The Wonder of Artificial-Intelligence

The internet is filled with AI these days.  Google guesses what you were really searching if you butcher the spelling.  Netflix takes the movies that you have watched and rated and makes suggestions for you base on what you like, and does a pretty good job.  I will say that when you share an account with your wife it does add an aspect of humor to your suggestions when "Action/Adventure" and "Gritty Visually Striking Drama" is followed by "Romantic Small-Town Comedies," but like I said, it does a pretty good job. 

Amazon, however, struggles to deliver.  I love Amazon, and my problems with their AI suggestions is that it works a little to efficiently.  I have done my Christmas shopping primarily on Amazon for the last 3 or 4 years, as I'm sure many others out there have done, and I love it.  But the suggestion rendering robot takes this a little to far.  I suppose they should add a button when you purchase an item that lets you specify that this is a gift for someone else.  I purchased some books for my sister last year, and now Amazon is convinced that I'd love to curl up next to the fire with a glass of wine and enjoy the latest Nicholas Sparks tear-jerker. I bought my wife some argyle socks so Amazon thinks the new work boots that I want will look great with thigh-high striped or fishnet stockings.   Needless to say I think the "gift" button would be quite helpful.

So even though the suggestion engine works too well, it does make mistakes.

Didn't you know that when you're out in the woods trying to find water to fill your new canteen that this ergonomic stapler is going to come in handy!

Fingerboards

Among all the distractions that occur on a daily basis in the classroom, this toy is probably the most annoying.  That's right, a toy.  I expect to have to collect two or three cell phones or mp3 players every class period, usually from the same people everyday.  You would think they'd learn not to have them out in class, but I guess that part of the brain must be the same as the part that learns math because that doesn't happen either.

Back to the fingerboards.  These things are mini-skateboards, you've probably seen them before in the "little" kids toy section of your local bargain store.  You use your fingers to do tricks instead of your feet.  These things have plastic wheels.  I'm sure it doesn't take long for your imagination to figure out what these plastic wheels sound like jumping and slamming constantly, over and over again, by two or three different people onto the formica desk tops.  Its the new version of the pencil and desk top drumming prodigy that every teacher loathes.

Everyday the same three kids start to play with these toys exactly 10 minutes into class.  So I take them.  Where is the disconnect in the brain that keeps these students from making this correlation?  I thought there was something in the human mind that causes you to not touch something hot again after you've touched it once and been burned.  Pavlov can't even figure out this one.  Here we are on the 75th day of the semester and just like every other day, 10 minutes in they'll start to play and 10 minutes and 15 seconds in, I'll take their fingerboards.

What are the real aspirations of today's high schooler?

Today as I was cleaning up my room before leaving work, I found a piece of paper on the ground.  At first I thought it was just some trash student work, written in pretty pink and purple ink that had been left behind.  But low and behold, it was instead the type of literature that teachers such as myself really live for.  I'll change the names and places to keep the anonymity alive, but I'll leave the spelling, punctuation, and grammar as is.  This is as real as it gets folks.  Enjoy!

"Things to do before we graduate.  The high school life."
1.  go streaking in the middle of the night. Who doesn't want to do this?
2.  go skinny dipping in a stranger's pool. You can't do #1 and not want this too!
3.  eat a marajuanna brownie.
4. drift in a mall parking lot.
5. get chased by the cops.  If you play your cards right, you could knock out 2, 1, 5, 7, 4, then 8 together. In that order of course.
6. start a random fight.
7.  go 90 mph up my street.
8.  burn rubber.
9.  go to a rave.
10.  chase a chinese delivery guy.
11.  egg beth's house and pour skittles in her yard.  Everybody knows that the best side dish to accompany eggs is skittles!
12.  meet a hobo.
13.  go on a human catapolt.
14.  go bull riding. (mechanical)
15.  go on a "montage"? The question mark isn't from me, so they don't even know what this means.
16.  go to the overlook.
17.  crash a party.
18.  meet a mime.
19.  dine & dash.
20.  party with the mexicans.  I don't drink beer often, but when I do, I drink dos equis.
21.  ditch school & cross town.  On senior skip day, we ditched class and crossed town too.  Across town was awesome!
22.  shave a guys legs.
23.  wax a guys legs.  If you weren't scared yet, you should be now.
24.  wake up in jail & not know why.  This could seriously impede the act of graduating, therefore changing the validity of the whole list.
25.  jump off a small bridge into the ocean.  This should be changed to "find a small bridge over the ocean that actually exists."
26.  make love to know hands.  I hope "know hands" is a song.  Otherwise I'm as perplexed as you.
27.  egg an apartment complex.  Don't forget your skittles!
28.  pose as a phone sex operator.
29.  put itching powder on the school's toilet seats.  Add some sneezing powder and a pie in the face and you'll have the complete package.
30.  dance on pole.
31.  go to a strip club.  30 and 31... I say kill two birds with one stone.
32.  hang with a midget.  This list could be so much shorter.  If this midget was born south of the border, you could combine this with 20.
33.  cuss out our parents.  I bet this has already happened.
34.  go to a party Friday & come pack Sun.  Sounds fun.  If the party is in jail, this would take care of 24 too.  Efficiency is key.

