At least we're not in California

TEACHERS FACE FURLOUGHS read this morning's headline of the Savannah Morning News. Yes, the news had already been alluded to by the local t.v. news, and has been discussed by the k-12 teachers on facebook ever since the recent state budget meeting. Three furlough days will save Georgia lot of money. Some of the school systems are cutting two of the four teacher planning days which occur before the first day of classes in August or September, depending on the schools' start dates. Others are planning to spread out the three furlough days over the next few months, using some of the teacher planning days in the fall or maybe a vacation day or two. Anyway you look at it, it's a three-day pay cut, which is no big deal.

But I think a much better idea would be to shift to a four-day school week with longer hours, perhaps till five oçlock. The state would save tons more money if 36 school days were eliminated this way,(36 weeks in the school year times 1 cut day per week) because they would be saving on the cost of 36 days' worth of lunches for students, and the cost of cafeteria staff, office staff, lighting, air conditioning, water, security, and custodial work---multiply this savings across the entire state of Georgia!

An even better proposal would be to eliminate the last two weeks of school in May (or June). Students will have already taken their major standardized state tests and will have finished the bulk of the coursework. Their grades will probably not be heavily impacted by the assignments in the last two weeks. Most relevant, they will have checked out mentally anyway. They are pills during the last two weeks and resist most learning. If it's money the state is worried about, wouldn't my idea be a wonderful cost-saver?

If my district doesn't cancel the first two teacher planning days for furloughs, I will be starting back a week from this coming Monday. The first day of classes will be (GASP!) two weeks from tomorrow. It's been an absolutely wonderful, relaxing summer, and it's gone by too fast. Nevertheless, I like what I do, and look forward to returning to the classroom.

On another subject, I've been trying out Multi-focal contacts for the past month because my spatial coordination really sucks, and I wanted to try contacts to have a wider field of vision and better coordination. There have been a lot of newfangled improvements in contacts since last time I wore them. I eventually had to stop, sometime in the '80's, because my eyes felt tired and sore with the hard lenses and the soft ones weren't corrective enough. The ones I'm trying now are the fourth in a series of different prescriptions the doctor has tried on me, and they are the best. They're marketed for dry eyes, are very easy to wear, very porous, and have corrective vision for both near and far in both eyes. I hated the unsteady feeling from an earlier prescription, of having one eye for distance and one for reading. I much prefer having both eyes corrected equally.

Shawn returned from Maine yesterday, where he had a nice time in the cool, refreshing climate. He's still waiting for the military to get its act together and process his paperwork. Meanwhile, he's going back to the trucks to unload boxes in the sweltering heat. He figures if he can do that, he can do anything the Army requires.

Paul is working hard with his three classes, and Liberto is working hard at his job. Of course, all three of them envy me having the summer off, but when I ask them if they'd like to take my job during the school year, they are all absolutely sure they would not want to walk in my shoes, into a class of feisty ninth graders, every day for 10 months!

When the human race ends

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of watching History Channel's "Life After People," which was better than any movie I've seen in months. I was mesmerized. It described, with fascionating visuals, how long it would take for each important aspect of civilization to disappear, if no humans existed anymore. I was surprised to learn that all lights on the planet would go out (except the ones around Hoover dam) within two days, because humans are required to feed the power plants that feed the electrical systems. Humans are also necessary for regulating water levels in underground subways, as well as rivers. Within a few days, the subway system in NYC would be a river, as would systems in every major city. Vegetation would crack the sidewalks, highways and brick or concrete buildings. Sealant around windows in skyscrapers would expand and shrivel, causing all the glass to crack or explode. Overall, civilization, including all written and digital records of all knowledge, would disappear in the blink of an eye. It was fascinating. Nature versus civilization has always been one of my favorite themes in life.

Hotter than a ---- --------

Shawn and I know a lot of expressions for severe cold, having lived in Maine. "Colder than a witch's ------," "Colder than a well-digger's -------" "Colder than a dead -----" etc. None of these similes is pretty or poetic, but when you're freezing your backside off, you almost have no choice but to say it bluntly and crudely. However, neither Shawn nor I, as veterans of the Cold Country, know any expressions for severe heat. "Hotter than a pepper sprout" is the only one that comes to mind. There must be some good ones out there. "Hotter than the devil's -----" perhaps? I'll have to do some research.

