Did I really not post about my teaching for the last week?  Well, let’s see what I can remember.  Monday I worked as a special ed teacher at a junior high.  The teacher I subbed for I remember used to work in the district’s therapeutic day school program which is a program for students with particularly strong behavioral problems.  They even had large people specifically trained to restrain problem students and bring them to a cooling-off room when required.  I actually subbed for him in that position a couple of years ago.  These days he has moved to those with lesser, but still behavioral, problems.  Much of the day was quite simple with either team teaching (read “sub acts as teaching assistant”) or resource periods where students would work on homework.  He did have a language arts block at the end of the day though.  I did have an assistant to help as I worked with a group at a time so it wasn’t too bad.  We read a story about grey wolves.  The fun began last period, which was a study hall.  That’s when a lot of the behavior problems came out.  No, that’s not true- the last group of language arts was a struggle as well.  They were pretty much the same students in both cases in any event.

Tuesday I worked in grade 1. And 2.  And 3.  And 4.  And 5.  And- no, I’m finished…  I was in fact a floater.  I took over classes for an hour at a time.  I do wish they had organized the meetings a little more in my favor though.  I actually had to go from one end of the school to the other end at one point, a few minute walk due to the design of the building when I had to be in the next room right away.  Fortunately in that case the kids in the second class had been sent out to recess so the teacher was able to go to her meeting though I had not yet arrived.  It was overall an easy day and I was mostly able to talk directly with the teachers before and after meaning no written notes.

Wednesday I was in music.  This was actually the most challenging assignment.  The kids in many of the classes were very talkative.  Grades were mixed here too of course, from second to sixth (not inclusive- I had no third graders).  The older ones were the most challenging.  We did some music games the teacher had left, including instrument bingo (a standard) and a game where they formed musical symbols on the ground with their bodies.  That one was fun.

Thursday- let me look it up.  Ah yes, 5th grade.  Pretty normal though I had one very challenging boy in that class.  I’m not the only one who had problems with him either- I overheard a conversation in the lounge about him.  Apparently when we switched for math (I had the advanced class and did pan balance problems with them- similar to hands on equations I think I mentioned once before) he refused to do any work at all.  Well, with me he worked slowly but he did work.  He got distracted very easily though.  In the end he wasn’t as bad as some students I have had, but still a challenge nonetheless.

Friday I was in another special ed classroom.  The three sixth graders- wow.  Next to ELL a couple of years ago they were the most troublesome.  It was at this same school by the way…   One of the sixth grades is apparently on ADHD medication.  His parents I’m told are quite good at making sure he comes to school ready and medicated.  Guess which day they forgot?  Yep.  Once he had his meds after lunch he was a pleasure to work with.  Of the other two one was got very easily distracted and the other tended to work on only what he wanted to work on and was quite belligerent toward another student.  Two of the three finished their science assignment by the end of the day (worked on during no less than three periods…) and one even finished his math assignment.  There was one seventh grader who mostly worked independently and an eighth grader who wasn’t a problem when working, but he got some bad family news in the middle of the day and he was pretty much done working at that point.

Well, that was how my week went.  Now who would like to join me in subbing?  Come on, there must be one of you… 😛

Our 4th and 5th grade ministry has been undergoing some changes as of late.  Early this summer the one who headed it up for the last several years passed the reigns over to the one who had been running the younger ages for some time.  His own duties now encompass the entire children’s and student ministries, as well as co-running the church camp.  Anyway, things for the last few months have been running pretty much as before with a few new policies thrown in- things like changing the reward system (for memorizing verses, doing devotions, etc) and having us interact more with the parents.

Well, transition period is over and things are a-changing.  A few weeks ago someone who had been with us a few years ago came back and has been placed in a position organizing the 4th/5th grade ministry as a part of his studies at Moody Bible Institute, and he is full of ideas.  He has made a few changes already and probably the biggest one this weekend is that we are now to call the children who are in our small groups weekly.  We took down their phone numbers and I have a list of about six or seven who I will need to call this week.  Next week some of them will go with one of the new leaders who has sat in the last couple of weeks and will be ready to lead some of the kids next week on his own and so he will become responsible for calling them.  I hope we get more 5th graders next week though as they were pretty much outnumbered by the 4th graders and I would like to have a larger group than three or four after we split.  Unfortunately at least one of them usually attends at a different service so I will lose him for sure.  Oh, another change was to go back to splitting groups by grade as we have been just splitting by gender for the last year.  I will be first to admit that we have been getting lax over the years so changes are refreshing and will hopefully benefit the students.

The biggest change however has nothing to do with the staffing changes.  While this weekend we started with phone lists, we also started in a different room.  The room we are in now was at one time exclusively for junior high school, and on Sat night/Sun morning since junior high didn’t meet (they meet Sunday nights) it was used as a live video feed for those who for some reason weren’t in the regular worship center (parents with crying children who took their children out of the worship center for example).  However, they redid the area in front of the church and that has become the new live video area.  So now we are back in the junior high room.  Wait, did I say back?  Yes, when we started the ministry, breaking it off from the rest of the grade school ministry, it met in this very same room.  I’m not sure why, but at some point they moved us to a different room (maybe this was the start of live video feed?) and we finally ended up in the school library after that wing was remodeled and second floor added.  Now that we’ve outgrown that room we’re back in the original room, only now it is better than before.  We have a full sound and video system including microphones if we need it, we have games like foosball, carpetball, and air hockey that the kids can play before the service starts and while waiting to be picked up, and the room just looks nicer than it did nine years ago.  Yes, I have been doing it for that long.  Who knows, maybe my calling might be to leave this church and organize a similar ministry at a smaller church?  Or maybe just stay here for another nine years.

