Entries from HumorAndSayings

This story is very far off topic, and is fairly upsetting, or at a minimum unsettling. So don't read if the first lines tell you not to.

I'm posting it only because it's my favorite story of synchronicity.

From the September 24, 2001 issue of THE NEW YORKER, the issue with the all-black cover.

Katherine Ilachinski is a seventy-year-old architect. As a girl, she survived the German bombing of Belgrade. On Tuesday morning, she was in her office on the ninety-first floor of Two World Trade Center, working on a sketch for changes to an electrical substation at the Hoboken terminal of New Jersey Transit. The first jet hit One World Trade just above the level of her office window

"There was an explosion, and a fireball went along the side of my building where I was sitting," she recalled. "It was so hot. It was like being in a boiler. I had to get out of my office. I went into an interior passage, then into the main corridor, to the elevators. You know, I was in the building in 1993, when we were bombed, and that time my instincts were completely different. Then, I closed my office. This time, I just wanted to get out of the building. Some people were taking the stairs. But I thought, I'm too old to walk so far down. Our elevators go to the lobby on seventy-eight. So I took the elevator to seventy-eight.

"The lobby there was mobbed, everybody trying to get in the elevators to the ground. I saw a guy who worked for me, Anthony—Anthony Portillo," Mrs. Ilachinski said. Her voice trembled. "He's a CAD operator—that's computer-aided design. I told Anthony, 'Let's take the elevator to forty-four.' It was still too high for me to walk, but the elevators to the ground were so crowded. There was no air. And I know what happens if the elevator gets stuck. You are doomed. But Anthony said, 'No, Katy.' He wanted to take the elevator all the way down. I didn't trust it. So I took the elevator to the forty-fourth floor. That elevator was relatively empty.

"But the scene in the lobby on forty-four was a repetition of seventy-eight. It was just mobbed. People all the way from east to west. Most of them waiting for the elevator to the ground. That was when I decided to try to walk, and something just propelled me to the north stairs. I don't know by what force I was propelled. But now, two days later, I can look at the pictures and see: that was the side least affected by the second jet.

"In the stairwell, it was quiet. There were announcements on the loudspeakers, saying, 'It's safe. The building is safe. Don't panic.' I think they even told us we could go back to our offices, but I'm not sure. I was just going down, down, down, like an automaton. After the plane hit our building, and the building started shaking, there were no more announcements.

"Through almost everything, I felt amazingly calm, except for that one moment in the stairwell, when the building started shaking and I thought, I'm a goner. I wished I was back on the ninety-first floor, and I could jump. Because I could jump from the window—reluctantly, but I could do it—because then it is over. But to be trapped under rubble, that is worse. I remember, from the war, from Belgrade, what it is to be trapped under rubble.

"I don't really know where I was when the plane hit. I had with me some water, but when the stairs started shaking I dropped it. There was smoke, but not too thick. A colleague was with me when we reached the ground, and we came out of the building together.

"We started toward the Manhattan Bridge. I didn't even turn to look back. I was just walking. We had gone three blocks when the ground shook, and it suddenly got very dark, and everybody started running. I'm not too good at running, so I was just walking briskly. The smoke came from behind us, and everything became covered with a fine white powder. I actually thought it was an atom bomb, because that is what it's supposed to be like.

"When I heard that the Pentagon was also attacked, I became very worried about my son, because he often goes there for his work. I tried to phone him, but I couldn't get through. I walked and walked. Finally, at Penn Station, I managed to get through to his home, and my daughter-in-law answered. She gave the phone to my son, and he told me he was packing to go to New York to my funeral. They had been watching TV all morning, and they saw the buildings fall, and they had already buried me. It was a conclusion that I am dead that would be easily understood. But my son told me that a very strange thing happened. He reached up to take my picture from the shelf to take with him to New York, and a book fell from the shelf, and he saw a word on the cover, 'Miracles.' And three minutes later I called. I think it's a miracle. Do you believe in God?"

Mrs. Ilachinski had worked in the World Trade Center since 1980. She still talks about the buildings as if they exist. Only two weeks before the attack, she went on a tour to inspect the provisions in the structural design of the south tower. The design, she said, was far ahead of its time. "The building was designed to move three feet from the center, which was remarkable," she said. "When we first moved in, some people got seasick. And when there was a lot of wind there was screeching in the inner core. You know, the buildings were designed for a jet hit as well. But that was thirty years ago, and jets are different now. And nobody thought about the fuel."

At points, without warning, her architect's curiosity and practicality falter. "Guilt feeling you wouldn't believe," she said, with a voice full of pain. "At this time of life. And all those young people went. Strange. Very strange. And I am only asking why. All those poor people. Thousands and thousands."

large version





telling more than we can know (cognitive science)
the 'normal' distribution isn't normal
synchronicity on 9/11
a science of the divine



-- CatherineJohnson - 19 Jan 2006

---

PleaseRemainSeatedAtAllTimes 24 Jan 2006 - 21:42 CatherineJohnson







source:
Robert Paterson's weblog



please remain seated at all times
the girl show (8th grade graduation awards)
the boy show (character ed)
the other boy show

letter from Robert Lerner, former commissioner NCES
for every 100 girls —


-- CatherineJohnson - 24 Jan 2006

---

RTFM 30 Jan 2006 - 15:45 CatherineJohnson

Tracy left this for Christopher:






also this


I'm printing them out.


-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Jan 2006

---

PutOnYourBigGirlPanties 04 Feb 2006 - 22:37 CatherineJohnson








I'd noticed that eduwonk had been somewhat perseveratively quoting Margaret Spellings' line about putting on her big girl panties.....which was just odd enough not to cause me instantly to go read the article it came from....but then joannejacobs finally read the article herself, which galvanized me into action.....and let me tell you, I'm glad I got over to WAPO.

Margaret Spellings: In Her Own Class is fantastic:

Spellings is blunter than you might expect, vivid and bigger, as if her photo had been cropped and enlarged. She is a tall woman swinging an iguana-green purse, wearing edgy rectangular glasses and chewing gum. (She spits it into the garbage when you arrive, as if you were the teacher.) Spellings scanned the crowd: "Colin's the little hottie of the school."

