and tests.  They showed me what to teach and when.  Teacher retention is low to begin with and I don’t think many would make it through the first year without help.  What does this have to do with merit pay?  Why would an experienced teacher help a new teacher, or any teacher, if their great ideas were going to get them more money?  If I have a method for getting students to achieve, why would I share it?  I’d get more money for keeping it to myself.  This hurts students in other classes.  Teacher collaboration would stop because no teacher would be willing to give up their plans.

On top of that, if my pay was tied to my students’ performance on a standardized test, why wouldn’t I cheat for them?  I know that’s not ethical, but if $5,000 was on the line, I’d have to think about it.  It doesn’t mean outright telling the answers, but I could subtely shake my head, you know, try again kid.  Maybe I wouldn’t do it, but your damn sure there are teachers who would.  In fact, in places where merit pay existed, so did teacher cheating.

Lastly, student performance is highly dependent on your students.  Let me rephrase.  At the beginning of the year, you don’t know who’s walking into that class.  You may have a great group of students who are motivated and, sorry to say it, smarter than the group another teacher has.  That puts that other teacher at an immediate disadvantage.  Even this year, I have one class that has consistently been 4-5% below my other classes.  Part of that is my fault certainly, but part of it is the class I have.  I would not want to have my salary tied to this group.  Just like it wouldn’t be fair if another teacher had all honors and AP classes and I was stuck with lower level classes.  It’s just easier for that other teacher.

Without saying too much else, since this is really long already, I don’t know what the answer is.  My suggestion is to raise teacher salaries so that they are comparable to other professions.  That way there will be more competition for teaching jobs and the bad teachers will be fired and replaced by better teachers.  So instead of teacher shortages where they’ll take anybody off the street and put them in front of a class, there will be a number of qualified people vying for the job.

Music: “I Can’t Stay” by The Killers off of Day & Age

Random Thoughts

I’m sitting here at my desk and school ended a while ago.  Today was the last day of the quarter, so naturally people are here making up tests and whatnot from ages ago.  Maybe I’m too nice.  Anyway, here are the thoughts running through my head while I count the minutes before my weekend.

• We should have more short weeks of school.
• We should have SNOW DAYS every once in a while.
• Not getting a raise next year ruins my budding plans to pay off my debt.
• Sometimes it’s good when students make a personal connection to you – they try harder in class.
• Sometimes it’s bad when students make a personal connection to you – they try to act like your friend.
• I have a thing for bad slasher films as long as they don’t take themselves too seriously.
• It’s my students’ fault that I text message so damn much.  I never did before I taught.
• I’m supposed to motivate students but I procrastinate much more than they do.
• I spend enough money at Starbucks that it was worth it to buy the new Starbucks Gold card.  At least it looks cool.
• I’m being religious tonight for the first time in a long time and I’m kinda nervous about it.
• Happy hours have drained my resources but I need it.
• Send me your music ideas, cause I always need more.

Begging

The end of the quarter always brings one thing – begging.  I get all sorts of requests, complaints and bargains.

“How can you give me a D?”

“I can’t have a C on my report card.  I’ll lose my car.”

“Is it a B?  Is it a high B?  Can you make it a B+?  I’ll wash your board for the rest of the year.”

“If you raise my grade just 2% points, you can take away 5% next quarter.”

“My dad will beat me if I get an F.”

This is nothing.  Last quarter I had a student stay after school for 2 hours begging for a higher grade.  I literally had to push him out of the room and lock to door.  I’ve been offered food and money.  Anywhere from $1 to $100.  Do they not understand that they’re the ones receiving the grade?  It’s like I just randomly choose a grade for each of them and they can convince me to choose differently.  They’re also only concerned about their grade the day before the quarter is due.  I give them a ton of extra credit opportunities, but they have to take advantage a few weeks in advance.  And…they don’t.  They just like to ask this week.  Or I get, “so, Mr. _____, that homework from the end of November.  Can I turn that in now?”

