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Grunts have a way of getting to the nitty-gritty that the faraway generals (armchair or not) don’t. In this case, the grunt is a chemistry teacher at a Midwestern high school. He’s following in the footsteps of his mother, a retired Albuquerque teacher.

He asked that identifying information be removed. I agreed to do this, as there’s no telling the ramifications of truth-telling should the local generals get wind of it.

So, with that out of the way, here’s a brief report from the education wars. There’s nothing earth shattering, no seismic activity of note, just a few days of journal entries in the life of a young teacher:

(September) Truly this experience is about the students, and my students are amazing. I’ve got students from Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Somalia, from my neighborhood, and from the neighborhood of the school.

About the 2nd week of class there was an epidemic of “this is too much work” and I got asked by at least one student in every class if I was the only chemistry teacher (in hopes that they’d be able to switch out of my class). Fortunately, I am the only chemistry teacher, so it was an easy answer, and fortunately, we’re past the growing pains and I’m continuing to work them rigorously without complaint.

One of my favorite whines from early on was, “UGH, everything in here is so organized.” The growth/progress has been astounding; if only they could have seen themselves a mere 5 weeks ago!

As amazing as the students have been, the administration has been completely irrational and outrageous. Truly, our students are being left behind not because of any lack of will, but because of a lack of good teaching and district leadership. For example, on Monday, students arrived and received completely new schedules, including new courses and new teachers.

As a teacher who taught 5 periods of chemistry, I’m now teaching 5 periods of chemistry, and a 6th period of Earth Science. I also have new students in each of my chemistry courses who will be starting their years with me already behind.

During passing period one day, my vice principal pulled me and my student, Harold, (not his real name) aside to say:
“Harold is in the 99%.”
“Oh, that’s great! Good job Harold.”
“I mean the 99% for failing. He’s got straight F’s. He’s our Afghani refugee. Our first one, making a real name for himself.”

(November)
Caught a student with a knife on Friday. It was concealed in a pen. Another student pulled off the cap, revealing a really nasty blade. As I took it away, she said, “Don’t take that, it’s my fucking shank!”

I called security and she said that she had no idea it was a knife and that her friend gave it to her a few years ago . . . The worst part is that 10 minutes later she was back in my classroom (to the applause of other students, who were saying that what I did was a “bitch move”). She was saying that she had pretended to cry and there would be no punishment.

(April)
Oh the irony . . . I couldn’t believe it! Fourth period today (my tough class, but I’ve been growing on them!): One of the management policies I’ve been working on is if a student is disruptive, I will ask him/her to step outside and have a conference with me. If it is a frequent misbehavior, oftentimes I’ll have him/her sign the referral that I was going to submit, and say, “Ok, fair warning.” However, often the student won’t step out in the hall. This time, the student put on headphones to ignore me . . . a violation of our beloved electronic devices rule #9 🙂 Because the student was completely non-compliant and disruptive, I decided she needed to leave. On the referral I put that she refused to step in the hall, and had an electronic device. (Big mistake).

A few minutes after the student left, five safety officers were in my room with the principal. He said, “All right, I’m going to be straight with you. Anyone who puts their cell phone out on the table will have their parents come pick it up. No questions asked. If you don’t put your cell phone out, and we find it when we are searching you, it’s going to be a 10-day suspension, and I’m keeping your cell phone.” In the end he got 20 cell phones in a 22 person class. (The only school supply kids bring!!).

Kids, of course blamed it on me and after the 15 minute commercial break, I had completely lost control. Investment went WAY down, obviously, because kids who responsibly keep their cell phones in the upright and locked position got them taken away. To me, it’s almost a human rights issue!

I saw this the other day, thought about posting it, didn’t do it, then it showed up in an e-mail from a friend and I can take a hint. It’s a kind of license plate Rorschach.

Which way did I go at first? Oh, you know which way I went first.

Coming soon to a grocery near you (if you live in Corrales, where everything is near you): DR. DAYTON’S COMPLETELY NATURAL, DELICIOUS AND NUTRITIOUS BREAKFAST IN A BAR (SMARTER TIL NOON).

I’m not sure about the ALL-CAPS because I’ve never written ad copy before, but Dayton and his wife are friends and I said I’d blog the breakfast bar. So there.

I my own self have tasted the good doctor’s breakfast bar (he’s a family practitioner). I have stood in his very kitchen, where the man’s avocation, baking up a storm, is practiced.

The store in which his Breakfast Bar will be carried is the FrontierMart in Corrales. You can’t miss it. It’s the only store in town. And remember, it’s near you.

Also rememer it’s Sunday, when everything moves slower except you, because you will be powered by Dr. Dayton’s Breakfast Bar, guaranteed to make you smarter til noon. (Thats what his wife said, anyway.)

Life in Corrales is always a little different.

I haven’t been counting, but it seems that every two or three days now, somebody is saying Voice Mail is dead, and that Voice Mail is one of the most awful plagues inflicted upon mankind, and that Voice Mail deserves to die because … well, you get the idea.

So when did Voice Mail become such a threat to society? Or am I just behind yet one curve?

It’s early in the morning. I like to start the day with something that demonstrates democracy is alive and well. At least the two-ply version is anyway.

