What a protester should be

Rosa Parks didn't destroy public property, she didn't deface buildings, she didn't throw molotov cocktails, nor did she use violence or aggression to get her point across. When I see activists or protesters these days, I cringe. My personal belief is that protesting should be symbolic. It shouldn't be a shouting match. It should be a gesture that speaks volumes, not a curse word or an insult yelled at the top of your lungs. Being an activist should reflect the fact you want the world to be better, not worse than it already is.

Thugs in the classroom

A Montreal elementary school teacher is being sued for bullying a grade 4 student. Parents and students claim she belittled and yelled at the student as well as ignore him when he raised his hand. Sweet bananas, that's what I do in my classroom! Mind you I have a bunch of grade 10 moronic twits who beg to be treated that way.

What bugs me the most about that article is that whoever wrote refered to the ratemyteachers.ca website to confirm this teacher's unsuitable classroom behaviour. Yeesh...

Start off the day with a full tummy

Our homeroom class (TAG class, short for Teacher advocacy group) had its first communal breakfast. Everybody brings something and we feast for 15 short minutes. A nice little potluck to start off the day on the right foot.

It has apparently made several other students very jealous, cursing their TAG teacher for not spoiling them as I do my own students.

Little do they know that I do these breakfasts for my personal enjoyment. What? Me care about students? Naaaah! ;-)

I am very sorry

I would like to publicly apologize for my triangle comment earlier today. I have hurt a freind of mine in the process and it was not my intention.

The points that my freind has made (see comments) are all true. If I was in a position like that of a symphony musician, I would be in the same position that I am in now: recognition for the work that I do, we do, as professionals in the feild that we are in.

I think this morning's rant was partially fueled by a lack of caffeine and a lack of knowledge of what goes behind the curtains. I fully admit to my err in judgement and I hope I haven't irked or upset others with my post.

To collectedtalk, you are the best percussionist I know. And I love ya for it!

Intelligent design lacking... intelligence

Hoo boy... this is ripe with sillyness!

Why don't they just teach that women could be considered inferior creatures because this whole equlity thing is merely a theory, not fact.

**please note that the previous statement was said with a large amount of sarcasm. Besides, women are the superior creature on this planet -wink wink**

So musicians are worth more than teachers?

20 hour work week, 46 weeks and no screaming kids gives you 75k a year!?!

I consider it an insult when a society deems it appropriate to pay symphony musicians more than teachers. No one seems to be complaining about it...

Maybe I should take up the triangle or some other percussion instrument and become wealthy. Looks like it's working for them...

The shaping of young minds

It has been said that teachers shape and sculpt young minds. They form the future citizens of our ever-changing society. Teachers not only educate, they guide children into bla bla bla... yeah. You get the picture.

So I can tell you this: when we get these kids, some of them have been pretty much molded and sculpted into some unrecognizable masses of crap that often spew obscenities and pretty much act like wild animals that haven't been fed in days. You wonder: "What parents raise their kids to act this way?" Well some parents are indeed shmucks and some are powerless to their own kids. Who is to blame, then?

Scapegoat #1: School? Puh-lease. Try herding 30 boob-or-makeup-obsessed lunatics and then tell me if I should be responsible. I'm just hoping they don't kill each other before the end of class. Don't expect miracles, folks.

Scapegoat #2: Videogames? Jack Thompson thinks we should blame them. But I would like to point out that in my 7 years of teaching, I have never heard a student describe (let alone act upon) a violent scene from a video game. They are more likely to quote violent or misogynistic song lyrics. I don't know what is more pervasive: a song that plays non-stop on their MP3 player or a video game that they will play for 2 or 3 hours after school. It's easy to blame something that one personally thinks as being too violent. If it's bad to our eyes, then it must be bad to everyone's eyes, right? Wrong.

This is the kind of abusive generalization that my mom used to pull on me, and it infuriates me. No matter how much you try and rationalize with that man (or my mom even), he'll just pull some other weird excuse he'll pass on as rational and legitimate. I applaud Penny Arcade's valiant efforts to make him see the errors of his ways, but if it's anything like what I went through, they might as well get a comfy chair: it'll take a while...

Scapegoat #3: Reality? From where I am standing, this one is what warps young minds the most. It takes one bad seed and the entire crop might as well be tossed into the dumpster. I have seen malicious little twits influence a group of 10 kids to act like... a bunch of malicious little twits. And this is not from TV, this is not from any videogame (I can picture it now, Grand Theft Malicious Twit) or from any song I have heard. This is beyond any normal rebellious adolescent behavior. I can only figure that it must originate from some real behavior seen in their environment. And who's part of their environment: family and friends.

