COTSEN observation

one of the best parts of being a COTSEN fellow is the opportunity to visit other classrooms--in and outside LBUSD--and watch other artful teachers instruct. last thursday we visited heidi fernandez's 4th grade class at roosevelt elementary school in santa monica. hiedi uses no textbooks... for any subject. instead she utelizes her encyclopedic knowledge of children's literature and the internet to teach all content areas, including science and math.

i wished i could have observed her the whole day, but since my focus is reading, i only watched her reader's workshop. her lesson was how good readers employ comprehension skills (questioning, inferring, predicting, etc.) "simultaneously," notice this "thinking journey," and write their "reactions" on sticky notes. i loved her terms d'arte. (sticky notes were "tools, not toys.") she was dynamic and knowledgeable. her lesson was tight. not a word was wasted...

i scrambled to scribble every syllable she said.

i was comforted in the fact that our grade level was not that far off from her model. her "mini-lesson" took 30 minutes, she had to re-focus a few of her "readers" throughout the lesson, and her class was "still working on transitions" from the carpet to their desks. all familiar problems in my room.

the thing that really caught my eye, though was the work she'd done with her class on the election. not only were all the candidates' pictures labeled with their names and party affiliations, but she also had a bulletin board displaying propaganda and students' comments on the effects of media on public perception. i loved this! all i've done this year is hold a mock presidential election (obama, 25; mccain, 5) and buy the schoolhouse rock, election collection DVD, which i haven't even shown yet! for such an historic election year, that's soooooo sad!

senator paul wellstone in memoriam

the progressive movement lost one of its foremost proponents 6 years ago today. watch (at 2:46) as senator wellstone mentions the one thing that can reduce poverty, sustain a middle class, keep us competitive in an international economy, and produce thinking citizens--education.

if all goes well, al franken will follow in wellstone's progressive footsteps when the people of minnesota elect him to the senate over norm coleman in november. (can you imagine bill o'reilly--who derisively calls franken "stuart smalley"--having to address him as "senator franken?")

fifth-grader suspended for wearing anti-obama shirt

not at my school. story here.

gotta love mandatory school uniforms!

THE EDUKATORS!

Gimme What I Want !
the edukators are:
mr. al - drums
mr. c. - guitar, vox
ms. d. - keyboards
mr. s. - bass, vox

debut performance,
long beach, ca @ 2nd annual laborless day party,
7/30/2008
tip o' the energy dome to laura velez for the video...
(the shadow was created by a tarp that i put up,
so my bad.)

ever felt like doing this to your printer?

...that's what i feel like doing every time the "needs more ink" warning appears! luckily, i found this helpful article about how your printer tricks you into buying ink and toner when you don't need it. check it out--you may be able to save some cash--which is nice, especially if your printer has already felt the wrath of your baseball bat!

lego artist nathan sawaya

watch a slide show of his work here.

TK-421 realizes his mistake...

zappa on crossfire, 1986

Zappa on Crossfire | Viral | SPIKE.com

watch frank zappa mop the floor with robert-traitorous-douchebag-novak when he says, "the biggest threat to america today is not communism--it's moving america towards a fascist theocracy."

i wanna new drug

make your own medicine, here.

did we date once?

click on image to enlarge

i get mean

music and drawings by edie brickell.

pew news IQ test

i got 10 out of 12 correct--83 percentile--meaning i scored better than 83% of americans that participated. according to the survey, 84% know that oprah winfrey campaigned for obama, but only 24% know the current senate majority leader, and only 28% know how many americans have died in iraq... that's our inept corporate media for ya!

what's your news IQ? take the test here.

I'm Glad I'm Not A Mollusk

thanks to kathy speake (our wonderful school secretary) for the opportunity to play at her 4th OF JULY EXTRAVAGANZA! here's an outtake of THE THINGZ doing their patriotic duty...

tip of the energy dome to laura velez for the video and support!

war hero dies of drug overdose

sad...

Editor & Publisher:

PINEHURST, N.C. A former Army medic made famous by a photograph that showed him carrying an injured Iraqi boy during the first week of the war has died of an apparent overdose, police said.