In today’s Journal, the paper’s first-rate UNM beat reporter, Martin Salazar, has a story ($ sub. req.) showing that for the first time CNM — Central New Mexico Community College — has become the state’s largest higher education institution, surpassing UNM’s enrollment by 172 students.

After I read Martin’s story, two people came to mind, each retired from UNM after long and distinguished careers — David Stuart, former Associate Provost for Academic Affairs; and his wife, Cindy Stuart, former Director of Admissions.

I was curious to know their thoughts on the notion that CNM had surpassed UNM in student enrollment.

Here’s what David Stuart had to say:

“What it means to me is that CNM is meeting community needs, being efficient, being practical, being inexpensive — in other words, CNM is doing all the things UNM isn’t doing right now,” he said.

He elaborated a bit: “Even though it’s (CNM) not the same kind of institution, it’s meeting a lot of basic educational and community needs and it’s doing it very, very well.

“I don’t know why UNM can’t do that. If UNM hadn’t gone into the tank with so many high-priced administrative positions and PR campaigns that are sometimes just downright goofy, UNM would still be ahead of CNM. But it’s not. And it’s by its own hand.

“UNM is not offering enough courses to undergraduates; it continues to trim the number of sections offered to undergraduates, so kids are having a harder and harder time getting their basic classes; and I personally know quite a few kids in the coffee shops around campus who take a lot of their required courses at CNM. They’re enrolled at UNM, but they just transfer them in (from CNM) because it’s so much cheaper.”

His wife, Cindy, said: “I was on the phone with a UNM senior tenured research faculty member when all of a sudden he said: `Oh, my God, what are they are trying to do? Turn this (UNM) into a teaching university?’ I was stunned. I had no response. He wasn’t joking. He meant it.”

David Stuart then concluded the conversation: “This is a big story and it’s not a sign of the economic times. It’s a sign of the hubris times at UNM. UNM is behaving like General Motors: “This is what we think you should have and you’re going to buy it.”

“It doesn’t matter that it’s not needed or outmoded. UNM has a tin ear to buyer preferences, which is to say, student preferences.

“UNM says to its students: “You’ll take what we give to you,” he said.

I’m having a conversation (e-mail) with an old news pro, a guy who has been around the block more than a few times. The topic is Manny Ramirez, an odd creature formerly playing left field for the Boston Red Sox and now doing the same job for the Dodgers. He has been suspended for 50 games for testing positive for … something. I stopped reading the story before it reached that point. I just didn’t care what he had tested positive for.

Then an e-mail from the old news pro just happened to show up: “Are we all tired of Manny Ramirez? I am.”

He’d struck a nerve and I wrote back: Funny you should ask if I’m tired of Manny Ramirez. Yes, I am. I’m tired of A-Rod, too. I’m tired of the repetition, the 24/7 news cycle that demands news whether it’s there or not, the endless analysis and all the rest that comes with what we call “news” today. But I sure don’t know what to do about it. Any suggestions?

He had one:

“We need an automatic television editor. You punch in “Manny Ramirez”, and the minute the words “Manny Ramirez” are spoken by the announcer, the television switches channels to the nearest Yogi Bear cartoon, Clint Eastwood movie or whatever you program it to do. I choose Yogi Bear because he is slightly more relevant than Manny Ramirez.”

Are the two of us jaded? Worn out? I don’t know. But it does seem to me that an awful lot of what passes for news isn’t. It’s not so much the Manny story itself that ran today that bothers me. That’s a legitimate news story. What I have in mind is the next 72 hours of non-stop analysis that surely will follow today’s story.

Then of course there’s the perpetual A-Rod saga and … Oh, let’s not go there.

From Reuters:

Afghanistan’s only pig quarantined in flu fear

Jon Carroll writes a column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He writes five columns a week. If the thought of that doesn’t fry your brain, you need to try it sometime. In public. (It doesn’t count unless you do it in public, you know.)

In today’s column, he confesses that he is the Zodiac killer. (I don’t know if this was planned or one of those deadline things. In the column business, your plans and deadlines often are in conflict.)

If you do not read Jon Carroll, you need to make this important change in your life and start reading him today. As Carroll himself has written, and as all columnists know (but not necessarily their editors), if you write multiple columns a week, it is guaranteed at least one will be a stinker. It’s a natural law or something and can’t be helped.

But Jon Carroll doesn’t write too many stinkers. I’ve been a fan for a long time. I thought I’d toss one of his columns your way. Give him a week or two. Read him every day. You will smile, you will think (he encourages it), you will notice fine sentences being built. Watching a fine sentence being built is one of life’s better pleasures, no?

This morning the Journal sports section ran a commentary by Blair Kerkhoff of the Kansas City Star. The subject was the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) schools and how they get the lion’s share of college football money. In the course of the commentary, there appeared a partial quote from Joe Barton, a Republican congressman from Texas. (Oh, you silly goose, of course Congress is involved in college football. Where else would we go for answers to such vexing questions?)

Anyway, in the course of listing the sins of the BCS, the Republican said the system that’s been in place since 1998 is “like communism.”

I need someone to explain to me why conservative Republicans go down the “communist” road at every opportunity. I understand it when they’re talking about Barack Obama, that well known communist/socialist/fascist. Everyone understands that.

But college football? BCS Communists? Times have been tough for Republicans, but still … Why do they say these things?

Help me out here. I really do want to know. Why do they do this?