She had her babies without pain medication. She's a tough enough manager to be called a "bulldog on details" by Rove; strong enough to raise her girls as a single mom when her first marriage ended; brave enough to admit that she dreams of being a torch singer draped over a piano; Texan enough to live by the motto (on her notepad) "Put on your big girl panties and deal with it."

the good news is —

— she's got a kid in middle school:

Middle school is tricky, Spellings said -- too many hormones and too loose a curriculum. When boys in white shirts and ties shuffled onstage, Spellings said, "They're so awkward, it cracks me up." Her own experience in seventh grade was "the low point of my life," she said. ". . . There's a lot of mush going on in middle school -- one of the nuts we haven't cracked in public education policy."

You can order the big girl doll here.


-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Feb 2006

---

DougOnDeadlines 08 Feb 2006 - 15:38 CatherineJohnson



A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the term guillotine deadline.


Here's Doug:

When I was a periodicals editor, the term was "drop-deadline". 8-)

I did that job for long enough to develop a real defense-in-depth approach to deadlines:

"I'd like to get all your new information in by ...."

"I need your information by ... to make sure it gets in the next issue."

"I know I said that I need your information by ..., but you know we build in a little bit of slop in the schedule to handle the occasional late arrival."

"I've had a few other people late this issue, so I still have a little bit of time. Can you overnight it to me today?"

"I'm sending the book off to the printer tomorrow; if you can fax me the new stuff today, I should still be able to get it in."

"Don't worry, I can insert it at blueline. Of course, I'll have to charge you for the blueline change."

"I'm sending the bluelines back to the printer today. If you send it direct to the printer, we can still get it in. But you'll have to pay for all the printer's extra work."

"Nope, it's too late for this issue, but send it anyway; the next issue's deadline is tomorrow."



file under: it can always be worse, and it will be

So for the past couple of weeks I've been flogging myself to meet a self-imposed deadline, and then, of course, not meeting it, then setting a new deadline, then not meeting that one, and so on.

All in all, a wretched experience. I was glad to be done.

But now today I'm sitting around biting my nails waiting for everyone involved to figure out how I'm going to revise this project, which means I don't have to try to Write Anything today, i.e. I have some Free Time I could use productively to, say, Clean Up My Desk (& Surrounding Floor Area) ......and waiting around for other people to get back to me with loads of new work is even worse than doing loads of work & missing self-imposed deadlines in the first place.

Apparently, the fish oil isn't working.



-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Feb 2006

---

ILoveGoogle 08 Feb 2006 - 01:34 CatherineJohnson









I found this image while searching for "good things."








fellow math brain?

from unkemptwoman:

4 jobs I have had:
Graphic Designer (rubbish)
Barmaid (brilliant)
Meat Packer (now that was FUN)
Software consultant (hahahahahaha)

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Feb 2006

---

TimeTimerPart2 11 Feb 2006 - 16:51 CatherineJohnson







I love my new Timer Timer.

Thanks to Time Timer, I now know that in 25 minutes I can:

• locate Allman article on Von Economo neurons in autism & DeLong review essay on autism & familial major mood disorders, print out, prepare package for mailing to Temple

• do 4 KUMON worksheets

• NOT read kausfiles (Time Timer says No!)

• pick up office floor

• take out office trash

• figure out a logical filing location for Edmark reading program originals AND RECORD

• figure out a logical storage place for metronome AND RECORD

• finish last of Cape Cod potato chips

Not bad.

At this rate I'll have my desk cleared by spring at the latest.







some books that have changed my life
the answer to all of Doug's problems
productivity question
what is an hour? Time Timers
my Time Timer came - how long is a nap?
Time Timer says no!



-- CatherineJohnson - 09 Feb 2006

---

APoemAboutAutomaticity 20 Feb 2006 - 19:53 CatherineJohnson



Old Grouch found this at "The Centipede Who Went to School" !

A centipede was happy, quite,
Until an ant, in fun,
Said "Pray, which leg comes after which?"
Which raised his doubts to such a pitch,
He fell befuddled in the ditch,
Not knowing how to run.

cognitive unconscious



-- CatherineJohnson - 13 Feb 2006

---

TotallyOffTopic 16 Feb 2006 - 02:01 CatherineJohnson




priceless

-- CatherineJohnson - 16 Feb 2006

---

TodayInTheTimes 22 Feb 2006 - 00:10 CatherineJohnson



The New York Times has identified a Whole New Problem: college students who send inappropriate email to their professors.




Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Jennifer Schultens [associate professor of mathematics at UC Davis]
had a student ask what kind of notebook to buy.



Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Meg Worley, an assistant professor of English at Pomona College,
has rules for student e-mail...."One of the rules that I teach my students is,
the less powerful person always has to write back," Professor Worley said.


Various hypotheses are offered for the advent of this phenomenon, including this observation, from a professor of education:

Christopher J. Dede, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who has studied technology in education, said these e-mail messages showed how students no longer deferred to their professors, perhaps because they realized that professors' expertise could rapidly become outdated.

"The deference was probably driven more by the notion that professors were infallible sources of deep knowledge," Professor Dede said, and that notion has weakened.

I'm sure that's it.


-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Feb 2006

---

SampleExamQuestionsFromHell 23 Feb 2006 - 20:07 CatherineJohnson

Economics: Describe in four hundred words or less what you would have done to prevent the Great Depression.

Political Science: There is a red telephone on the desk beside you. Start World War III. Report at length on its socio-political effects, if any.

Mathematics: Derive the Cauchy-Euler equations using only a straightedge and compass. Discuss in detail the role these equations had on mathematical analysis in Europe during the 1800s.

Computer Science: Write a fifth-generation computer language. Using this language, write a computer program to finish the rest of this exam for you.

Extra Credit: Define the universe, and give three examples.

source: Sample Exam Questions from Hell

Here's a real one:

My exams this semester are going horrible. I just love that feeling in which you leave an exam and you have no clue of how well you did. In fact, I feel as if I just wasted 13 weeks of my life studying, because my exams questions generally have nothing to do with the topic that I am studying. Our Con Law exam for instance wanted us to analogize an insignificant comment that Justice Breyer made in an interview about form and functionalism and how that relates to Supreme Court Commerce Clause decisions of the past 25 years. This is a least what I thought it said.

Thanks everybody I feel better now.

Sorry about the typos. I am a little stressed.

hoo boy

That is an exam question from hell.


-- CatherineJohnson - 23 Feb 2006

---

FreeTeachToCrammeryClipArt 27 Feb 2006 - 19:35 CatherineJohnson



from the School Discovery Zone








if you prefer black and white:





cram school
teaching to crammery in middle school
the kind of kids who can be taught to crammery
free teach to crammery clip art

teachtocrammery

-- CatherineJohnson - 23 Feb 2006

---

SeaSpongeWorthy 08 Mar 2006 - 18:41 CatherineJohnson



Ken left a link to this story about spell check:

Then there's always the other types of spell-check related problems, like this classic:

Spell-checking on his computer is never going to be the same for Santa Cruz solo practitioner Arthur Dudley.

