Well as Linda and I continue driving for 35-40 minutes to and from work each day it is beginning to take a toll and we’ve been discussing a move from good ol Claremore. Good ol Claremore is loosing some of its luster as we continue to see what we believe irresponsible decisions made by local officials. One item that is of particular concern is the continued drive to build what Linda calls the Great Wall. What is proposed is a raised railroad from the north to south of Claremore which would allow traffic to move uninterrupted by trains on that track which is all fine and good except that there are two tracks that intersect in only one place which means that traffic will still be blocked by the other track. The local officials use what I call the GOB system (if it benefits the good ol boys locally then it’s a done deal). Enough negativity . . .
On the positive side we’ve talked to the builder that built our home back in 2002 and he believes he can rebuild it for the same money now because of the downturn prices of lumber and labor. Depending on location we believe that we can cut 15-20 minutes off of the drive time and that would be a good thing. We’ve talked to our realtor and he believes he can give us a sales price that will allow us to do a do-over build! The only question at this point is can we find a lot in Owasso that we can afford that has a view. We overlook the 8th hole of the Heritage Hills gold course in Claremore and have a great view of the course and the house was designed to take advantage of the view. We don’t need a view of a golf course but we do need a view of something other than the neighbor’s back yard. :-)
This summer I’ve applied for several NEH seminars and hope to get selected for one as well as a Gilder Lehrman seminar in PA . . . keeping my fingers crossed with word to come the first week of April.
Linda and I are also planning a tour of Europe in the summer of 2011 by taking a group of my AP students on a tour called “WWII and the Western Front”. It provides a two week trip with stops in London, Paris, Munich, Berlin and Nuremberg and I can’t wait. Some students will take it for dual credit (high school and college).
Monday, March 22, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
photoshop addiction :-)
I use Photoshop frequently in editing photos to use in my classroom and recently saw a picture of Robert E. Lee and had the thought hey that would be easy to change with an old photo of mine . . . and the rest is history.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Never say never!
Summer is nearly over or at least the summer vacation and the start of school looms ahead. I’ve been to Louisville and Philadelphia and also visited the captured submarine at the museum in Chicago so I’ve had a good summer.
The worst day of school in my mind is the first day so I’m looking forward to day two. Day one is a morning of rah rah filled with skits, speeches, videos that seems to last forever followed by an afternoon of meetings. Day two and three are work days in the classroom that are actually productive. You have time to reconnect with peers, new students stop in as they take tours of their new schedules and make copies needed for that first day with students.
Next year brings several changes the largest being a division of the building between 9th and 10th grades. For the most part the 10th grade classes will be on the 2nd floor and the 9th grade classes on the 1st floor. Nearly 80% of teachers in the building had to move, the good news is that I was one of the lucky ones and am still in the same room I’ve been in for about the last 10 years. The bad news is that I had to give up teaching 9th grade Pre-AP classes which I’d just gotten certified to teach by taking the Oklahoma History certification test. This will be my second and last year having the same students for 9th grade Pre-AP and then in my 10th grade AP class. This year I’ll have two sections of AP, two sections of regular 10th grade U.S. History and one section of Integrated 10th grade U.S. History. Integrated is a combination of students from Special Ed. and low performing students that comes with an aid from Special Ed. to assist with the special needs students.
Another change will be that I’m serving as department head for the 10th grade history department, something that I said I’d never do. That just proves never say never! I was happy with the previous leadership but one of the constants of life is change . . . get used to it!
In spite of these changes I am again looking forward to the start of school. Getting back in the classroom after a good summer recharging my batteries is a good thing. There will be a number of new challenges but that will keep it interesting.
The worst day of school in my mind is the first day so I’m looking forward to day two. Day one is a morning of rah rah filled with skits, speeches, videos that seems to last forever followed by an afternoon of meetings. Day two and three are work days in the classroom that are actually productive. You have time to reconnect with peers, new students stop in as they take tours of their new schedules and make copies needed for that first day with students.
