Global warming and your garden

[Jangchub]

We call it caca del toro in these here parts!

[MajorOz]

innews: [e-mail]

...really ?

Got any citations?

cheers

oz, wondering how well lee would do in an Aegis cruiser's CIC

[Jangchub]

Jangchub is one word, not two and shouldn't ave a dual letter associated with the shorthand. I don't sign my posts enough, but I am Victoria, not JC.

[MajorOz]

Kinda shoots the argument that paying teachers more would result in better education. Actually, the reason private / religious schools produce better products is that they are allowed to exact discipline. As a frequent temp, I have that luxury in the public school. Students act up, I throw them out. "Where should I go" they ask. "I don't care" I answer. Then I get on with the task of the day to, usually, interested students.

cheers

oz

[Charlie]

What about accessability? Lots of parents don't live anywhere near private or alternative schools. There are places other than cities, you know, like out here in the sticks, areas which so many people overlook and write off.

And furthermore, there are countless numbers of homeschoolers who continue to teach the "3 Rs". Also parents and grandparents who "supplement" public education.

The reason "religious" schools still teach well may be on account of the fact they don't bite the federal carrot and don't accept federal monies. Has nothing to do with getting teachers "on the cheap".

Charlie

[Jangchub]

Wow, if I didn't know you wrote this post I'd have thought it was one of mine. I completely stopped entering the doors of a school at the sixth grade. The day I turned 16 I officially quit.

There was one teacher who gave me a little bit of inspiration. For a short time I attended my English class. This happened because everyone I hung out with went to class during that period, so I went too.

The book we were interpreting was "Lost Horizon." She said she was not really a teacher, but she was from Utopia and we were given a choice to make. We could stay here in this "reality," or we could go back with her. The one thing was, we couldn't return. Once we went, we went. I found this very interesting for a few minutes.

I grew up with people like Andrew Dice Clay. It was our highschool, James Madison in Brooklyn, NY where we "cut out" daily. The time period was when they were filming "The Lord's of Flatbush." It was our school as the backdrop for the film. I knew the girl who lived in the house where the Susan Blakely character lived in the film.

It's actually not Flatbush there, it's East Flatbush.

Anyway, I was bored to tears with school until I entered College where I was with like minds with similar interests and I love it.

Pardon the rambling, I fell on my knee replacement leg today so I'm on some interesting pain medication!

Victoria

[Jangchub]

Waldorf, Maryland? My first cousin lives there. Breezy Court, Waldorf, MD. It's nice there, but Austin is very hard to beat. I adore living here. The city's motto is "Keep Austin Weird!"

Sixty seven percent of the adults who live here have had higher education. Of those, almost half have graduate level degrees and of them, a third have their PhD.

It's said that if one need live in Texas, Austin is the place to be. It's the blue planet in the vast red of the dubya show.

Victoria

[Persephone]

Wake up, Rip V.W. Let me count the ways in which our beloved leader has subverted the U.S. Constitution by hacking away at the wall between Church and State! Pandering to his supposed * "base" he -- or rather his puppet-masters -- have been dishing out Federal dollars to "faith-based" schools on flimsy pretexts for much of his tenure.

Religious schools DO in fact pay their teachers less than public or private schools! I'm always reading protests about under- paid religious school teachers. Of course in the case of the Catholic Church, it's because they use (not exclusively) priests and nuns.

• "Supposed" because "Bush's Brain", the sinister Karl Rove, who thought the Reps would breeze through the 2006 midterms again by pandering to their evangelical "base", got a rude awakening when the Dems took back both houses of Congress. Shortly afterwards he was handed his hat - officially. But he still lurks, albeit ex officio.

[Persephone]

Must be across the Pond. Temps in the U.S. public schools, especially large urban ones, have a terrible time. A dear friend of mine (now deceased) was a writer who eked out a living by substituting. He reported spit balls along with every kind of nuisance and disturbance. Subs like him generally wise up and run a movie for the students while they read a book.

Aspasia

[Persephone]

Mea culpa.

[Jangchub]

You're-a acknowledgement is accepted. Let's start over.

[enigma]

Jangchub wrote in news: [e-mail]:

dubbya wants everyone to be as ignorant as he is... as for the out of pocket expenses by teachers for their classrooms, that's not stuff to inspire, it's *basics* like pencils & paper. lee

[enigma]

MajorOz wrote in news: [e-mail] oups.com:

it might. if the choice is between teaching, with a salery of $40k/year (knowing that you have to supply your own classroom with pencils, paper, chalk, hankies, hand cleaner, supplemental reading books etc *and* pay off that student loan for the required Master's degree) and a private sector job that pays $75K+ per year, which would you choose?

well, more or less. a private or religious school can throw out any student that they choose, so they can pick only willing, non-disabled students. public schools can't do that, and frequently public school teachers have kids with learning disabilities, ESL or numerous other issues that take what little teaching time they have after the bureaucratic paperwork... it's a lose/lose game.

lee

[Billy]

Ew? There is a satisfaction in teaching, at least there is until the administration beats it out of you, in seeing a student "get it", to read the implications, not just the explicit text. Besides providing for the moment, what could be more important than preparing for the future?

[Billy]

That is a total waste of time. But many schools do have "classes" that are just dumping grounds, where they put difficult children who refuse to be students (for whatever reason).

[enigma]

Billy wrote in news: [e-mail] ct.net.au:

ew, because i could not be a public school teacher. i could not teach only to the test. i could not restrain my enthusiasm for knowledge. i could not simply turn out good little cogs... and that is strongly frowned upon by the administration. i did have a few good teachers (i can count them on one hand with fingers left over). they didn't last long... not because they couldn't teach, but because they couldn't, or wouldn't, play the politics game. i know that i wouldn't kiss ass, so going into teaching would have been a bad thing for everyone (including the students, because once you have a teacher that opens your eyes to the possibilities of what learning *could* be, & then that teacher is gone, well, then the same old grind is even more onerous). what baffles me is there are public school grade school teachers that completely avoid teaching certain subjects simply because they dislike or don't understand it, including math. how can that be allowed to occur? lee

[Billy]

Never seen that in California. What I have seen is a class that is shown movies, with no assignment attached to it, or the students can just "hang". A recruiter from an technology school referred to it as a dumping ground, although I've seen the same students function (stay on task) in other classes. The teacher is studying for his "Administrator's Credential" and the Principal does nothing because they are pals. Criminally "wasted time" for the students. Oh, and I'm not welcome to that school any longer.

[Jangchub]

Actually, each fall the different Independent School Districts have a

2-4 page list of required school supplies. My sister in law spends about 150 dollars on two teenagers. Then, they take these supplies and put them into a large pool box so if your child brings in Harry Potter this or that, chances of them having it from that pool of supplies is almost none.

The things teachers buy are basic items to help illustrate science projects, paints, different things ordinarily schools supplied. I grew up in Brooklyn where we were covered under the NYS Board of Education. Here in Texas, each district is independent. There is a lot of room for corruption of funding. I am tired of paying for it.

We are seriously looking at places like Belize and Cancun to retire to. Costa Rica is another place I have been looking at. I will not develop anything, but we'd buy something already existing so we don't further displace more native fauna and flora.

Victoria

[Billy]

Might want to study up on entomology;o)

[Charlie]

You been reading old Joe Bageant?

He has mostly gone there. If you aren't familiar, you might enjoy a bit of his cynicism and insight. He is an old school lefty who communed with some of the best of us. His experiences in Belize might be of interest.