This weekend saw another tour of the area haunted fare.  Since our haunted theatre was nixed by the local bureaucrats (something about the theatre not being coded correctly… whatever), it has been great to visit the attractions within reasonable drives.  However, this weekend’s extravaganza was a little weak.  Let’s just say that I think that the fearless four-year-old who was part of our group just might have enjoyed going through it.  Terror Town at the Lucas County Fairgrounds is a four attraction for one price haunt.  In the first building, the thrillseeker is treated to a display of freaky peraphernalia  throughout history (Sasquatch, the KFC trio, the lampshade from Ed Gein’s house of horror, and other oddities).  The next was a slaughterhouse in which our group traveled with the use of a flashlight.  The problem being, the light was controlled by an unseen force.  The third was entitled The Beast which was a tunnel of fun.  fINally, came the House of Horror.  Let’s just say the smell was the scariest part of the whole attraction.

My biggest problem with the site was the ratio of animatronic devices to live actors.  You can only stand and watch a mechanical prop jump out at you before it becomes not only UNscary but lame.  the actors (no more than 5 in the 4 buildings) just did not have their heart in it.  There soul purpose seemed to be to direct the traffic created by the audiences.  WAY too many “pop-up” scares and WAY too few human actors feeling their parts created very few chills and spills.  So few in fact, that the three of us who usually are psyched and ready for more were hesitant to venture 10 miles to another attraction. Also, the miniature golf course was not yet complete. The let down of the terribly un-terrifying Terror Town led the group to return to watch the Cubs game which was also a let down.  But the Buckeyes won and are now 5-1 overall and 2-0 in the Big Ten…. GO BUCKS!!!

I am still a Cubs fan; I will admit it.  Even after the 2003 Steve Bartman episode, after the 100+ (now it’s officially time to add the + to 100) year World Series drought, and the disasterous playoffs of the 2007 and now 2008 seasons.

I just cannot believe the season is over.  The season started off so promising this year, and picked up momentum all summer, only to leave us bewildered and disgusted in October once again.  So what happened that made them look so terrible during all the playoff games?!?

You know what?  I don’t even want to talk about it.  At least I don’t have to worry about missing the World Series while I’m in Florida!  Frickin’ Cubs.  Maybe next year…  UGH!

My youngest is in the High School’s Show Choir, and they had a Chili sale during the Homecoming game to raise money for the group. I ‘volunteered’ to help sell some of the chili. My first official chore was to help set up the tables needed to put the many crock pots of chili on. The next was to taste all of the different chili to make be able to tell all the customers/donation specialists if a specific chili was too spicy or something like that.

I can say that all of the chili was very good, but there wasn’t a lot of spice in any of them. On my grading scale of chili they all would have been a zero. On the normal people scale, (those who don’t tolerate the spice as well as I do) I guess there would have been a 1 in the group. There were not a 5 alarm chili in the group.

The number of different chili recipes is astounding. I was amazed that each chili had a specific flavor. It would appear that each cook had their own secret ingredient. I didn’t have the time to be able to cook a chili for this event, so I just brought the shredded cheese and crackers. Not sure on the money raised, but the chili was gone before half-time. And there was a lot of chili.

Now for a quick and easy (and not bad tasting) chili recipe.

1 1/2 lbs ground beef browned with 2 cloves of garlic (drained)
4 – 16 oz cans of Brooks Chili Beans ( I like the 16 oz cans for this so I can use different ‘heats’ if desired — I like the HOT)
1 can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup (Progresso is good too)
2 tbls chili powder.
Hot sauce to taste at table.

Combine browned meat, soup and beans and chili powder. Heat through. Done that’s it. Told you it was quick and easy.

The best bean chili I’ve had starts with tomatoes and dried beans. I’m surprised the recipe didn’t call for you to butcher your own cow. I think I supplied a version of a beanless chili to the WCCT cookbook. I can’t remember….

Tonight, a friend and I went to see the new Shia LaBeouf movie (which was executive produced by Steven Spielberg) entitled Eagle Eye.  The plot was as implausible as you can imagine but it was fast-paced and entertaining… so it was really easy to suspend our disbelief.  Shia plays Jerry Shaw, a rather lifeless character who seems to wander the world looking for himself, having jobs in far away places and eventually landing a position at the local Copy Cabana.  He returns home for his brother’s funeral and is soon entered into a life and death struggle with Rachel, a woman he has never met before (played by Michelle Monaghan).  It seems that they have been “activated” by an unseen woman who communicates with them via cell phone and other rather creepy electronic devices.  In short, she can see and hear everything they do.  It is impossible for the pair to simply run away because the woman on the other end of the cell phone will retaliate by bringing harm to their loved ones.