In an opening brief to San Francisco's 1st District Court of Appeal, a search-and-replace command by Dudley inexplicably inserted the words "sea sponge" instead of the legal term "sua sponte," which is Latin for "on its own motion."

"Spell check did not have sua sponte in it," said Dudley, who, not noticing the error, shipped the brief to court.

That left the justices reading -- and probably laughing at -- such classic statements as: "An appropriate instruction limiting the judge's criminal liability in such a prosecution must be given sea sponge explaining that certain acts or omissions by themselves are not sufficient to support a conviction."

And: "It is well settled that a trial court must instruct sea sponge on any defense, including a mistake of fact defense."

The sneaky "sea sponge" popped up at least five times.

spelling, reading, 4th grade slump, & multisyllabic words

learning to spell by memorization versus morphemes
spell check
bad spelling on job applications
sea sponges in legal documents



-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Mar 2006

---

FallingOffTheMathCliff 09 Mar 2006 - 13:55 CatherineJohnson



I must have this cartoon!

“Falling off the Math Cliff” (Progression of student learning math.)
ID: 122047, Published in The New Yorker March 6, 2006

My friend Kathy told me about it yesterday, and we don't seem to have our March 6 copy of THE NEW YORKER. (Naturally I would have gone on a Throw Stuff Out bender on Monday....

If you've got a copy of the March 6 issue, hang onto it!

Please!

thanks



update: never mind

Fortunately for us all, I didn't get around to tossing the stack sitting on my living room floor.

Falling off the math cliff

-- CatherineJohnson - 09 Mar 2006

---

FallingOffTheMathCliffCartoon 11 Mar 2006 - 16:01 CatherineJohnson




Found it!




1 A boy begins his wondrous journey.
2 He perseveres.
3 Math cannot become any more difficult than this, can it?
4 Yes.
5 Yet he does not give up!
6 For a brief moment, there is a glimmer of comprehension.
7 Actual midair pedalling.
8 The plummet.

source:
“Falling off the Math Cliff” (Progression of student learning math.)
The New Yorker March 6, 2006 page 57




-- CatherineJohnson - 09 Mar 2006

---

ActualMidairPedallingPart2 09 Mar 2006 - 13:59 CatherineJohnson



It occurs to me that I've done quite a lot of actual midair pedalling in my life.

And not just about math.

-- CatherineJohnson - 09 Mar 2006

---

LearningIsCloselyRelatedToStudentSuccess 22 Mar 2006 - 00:20 CatherineJohnson






source:
Action Mathematics
"Home of the Critical Thinking Approach to Learning Mathematics"


-- CatherineJohnson - 21 Mar 2006

---

WitAndWisdomOfCarolyn 28 Mar 2006 - 14:10 CatherineJohnson



I have to post this!

I was just reading an email from Carolyn. I'd been telling her this weekend that I'd made some changes in my work life, and that until the moment I did I'd had no idea how debilitating the situation had become. I'd just kept Marching Onward, thinking I was 'burned out' or 'fed up' or 'didn't want to be a writer any more' or some such, when in fact all I needed was a personnel change.^*





Here's Carolyn:

Well, I'm kind of amazed, but not really. Having a kid with autism definitely increases your pain tolerance.

You can say that again.







^* Yes! A personnel change! That's the ticket. I need to fire myself. Don't know why I didn't think of that sooner.


-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Mar 2006

---

HowToUseMathInRealLife 31 Mar 2006 - 18:58 CatherineJohnson





source:
Dealbreaker.com
via kausfiles



-- CatherineJohnson - 31 Mar 2006

---

BrandNewAphorismsFromKtm 29 Apr 2006 - 22:12 CatherineJohnson



You guys are amazing.


If you're doing proper mastery learning, differentiation comes because the high performers can move at a faster clip than the lower groups. They can cover more material. Further diferentiation can be achieved by including some difficult questions in exams that test just how flexible the students' knowledge has become.

- Ken DeRosa



Getting winnowed out of Harvard is on thing, getting winnowed out of the profession is another.

- Ken DeRosa



Curricula can and should be a gatekeeper, not bad teachers or teaching.

- Steve H



Not going to happen.

- Verghis Koshi



Do I sound like a pessimist?

- Carolyn



I generally think this is all about common sense - a proper curriculum, clearly-defined expectations, and well-prepared teachers. You don't need any more or less.

- Steve H



[P]art of resilience is knowing that just because you've failed in that case that doesn't mean that you're hopeless and may as well give up on your career right now.

- Tracy



The problem with life is that a 19-year-old is making most of the important decisions for you.

- Dan Katz



[T]here's hard, and then there's Kafkaesque.

- Verghis Khoshi



I hope I got it all.....

-- CatherineJohnson - 24 Apr 2006

---

ThankYouWholeLanguage 03 May 2006 - 16:57 CatherineJohnson



Lesley pointed me to this essay posted at Illinois Loop. I'd never seen it before —

Thank you Whole Language. Thank you for your many pearls of wisdom. Thank you for Context Clues. Thank you for Prior Knowledge. Thank you for the Initial Consonant. Thank you for Picture Clues. Thank you for Miscues.

But most of all, thank you for my wife. The other day she and I were riding along the highway and saw a sign for a town called Verona, so my wife read "Veronica". It's very simple, you see. First she applied Context Clues (she knew we were looking for a name). Then she applied the Initial Consonant ("V"). Then she applied Prior Knowledge (she already knew of a name "Veronica"). She put these Whole Language strategies together and ... success! At least, as much success as we can expect, I suppose.

