Last night we started to talk again. It's been an excrutiating two weeks and trying to get to a better place is going to take some time. But, at least we've started.
Hoping to get some video up later in the weekend of this morning's first grade Thanksgiving play. The kids were very cute in their Pilgrim and Indian costumes. Little One was very excited about the whole thing and really had a good time, and there was a marked advancement of all the kids in their confidence compared with Kgarten play last year.
That said, I have to gripe about the lousy principal of the school again. How this guy got to be a principal is a mystery to me. First off, as he welcomes everyone, he gives his usual "Good morning everyone!" routine wherein all reply, "Good Morning, Mr. G!" And, as is his custom when the parents are present, he says the parents did not respond well enough, so he turns to the kids and says, "Now we're going try this again with just the parents, so you don't say nothing." Seriously. "You don't say nothing." It irks me to no end when an educator does not speak proper English. What sort of role model is that?
Then he goes on to tell all the parents how important it is to the kids that we are there to watch them in the play, and he specifically says that when we aren't there the kids are really disappointed. So, I'm thinking, did he just go through and survey every kid and determine whether they all have someone in attendance in the audience. Course not. So for those kids, he just reminded them how bad they should be feeling right now. Is that necessary? The guy has no fucking clue. None. He don't got no brains.
As we head into the T-day smorgasbord, I have a reading tip for y'all. Just got this one in at the library. Wins my award for best book cover of the year.
And indeed there's a chapter entitled "Eating Snot: Socially Uncacceptable but Common. Why?" Wonder if the author got tenure for that?
Shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops in mid-November. Gotta love that.
Another late night in front of computer. I'm searching for examples of bias in different types of sources -- academic articles, books, websites. Want to use them in the online tutorial we're creating that is supposed to teach users to evaluate their sources for bias. Kinda tricky. Actually, websites are pretty easy, though I don't want the examples to be too obvious.
so, I hit a wall, and just couldn't think of specific examples or how to find them, and I finally log on to the SJSU "ask a librarian" button. The librarian who takes my online reference question is "Frank" from Pasadena City College. And he suggested a good search strategy -- check letters to the editors and book reviews.
A few minutes later, the transcript of my chat comes through the email. Only it's not Frank, it's from the guy who is team teaching my class who has not been responding to my emails. So, I email him back to say thanks and to remind him I'm still hoping to get some feedback on the programming exercises. Only now I'm wondering if the transcript wasn't just filtered through his email address and it was not him I was chatting with after all. Hmmm....
Anyway, if any of you have some good examples of bias ranging from the subtle to the extreme, send them my way.
Wow, it's 20 minutes to 1 a.m. and I finally finished and turned in my assignment. Wish I could say I feel like I got something out of it. The idea of the assignment was not bad, but the execution left something to be desired. Mostly that's my shortcoming for not being better organized.
At the outset of the course, we created reading plans for four different areas related to instructional design (educational theories, teacher/librarian collaboration, curriculum and assessment, and information literacy). Basically, the idea was to identify what you already know about these topics, figure out what you would like to know, and then read accordingly. So, in the end product we were to recap what we knew at the outset, discuss how we went about our reading (i.e. how did you search, what did you find), and provide a synthesis of our current knowledge of the topic. I made most progress in the educational theories section.
The problem was, of course, that I did not really get all that much reading done, so I didn't make great strides in my knowledge on these issues. Why did I not read? Well, time was one issue, of course. Another issue was the lack of a regular schedule for posting summaries of what we read (we were all expected to contribute to a course wiki, creating one long annotated bibliography). When this lack of due dates was brought up in class, the instructor just brushed it off with a "This is grad school. I should not have to impose structure at this level."
Well, I might agree if it was an academic graduate degree, but that is simply not the case here. An MLS is a professional masters and the people pursuing them are by-and-large doing it on the side of their otherwise very busy lives, not as the main thing they are focused on in their lives. Moreover, the guy is not practicing what he preaches in needing to recognize different learning styles. Some people need more structure than others. But, yeah, ultimately I should have imposed my own structure.
Radio Junkie took Little One to a model train exhibit this afternoon. Nice that they could have some time to bond. A very rare occurrence that I'm hoping will become more frequent. Meanwhile, Better Half and I walked around the neighborhood looking at houses for sale. Just getting a feel. Prices are still too high. Maybe another 6 months and we'll be ready. But it sure would be nice to get out of these cramped quarters.
I am so tired of having to spend all my free time studying. There's no more balance in my life. I'm either at work or I'm studying. If I'm not studying, I'm stressing about it because I'm not doing it. I just want this to be over. Just now I was at home and Little One wanted my attention. I was trying to write to get some assignments done that are due on Monday. Not only could I not give her my attention, but I got curt with her and determined that is best if I simply left to work elsewhere. So now I'm at the library and feeling pretty miserable about how I treated her and how I treat myself. Never really learned the art of balance. Hope she can learn it despite my shortcomings.
Sitting in a coffee shop trying to write reflective essays on educational theory, collaborative teaching, information literacy, and curriculum and accountability. Meanwhile, at the table next to me I'm listening to two friends talking about their experiences with a 12 step program. They appear to be folks who've completed the steps and are now serving as mentors (or whatever they call it). The main issue seems to be how to deal with being overwhelmed by newbies who are too needy and can't work the program. I'naresting.
Back to writing. Oh wait, this is writing. Okay, back to writing what I'm supposed to be writing.
Got the job! Waiting to hear has been kinda tense, so I'm quite relieved. It's nice to know that my patience is paying off and that my contribution is being recognized.
Now need to negotiate terms. Starting pay is on the low end, but will go up once I have the degree in hand. Just how much is what we need to discuss.
I'm wondering right now what posessed me to believe that this late in my life I could learn how to program. I mean seriously, I wrote some BASIC programs back in, I don't know, 6th grade or something. Granted, things in my HTML/CSS class during the summer went reasonably well. I more or less got it.
But now we're hitting the hard stuff (at least for me) with PHP and MySQL. And try as a I might, I just can't get my head around it. Virtually every exercise I try to complete does not work. It does not help, of course, that I really can't devote a lot of time to the subject. I tend to do it in big blocks at a time with way too much time in between. It also doesn't help, however, that the instructor is basically AWOL on my requests for help. Thanks, bud, I'll remember that when it comes time to submit evaluations of the instructors.
Meanwhile, I've now gotten excited about the idea of a "utility bicycle". Basically, these are bikes specifically designed to serve your main transportation needs, including carrying other people and stuff. In other words, a replacement for your car. There seem to be two biggies on the market right now: xtracycle and mundo. Check these puppies out. I have visions in my head of taking Little One on the back to school and then riding the rest of the way to work. Great for grocery shopping too. Finding a safe place to keep it would be an issue. And I need to find someone who has one so I can try before I buy.