During the two hour movie there were enough action-packed escapes, twists, and turns to keep the audience (Megan, another couple who left early to “get busy” (it could not be that the movie was not entertaining), and myself) glued to the screen.  Each assignment the voice puts Jerry and Rachel through leads them to the shocking endgame involving the highest levels of government.  And what action extravaganza is complete without the resident agent hot on the trail of the reluctant heroes.  This time, he is played by Billy Bob Thornton.

So, although the situation presented in the movie is totally absurd, the action was enough to entertain and go along for the ride… even with the strange noises my car was making while I was driving… something I need to look into.

Well, I joined the local YMCA recently (they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse…), and I’m really wondering if it will be good for me. Extra exercise is appreciated, but have you ever really looked at some of the exercise equipment they have now.

My guess is that if you put that stuff in a dungeon in the middle ages, the people would look at it as they would any other ‘equipment’ they had. They have things that contort your body into weird shapes just to exercise certain muscle groups. (or so they say) Done another way, these devices could really hurt someone.

I am glad that they are willing to give all members a summary of all the weight equipment. I hadn’t worked on anything like that since college. They machines have changed a bit since the early 80’s. They still do the same things, but it looks like they’ve isolated the muscle groups more than they did before. I’m sure that they are safer than the ones I worked on too.

I’ll write more on my experience with the weight machines when I use them for more than 5 minutes. I don’t see myself getting overly fond of any of them…

I was going to put a link in for torture devices, but I found them to be too disturbing. I guess the exercise equipment doesn’t look that bad now….. So here is a link to one of the pieces of equipment I used…
Leg Press

Most elementary classrooms share a common theme.  Besides behavior boards, displayed classwork, televisions, etc. there are those boards that show who has what jobs for the week.  I have seen job boards with only a few jobs listed and most students on deck for another week and I have seen job boards where every student in the room has a job.  Once the common jobs like lunch basket, paper passer, mailman/messenger, and librarian are filled the teacher has to start getting creative with jobs like watering the plants, policing the floor, watching the clock (so the teacher doesn’t go into that valuable recess time of course), massage the teacher, window… wait, what?  Back up there- massage the teacher??  Okay, I admit I have not seen this one myself but apparently a Florida third-grade teacher had this job on her board.  I say had as not only does the job not exist anymore in that classroom but neither does the teacher.  Needless to say, when the parents found out about this one some were quite upset.  Fifty years ago everyone might have just gotten a laugh out of it but in today’s climate of teachers, erm, getting just a bit too close to their students (and going to prison for it) it is understandable that parents wouldn’t like this.  The article makes it clear there was nothing like that sort of hanky-panky going on, but the district decided to let the teacher go for her inappropriateness.  Well, we can all guess that’s why she was fired- the school just said it was a “personnel matter.”  Anyway, read the article here:

Teacher Fired After Asking Her Students For Massages

PS.  I am now waiting for this sort of job to show up in the classrooms I sub in- would be nice…

While listening to the radio this morning and the poll question of the day, I was reminded of my post a few days ago. The question: “Who do you prefer… Billy Joel or Bruce Springsteen?” Myself, I much prefer the Piano Man to the Boss. Joel’s music is so much more melodic and he has crossed over into other genres with his own music. Although it is one of those “jukebox musicals” with little to no plot, Movin’ Out was nominated for a handful of 2003 Tony Awards and won two (one for Mr. Joel’s orchestrations). In 2001, the accomplished musician composed an album of classical piano pieces entitled Fantasies & Delusions. In the end, Springsteen defeated Joel by ONE phone call.

The intriguing thing about all this is that the two performers will be sharing the stage (I’m not sure if it’s for the first time but have seen no evidence to the contrary). However, the ticket will be quite costly. On October 16th, the two will show their support for Barack Obama for his “last event in the Tri-State area before the election.” The concert will be held in the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. Tickets for the event start at only $500 for balcony seats. Starting at $2500, you can enjoy “premiere seating”. Or for the paltry sum of $10,000 you can enjoy “lounge seating.” Peanuts, right? Thanks, but I’ll stick to the recordings. Perhaps our friend from Liswathistan will be able to make an appearance.

It is amazing how we go through life not knowing. I know somethings about my friends, family and associates, but I don’t know others. I know somethings about mathematics and sciences, but there is a lot I don’t know. I know a bit of trivia, but again there is a whole lot I don’t know. I know a little bit about my corner of the computer world, and there are whole other worlds out there. Even people who know a lot, don’t know a whole lot more.

Then there are things that I really knew less about. I wish I knew less about death. I wish I knew less about heart disease and cancer. I wish I knew less about all the hospitals in the area. I wish I knew less about being a widower and an only parent.

There are things I wish I knew more about too. The list is growing everyday. I am sure I will learn more about things I don’t want to know about, but I will also learn more about the things I do want to learn about. It seems like a cycle in life. I hope to learn as long as there is life in this body. That may or may not happen, but it is my hope.

I also wish I knew what the winning numbers would be on the next lottery draw, but that hasn’t happened yet either.