I really don’t know what to do to fix this.  They get grade sheets all through the quarter.  They know how they are doing.  How do I make somebody care the first month?

Teaching, Take 4

One of the best things about teaching, besides summers off, getting out early, snow days, and, you know, dealing with students, is the fact that every year holds the possibility of something new and something different.  Basically I get a do-over every year.  For example, last year I had a truly horrendous class (and I don’t mind saying so).  It was the type of class that makes you consider quitting and doing something completely different…not dealing with teenagers ever again.  This year I don’t have that type of class.  Maybe there’s some sort of teacher karma…if you can survive certain classes you are rewarded with better ones the next year.

While I was in the shower this glorious Monday-of-a-long-weekend I was thinking about all the different ideas I had coming into this school year and how many I continue at this point.  The sad answer is: not very many.  You see, I had just finished an education grad school program this summer and was full of great ideas that would help my students and make class more interesting.  Then, slowly, they fall off until I’m back to teaching the way I did the first year.  Granted, I’m a better teacher now than I was back then, but all the other bells and whistles are hard to maintain.  It comes down to planning and preparation.  In the beginning of the year, September and October, I used my time wisely, spending free periods making power point presentations and reading guides, redoing old quizzes, and thinking of new ways to present the same old material.  Then I get into a rut just like any other student and teacher.  The beginning of November is the end of the 1st quarter, which presents a grading crunch, and then the countdown to Thanksgiving.  Then the countdown to winter break.  I get tired – worn out from teaching – and spend my free period relaxing for once.  I get behind in grading.  At some point, to save time, it’s easier to use the old tests and old lesson plans.  No prep!  While this doesn’t particularly help my students, it’s good enough, and it allows me the mental break necessary to keep teaching with energy and excitement.

My friends were feeling bad for me last week as we were out for happy hour on a Thursday.  How do I go out on a Thursday and then have to teach on Friday?  They would just close the door to their offices and do as little as possible until lunch time.  I don’t have that luxury.  I can’t tell 30 teenagers to leave me alone for a while.  It wouldn’t work.  For teachers who care, teaching is hard!

The great thing about teaching is that I can go into next year with my fresh ideas and start to implement them all over again.  The good news is that all the stuff for the first 3 months is done already!  Maybe next year I can work on the 2nd quarter.  Maybe by my 6th year teaching I’ll have all the power points done, all the worksheets made, all the interesting topics tied-in to the class.  Maybe then it’ll be easier, because I’ll be one of those teachers who can go into the school year with the entire year mapped out, with no prep needed.  Or maybe I’ll still be in the shower in 2012 thinking about all the great ideas I haven’t yet gotten to use.  Maybe I’ll still be writing on this blog.

Music:  Rilo Kiley “The Absence of God” off of More Adventurous.

Sexting

Every art form has a sub-culture of pornography.  Ancient sculptures and paintings, early photographs, early video, etc. all show how sexual acts appear rapidly in culture.  It seems like every new technology is a new way to depict and distribute naked people.  People have been sending naked pictures over the Internet for years now!  What held a lot of this back?  Well, before digital cameras, you had to get somebody to develop those naked pictures.  I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want some store clerk making extra copies for himself.  Now that problem is solved.  But, with a camera, you still had to load it onto a computer.  Teenagers don’t want their parents finding these things.  Again, problem solved!  Every teenager has a cell phone and every cell phone has a camera and the ability to text message and send pictures.

That whole long introduction (which just happened to be me thought process on the subject, albeit completely unnecessary to read) leads to this point.  If these oversexed students all have the ability to take naked pics and send them around, who’s going to stop them?  Nobody.  These stories surface in the news every once in a while because somebody gets caught and people get in trouble.  Serious trouble.  But those are isolated incidents, right?  If you believe that this doesn’t happen all the time you are being naive.  Ask any teenager how many naked pictures they have on their phone at the moment.  If they trust you won’t get them in trouble, they’ll probably say “a few.”  Who are these girls ( I say girls because mostly it’s girls)?  Girls from neighboring schools, girls from the same school, friends (no joke) and just random people.  How do all these people get these pictures?  A better question is this:  Would you trust a high school boy to not show a naked picture (especially of somebody they know) to everybody?  I wouldn’t.  As soon as one student gets a picture, the entire school has it.