The heat of the day is inspiring my search for expressions. It's hot today. I've not been motivated to do much except the usual daily routines, and the fewer the better. This morning, I felt sluggish, even with the air conditioning, so I sat down in the Lazy Boy and read an entire book. I was finished by one oçlock. It was a memoir by Alice Eve Cohen entitled what i thought i knew, and describes a forty-four year old woman's shock to discover she was six months pregnant with an unplanned child. She hadn't felt well and had consulted doctors, but they found various causes ranging from bladder infection and menopause, to declining muscle tone and underwire bras. Since she'd been taking estrogen for fifteen years for some low estrogen condition and continued to take it unknowingly during the pregnancy, the child had a congenital disability which could have been caused by the hormones. The expense of raising a disabled baby, which required legions of interventions and therapists, was more than they could handle, so she sued her OB-GYN, who had examined her thoroughly and had not found a fetus or even consideredd that possibility, since the author had been diagnosed as "infertile" when she was thirty. It was a "wrongful life" suit, which won her a settlement to cover the medical bills for years to come. It was an interesting story and a quick read.

It's July 17. Teacher planning days begin Augusty 4th! How can the summer have gone by so fast? I've loved the routine of sleeping in every day, staying up late every night watching episodes of Law and Order, and taking care of household business as it comes up. The days go by fast even when I'm doing very little of any significance.

Nature in all its fascination

Tuesday:

I was about to close the blinds of our bedroom window this evening, when I saw It.
I just had to go outside and view it directly. Wow! I wish the video did justice to this spider's web, which is huge, stretching from roof to garden house; multi-layered and tightly stitched. The spider itself is large---I would probably scream if it appeared in the shower one morning---and has fascinating coloring.

Sunday at Tybee

The four of us went to Tybee this afternoon. We waited until mid-afternoon to leave the house, so we could avoid the mid-day heat. We arrived at 3:30 and stayed until 6:00. It was relaxing. I love swimming, but I don't want to swim at Tybee. There have been too many riptide warnings and close calls in the news. Also, the water is, well, kind of icky compared to the blue-green waters of Cozumel.

Post AP-workshop

I'm all pumped up from the four-day AP Lit workshop I attended this week. It was held at the Coastal Georgia Center, so it was an easy drive for me, but many attendees came from across Georgia and out of state; one even came from Brussels (yes, as in Belgium). The purpose was to train teachers how to deliver an AP curriculum to prepare students for the AP exams. I'll never have a chance to teach AP at RHHS, since they already have a lot of AP-qualified teachers, but I wanted to sign up for the training anyway because I believed that the high-level-thinking techniques could be used for any class. As always, I wanted to expand my knowledge of new tricks to get students engaged and learning.

When I used to go to the AP readings in Daytona, I always felt that they should launch the Reading by giving the teacher/readers 40 minutes and assigning them to write a competent essay in response to the same prompt given to the students during the AP exam a week earlier. This experience, I felt, would reduce the number of cutting remarks that inevitably filled the air at each table ("Ha ha! Look at this: `Huck Finn was against slavery, so he helped Jim escape.' Boy, is that simplistic!")
It never happened at Daytona, but at the workshop, the leader made the teachers write an AP essay. It was a "read the following excerpt from so-and-so"---which was a lengthy reading!---"and then write an essay explaining how the author uses literary techniques to create its theme." Just as I'd predicted,it was an appropriately humbling experience for the teachers there. Not for me; I've always known that it's easier to criticize someone else's work than to actually do it oneself. I used to be the rebel at Daytona readings who would gently remind the other mocking teachers that 40 minutes is not a whole lot of time to write a brilliant analysis of a literary work on a first reading! I remember taking the Praxis exam a few years ago. I had to perform a similar task of writing four separate essays in response to excerpts from literature, and by the end of the afternoon, I felt like I'd been devoured by Moby Dick or suffocated by Montresor in "Cask of Amontillado".