Joseph Patrick Dwyer died last week at a hospital in Pinehurst, according to the Boles Funeral Home. He was 31. The photograph, taken in March 2003, showed Dwyer running to a makeshift military hospital while cradling the boy. The photo appeared in newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts worldwide, making Dwyer became a symbol of heroism.

His mother said the military could have done more to help with post-traumatic stress. “He just couldn’t get over the war,” Maureen Dwyer said. “He just couldn’t do it. Just wasn’t Joseph. Joseph never came home.” Read on…

from crooks & liars

new ride

for the last few years, my garage could have be considered a "battle ground state:" two red mountain bikes (of course!) versus a blue BMX and chamille, my blue altima. but this election year change is in the air. once stalwart red states are looking more purple--some have turned almost completely blue, sick and tired of republicans running roughshod over the constitution. the sea change is evident in my garage as well. say hello to. . .

miles
(seems like a good name since he looks kind of blue in this picture!)

my "lanyard"

talk about a time machine--this image sent me reeling back to 1979, scooby doo cartoons, and minnesota summers... THE GALAXY EXPLORER

read all about the "secret lego vault" that contains all the sets ever made (with video!) here.

poetry pt. II

after my students struggled with "the lanyard" (see previous post), i saw the title of this poem--also by billy collins--and immediately thought of my students.

The Trouble with Poetry

The trouble with poetry, I realized
as I walked along a beach one night --
cold Florida sand under my bare feet,
a show of stars in the sky --

the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry,
more guppies crowding the fish tank,
more baby rabbits
hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.

And how will it ever end?
unless the day finally arrives
when we have compared everything in the world
to everything else in the world,

and there is nothing left to do
but quietly close our notebooks
and sit with our hands folded on our desks.

Poetry fills me with joy
and I rise like a feather in the wind.
Poetry fills me with sorrow
and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.

But mostly poetry fills me
with the urge to write poetry,
to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame
to appear at the tip of my pencil.

And along with that, the longing to steal,
to break into the poems of others
with a flashlight and a ski mask.

And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,
cut-purses, common shoplifters,
I thought to myself
as a cold wave swirled around my feet
and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,
which is an image I stole directly
from Lawrence Ferlinghetti --
to be perfectly honest for a moment --

the bicycling poet of San Francisco
whose little amusement park of a book
I carried in a side pocket of my uniform
up and down the treacherous halls of high school.

why i weep not for tim russert

i stole this directly from this modern world. written by the always succinct and brilliant jonathan schwarz of a tiny revolution, based on sam husseini's correspondence with him, it gives but one (BIG) reason why i never liked tim russert--his cheerleading for the invasion of iraq.

December 19, 1999: With Al Gore as guest, Tim Russert says on Meet the Press: “One year ago Saddam Hussein threw out all the inspectors who could find his chemical or nuclear capability.” Russert asks Gore what he’s going to do about this.

Soon afterward: Sam Husseini leaves a message on Russert’s answering machine, and speaks to two of his assistants, telling them the inspectors were withdrawn by the UN at the request of the United States.

January 2, 2000: With Madeleine Albright as guest, Tim Russert repeats the error on Meet the Press: “One year ago, the inspectors were told, ‘Get out,’ by Saddam Hussein.” Russert asks Albright what she’s going to do about this.

January 21, 2000: Sam Husseini writes a letter to Russert, again laying out the facts, and requests a correction.

January 22, 2000-March 19, 2003: Russert never corrects his error.

March 19, 2003-present: Hundreds of thousands of people die in Iraq War. Russert dies, not in Iraq War. Official Washington weeps copious tears for Russert and his Extraordinary Journalistic Standards.

More details with Sam Husseini’s letter.

poetry

i was recently introduced to billy collins while watching PBS late one evening. he performed this poem, and i immediately thought i had to share it with my students since they sometimes made lanyards at lunch... unfortunately, the innocence and irony was lost on them... so sad... in a few years they'll understand better... (not to worry, i edited out "milk from her breasts.")

The Lanyard
Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Billy Collins, the U.S. poet laureate from 2001 to 2003, is the author of seven collections of poetry and is a distinguished professor of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York. He serves as the poet laureate of New York state.

why i'm voting republican...

from http://www.imvotingrepublican.com/