Twenty-eight years ago today, we barely averted a global thermonuclear war. And by we, I mean Stan. This may sound trite, but remember today that one person can make a difference.

It occurs to me that the students who today ask why their work wasn't graded over the weekend, are the same people who, ten years hence, will complain how teachers have it easy because they only work six hours a day.

Stealthcomic has a good calculation of the after-hours time requirements inherent in teaching.

http://stealthcomic.livejournal.com/174796.html

I could do the math on what the overtime pay would be for all those extra hours that we're expected to put in, but I won't waste the time. Suffice to say that even those rare teachers that are making 100k a year* have earned their due, and perhaps more.

*chuckles and shakes head at the very idea.

Forbes Magazine rates my town, Oakland, in the Top Five Coolest Cities in the US.

#1 was a tie between NY & Vegas
#3 went to Seattle (using a picture from the one sunny day they had last year)
#4 was taken by Chicago
#5 was Oakland.

Six through ten went to Orlando, San Diego, LA, and DC.

San Francisco didn't even rate.

(Technically, if you read the pop-up, they call it the SF-Oakland statistical area. Even so, an editor decided to choose Oakland over her sister on the far side of Goat Island.)

In your face, peninsulares!

Ok. I'll admit, Forbes isn't exactly an arbiter of cool, and their rankings don't really mean much of anything anyway, but a guy's gotta have something. I'm constantly trying to defend my town from folk who claim Oakland isn't safe enough, or cool enough, or cultured enough.

State Ballot Measures - Statewide Results

Proposition Title		Yes Votes	%	No Votes	%
Yes	13 Property Taxes and Seismic Retrofit of Buildings	3,155,333	84.5%	581,305	15.5%
Yes	14 Primary Election Participation	2,050,398	54.2%	1,735,596	45.8%
No	15 California Fair Elections Act	1,575,147	42.6%	2,115,040	57.4%
No	16 Local Electricity Providers	1,800,205	47.4%	1,993,053	52.6%
No	17 Auto Insurance Pricing	1,820,336	47.8%	1,980,248	52.2%

The winner of the Audience Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival was Davis Guggenheim's Waiting for Superman. This film is a documentary following the stories of five families across the country as they try to find the best schools and opportunities they can for their children. The film discusses some of the challenges our nation faces as we continue to let schools fail, and hopefully brings some ideas for fixing the problem. The film does feature Jeffrey Canada's work in Harlem, which holds some promise, for sure.

Waiting for Superman is not out yet; apparently still waiting on a distributor. Nonetheless, They released the trailer yesterday. You can find it here.



If you want to share your reactions to the trailer, feel free to do so here. I'd love to hear from you.

...the urge to re-touch an image goes a little too far.

( cut for those who don't want to have to see this sort of thing )

warthog_rugby is a feed for a local Oakland kids rugby team. The blog talks about the benefits of kids rugby, and explores some of their travails in trying to get the City of Oakland, and/or OUSD to allow them a place to play.

I enjoyed the posts I got to read, and I look forward to seeing the future exploits of Coach Spencer and his team. Though I'm not a rugger myself, I am a big fan and supporter of student extracurricular activity in its myriad forms.

Wanted: Someone who can help me figure out what I need to turn an iPad into a teaching appliance. I have a nebulous list of features in my head (including running in-classroom A/V switching and management), and I'd love to see it put into practice. I just don't have the tools or knowledge to implement this.

Anyone game?

So says, casnow. Still, this is pretty drafty.

( Read more... )