Education... *sigh*

I arrived at work today, and like any other day I made my half-mile trip from my dilapidated portable classroom into the mail room to check my mail and sign in.  In the main lobby of the school, there were four posters on poster stands placed in a way that nobody could possibly miss them.  What was displayed on these four posters you ask?  Well what else would you expect, grade distributions for the four classes!  So I walked by, shaking my head and enjoying a nice internal morning giggle.  But here comes kicker.  In the walkway leading into the mail room posted on the wall were the grade distributions of the entire school, alphabetically by teacher.  My internal giggle turned quickly into astonishment.  Astonished by the, tact, that it takes to share individual teacher data, by name, to the entire staff.

So on my way back to my classroom I had the thoughts of any teacher who is questioning education running through my head.  Of course I am concerned about student success.  People do not sign up to be teachers because they enjoy the workload/stress/great pay combination.  We enter this field (especially high school teachers) because we are passionate about our subject area, we want to spread that passion, and we want to help the next generation of human beings to become productive and successful members of society.  Middle and Elementary school teachers should take no offense because they have a longer list of good reasons, it just may not include a passion towards a particular subject.

Anyway, what concerns me is hypocrisy that is spreading so rapidly through the veins of education.  The numbers that I saw, especially the individual teacher data is a perfect example.  Federal education initiatives, no matter how badly implemented, are trying to help us raise the expectations for student success.  Here is where the logic loses me.  As teachers, we are constantly being required to do more behind the scenes work.  Improving lesson plans, writing reflections regarding progress or the lack of progress in the classroom, analyzing data, collaborating with our co-workers, constantly contacting parents, the list goes on and on.  But to what end?  To pass?  To make AYP?

The disconnect between politics and the classroom is rapidly increasing.  The administration, the poor middle-men, are classroom teachers who have changed hats as advocates for student success, and are stuck having to try to make their numbers.  When that doesn't happen, the "perfect world" politicians step in and tell them what they must do.  This gets passed on to the teachers and hours upon hours of extra work is now expected.  And again, to what end?

Back to then numbers I saw today.  12th grade, 19% failing. 11th grade, 21%.  10th grade, 24%. 9th grade, 30%.  And teachers are being asked how we can get students to pass, how are we doing, what are we doing, what else could we be doing?  Again the logic of "student's must succeed" is being distorted into "make the students pass."  As teachers we are being asked to "raise the bar."   We do raise the bar, and then we are asked to build steps so the students can just hop right over. 

Some how the expectations have shifted from the students to the teachers.  No Child Left Behind is in full gear.  We have reached the point where you cannot teach unless you are "highly qualified."  You must have a four-year degree in your chosen field and have the required pedagogical skills to even apply for a teaching job.  So why are teachers under the microscope?

I like the high jump analogy.  As coaches we are asked to raise the bar.  We show the students how to jump over the bar. We encourage them to train hard, practice, and do everything they can to jump over that bar.  We take them to the weight room, we run with them, and we help them work their way to the bar.  Some students don't even want to join the team.  Others come to one or two practices but change their minds.  Many of the students see the bar, say its to high, and go sit on the bleachers and listen to their iPod's.  Others cannot even get mom and dad to drive them to practice.  Then the referee blows his whistle and the coaches get stuck running laps.

Why are the coaches running laps?

Mud Tunnel

My wife and I, in an effort to save a little money, set out yesterday to attempt to take some pictures for our Christmas cards this year.  I'm no professional photographer, even though I would really love to be one, so my style and technique is certainly not anything to write home about.  Using a tripod really stifles the creativity that one can create when taking portraits.  Anyway, I'll save those for later in case we decide to actually use one of them for our cards, but I did take some pretty good shots of the wife while getting some lighting and other settings finalized.  I feel that they are decent enough to add to my "portfolio" for the day that I do decide to give photography a shot ;)

My friend Cooper, who seems to be able to find all the cool places to explore, had taken me to what he calls Mud Tunnel.  Its an old railroad tunnel that hasn't been used since the early 1970's, according the historical word of mouth explained to Coop.

As noted, this blog hasn't been updated in almost a year!  I'm hoping that will change.  I really enjoy writing and am always thinking of things that would be fun to write about, but then never pull the trigger.  Here's to an attempt and keeping it going this time.