Inspired Apple

Linky party over at The Inspired Apple (have I mentioned my obsession with teacher blogs? Maybe someday I will start my own.. you know... in my spare time...)

You know you do 1/2 autistic support when:

• You find yourself writing social stories about every bodily function you can dream of. (You think I'm kidding? My flashdrive has stories for nose-picking, farting, hands in the pants, why you wipe, why you shouldn't eat boogers, putting your pees and poops in the right place, etc, etc, etc.)
• You can never have enough 3X5 cards, ziploc bags, post-its, white board markers or timers.
• When you bring your own kid into your classroom he keeps exlaiming "Hey! This is *my* book/toy/sweatshirt/game".
• On a date you find yourself asking the one you are with to slide his bottom over a little and he looks at you in complete horror (true story)
• I saw this one on another blog and totally cracked up. Teachers in the hallway use a slightly different tone of voice when asking about a student referred to as only "your friend". My poor co-teacher this year has several "friends".
• Certain names will now forever be off limits for your own children. They just instantly conjure up images of a certain student, for better or for worse.
• You crack up daily at inventive spelling. (My favorite ever was the girl who wrote about "titty bars" which we later found out were "teddy bears").
• The very first day on the job your assistant says "Do you drink?" and when you reply no, she says "Well you may want to start."
• You find yourself discreetly sniffing students to try to figure out which one is making the room smell like old potatoes.
• You consult with your OT like 489758475 times a day. And when she takes a sick day, you feel lost.
• You keep M and M's and Hershey kisses in your desk drawer and delve into them aggressively when your students are at special. And when you randomly appear in coworkers' classrooms to ask them questions they immediately assume you are there to raid their stash.
• You have to field questions from kindergarteners asking if "you've got a man".
• The honor system snack box in the teacher's lounge is out of chocolate the day after the guy comes to restock it (and the gross peanut butter crackers sit lonely in the box for three more weeks).
• There are never enough pencils. No matter what. And you discover that your student has been sitting there doing nothing for ten minutes because the one he has isn't sharpened and doesn't have an eraser.
• Your students think you and your assistant live together.
• You reflexively answer, "I don't know, can you?" every time a student says "Can I go to the bathroom?"
• You cringe when you see adults forming letters by starting at the bottom or making other "mistakes". You have to bite your lip to keep from screaming "Magic C! Up like helicopter! Down and bump!"

But I love it!

Tuesday....

So I get paid every other week. This means that about twice a year there is a month where it works out that I get THREE paychecks instead of TWO. It's like a fun little bonus. Saturday morning I was contemplating this while I was driving home from my parents. Maybe I would finally put the molding up I've been longing for. Or pay my parents for Isaac's plane ticket to Florida. Or get some paint for my bedroom, the only unpainted room left in my house. As I am pondering my extra paycheck my car, slowly chugs to a stop on the shoulder of the road. Because, really, isn't that exactly what I get for fantasizing about getting ahead a little in life? Grrrr
A 230 dollar part later, my (fabulous) brother had my car up and running again. But not until he discovered that my intake manifold (????) is definitely going to need work. Good bye bonus paycheck. I knew you were too good to be true.
In other news, I'm kind of becoming obsessed with Jessie J. I love her nails and makeup in this video. . So tomorrow is wacky hair day at Isaac's school. I find that my mom has bought him something to wear. He loves it cause he thinks he looks like this guy from his Warioware game: Upon closer inspection of the packaging though, I see that this is the Disco guy accessories kit wig not included
Wait-- what?
Turns out... he's wearing the gross chest hair patch on his head.....
And I don't even care. This is the same mom who sent him to school with a box of tampons for the food drive. What can you do? What's new with you??

so freaked out....

to log into facebook and see this in the "people you might know" thing:

yikes....

happies and crappies

Haven't done this for a while: Happies: * Overall things have been going really well at work. I'm caught up on things, I'm in the groove, I'm tackling things that have been lingering around on my desk for ages. Feels much better. * Isaac got his report card today and it was wonderful. I'm a proud mom. * I think I've gotten a handle on my spamming e-mail account. Sorry again about that. Hope no one clicked any links. Apparently one of the subjects was "I'm so depressed" and it was sent at 3 in the morning. I guess it had my parents a little concerned. Oops. * I have fun weekend plans: DJ DJ who exclusively spins Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna. Can't wait. * My powercord for my home laptop is on it's way. I can't wait to get it. I have been getting by bringing my work laptop home, but I miss my itunes! * My compromise with Isaac on school clothes has been working out well. We alternate who chooses outfits on school days and it has helped cut back on tense before school fights. I'm not thrilled that he wants to wear sweat pants and track suits exclusively, but my mom picked him up some cute ones, so it could be worse I guess. Crappies * I had a great lead on a summer job. I e-mailed my resume and heard back from the HR lady a day later. She sent me some info via e-mail and asked me to get back to her. I contacted her the next day (and several times since via phone and e-mail!!) but she hasn't gotten in contact with me at all. Not sure what to make of that. I thought it was a done deal but apparently not. And that was really my only lead. Booo. * A co-worker at my job was ridiculously rude to me at work. Like full on screaming at me in front of my students. It was so unexpected and out of no where, that, two days later I am still reeling from it. * For some reason I can't read any blogs with a "Shabby Blogs" template. I can only see their header-- none of their content. Any thoughts?