Food for thought

It has been a while since my last post. It's been busy at school and the weekend was pretty much high on the ick factor: my hubby was sick and the weather was a nice shade of bleh. There's nothing worse than going through the day with a sky looking like it's half past 5pm no matter what time it is...anyhoo.

I came up on this on the BBC web site and wondered when home economics will come back to the school curriculum in Quebec. But I figure the MELS will claim they have no money to add it to the reform and besides, the reform has 2 credits alloted for health education and it will be at the teacher's discretion. Meanwhile, I've got kids eating chips and chocolate bars for breakfast in my classroom... not to mention cheesecake...not that I had any...really...honest.

Damn, was it ever good.

Autumn in my bones

I can feel it. It's that time of year when I want to curl up in a big blanket and sleep for hours and hours. The kink in that beautiful plan is that I have to work. Would it be a big problem if I show up to work in my pyjamas?

I'm craving coffee like nobody's business... and all I have right now is tea. Meh.

I hope that the day goes by without incident. One false move and there will be a student walking around looking somewhat shellshocked. Or with a new limb arrangement.

Blarg.

Magazine project

When I first found out I was getting regular French instead of enriched (IBO) French, I was miffed (to say the least), but quickly looked at the bright side and figured out a way to make the class more enjoyable, in a non-eye-gouging sorta way.

Let's create a magazine, I said to myself with much excitement. A magazine for teens learning to speak French, filled with fun articles. Yay! Yipee!

Well, the initial glee and joy has sorta dampened. My students are not the most gung-ho, self-motivated kids around. What can I say? Most if not all grade 11 students (re: seniors) act this way... Most of them need a swift kick in the tuckus if you want anything done.

Today, a magazine director came to visit and that rush of gidyness has come back. Maybe it'll be contagious and my students will put more effort into the project, because right now I have this odd paranoid feeling that nothing will get accomplished.

I'll keep you posted on how this develops.

Child abuse on the rise

In the news today, child abuse is on the rise in Canada according to a national sutdy. Reported cases have increased by 276 percent in certain cases (like emotional abuse), which make me wonder what kind of animalistic society am I living in.

Now I don't have kids (yet), so my opinions are tainted by some "false" objectivity (the kind of objectivity that makes folks say Hey you don't have a kid, how can you say such things, You never seen truly mistreated children bla bla bla). But I have been around children, teens particularly, for the past 7 years and have been considered responsible for the education of these young individuals. That being said, I wonder how many of these researchers have spent time around some of the kids in my school.

Although there are many children who act like complete morons and animals because of parents who act like complete morons and animals (and I have seen my fair share of such inhumane parents, the kind that have no shame in humiliating their child in front of me), I have also witnessed many parents powerless when it comes to dealing with their child who may (or may not) be the true spawn of the devil...

I have also witnessed a grade 7 girl (so figure around 12-13 years old), running away from home because her mom didn't want to let her out past 11 pm. 11PM!!!! I couldn't go out past 10pm when I was in grade 11!!! And of course who looks bad initially: the parent (*gasp* the poor girl ran away, she must have been mistreated!)

There is also the case of Larry and Bob (see March 9th 2005). These two students have either used up all their parents energy and resources or, and this truly irks me, completely blinded them to what they truly are: idiotic twits who show no remorse, no responsibility, no respect and no integrity as a human being. Ok, I'm a wee bit harsh, but you haven't been called racist by them. They then encouraged the entire class to applaud and approve their actions. So please forgive the harshness, I think I am entitled to it in this case.

I figure that for every real case of abuse there is a case of Larry & Bob to balance the pendulum. But even for the Larrys and Bobs of this world, I guess the true responsibility lies in the hands of parents. As a teacher, I am tired of being told that I am responsible for the shaping of young minds: by the time they get to me, their minds, and hearts, are often too fudged up for any more shaping...

Ôôô! Môôôssieu Carlôôôô

You are being more cryptic than usual. What the foof? I know, I know... you can't post more than 2 lines at a time. *sigh* get it fixed, damn it!

I saw Serenity this weekend, and I am sad. It was an awesome movie, but I am still sad. Many things happen that I cannot tell because of spoiler-allergy that some folks have. All I can say is that you should see it even if you haven't watched the series. It's great, but... sad... *snif*

*sigh*