Like the man said, Read the whole thing.


stupid mayor trick
Thank you, whole language
guess and check reading
stupid mayor trick part 3: the good news

National Reading Panel (official website)
The Partnership for Reading
(govt website: "bringing scientific evidence to learning")
National Reading Panel report full text (pdf file)

who is Lucy Calkins
having a Lucy Calkins day
Cargo Cult Lucy from Becky


keywords: nationalreadingpanel


-- CatherineJohnson - 30 Apr 2006

---

MetacognitionHaiku 05 May 2006 - 14:40 CatherineJohnson







source:
Instructional Design Intensive





from the same site —

• Table of Contents

• wholly inaccurate summaries of behaviorism and constructivism (scroll down)

• principles of netiquette

• Virginia Shea on netiquette

• Bloom's taxonomy; more Bloom; Bloom again (pdf file)

• constructivism on the web

• teacher-dominated & constructivist lessons online

• The Teacher as Guide or Preserver of the Archetype (constructivist proverbs)

from the site & useful, too

• Fair Use Guidelines

• a guide to peer-to-peer feedback

and a link to —

Chapter 4 Chapter Four of the McGraw-Hill textbook Multimedia Literacy, which includes a nifty chart filled with distortions, half-truths, and outright falsehoods about the respective natures of Teacher-Dominated and Cognitive Perspectives on Education:

Table 4-1. Comparison of the Teacher-Dominated and Cognitive Perspectives on Education

Teacher-Dominated Perspective	Cognitive Perspective
Teacher Centered	Learner Centered
Teachers Present Knowledge	Students Discover and Construct Knowledge
Students Learn Meaning	Students Create Meaning
Learner as Memorizer	Learner as Processor
Learn Facts	Develop Learning Strategies
Rote Memory	Active Memory
Teacher Structures Learning	Social Interaction Provides Instructional Scaffolding
Repetitive	Constructive
Knowledge Is Acquired	Knowledge Is Created
Teacher Provides Resources	Students Find Resources
Individual Study	Cooperative Learning and Peer Interaction
Sequential Instruction	Adaptive Learning
Teacher Manages Student Learning	Students Learn to Manage Their Own Learning
Students Learn Others' Thinking	Students Develop and Reflect on Their Own Thinking
Isolationist	Contextualist
Extrinsic Motivation	Intrinsic Motivation
Reactive Teachers	Proactive Teachers
Knowledge Transmission	Knowledge Formation
Teacher Dominates	Teacher Observes, Coaches, and Facilitates
Mechanistic	Organismic
Behavioralist	Constructivist

wrong wrong wrong





National Research Council says —

A common misconception regarding “constructivist” theories of knowing (that existing knowledge is used to build new knowledge) is that teachers should never tell students anything directly but, instead, should always allow them to construct knowledge for themselves. This perspective confuses a theory of pedagogy (teaching) with a theory of knowing. Constructivists assume that all knowledge is constructed from previous knowledge, irrespective of how one is taught (e.g., Cobb, 1994) —even listening to a lecture involves active attempts to construct new knowledge.

source:
How People Learn, p 11 National Academies Press
National Research Council
National Academies of Science
about National Academies Press

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 May 2006

---

HelicopterParentsOfTheWorldUnite 09 May 2006 - 21:36 CatherineJohnson







source:
BSA Troop 113




Douglas MacArthur had a helicopter mother...

...according to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia seems to think that's a bad thing. We may need to enlighten them.




lost comments

sigh

TWiki ate the Comments left on Friday, one of which was a great anecdote about a principal asking whether parents had anything better to do than hover over their kids and monitor the school's performance.

The mom involved said No.

Unfortunately, I no longer have the original, so that's the jist.


helicopter parents, part 1
helicopter parents, part 2
helicopter parents, part 3
helicopter parents at the AFT
news from nowhere, part 6 (AP students)
helicopter parents of the word, unite
helicopter parents of the world, unite part 2a (t-shirts)
MiddleWeb says hovering is good



-- CatherineJohnson - 09 May 2006

---

TheSongOfTheAmazonBirdPart2 15 May 2006 - 15:11 CatherineJohnson



Amazon reader review of Lucile Vaughn Payne's The Lively Art of Writing:

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Pointless Book Lulls Students to Sleep!, April 1, 2006

Reviewer:

Magdalens Scmip "SOS" (America) - See all my reviews

Unfortunatly I was required to read this atrocious book for school. I am a very forgiving student when it come to books that are dull, but this one drove me past my limit. The examples are outdated and pointless. There are too many references to dreag racing and silverware.
Granted she might have some good points but you can't see them because they are buried so deeply in her ramblings. It was THE MOST BORING BOOK I have ever read!! It was difficult staying awake.
This torture may have been worthwhile if there was something to be learned. Unfortunately there is nothing to be learned!!!
You could condense the book down to ONE sentence- Writing is important, like drag racing, and never say the word there. Okay thats the book.I just saved you 7 bucks and the pain of deciphering the boring words in MICROSCOPIC PRINT. Ilearned as much froim her book as I do from SWEDISH PROPAGANDA that i do not understand.
Only Swedish propaganda wasd more interseting!!

Was this review helpful to you?



Yes.

This review was helpful to me.


This one, too:

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

Homeschool parents, rejoice!, July 24, 2004

Reviewer:

Erica - See all my reviews

I've purchased several expensive books, combed our library system, and spent hours online looking for a way to replicate my 4 years in A.P. English for my homeschooling kids. This magical little book is by far the easiest to apply to homeschooling formats, the most thorough, and far and away the cheapest solution to our problem. I can't rave about it enough.

Please don't be put off by some reviews here that call Payne's little book "boring"---it's not MTV, certainly, but it's succinct and gets right down to business in a chatty style. The examples are dated, true, but I find that a plus: teens are more willing to properly evaluate the arguments for or against, say, drag racing (a puzzling social "problem" to our kids)than more volatile modern issues that kick in a more knee-jerk emotional response. The dated examples are quaint rather than distracting, and they don't detract from her lessons.

Essays can be excruciatingly formulaic, or they can blend, in Payne's words, "fact with imagination, knowledge with feeling, never giving itself over wholly to one or the other. But its purpose is always the same: to express an opinion." Learning the format and developing elegant, personal style is what this gem is all about. And a book that combines an all-in-one guide to constructing an essay (as opposed to a report or a manual) combined with a VERY useful style section is really hard to find! It's funny, too--her crusade against the passive voice, "A Plan For Self-Protection" is a good example: "At this extreme, passive voice aquires a peculiar aura of its own, a subtle undertone of ah-how-sweet-and-sad-and-strange the world is(always pleasing to the young, and to the young writer almost irresistable). Resist it. It's just secretarial prose with its face painted: all dressed up but still going nowhere."

Thoughtful questions at the end of each short chapter help with comprehension. This would be a great "text" to use in a co-op setting, although it would work well with a student learning alone. Thank goodness it's still available!






I grew up on a farm just outside of town, and we had lots of drag racing on the two-lane road at the end of our lane.

Our driveway was a block long - there were fields on either side - so if it wasn't drag-racing, it was parking. We kids used to trade-off being scandalized about the drag-racing on drag-racing nights, and being scandalized about the parking on parking nights.