Next year brings several changes the largest being a division of the building between 9th and 10th grades. For the most part the 10th grade classes will be on the 2nd floor and the 9th grade classes on the 1st floor. Nearly 80% of teachers in the building had to move, the good news is that I was one of the lucky ones and am still in the same room I’ve been in for about the last 10 years. The bad news is that I had to give up teaching 9th grade Pre-AP classes which I’d just gotten certified to teach by taking the Oklahoma History certification test. This will be my second and last year having the same students for 9th grade Pre-AP and then in my 10th grade AP class. This year I’ll have two sections of AP, two sections of regular 10th grade U.S. History and one section of Integrated 10th grade U.S. History. Integrated is a combination of students from Special Ed. and low performing students that comes with an aid from Special Ed. to assist with the special needs students.
Another change will be that I’m serving as department head for the 10th grade history department, something that I said I’d never do. That just proves never say never! I was happy with the previous leadership but one of the constants of life is change . . . get used to it!
In spite of these changes I am again looking forward to the start of school. Getting back in the classroom after a good summer recharging my batteries is a good thing. There will be a number of new challenges but that will keep it interesting.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The one constant in life . . . change!
Well the end of the school year approaches and I like my students am looking forward to a change in venue. I’m headed to Louisville, KY next week to read essays that were written by students taking the AP U.S. History test along with a select group of other teachers and professors across the nation numbering about 1,200. We will spend 7 days straight reading and scoring more than 1,000,000 essays written by over 300,000 students that took the test. It took me 4 years to talk myself into this task last year and it was not as bad as I’d pictured it and have signed up for duty again.
Linda will fly in at the end of my time in Louisville and we will drive down to see our son (Mark) and his family living in Wilmore, KY while he is attending seminary there, Asbury Seminar. We will spend a few days visiting them and our two grandsons that they are holding captive there before returning to Oklahoma.
Later in June Linda and I will drive to Philadelphia stopping to see my brother in Ohio and an uncle and aunt living in Pennsylvania on the way. Linda will fly back to Oklahoma on July 5 and I’ll stay the next week attending a seminar covering Benjamin Franklin. I’m an alternate to attend another seminar the following week at Niagara, NY and hope that someone can’t make it opening a slot for me to attend. I’ve been really lucky in years past and have attending a number of these seminars offered by the NEH (National Endowment of the Humanities) For all you liberals out there a good use of taxpayer money! :-)
Just found out today that I’ll be a department head for the History Department next year and I’m really not to sure how I feel about that. I was happy with the previous leadership but internal politics dictated a change and I told my boss that I didn’t really want the job, liked the previous leadership but if there was a change in the offing I’d be willing to step in and fill the gap. Next year is setting up to one of a lot of changes that I’m not looking forward to, two teachers that I am closest to are looking at making job changes that could require new hires to replace their positions. The one constant in life is change I guess.
Linda will fly in at the end of my time in Louisville and we will drive down to see our son (Mark) and his family living in Wilmore, KY while he is attending seminary there, Asbury Seminar. We will spend a few days visiting them and our two grandsons that they are holding captive there before returning to Oklahoma.
Later in June Linda and I will drive to Philadelphia stopping to see my brother in Ohio and an uncle and aunt living in Pennsylvania on the way. Linda will fly back to Oklahoma on July 5 and I’ll stay the next week attending a seminar covering Benjamin Franklin. I’m an alternate to attend another seminar the following week at Niagara, NY and hope that someone can’t make it opening a slot for me to attend. I’ve been really lucky in years past and have attending a number of these seminars offered by the NEH (National Endowment of the Humanities) For all you liberals out there a good use of taxpayer money! :-)
Just found out today that I’ll be a department head for the History Department next year and I’m really not to sure how I feel about that. I was happy with the previous leadership but internal politics dictated a change and I told my boss that I didn’t really want the job, liked the previous leadership but if there was a change in the offing I’d be willing to step in and fill the gap. Next year is setting up to one of a lot of changes that I’m not looking forward to, two teachers that I am closest to are looking at making job changes that could require new hires to replace their positions. The one constant in life is change I guess.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Well we are a few days out from Spring Break and I had been looking towards working on an online AP curriculum but . . . the company wanted it written more quickly than I felt was possible for me to deliver so they’ve bid me ado and from my point of view it is a fond farewell indeed. They had contacted me based on the material that they saw on my web page and offered me what seemed like a reasonable amout to write the lessons but after getting into it they were on a much faster track than I was willing to run on. So they offered to pay me for the work completed and let me loose. I was the latest victum of the economic downturm. :-)
I have one or two items that I’d like to complete around the house not to mention some work to do on my full time job teaching in my classroom so while disappointed not to finish the project I’m glad to be relieved of the pressure that it was beginning to place on my day to day life. As I get older it seems that life is way too short for that kind of pressure. If I were younger I’d at least be able to say that being involved would look good on my resume but at my age . . . I don’t think I’ll be showing anyone my resume in hopes of getting another job so I don’t need any further additions to my resume.
