Facie’s Ramblings

This past fall, I had the wonderful experience of being a chaperone on a field trip to RiverQuest, a non-profit educational organization that operates a river learning center for students, teachers, and the community of southwestern Pennsylvania. During the four-hour boat trip, the students got to examine organisms under microscopes, test water, learn various facts about plant and animal life in the river and environment, and much more. Recently, I looked up RiverQuest on the great big internet, and I discovered (or perhaps just remembered) that the organization offers Saturday cruises. So I decided the family should go. After a long walk around the North Shore on beautiful sunny day, we boarded the RiverQuest boat on the Ohio River, after having purchased our tickets at the nearby Science Center. The one-hour trip did not disappoint. The hubby, who was still slightly under the weather, appreciated time in the sun. And J and I did various learning activities. She was partic...

Fourth grade, so far, has gone well for J (knock on wood, fingers crossed, thank you, God). My much more laid-back approach and the reasonable amount of homework are mostly responsible for this (so far) less stressful year. J, for the most part, does her homework without my begging or yelling. And she has been much more responsible. If she says she has no homework or knows the material for a test, I give her the benefit of the doubt. Hubby is not a fan of my mostly hands-off approach, but considering she is a motivated student who makes mostly A's, I say why not give her the chance on her own. But, of course, eventually, a snag occurs. Three weeks into this school year, J forgot a workbook. Bri was rather disappointed. I, on the other hand, thought it was impressive she made it that long. Considering that by this time last year, she had forgotten books and/or her folder or planner at least three times, I call this progress! Regardless, J was quite upset with herself and worried a...

Last week, I spent three days subbing for the math teacher, who, God bless her, teaches seven different math classes a day, ranging from pretty simple fifth grade math to basic geometry and algebra. In high school, I was good at math. I took Algebra I, II, and III; trig; and geometry, and had straight A's save for one nine weeks of geometry. I quit calculus after one day because I had seen too many people in my school wreck their GPA for that apparently difficult class. Since I was planning to teach English, I did not see the point. Once I got to college, I needed only two math classes, one of which was a great stat class. After that, I figured I would never need math again (you know, calculators and all). But, alas, I figured incorrectly. In the fall of 1994, I was hired to teach the English classes at a business college. Because they needed to fill a period of my schedule, I ended up teaching a business math class my first quarter there. One might think with my math skills,...

The PA Department of Education has a page entitled "How is my school doing?" If you are interested in how your school district (or others) is doing, I encourage you to check out this link . The information goes beyond the typical standardized test results; things such as drop-out rates, attendance, and teacher qualifications are also included. I gave the reports a quick glance and was dismayed, though not surprised, to see how poorly my district is performing. To be fair, I just don't know a lot about No Child Left Behind and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP); my opinions are based on what little I have read and the opinions of others. But even so, one thing I have questioned and struggled with is the dreaded standardized test, which, of course, is how the academics are rated/ranked. In fact, this week Jordan and her schoolmates are taking the Terra Nova tests (I think most or probably all the state public schools take the PSAAs instead). I could read up on the differenc...

I cannot believe the last time I did a "random ramblings" post was way back in May of 2010. Since I have a handful of things (and by handful, I mean at least 10) on my mind and not any one thing heavily weighing me down, I figured I might as well ramble. So here goes. Earlier today, the weather people were calling for 3 to 6 inches of snow, with the snow to start in the mid afternoon and one of those inches coming before midnight. I cannot speak for the rest of the Pittsburgh area, but we have gotten at least three inches so far, at around 10 p.m. Brian has twice shoveled our driveway and sidewalks as well as our neighbor's, and each time everything was covered by the time he finished. Speaking of snow, I am scheduled to substitute tomorrow, which also happens to be "Steelers Dress-Down Day." I will be so bummed if I don't get to wear my Hines Ward jersey while teaching, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will have only a two-hour delay (already c...

On Monday, Jordan and I had the pleasure of attending a program about the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at our local library. Greg Kenney, from Educate Us Productions, acted as both narrator and Dr. King during the presentation. Prior to that evening, I knew very little about Dr. King, other than he fought for racial injustice and was tragically killed when he was very young. When I was in school, we did not talk about MLK, probably because we never made it to the '60s in our U.S. history class. And Martin Luther King Jr. Day was not made a national holiday until the mid '80s, and even then, not all states celebrated it. But now that I am an adult, I am very interested in social studies and history. I first heard MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech when I played it for my speech communications class in the mid '90s. I was so moved by it and still am. To this day, my eyes well with tears whenever I hear certain lines from it. Mr. Kenney's program at th...

For many years, I have had a recurring dream where I could not find my locker or a classroom. More recently, I had lost my class schedule, so I did not know which classes I had or where I was supposed to go. Usually I was wandering around a version of my old high school, though in my dreams it was sometimes supposed to be college. And every once in awhile, I would forget the lines to a play I was in. I recall reading a few years ago that dreams like those indicated I was unfilled in my life, not challenged. And that made sense. I was at the same job for many, many years (though I did do different things over the years). And once I had a kid, I pretty much completely lost the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants attitude and started to plan things well in advance. Plus I was not exactly trying new things or traveling to new places. Now that I am taking a couple of classes, these dreams come less frequently, but I still have them at times. But more strikingly to me, over the past few months I hav...

I spent the past two days substitute teaching, something I had not done since Bill Clinton was little more than a year into his first term. When I found out Tuesday that I would be subbing, I was at once scared and excited. Scared because I had done this before and I know how kids can be (as high schoolers, I know how we were around subs). And excited because it seemed like a good first step to jump back into the teaching pool (well, perhaps a second step; vacation Bible school was more like a first step). So how was it? Overall, I call it a success. I might even call it great. I managed to teach social studies to 5th through 8th graders, which is quite a feat, considering I hated social studies back in the day. Religion proved to be a little less challenging since I have been going to church for nearly 38 years now. In all the classes I knew most of the answers (usually thanks to the answer key, which was sadly missing for a couple of classes). And I managed to come up with some acti...

Yep, that is me. In addition to my bullying class, I am also taking a class on digital literacy. I figured if I want to return to the classroom (which I am still not 100 percent sure I want to do), I should be aware of the technology teachers and students are using. Fellow teachers are throwing around words like promethean boards and elmo projectors. Here I thought Elmo was just the furry red monster. Sigh. I used a Mac for 13 years at my last job. I do not like PCs, but, alas, this is what we have at home. When I put in a disk last week, it took me almost five minutes to figure out where it went. On a Mac, it would have shown up on my desktop. But on PC, I had to go somewhere else (where, I already forget). I cannot figure out how to close and not quit out of programs (I want command W!). My computer seems to freeze/lock up way more than the Mac ever did. And when it does, I get this irritating message that asks me if I want to "End Now." Except now is more like three or fou...

Jordan starts first grade in just over two weeks, and I am rather panicked, thus contributing to my returning insomnia. Kids are under so much pressure to learn a lot and early, and I worry Jordan is not where she should be, even though I worked with her a lot this summer. Fortunately, she does know a lot of sight words, but when it comes to sounding out words, Jordan acts as if she were in increasing pain with every sound she says. But it is more than that. I worry about structure in general. Jordan and I had a great spring and summer together, but I fear I let her play too much. Some of you are probably thinking that sounds crazy; she is a kid. But how can I expect her to learn, pay attention, listen, be good, etc., for about 6.5 hours a day, when she probably has not done any one of those things for more than 30 minutes at a time a few times a day? Ah, the discipline. Jordan, for the most part, respects, even fears, authority. I am hopeful that will continue into first grade. But is...