One time when I was in high school myself, my dad caught me parked at the end of the drive with my boyfriend, Danny. I still remember my horror when his furious face appeared at the driver's window.

Drag-racing and making out; that was pretty much it for entertainment in Lincoln, IL at the time.

Of course, that's probably enough when you think about it.


the song of the Amazon bird
the song of the Amazon bird, part 2
the song of the Amazon bird, part 3



-- CatherineJohnson - 15 May 2006

---

RaisingBoys 24 May 2006 - 22:31 CatherineJohnson



You guys have probably seen this before, but I hadn't —

Raising Boys

Having my first child who is 18 months old makes this of interest to me.

a) For those with no children - this is totally hysterical!

b) For those who already have children past this age, this is hilarious.

c) For those who have children this age, this is not funny.

d) For those who have children nearing this age, this is a warning.

e) For those who have not yet had children, this is birth control.

The following came from an anonymous Mother in Austin, Texas...

Things I've learned from my Boys (honest and not kidding):

1.) A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq. ft. house 4 inches deep.

2.) If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite.

3.) A 3-year old Boy's voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.

4.) If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound Boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20x20 ft. room.

5.) You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on.

When using a ceiling fan as a bat, you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way.

6.) The glass in windows (even double-pane) doesn't stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan.

7.) When you hear the toilet flush and the words "uh oh", it's already too late.

8.) Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it.

9.) A six-year old Boy can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36-year old Man says they can only do it in the movies.

10.) Certain Lego's will pass through the digestive tract of a 4-year old boy.

11.) Play dough and microwave should not be used in the same sentence.

12.) Super glue is forever.

13.) No matter how much Jell-O you put in a swimming pool you still can't walk on water.

14.) Pool filters do not like Jell-O.

15.) VCR's do not eject "PB & J" sandwiches even though TV commercials show they do.

16.) Garbage bags do not make good parachutes.

17.) Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.

18.) You probably DO NOT want to know what that odor is.

19.) Always look in the oven before you turn it on; plastic toys do not like ovens.

20.) The fire department in Austin, TX has a 5-minute response time.

21.) The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy.

22.) It will, however, make cats dizzy.

23.) Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.

24.) 80% of Men who read this will try mixing the Clorox and brake fluid.

25.) Women will pass this on to almost all of their friends, with or without kids.

source:
elearning


I need to write the sequel on Boys in Middle School....

-- CatherineJohnson - 18 May 2006

---

CargoCultLucyFromBecky 25 May 2006 - 16:59 CarolynJohnston


Becky sent this hysterical graphic (not photoshopped, we swear it!) of Lucy Calkins:

She also sent this handy list of things that are and are not compatible with your brain. Did you know that you need to be mildly aroused in order to learn anything? I find that rather disturbing.

stupid mayor trick
Thank you, whole language
guess and check reading
stupid mayor trick part 3: the good news

who is Lucy Calkins
having a Lucy Calkins day
Cargo Cult Lucy from Becky

National Reading Panel (official website)
The Partnership for Reading
(govt website: "bringing scientific evidence to learning")
National Reading Panel report full text (pdf file)

-- CarolynJohnston - 24 May 2006

---

TaughtMyDogToWhistle 08 Jun 2006 - 13:24 CatherineJohnson





I taught my dog to whistle.     I don't hear him whistling.        I said I taught him. I didn't say he learned.

source:
Improving learning in mathematics: challenges and strategies
(link to pdf file on this page)



-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Jun 2006

---

NewYorkSun 11 Jun 2006 - 01:10 CatherineJohnson



I finally broke down and subscribed to the New York Sun, scandalizing Ed, who thinks 3 newspapers a day are enough.^*

I'm glad I did it. The Sun makes me feel as if I've picked up and moved to another city. In The Sun, New York is a town filled with charming & obscure neighborhood chapels and International Centers of Photography staging exhibits of mysteries like Unknown Weegee, Weegee apparently having been a photographer who followed cops around in the 1940s and took pictures of dead bodies. It seems that Weegee was an unpleasant character:

Weegee was a pest," Helen Gee wrote in 1997. "Popping off flashguns in customers' faces ... handing out greasy name cards, rubber-stamped with his logo, Weegee the famous."

Gee, the proprietor of Limelight, the first New York gallery devoted exclusively to photography, admired Weegee's tabloid photojournalism from the 1930s and '40s, but she had little use for him as an individual. (Among other things, he asked to photograph her daughter naked.) By the late 1950s, Weegee's fame was fading, and he had become something of a pathetic character. When Gee finally offered to give him a show at Limelight, he wanted to put up pictures taken with a trick lens, instead of his famous crime shots. "These broads with five tits will be a sensation," he insisted. "Nobody's done anything like it."

That sounds good to me.

On another morning I find one Lawrence Otis Graham ($?), a black man who went to Princeton and supported himself handsomely while there by writing books:

"Some kids worked in the dining halls or the library - my job was writing books," he said.

The first of his 14 books was about a 10-point plan that Mr. Graham devised for high school students to gain acceptance at a college of their choice. It was an instant success, not the least due to its serialization in Good Housekeeping magazine.

"I wrote a book a year while in college," he said. "By the time I entered Harvard Law School, I was making a tremendous amount of money."

Mr. Graham also became an entrepreneur while at Harvard. Teaming up with a friend, he launched a newsletter about marketing to young people, especially in affluent black communities. The newsletter, which sold for a subscription price of $500 annually, made its publishers a tidy fortune.

It was at Harvard that Mr. Graham met Pamela Thomas. Like him, she hailed from a prosperous African-American family. Like him, she was ambitious - obtaining an M.B.A. from Harvard in addition to a law degree.

They married not long afterward. The Grahams have three children, Gordon, 7, and twins Lindsey and Harrison, 4.

Pamela Thomas-Graham is group president of Liz Claiborne Incorporated. Earlier, she was president and chief executive officer at CNBC. Before that, at 32, she was the first black woman to become a partner at the fabled consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

Ms. Thomas-Graham writes mysteries whose locales are Ivy League schools.

"There might be a hint of the overachiever in both of us," her husband said. "But we were brought up to succeed - and to make our contribution to contemporary American society."

I think Lucy Calkins should spend more time reading the Sun, and less time reading the Times.

Lawrence Graham has a new book coming out: The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America's First Black Dynasty.






The Sun also seems to run sayings on the op-ed page nearly every day. Now that is an excellent idea.

