My Private Nation

Anyone who watched LOST for any amount of time knows that names in that show had meaning (a bunch of them were names of philosophers and such). Now that Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis have a new show (aka Once Upon A Time), well, no surprise at all, names are again proving how nerdy they are (sorry to any nerds out there, but it's true. I'm one and proud of it). Ta-da! Names are important again!

( Lots of rambling under here )

I've also got this comparison to a certain Wachowski brothers trilogy, but crescent_gaia won't let me talk about that. ;-)

Our governor, if you can call him that, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that it is a good move to cut $90 million in state funding to public schools, while not allowing municipalities/districts to increase property taxes to make up some of the difference. Districts which are already struggling to balance their budgets are now going to be left with no choice but to cut staff and programs. Teachers are going to lose jobs (in one community, as many as 85; this is a community that was already affected by the closure of the GM plant, and now they'll have even more unemployed people to worry about). This means that class sizes are going to increase, students will get less one-on-one time from their teachers, and students' performance (determined by those well-meaning but not-really-helpful standardized tests everyone touts) will go down. Wisconsin is apparently the second-highest-ranked public educational system in the country; it won't stay that way now.

I have a few comments I would like to make to those people who claim that teachers aren't teaching our children anything anyway.

First. Yes, it's right there in the title. Teachers teach. But let's take a look at some numbers here. (Note: these will be just averages here.)

7 days x 24 hrs = 168 hrs/wk
5 days in school x 7 hrs = 35 hrs/wk (avg. of 21% of the week)
5 days daycare/sitter/alone/after-school programs/etc x 2 hrs = 10 hrs/wk (6% of the week)
5 days w/ parents after/before school x 15 hrs = 75 hrs/wk
2 days w/ parents (weekends) x 24 hrs = 48 hrs/wk
7 days x 8 hrs sleep = 56 hrs/wk

75 hrs + 48 hrs - 56 hrs = 67 hrs/wk with parents (40% of the week)

Children spend almost twice as much time with their parents as their teachers (on average). In summer, children often don't spend any time with teachers at all. And yet teachers are mostly responsible for educating children?

Second. Teachers can assign homework to their students; teachers cannot make them do it. If their parents don't make them do their homework, to the best of their ability, or attend class, or pay attention to their teacher, or respect their teacher, most children won't. Anytime a parent says "I don't think teachers are doing a very good job," their child will pick up on that. What affect is that attitude going to have on the way that child acts towards their teacher?

Third. The Christian Science Monitor recently had a commentary article* on how the children of less-educated parents don't do as well in school as children of better-educated parents. Perhaps because they're picking up on their parents' attitudes toward education as pointless?

Fourth. Perhaps the most important. If teachers aren't doing a very good job of educating children with the resources they currently have available to them, how are they going to get better at it with less money? If you had a leaky dam, would you spend less money to fix it?

When are we going to stop putting so much emphasis on teachers and what they're teaching and start focusing more on the parents' obligation to contribute to the child's education?

Kagan, Jerome. "Want better students? Teach their parents." Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 21, 2011, p.34.

So it's NaNo time again, yay. This year it seemed to get off to kind of a slow start. I didn't even reactivate my account at the site until the 31st of October. Probably because I didn't realize how close November was until it was staring me in the face. Then the clock rolled around to midnight:01, and did I start typing? Of course not. I put that off for later in the day, after I'd had some sleep. At least for now I'm on the right track, and even a few words ahead. Today it went like this:

“I should catch up on my word count for the day. Type type type, make sure the turkey's not burning, type type type, the turkey's done, go back upstairs, type type type, I'm really on a roll, look I've made today's word goal, type type type, oh crap the clock says I have to go to work.” I suppose that's part of the challenge of it, having to go and do something else just when the creative juices start flowing.

I'm here with one more post about banned books (and then I promise I seriously will stop, it's just that this week is Banned Books Week), this time with a list of the Top 100 Banned or Challenged Books of 2000-2009. Mostly because I'm curious to see how many of them I've read.