There was a time when I considered going back and working on a PhD in history but never could get myself to talk to OSU about enrollment qualifications and the routine. It again would look good on a resume but then I’m past that now anyway so of no concern to me. I would have enjoyed the class work but not the pressure it would have added to my life. I’m very comfortable with what I’m doing and how I do it. Don’t get me wrong I’m still very much concerned about the quality of work that I put out and am constantly trying to perform at a higher level, I just don’t think that a PhD will necessarily will add much to my performance in the classroom.
What I’ve done rather than formal education is take advantage of summer opportunities to expand my curriculum knowledge by attending area specific seminars offered to teachers in the summer. My first attempt was a 3 week seminar in Salem, Oregon in the mid 1990s which continued for three different summers developing a computer game that taught the legislative process to high school students. The teachers I met there I still communicate with from time to time. That experience would wet my appetite for further seminars that have been very beneficial as well as a lot of fun.
The benefit of this plan over working on a PhD is that I get to choose the areas of concentration to study and I also get to travel usually on someone else’s money. The National Endowment of Humanities has several different study options varying from 1 week to 6 weeks each in the summer. The best NEH experience was 5 weeks spent in England centered at the University of Nottingham studying the British Industrial Revolution. There have also been some wonderful trips in the U.S. as well.
This summer I’ve applied for two different NEH Landmark seminars, one in Niagara, NY to study the French and Indian War fought near there and the other in Philadelphia, PA in a study of Benjamin Franklin. I hope to hear some good news early in April.
I have one or two items that I’d like to complete around the house not to mention some work to do on my full time job teaching in my classroom so while disappointed not to finish the project I’m glad to be relieved of the pressure that it was beginning to place on my day to day life. As I get older it seems that life is way too short for that kind of pressure. If I were younger I’d at least be able to say that being involved would look good on my resume but at my age . . . I don’t think I’ll be showing anyone my resume in hopes of getting another job so I don’t need any further additions to my resume.
There was a time when I considered going back and working on a PhD in history but never could get myself to talk to OSU about enrollment qualifications and the routine. It again would look good on a resume but then I’m past that now anyway so of no concern to me. I would have enjoyed the class work but not the pressure it would have added to my life. I’m very comfortable with what I’m doing and how I do it. Don’t get me wrong I’m still very much concerned about the quality of work that I put out and am constantly trying to perform at a higher level, I just don’t think that a PhD will necessarily will add much to my performance in the classroom.
What I’ve done rather than formal education is take advantage of summer opportunities to expand my curriculum knowledge by attending area specific seminars offered to teachers in the summer. My first attempt was a 3 week seminar in Salem, Oregon in the mid 1990s which continued for three different summers developing a computer game that taught the legislative process to high school students. The teachers I met there I still communicate with from time to time. That experience would wet my appetite for further seminars that have been very beneficial as well as a lot of fun.
The benefit of this plan over working on a PhD is that I get to choose the areas of concentration to study and I also get to travel usually on someone else’s money. The National Endowment of Humanities has several different study options varying from 1 week to 6 weeks each in the summer. The best NEH experience was 5 weeks spent in England centered at the University of Nottingham studying the British Industrial Revolution. There have also been some wonderful trips in the U.S. as well.