weekend update

I forgot to take out our (very few) St. Patrick's decorations thisyear. I did get out our (very few) spring decorations up this weekend. There were a few nods to our Irish side around though. Isaac made this cute little leprauchan at school. And we made these cookies from a recipe I found in a magazine my mom left here. They turned out cute I thought (not bad for a first attempt,) but the recipe was a little dry. Or I overcooked them. Could definitely be that too. A few seconds in the microwave before helped a lot. I had a lovely weekend. Friday I did a little shopping at the outlets. GAP/Banana frequently sends the teachers in my school 40% off coupons, so I couldn't resist. I didn't go crazy but I did pick up a few things including a 6 dollar pencil skirt from Banana that was originally 60 bucks. I love high quality clothes that are 90% off!

I also got this cute cardigan. It is such a pretty spring color. Saturday was a leisurely day spent with friends that I don't see too often. Sunday I went to my old singles ward in the city and then went to my brother's house for dinner. His girlfriend Kami was there and my parents came out too. It was a really fun time. We played Monopoly Junior (actually not too tedious for a kid's game) and The Game of Things which was quite fun. We took the dog out to play for a bit before we headed home.

It was a lovely weekend, and probably my last totally free one for a while because spring soccer starts up shortly. That keeps us busy for a while.

In other news, my computer apparently has some kind of virus that is causing my old Hotmail account to spam my contacts repeatedly. I'm sorry about that-- please don't click on any links in the e-mails. I've tried a few different things but hopefully tomorrow I can get the tech guys at my work to get it back in working order. I am using my work computer exclusively while I am waiting for a new power cord for my home laptop to arrive, so I don't want this one out of commission too. At any rate, feel free to add that e-mail to your block list. I will just use my g-mail one from here on out.

Anyways, I need to keep working on a few odds and ends for work and then get to bed. Hope your weekend was lovely and THINK SPRING!

who cares if you disagree?

Do you guys know about Meghan Tonjes? I just discovered her recently and I looooooooooooooove her. And she did this cute cover of one of my favorite songs.

The Blueberry Story

I've been asked recently, if I am in a teacher's union. I didn't realize that in other parts of the country there are teachers who teach in public schools who choose to not join one. The answer is yes, I am. I don't know personally know any teachers that teach in PA who are not in one. It's a crazy world out there and if some parent decides they are going to sue their teacher because they don't like the grade their kid got, it's nice to have some protection. At any rate, the president of our teacher's union passed this along, and I thought it was great. It's a perfect illustration of why the education world does not equal the business world and why, imo, people like Bill Gates have absolutely no place in it. The Blueberry Story A business leader learns his lesson. by Jamie Robert Vollmer 'If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn't be in business very long!" I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of in- service training. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife. I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an ice cream company that became famous in the middle-1980s when People Magazine chose its blueberry flavor as the "Best Ice Cream in America." I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the Industrial Age and out of step with the needs of our emerging "knowledge society." Second, educators were a major part of the problem: They resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! Total Quality Management! Continuous improvement! A school is not an ice cream company: It can't send back its inferior blueberries. In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced—equal parts ignorance and arrogance. As soon as I finished, a woman's hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant. She was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload. She began quietly, "We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream." I smugly replied, "Best ice cream in America, ma'am." "How nice," she said. "Is it rich and smooth?" "Sixteen percent butterfat," I crowed. "Premium ingredients?" she inquired. "Super-premium! Nothing but triple-A." I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming. "Mr. Vollmer," she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, "when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?" In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap. I was dead meat, but I wasn't going to lie. "I send them back." "That's right!" she barked, "and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all. Every one. And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it's not a business. It's school." In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, "Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!" Schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America. And so began my long transformation. Since then, I have visited hundreds of schools. I have learned that a school is not a business. Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night. None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a postindustrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission, and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America. Jamie Robert Vollmer, a former business executive and attorney, is now a keynote presenter and consultant who works to increase community support for public schools. He lives in Fairfield, Iowa, and can be reached by e-mail at jamie@jamievollmer.com.