Thus, one of the most valuable activities at the workshop was becoming a student and writing a timed essay. We also graded student-written AP essays, analyzed already-graded essays to determine why they received the grade they got, reviewed classroom techniques, discussed literary devices in a lot of poems, held a model Socratic Seminar, and heard about each other's best practices. I felt rewarded when it was over at the end of the day on Friday. I'm also certified to teach AP if the opportunity should ever arise, which I doubt.

Other AP disciplines were meeting too, and I ran into the social studies teacher from Groves, Angelina, whom I'd worked with on several school-wide literacy projects since becoming a high school teacher. Liberto and I had also gone to several parties at her house. At one of these parties, we had a good chuckle when a teacher remarked that his student, "Fred," a senior, had gotten a waiver for his Georgia High School Graduation test because he was in jail for armed robbery.

Angelina asked me during a coffee break if I was happier at RHHS. Of course I said YES! She said in her usual blunt way, "Well, it must be an improvement not to have a sadistic bitch breathing down your neck every minute." I agreed that it definitely was an improvement. Angelina said she would like to leave the school if she finds any job openings. Then she invited me to her Ladies Book Club meeting Friday night.

I went to her party last night and became reacquainted with several Groves teachers whom I'd liked, as well as meeting some new people. I took some photos with my blackberry, and if I can figure out how to get them from there onto my computer, I'll post them.

Paul has started his new school quarter. I'm proud of his dedication as a student. He begins reading the assignments right away, rather than wait until an hour before something is due. He uses the technique I taught him of reading the material out loud so that he can hear the material as well as see it. This morning, I heard him in his room reading the economics textbook out loud.

Shawn is still waiting to hear from the military. He has his paperwork in and can do no more but wait. He's flying to Maine next week for a family reunion.

I hear Liberto outside doing yard work. He slept well last night for a change and he recently had another spinal epidural.

I'm reading a wonderful book Terry lent me entitled The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte, by Laura Joh Rowland. It's a biography written as creative non-fiction, in which Charlotte is a vivid character in her own life story.

Weekend in Asheville, Part 2

In addition to reaching the summit of Mt. Mitchell last Saturday, we took a hike through the woods on one of the designated trails at the top. Navigating up and down on woodland paths full of tree roots and rocks is harder than it looks. I warned Paul that by tomorrow, he'd probably be sore in muscles he didn't even know he had. On Saturday night, we ate dinner at the home of Chris and Simon, Terry's and Mark's friends. Their house is located at the top of a steep driveway with trees overhanging and camoflaging it so well that I doubt if anyone would know there's a house up there. We sat on their front porch eating pizza and drinking beer in front of their beautiful wildflower garden (see video.) After dark, the fireflies began to flicker on. There are no fireflies in Savannah that I've ever seen, so I enjoyed watching them flash on and off in the dark and felt as though I was a kid again running around in the fields with my firefly jar in hand.

Their house is next to a wood lot inhabited by several wild animals, so they are visited by bear cubs, wild turkeys, and raccoons. They have three indoor cats, so I received a lot of cat-therapy. Chris and Simon own a store in town called Wildbirds Unlimited. On Sunday, we stopped by bought a hummingbird feeder, a wasp catcher, and a fishing hat for Liberto before heading back to Savannah. We've decided to return to Asheville in October for the foliage. I haven't seen a real fall foliage since I can't remember when, probably not since Maine.

Shawn stayed home and took care of Pete while we were away. Last week, he landed the true Job from Hell to fill the time and the wallet as he awaits his paperwork to be processed by the Military. He now unloads heavy boxes from Wal-Mart trucks from seven a.m. till five p.m. The temperature in the trucks is about 120.

Paul is on school break this week and returns next week to take the Cetia (sp?)course he says he needs. I have no idea if I'm spelling that right.

I'm reading Their Eyes Were Watching God because that book was one of the reading assignments for the Advanced Placement Certification workshop I'm attending next week. This week I've not been doing anything memorable, just de-cluttering, cleaning, doing laundry and dishes, and puttering with a little writing, yet I'm busy all day and never bored.