the clouds

the clouds @ viento y agua, long beach 3/20/09

photo by mom

it was wonderful to have so many people come out to support the clouds and me at viento y agua on friday! my thanks to the following: mom & dad, sis(!) & insane cougar(!!), dave neely, robo, sam, mike & kim, stephanie & marco, jenny, linda & david mank, and quite surprisingly, my former VP lucy salazar and her husband! it was nice to see all of your loving, smiling faces.

OXOX's TO YOU ALL!

red eye

the thingz play a show in huntington beach, deep in the heart of OC darkness, and find proof of de-evolution...
our only choice: play a dev-o cover.

the thingz @ gallagher's, 3/13/09

on-line drum set

make your own beats on-line!!

i wonder if my principal would object to my students using this in the computer lab... lemme check the 5th grade music standards...

well, it's definitely covered by standard 2.0 "creative expression," but the lab might sound like a rave!

we'll have to close the door... :>

capitalism

bill watterson was a genius. check out this calvin and hobbes on old-school capitalism...

so funny and so prescient, it's sad...

thank you card!

i found this in my mailbox this morning and thought i'd share it with you all. it's a thank you card from the students in room 72 that didn't go to camp! (see this post) shout out to mrs. mank for not only encouraging her students to show their appreciation but binding it into a cool book! i love it!

here's the front cover:

and back...

inside artwork:

and my favorite...

i like this one because if you look closely in the upper right-hand corner, there's a monkey. see, to get to know each other's names, we played a name game called, "monkey goes to the moon." i just loved that this student included that little detail. of course, this wasn't just an art project--they wrote letters to accompany the pictures that were equally cute--but i was particularly tickled by the illustrations, so i decided to share those.

thanks again, mrs. mank!

more CPAC fun!

maybe i need to teach middle school or high school... it'd be fun to challenge someone like this: a 14 year old, future fox news pundit at (you guessed it), CPAC.

battle drill

if i were battling that republican rapper (see below), here'd be my flow. (i wrote this after bush "won" reelection in 2004. eat your heart out, chuck d--it's mr. c!)

TOP GUN
elementary education, basic facts:
rubber stamp government contracts,
administration partisan hacks
attack dissidents here at home on iraq
our boys are coming back packed in boxes
graveyard crosses, acceptable losses,
shell-shocked, can't talk to anyone, and
don't feel safe without a gun.
all these memories: eating rotten MRE's, IED's,
infantry, cavalry, civilian casualties,
indiscriminate killing in the cities,
disease-filled water, no electricity...
it's a pity. who's the example?
bullet through the temple, brain burst like a pimple.
it's so simple to sit in the middle,
twiddle your thumbs and act real dumb
while we got fundamental differences to settle,
bush back in the saddle,
pot call the kettle black--
he use attacks on the twin towers to act like a cowboy
when he's just a coward.
a super-power in decline:
from the cave to the moon and back in no time
with this illegitimate leader, second-grade reader,
mr. top gun-cod-piece-theater, wouldn't listen to senior or CIA.
he said, the sunni? the shia? what difference does it make?
it's war for heaven's sake--there's bound to be mistakes.
hearts and minds splattered on the pavement and
on TV, they're sold as entertainment...
but that's the media arrangement:
repeat government lies for the right payment,
and read prepared statements like,
"we will be greeted with flowers at our feet,"
"parades in the street," maybe take "six weeks."
WMD a positivity, diplomacy has failed, only ONE possibility:
"invade their countries, kill their leaders, convert them to christianity."*
it's insanity--the drumbeat of war--voices of peace all but ignored by this
illegitimate leader, second-grade reader,
mr. top gun-cod-piece-theater, wouldn't listen to senior...

*ann coulter quote. all other quotes taken completely out of context.

rage against the (liberal media) machine

this was just too good to pass up: video of a conservative MC at the CPAC (conservative political action conference) whose whole act consists of spitting right-wing talking points. i love that he had his "epiphany" (obviously not a teacher-- he didn't say, "ah-ha moment.") after listening to michael savage for 10 minutes!!! for those who don't know who that is, michael saveage (ne, michael weiner) is a former-liberal compatriot of allen ginsberg-turned conservative talk show host, who regularly shouts obsenities over the AM airwaves ("i hope you get AIDS and die!") while getting positively apoplectic about illegal aliens and "islamo-fascists." he's a real class act.

anyway, eat your heart out, zach de la rocha:

professional reading

as a professional it's important that i keep abreast of new research, new books, and new data in the field of education in order to continue my growth as a life-long learner and improve as a teacher. that's why i do professional reading. my principal provides a good deal of these resources to our staff, and we have a bi-weekly "think tank" session where we discuss the selection(s) and round-table our ideas on how to implement and/or supplement what we glean from the readings in our classrooms. i also encounter articles and books in my own reading, or my COTSEN mentor will share an article or book that she thinks might be beneficial and/or interesting to me. most of the time i can find something useful or utilitarian in these readings, but sometimes i just can't get past the style of writing.

i know it sounds petty, but style and voice are important to me. and there's a balance that must be struck: on the one hand, it can't be too dry, too didactic; but on the other, i don't want my metacognitive voice to be saying, "alright, enough presuppositions, get to the f'n point!" many of the articles that i read last year for my masters degree fell into the former camp--way too formal and completely coma-inducing. but recently i've encountered the latter--too many, "i know what you're thinking: this can't work in my classroom, but give it a shot"-styled pieces. does that make sense? basically, while i'm reading it, i'm yelling, "cut to the chase already!" lucy calkins' writing particularly grates on me in this way. (there. i said it, and i feel better. she's got amazing ideas on reading and writing, but she works my last nerve!)

the funny thing is, when i expressed my disdain for calkins' style of writing at our COTSEN inquiry meeting, my mentor just rolled her eyes and looked away! maybe she was still smarting from my critique of her first pick, what great teachers do differently, by todd whitaker. not only was the "no-duh" factor staggeringly high in that book, his analogies were painfully trite.

the good news is, our principal has just given us an AMAZING article on reading aloud that has energized me with some good ideas that i want to try out immediately. more on that as it develops...