This summer I’ve applied for two different NEH Landmark seminars, one in Niagara, NY to study the French and Indian War fought near there and the other in Philadelphia, PA in a study of Benjamin Franklin. I hope to hear some good news early in April.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Real life lessons . . .
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. She considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, but her father was a staunch Republican.
One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to high taxes and welfare programs. He stopped her and asked her, "How are you doing in school?" She answered that she had a 4.0 GPA, but it was really tough. She had to study all the time and ever had time to go out and party. She didn't have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because she was spending all her time studying. On top of that, the part-time job her father insisted she keep left absolutely no time for anything else.
He asked, "How is your friend Mary?" She replied that Mary was barely getting by. She had a 2.0 GPA, never studied, but was very popular on campus, didn't have a job, and went to all the parties. She was always complaining about not having any money, but didn't want to work. Why, she often didn't show up for classes because she was hung over.
Dad then asked his daughter why she didn't go to the Dean's office and request that 1.0 be taken off her 4.0 and given it to her friend who only had a 2.0. That way they would both have a respectable 3.0 GPA. Then, she could also give her friend half the money she'd earned from her job so that her friend would no longer be broke.
The daughter angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair. I worked really hard for my grades and money, and Mary just loafs. Why should her laziness and irresponsibility be rewarded with half of what I've worked for?"
The father slowly smiled and said, "Welcome to the Republican Party
One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to high taxes and welfare programs. He stopped her and asked her, "How are you doing in school?" She answered that she had a 4.0 GPA, but it was really tough. She had to study all the time and ever had time to go out and party. She didn't have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because she was spending all her time studying. On top of that, the part-time job her father insisted she keep left absolutely no time for anything else.
He asked, "How is your friend Mary?" She replied that Mary was barely getting by. She had a 2.0 GPA, never studied, but was very popular on campus, didn't have a job, and went to all the parties. She was always complaining about not having any money, but didn't want to work. Why, she often didn't show up for classes because she was hung over.
Dad then asked his daughter why she didn't go to the Dean's office and request that 1.0 be taken off her 4.0 and given it to her friend who only had a 2.0. That way they would both have a respectable 3.0 GPA. Then, she could also give her friend half the money she'd earned from her job so that her friend would no longer be broke.
The daughter angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair. I worked really hard for my grades and money, and Mary just loafs. Why should her laziness and irresponsibility be rewarded with half of what I've worked for?"
The father slowly smiled and said, "Welcome to the Republican Party
Friday, December 5, 2008
Computer logic . . . really?
Being a History teacher you can imagine my confusion upon hearing the news:
“BCS DECLARES GERMANY WINNER OF WORLD WAR II”
US Ranked 4th
After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.
"Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work--including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule--our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking."
Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated "The US only had two major victories--Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren't influenced by head-to-head contests--they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event."
German Chancellor Adolph Hiter said "Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks." Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn 'style points' to enhance Germany's rankings. Hitler protested "Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces."
The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented " France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2."
Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.
Truthfully . . . as a long time Oklahoma State fan I don’t really care too much about the championship after OSU was out of the running. After many years of frustration in dealing with OU fans however, I do understand UT’s frustration regarding OU being named to play in the championship game against Missouri.
Life continues on here in Oklahoma and I hope all is well with you, thanks for stopping in.
“BCS DECLARES GERMANY WINNER OF WORLD WAR II”
US Ranked 4th
After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.
"Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work--including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule--our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking."
Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated "The US only had two major victories--Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren't influenced by head-to-head contests--they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event."
German Chancellor Adolph Hiter said "Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks." Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn 'style points' to enhance Germany's rankings. Hitler protested "Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces."
The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented " France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2."
Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.
Truthfully . . . as a long time Oklahoma State fan I don’t really care too much about the championship after OSU was out of the running. After many years of frustration in dealing with OU fans however, I do understand UT’s frustration regarding OU being named to play in the championship game against Missouri.
Life continues on here in Oklahoma and I hope all is well with you, thanks for stopping in.
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