From today's paper:


Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
- Samuel Johnson

My thoughts exactly.

And here's Emile Zola on Edouard Manet:


In beginning a picture, he could never say how it would come out.




On Tuesday I woke up to find this dress on the front page:



designer: Oscar de la Renta

I want this dress. I'm never going to have it, but I want it.

Since I'm not going to have it, I think getting to look at it on the front page of my newspaper is a good thing.



Here's Weegee:




Weegee
source:
The Gibbes Museum of Art

source:
bezembinder




Summer
source:
coldbacon



Naked City
Weegee chronology
Weegee's profile & photos
Weegee: Paparazzi or Social Documentarian?
Fragment.nl "Writing is a trip"
coldbacon index of Weegee pics





^* Grammar query: 3 newspapers are? or 3 newspapers is? Now that I've read David Mulroy's The War Against Grammar, I intend to find out.



-- CatherineJohnson - 09 Jun 2006

---

AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent 27 Sep 2006 - 12:57 CatherineJohnson



In my travels last night I came across what I took to be a fabulous clip art site, but which turns out to be something more. Be sure to check out the cartoon he [correction: she] calls "Clowns on Their Day Off".

All his stuff is great, but I especially like the page of "Crazy clips," which bears a warning up front:

WARNING! The ideas that these images represent may be offensive to those who lack a twisted sense of humor. If you are sensitive, turn back now!

The Crazy Clips page has funny alien humor, funny smiley face humor, and even some funny Jesus humor.

I realize there hasn't been a huge call for funny Jesus humor here at Kitchen Table Math, but today I'm feeling the need.







I like this one, too. UPDATE 9-27-2006: Causey has taken her Jesus cartoons down, it seems. This one was a classic drawing of Jesus with the legend, "What would I do?"


update from Google Master

He's a she (Linda Causey), and yes, her stuff is great and just plain weird sometimes. Her one-panel cartoons appear in our local weekly freebie paper. (It's a "chain" paper, so other cities have them too. I know Denver has one; I read one when I was there last fall.)

I feel dumb.

Not dumb, really. Just not truly exceptional on a consistent basis.

-- CatherineJohnson - 13 Jun 2006

---

ACanadianMoment 08 Jul 2006 - 21:25 CatherineJohnson




here




Meanwhile we are experiencing many French moments here at home. We watched the French news tonight at dinner. The whole thing was about sports, except for two minutes devoted to Israel/Gaza (the captured soldier is French — holds dual citizenship — so the country is in an uproar) & another 3 or 4 on the anniversary of the London bombings.

Then it was back to sports. (Announcer: "....sadly there were four fatalities during the celebrations....")

Martine called her friend in Reims at 11 last night, and her friend held the receiver out the window. Martine could hear thousands of people screaming & shouting. Her friend said it was going to go on like that until 1 in the morning. The games are being broadcast in huge stadiums, so nobody's sitting around at home watching; they're out in force, in the stadiums, in the streets, flags everywhere.

I'm threatening to root for Italy, but Ed says if I do I can't watch with them.

French World Cup shirts sold out 'til September.



Ed is pulling Christopher out of Spanish & switching him to French. He wanted him to take French in the first place, but I said Spanish is our second language now; nobody speaks French. It was a bone of contention.

So Christopher took Spanish & learned perhaps 50 words of Spanish vocabulary, which was the lion's share of the curriculum as far as I could tell. No sign of verbs, grammar, or pronunciation. Then he got a C for the course. My friend's kid got a U. I don't even know what a U stands for, and neither does she. Is it an F or an Incomplete? I need to spend more time hovering.

I asked Christopher, How did this happen?

He doesn't know.

We blame the teacher.

heh

                        2006 FIFA World Cup Store

a Canadian moment
World Cup win
World Cup win part 2
BHL weighs in
coupdeboule
read my lips

html authoring in French



-- CatherineJohnson - 06 Jul 2006

---

DogOfHelicopterMom 21 Nov 2006 - 18:09 CatherineJohnson




t-shirt of helicopter mom

Helicopter Mom

dog of helicopter mom







His name is Surfer.

We got him when he was a puppy at the North Shore Animal League. He'd been brought in from a shelter in Tennessee, and the lady at the pet supply shop next door to North Shore told us he was part shepherd and part coon hound. She turned out to be wrong, though. Once Surfer was grown up, people who know dog breeds said he's part Rottweiler, part pit bull.

Surfer won "Scariest Pet" in the Picture Pet Contest at Main Street School, 2005.

Any questions?



-- CatherineJohnson - 07 Jul 2006

---

NewsFromSingaporePart2 12 Jul 2006 - 23:46 CatherineJohnson




via Inside Plants Live, who turns out to be the E.D. Hirsch of indoor plants (or maybe the Steven Jobs or Bill Gates):

SINGAPORE - It was the innocuous little notice on the bulletin board in the stairwell of my apartment building that reminded me that an invasion was underway: "Mr. Chan in 50A discovered a monkey in his kitchen Tuesday night," the notice said.

"If you see this monkey, please notify the management right away."

[snip]

To the newcomer, Singapore may seem like a thoroughly modern metropolis, with busy highways, skyscrapers and malls, blissfully absent from the perils of life on the frontier. Indeed, it is common to hear Singapore criticised as lifeless and sterile.

But this is an illusion, as any macaque can attest. Urbanites who chance to relocate here should be forewarned that Singapore is not far removed from the steamy tropical jungle it was hacked out of less than 200 years ago. Occasionally the jungle hacks back.

[snip]

Singapore was once covered - and small parts of it still are - by primary rain forest. As recently as the 1860s, the jungles of central Singapore supported a resident population of tigers.

The tigers celebrated the arrival of Chinese immigrants by eating them - up to 200 a year until the British sent Indian convicts into the jungles to cull the "gentlemen in stripes."

[snip]

Some animals are recent arrivals from neighbouring Malaysia, where development of palm plantations along the coast drives some to paddle across the Straits of Johor to Singapore. In 1990, elephants swam from Malaysia to one of Singapore's outlying islands, where they were captured and repatriated.

More recently wild pigs (Sus scrofa) have crossed to Singapore itself, with one wild boar imposing himself as an unwelcome volunteer greens keeper at a local golf course.

Other animals long believed extinct in Singapore have also been spotted, sometimes only as roadkill, among them the leopard cat (felis bengalensis tingia) the palm civet (paradoxurus hermaphroditus), the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) and the Oriental pied hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris).