( Don't worry, they're behind a cut )

I am now the proud owner of an Amazon Kindle 2 with international 3G! (Although it won't be official until it arrives in the mail, but still.) I foresee many visits to the Gutenberg Project in the future.

I bought myself a new phone (it's still prepaid though), and seeing as I've got all these minutes to use up, I need someone to use them on. Anyone who wants my phone number (and wants me to have theirs) should send me a PM/IM. (Particularly people I don't talk to much anymore because they're not on AIM very often or something. Hint hint.)

Wow. I really need to post more often, huh.

Just watched last night's Castle. I'm impressed. The writers not only mentioned radiocarbon dating, they were accurate about it. And the part where ( spoilers under here ) Impressive, Castle writers, impressive. I seriously had a geek moment as soon as that character mentioned carbon dating (you can even ask crescent_gaia).

Speaking of geek moments, I had one of those yesterday when I ordered one of these to take to St. Louis with me. My hope is not to have to check anything, because I'd really like to keep that $25 for other things. According to raaltina, who actually has two of these now, not only will it fit in the overhead compartment on a plane, it should hold four days' worth of clothing plus other items (plus if I can't get my laptop to fit there too, I can take that in its own case and put it under the seat). Now it just needs to get here before I leave.

I really should make a list of everything I need to do before I go to St. Louis, now that it's less than two weeks away.

I'm pretty sure I've got a sinus infection again. :( At least if I decide I need to go to a doctor about this, I'm covered by BadgerCare Plus now.

More work-related news. I got a fifty cent raise. So yay for that.

And now for something random, some music-related ramblings.

There's a song on the radio lately, by Jordin Sparks, called "Battlefield" or something like that. Basically it's about how "love is a battlefield" (sounds like something Pat Benatar said back in the 80s). If I were a DJ, I would totally play that song and follow it up with ABBA's "Waterloo."

It's probably a good thing I'm not a DJ.

Also, Mr. Timberlake? I'm not quite sure how you're "bringing sexy back." I didn't even know sexy was missing. Besides, if I were to pick someone to bring sexy back, it wouldn't be you. (Just so you know, if I were to pick someone, even within the music industry, it would be him. Or him.)

I was "smart" yesterday (or at least incautious) and sprained my ankle while on my way out of work. This was rather problematic, because I had to scrape snow off my car before I could leave. So far I've spent the last day and a half limping around the house, and also doing some limping around town (it was particularly "fun" stepping out a vehicle into uneven snow in the street). I'm not particularly looking forward to work tomorrow, simply because it'll be just my injured self holding down the fort. Oh well; what must be done, must be done.

I'm going to be posting (sometime) my last two NaNo projects (the years I won) at a community created for that purpose. All posts there will be locked, so if you want to read anything, you'll have to join (it's moderated membership, so you'll have to give me some time to get the message and approve you). It's http://community.livejournal.com/takethatnorris if you're interested.

I'm thinking of creating a community/journal where I simply archive my thoughts on books I'm reading. I haven't decided yet if I'd use it.

On the subject of books, I just finished one today called The Queen's Man. It is, basically, a medieval mystery. A man is murdered on his way to deliver a letter to the queen and the man who tries to come to his rescue takes the letter and ends up working for the queen to solve the murder. There's also a political aspect to it, because it takes place in 1193, when King Richard is missing during the Crusades and John is plotting to take over the throne (alas, there is no Patrick Stewart in any way associated with the book). Much of the book takes place in medieval London, and after this book (and since this was the second book in a row that I'd read that made much mention of the Tower) I had a desire to continue with the London theme, and remembered that I have a book called Shakespeare of London about Shakespeare as his contemporaries saw him, rather than a literary biography or something about how he's viewed now. Hopefully that should be interesting.

It'll be nice. After tomorrow, I'll have four days in a row off. I would say that would be good for resting my ankle, except that on Thursday we're going to LaCrosse with the purpose of, among other things, walking through the Rotary Lights. I guess I'll just have to do the resting on Friday and over the weekend.