This will be my one hundred and twenty eight blog post with page views slowly approaching six thousand. By far the most page views come from people here the United States but the second most page views have been from France. While I have no idea who or why someone from France would follow my blog I do appreciate the fact that she or he has been following for a long time. It is with this in mind that I titled this blog post, in French, and hopefully this is the correct translation with everything spelled correctly, the following, "I Stand With France" during this tragic time. To my French follower(s) I offer my prayers during this most difficult time and ask that all world leaders unite and destroy, once and for all, the evil that could do this. Vive la France!
Although you can't tell, I'm struggling getting this blog started. After all what can one say following my opening paragraph about the barbaric act that took place in Paris. I have my notes right in front of me, in a somewhat orderly fashion, but I just can't think of how to transition to a discussion about my view from the back of the room. My part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse just walked by so I asked her for an opinion. She looked at me for a second or two and then said, "you said what you wanted to say to your French reader(s) so just go with what you planned to write about." As usual, as she has for thirty seven years, she pointed me in the right direction.
Behaviorally, this had to be the most uneventful and quiet week that I think I've ever had over the past three and a half school years. If there was one standout highlight I guess it would be this one. On Tuesday, Uh-Uh-Uh arrived in the classroom in a bit of an angry mood. She had her angry look going as she entered the room, arms folded across her chest, angry facial expression, and walking with a slight foot stomp to her desk. She then sits down, arms still folded across her chest looking mad and occasionally kicking the leg of her desk. Grr! and EM are in the room and they do the right thing, ignore her, and stick to their business. For some reason EM chose not to eat the breakfast he picked up in the cafeteria so he placed it on my desk. Knowing that Uh-Uh-Uh arrived late and was not carrying a breakfast when she arrived I picked up EM's breakfast and walked over to her desk and asked her is she wanted something to eat. Initially I just got a "NO!" but that changed to a yes before I could get back to my desk. She started by opening the white milk and then proceeded to the six waffles that were wrapped in plastic to keep them warm. For clarification the waffles are round, about this size of a silver dollar and maybe one quarter of an inch thick, and not the full size that you would get at a real cafeteria. After Uh-Uh-Uh consumed half of the first waffle she announces to no one in particular, "how can something that looks so good taste so bad?" That got a reaction from everybody in the room and it also got Uh-Uh-Uh distracted long enough that she forgot she was angry and Gnu began our academic lesson.
"Schultz, where do we keep the masking tape?" Gnu says to me. I retrieve the masking tape from the same location it was in the last time she asked me for it and hand it to her. She then tells the scholars to use the masking tape to mark out a square on the floor that has sides that are four feet long. When the scholars finished placing the tape on the floor she tells all four of them to sit on the floor inside the square that they just made. A couple scholars have parts of their anatomy outside the square so Gnu nudges them over a little and tells them that at no time can any part of their body either be outside the tape or even touching the tape. Within everyone properly position in their own spacious four square feet of floor space she begins the lesson. "You are passengers on a ship called the Mayflower and you are heading to America. There are ninety eight other passengers on this ship so it is important that you remain in your assigned seating area for the entire journey from England, across the Atlantic Ocean, and eventually to Plymouth Rock in America. This journey will take sixty six days so try and get as comfortable as you can as it's a long journey." Gnu continues, "I know that you may be a little concerned about this long journey but you can be at ease because your daily meal is about to be served." Gnu walks over to her desk and picks up a bag that contains today's meal and starts to pass out the food. As she does so, she reminds them that this is all you get to eat today so don't waste any food and don't start eating until I give you all of your food. The first item on the menu was a saltine cracker. This was followed by some cheese, in this case Colby, and then finally the dried meat which I picked up on my way to school from the BP gas station. The dried meat was Beef Jerky in it's original flavor in case you were wondering. With each scholar in possession of their daily food allowance she again reminded them that this is all you get to eat for the day and that they can now eat their meal.
The book is titled "Thanksgiving On Thursday" and it is a chapter book from the Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne. Gnu had to update her lessons plans plus update the scholars individual education plans (IEP's) prior to case conferences with the parental units so I got to do the bulk of the reading during the week. As we worked through each chapter there was a multiple choice test to take at the end of the chapter. There were only five or six questions per chapter and as we worked through the questions I was and continued to be amazed how much our scholars remember. While I'm amazed at their recall abilities I'm equally frustrated with them when they are required to take a state or school corporation mandated reading test as they always do so poorly. When the scholars finished the final chapter Gnu informed them that they now had to do an art project about the story. As anticipated, that didn't set well with them for one reason, they are not very good artists. Despite the groans and whining Gnu told them about the project. "You will now recreate the pilgrim village at Plymouth Rock. You can do so by creating a setting that the pilgrims lived in or a setting that the Native Americans lived in. I have all the material you will need to include shoe boxes, different colored cloth so you can create roads, grass, and water. I also have different colored construction paper that you can use to create your background and various paint colors that you can use to paint your houses, fences and other objects that you wish to place in your setting." Gnu had barely finished her last comments about this project when the scholars quickly moved to the front table to get started. As I have been so many times before, I'm amazed at Gnu's ability to keep them engaged in an academic lesson. She pushes and pushes academics all day long. There are occasional brain breaks but they are short as she just keeps moving forward. And just when you think the scholars are reaching their breaking point she changes directions and gets them reengaged in academics with these wonderful projects.
The lowest life form, the politician, and the pointy headed intellectuals that feed into their heads the verbiage that comes our of their mouths, have reared their ugly heads and it's going to get interesting between now and the end of the year. The Indiana Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) preliminary results are coming out and it's not good. A first look at the scores indicate that our schools reading and math scores dropped by thirty percentage points. During a conversation with a teacher from another school corporation I was told by this teacher that approximately twenty scholars in her school, who have NEVER failed an ISTEP test, failed one or both parts of the test this year. Elections are on the horizon and principals, teachers, and parental units are about to see ISTEP scores so it's going to get real interesting here in Indiana as the lowest life form and the pointy headed intellectuals try and weasel they way out of this disaster they created. I'll keep you updated as we move forward.
That's enough. We need to unite as one and support our friends from across the pond. Vive la France!
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