But the most common interlopers leave no footprints at all. Two to three times a week, Singapore police receive a call from a resident reporting a visit by one of Singapore's many snakes.

Black spitting cobras (naja naja sputatrix) are endemic to Singapore, though fortunately rare.

Much more common is the reticulated python (python reticulatus).

While most animals that tour Singapore's human settlements do so via the island's extensive tree cover, the pythons have turned the island's vast sewer system, which is vital for preventing torrential tropical storms from flooding the city, into their own subway network.

When they tire of the usual forest fare of monkeys and birds, they venture downtown in search of rats, cats and dogs.

One day a few years ago, I happened by some excited construction workers on my street who were extracting a python from the sewer. The snake was at least four meters, or 13 feet, long.

[snip]

But the most dangerous creature you are likely to run into in Singapore is not the python, the spitting cobra or the crocodile, but rather the mosquito.

I suffered an abject demonstration of this recently when I contracted dengue fever, a very painful virus transmitted by the aedes mosquito (aedes aegypti).

[snip]

Fear not. Falling afoul of one of Singapore's resident creatures is about as likely as getting hit by lightning.

Of course, Singapore's frequent tropical thunderstorms also make it one of the world's lightning-strike capitals.

Earlier this year, a professional soccer player was struck dead on the pitch during a game. There are worse ways to go. On the coastlines, signs warn of another menace: falling coconuts.

source:
It can sometimes be a jungle
By Wayne Arnold, New York Times
Oct 1, 2004

I've been collecting essays for Christopher to read. This one's going in the pantheon.




bonus link

I love this post to 'scaper Talk. Temple has a zillion of these tales. (warning: 'scaper Talk doesn't have a filter, so the follow-up posts have pornographic headings.)

-- CatherineJohnson - 10 Jul 2006

---

FindX 23 Jul 2006 - 11:35 CatherineJohnson




here




source:
Omni Brain

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Jul 2006

---

HowToCheat 24 Jul 2006 - 19:56 CatherineJohnson





in 8 easy steps

via Newmark's door



This reminds me of a student I had in a freshman rhetoric class at Iowa. She handed in a paper that was copied word for word from an essay in our class reader.

When I confronted her, she denied copying the essay.

I pulled out the reader and showed her the passage.

She looked at me and said, "I remembered it."

Of course, now that I know the Helen Keller plagiarism story, it strikes me as entirely possible my student could have had a brain wonky enough to remember an essay word for word, while at the same time not remembering that she was the reader of the essay, not the writer.

Keller actually did, as a girl, remember something she'd read without remembering she'd read it, and, iirc, was subjected to some awful kangaroo trial (haven't tracked down mention of a trial, so take this with a grain of salt). I think the story is told in Roger Shattuck's book. Mark Twain wrote Helen a letter about the incident.

[pause]

Now I'm remembering the time a student told me she hadn't done her paper because her grandmother had died. At Iowa everyone's grandmother was dying all the time; grandparents were dropping like flies.

I didn't believe her, either. Then it turned out that not only had her grandmother died for real, but the grandmother had been living with the family, practically raising the kids, and the whole household was in a state of mourning and traumatic collapse.

Yes, those early days of teaching with zero training and zero experience always go well!


-- CatherineJohnson - 23 Jul 2006

---

SundemTierneyUnifiedCelebrityTheory 19 Sep 2006 - 15:59 CatherineJohnson




Sometime in my youth, in high school I think, I came up with my first writer idea.

I wanted to write a Dear Abby column with numbers.

The plan was to do a Math Trailblazers-like counting job on social pain.

Basically, my plan was to figure out how long it took to get over things.

How long did it take to get over being dumped?

How long did it take to get over someone dying? (Two years, I figured.)^*

etc.

Then people could write in, tell me what bad thing had just happened to them, and I could write back telling them how long before they felt OK again.^**

At the time, I hadn't (really) heard of probability & statistics — or, rather, I'd heard of statistics and probability, but I had no idea how it worked.

I just knew about counting.




Geek Logik

Today I learn from John Tierney ($) that a fellow named Garth Sundem has actually gone out and done a geek version of my high school kid concept:

I wish no ill to Brangelina, Tom and Katie, or Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock. Like any mortal, I revere the romances on Olympus. I thrilled to hear of Pam’s secret wedding and agonized at reports of Angelina’s reluctance to marry (or is Brad dragging his feet?). When I finished poring over Vanity Fair’s photo spread of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes with their daughter, my only bitter thought was: Why just 22 pages?

But we inquiring minds must be realistic. Remember your crazy joy at past celebrity marriages — Jessica and Nick, Julia and Lyle, Uma and Ethan?

[snip]

[Y]ou were sure this one was for the ages — until the day their publicist put out the statement about an “amicable” decision to pursue “separate lives.” Amicable! How could the couple of the century bear to be apart? You felt deceived, used, discarded. You stared at their photo and thought: I don’t even know you anymore.

I can’t bear any more of these breakups, so I have turned to science to steel my heart. I went to Garth Sundem, the wickedly ingenious author of “Geek Logik,” a new book of mathematical formulas for deciding questions like whether you should sleep with a co-worker, whether you should join a gym or see a therapist, and whether you can wear a Speedo without frightening small children.

Sundem's formula predicting the likelihood that a celebrity marriage will last:

Sundem's odds




     Geek Logik



^* Amazingly enough, two years turned out to be a pretty good estimate. At least, it's a good estimate for me.

^**This would be your Midwest farmer's concept of self-help.


-- CatherineJohnson - 19 Sep 2006

---

AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferentPart2 27 Sep 2006 - 13:06 CatherineJohnson




Last week I stumbled across a news report entitled, Pessimistic Germans Losing Faith in Democracy.

Then this morning I stubbed my toe on this music video, which it seems was a hit in Germany over the summer.

I'm trying not to make too much of this.



Meanwhile, I'm torn between a sense of alarm and the fact that....

....I like the song.

Also the suits.






thanks to: the misspent life



-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Sep 2006

---

MoreFunWithFractions 12 Oct 2006 - 01:10 CatherineJohnson

available to order from:
Prank Place



-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Oct 2006

---

MiniMe 02 Nov 2006 - 17:36 CatherineJohnson




Checked in with Harry today, and found a link to How Many of Me.com



findings:

• There are 559,441 people in the U.S. with the first name Catherine.

• Statistically the 92nd most popular first name.

• More than 99.9 percent of people with the first name Catherine are female.