In the most recent case, it seems that the boys who had the pictures on the phone are in trouble for having child pornography.  One of the mothers is trying to get the charges dropped because her kid did nothing wrong.  I have to agree.  It seems to me like the police are using these specific students to set an example and scare others.  If the are going to press charges, they might as well arrest the whole student body.

As I’m writing this, I’m trying to think of my main point.  What am I trying to say?  I think it’s that people should know this practice is now common.  It sort of reminds me of Napster.  Everybody and their mother was downloading free music until they started prosecuting random people and finally shut the site down.  Raise your hand if you’ve ever downloaded music for free (illegally) and didn’t get arrested and/or fined for it.  Same thing applies here, but who thinks anybody is going to force cell phone companies to stop putting cameras in their phones?  I certainly don’t.

Beastiality

First off, thanks to DC Blogs for putting me on the front page!  How cool is that.  So, of course, my first reaction was that I need to write something interesting and profound for a new audience.  But nothing is really going on, so I’ll just do what I normally do…what about some ridiculous stuff my students do.

Today is test day.  To be fair, it’s quiz day.  An easy quiz at that.  The last test really destroyed them, so I gave them a gift this time.  Last week, while away, I had a sub go over the information they needed.  Today I spent the first 25 minutes of class reviewing with them.  I was basically giving them everything they would need.  I’m too nice.

A little background on this post.  A few years back, my first year to be exact, I used a worksheet from another teacher and it had a two problems that included kangaroos.  My students thought that was weird, but I went with it and pretended to be obsessed with kangaroos.  Throughout that year, kangaroos would make random appearances on tests.  I continued it last year and this year, adding swimming kangaroos, robotic kangaroos and, today, an angry charging kangaroo complete with a kangaroo fighter (think bullfighting).    Anyway, one of my students told me she was worried about possible beastiality because I’m so obsessed with kangaroos.   The conversation went this way:

Student #1: “I’m a little worried about all these kangaroos.  Is there some beastiality going on?”

Me: “Nobody said anything about sex with kangaroos.”

Student #2: “Who’s having sex with a kangaroo?”

I motion to Student #1.

Student #2: *Pause* “I missed you Mr. _______”

It’s good to be loved.  Also, I’d like to mention that this post excedes the allowable usage of kangaroo for non-Australia related content.  Feel free to leave comments if this is your first time reading.  I’d love to hear from you.

Music:  “Drink to Moving On” by Grand National on Kicking The National Habit  (off of Pandora…never heard of them before)

Welcome Back to Me

So I survived my extended vacation and today is my first day back to school.  I swear, after having a few weeks away from any real responsibility, it was difficult to get into a proper frame of mind this morning.  But I walked into my class, found nothing broken, nothing missing and no other reported problems.  It even seemed that most of my students were happy to see me again.  The exception is the e-mail I got from one girl basically saying, “Dear Mr. ______, Don’t bother coming back.  The sub’s a better teacher anyway.”  I don’t think she was kidding, but I learned long ago that letting those types of things bother you leads to a short teaching career.

All in all, this day has been going by pretty quickly, just like most of my days at school.  I promise to resume my (almost) daily posting and will try to hit a range of topics as they come up.  I also want to start reaching out to other blogs…more to talk about and more traffic, right?  First blog:  Plight of the Pumpernickel my friend who also went on a long vacation recently.  She has a blog that’s even been quoted in a real newspaper!  Check it out for me and for her.

Music:  Kings of Leon Use Somebody from Only By The Night