• Names similar to Catherine:
  

        Cathy
        Karen
        Katharine
        Katherine
        Kathleen

• There are 2,429,746 people in the U.S. with the last name Johnson.

• Statistically the 2nd most popular last name.

• Famous people with the last name Johnson:

        Amy Jo Johnson
        Andre Johnson
        Bethel Johnson
        Brent Johnson
        Bryan Johnson


I've never heard of any of these people.


So I'm guessing Smith is the 1st most popular surname.

[pause]

yes

Smith is the 1st most popular surname.

Smith is my mother's maiden name.

This is why I always turn up dead center in every survey and opinion poll I take.

Bellwether me.



So I'm thinking HowManyOfMe.com would make a good Real World Investigation into Percents.

What percentage of Americans are named "Catherine"?

First, I'm going to find out how many Katherines, Katharines, Kathryns, Cathryns, & Catharines there are.

[pause]

findings

469,451 Katherine
25,497 Katharine
350,963 Kathryn
8,999 Catharine
13,499 Cathryn ^*


TOTAL ALTERNATIVE SPELLINGS: 868,409
PLUS CATHERINES: 559,441
TOTAL CATHERINES: 1,427,850
TOTAL POPULATION: 299,968,595
PERCENT OF TOTAL POPULATION NAMED CATHERINE & CO: 4.8%


good grief

"Cathy" is a whole separate category.

So is "Kathy."

My name used to be "Cathy."

My name still is "Cathy" in Illinois. Ed calls Illinois "Cathyland," as a matter of fact.

OK, I'm going to go count CATHYS.

[pause]

findings

407,957 KATHY
205,478 CATHY


I don't know if I can bring myself to look up the number of people named "Cathie" and/or "Kathie."

[pause]

It had to be done.

findings

5,999 CATHIE
16,498 KATHIE


OK, adding the Cathies to the Catherines, we come to a grand total of 2,063,512.

6.9% of the population of the United States of America is named Catherine or a variant thereof.

Since women are 51% of the population, we arrive at the conclusion that 13.5% of American women have some version of my name.

Good.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 4,531 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

bonus links

my 3 favorite Harry posts:

• how to say Death to America in Arabic

• how to say Death to America in Farsi

• live-blogging the plane crash

Harry had a photo of a Surfer clone (scroll down) on his blog awhile back. It was in Colombia or Venezuela; I've forgotten which.


^* I'm sorry. People in this country seriously cannot spell.

-- CatherineJohnson - 26 Oct 2006

---

IsThisaJoke 06 Nov 2006 - 15:30 CatherineJohnson




Is this a Japanese instructional workout video?

really?

-- CatherineJohnson - 26 Oct 2006

---

AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferentPart3 28 Nov 2006 - 16:16 CatherineJohnson





An Integrated, Project-Based, Spiral Curriculum for the First Year of Chemical Engineering (pdf file)

That's something you don't see every day.

the trouble with spirals

Linda Moran links to this analysis of spiral curricula in the U.S.:

In 1987, McKnight undertook one of the first comprehensive investigations into why American children consistently rank below most other industrialized nations on international mathematics assessments. He found that, in addition to having teachers with higher-than-average teaching loads, American students were also disadvantaged by the “spiral curriculum.” Proposed by Bruner (1961), the spiral curriculum “revisits” basic concepts each year for a “continual deepening” of student understanding. But for McKnight, although Bruner’s logic was “simple, elegant and intellectually appealing”, the “implemented spiral” was merely a fragmentation of “computationally-oriented content” (p. 97). McKnight argued that this curricular fragmentation had spawned an emphasis on topic breadth at the expense of topic depth. “Content and goals linger from year to year so that curricula are driven and shaped by still-unmastered mathematics content begun years before” (p. 9). As a result, curricular goals remain unfocused and there is no expectation for student mastery.

This link appears to be their PowerPoint presentation.
Linda Moran on spiral curricula
Schmid & Valverde on spiral curriculum & TIMSS
General Principles and the Spiral Curriculum
Jerome Bruner
Jerome Bruner redux
spiralcurriculum



-- CatherineJohnson - 14 Nov 2006

---

MissionImpossible 01 Dec 2006 - 21:42 CatherineJohnson




I've decided to start a collection of public school mission statements.

North Merrick Union Free School District

It is the mission of the North Merrick School Community to develop individuals who respect themselves and others, are flexible, open-minded, self-motivated, and capable of relating to and communicating with others. These individuals should be able to function independently and cooperatively, be conversant with technology, have the ability to access, process, as well as analyze data, and be able to solve problems.

Merrick Union Free School District at School Matters

According to the Superintendent's letter, K-5 students in North Merrick are doing exactly what you'd expect:

• September had been a busy month for the students at Old Mill Road. As the new school year began, students were observed throughout the building focusing on their social skills. Old Mill Road’s Giving Tree is growing daily, as more and more names are added of students who are noticed being exceptionally kind or helpful to others.

• Students are participating in the Second Step Program to reinforce positive social skills. Some of the areas covered are demonstrating understanding and caring to others, practicing impulse control and problem solving, and managing anger so that it does not impact negatively on others.

• First and second grade teachers have been busy getting their students ready to launch Writer’s Workshop. Teachers in grades three and four are having their students use Writer’s Notebooks this year. Their personalized notebooks look fabulous! The students are excitedly recording feelings, observations, and important events in their lives.

• Many of our fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students are busy creating characters for the annual Storyworks’ Create-A-Character Contest. Award-winning author, Christopher Paul Curtis, will select one character entry and write a short story using that character. Winners will be announced in the spring.

• Friday, September 29th was designated as Fitness Friday as all Old Mill Road students participated in a variety of exercises, and ate healthy snacks. This is in accordance with our new District Wellness Policy and our school initiative, Old Mill Road to Wellness. The staff is working to provide a healthy school environment for every student. A total student approach to ensure physical fitness, encourage healthy food choices, and social well being, will be our focus for this year.

• In October, kindergarten teachers will also be Launching Writer’s Workshop with their students. In addition, first and second grade teachers will begin Guided Reading instruction with their students.

• Old Mill Road families successfully participated in International Walk to School Day on Wednesday, October 4.

North Merrick has a vision statement, too:

The North Merrick School Community resolves to nurture, guide and challenge children to maximize their potential and become contributors to society.

Irvington is looking better.

A whole lot better.

-- CatherineJohnson - 29 Nov 2006

WebForm
TopicType:	SubjectArea
SubjectArea:
TopicHeadline:	humor and quotations