Spent a wonderfully geeky Saturday evening with the pocket-protector set. My friend, Mickey, and his lovely wife Karen were in town for, among other things, an amusing event called Ant Rebellion 8.0. In a nutshell, it was an r/c robot war, and it was pretty freaking cool.
Allow me one digression before I continue: I will not pick up another hobby. I will not pick up another hobby. I will not pick up another hobby. (Repeat as necessary.)
For the record, my friend Mickey won the competition. Or rather, Twitch, his 14 ounce ankle shredding creation, won the competition. Twitch has a spiked roller on its front that spins at a healthy 10,000 rpms. The frame is about 4 inches wide by 5 inches long and 1 inch high, and it was literally throwing the other 'bots around the ring. The body was constructed of Lexan and Titanium, and the roller was part of a dead axle from another r/c car and studded with filed steel screws. There were some other nifty little 'bots like Clampy Thing of Doom. Again at less than a pound, it had a scoop with a lexan pincer that could pick up other 'bots, and in some cases hurl them. Clampy Thing of Doom and Twitch came down to it in the final duel. Both first and second place have an automatic berth in the national championship in San Francisco later this year.
www.swarc.org (the local affiliate)
www.botleague.com (the governing body)
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Irony-flavored goodness!
While many of my colleagues fled the state for more temperate climes this summer, I stuck around the Big D (and I do mean Dallas) and taught summer school. You see, I could have spent the entire summer outside, attempting to paint the house (or as I prefer to call it, "tilting at windmills"), or I could earn more than enough to pay a painter and have some left over. Naturally, I seized the opportunity to stay indoors and pay someone else to do it. Someone with painting skills and equipment and an assistant and a special truck with paint running out the tailgate.
I taught US History to English as a Second Language students. I tried telling the project coordinators that I was an American Lit teacher, not an American History teacher, but they insisted that it didn't matter, and that it was all Kosher, and that they would pay me $20/hour to babble at the kids. There was an ESL teacher in the room to remind me to slow down; he was actually the one that was the teacher of record for the class (meaning he had to grade the papers), so my responsibility was simply to show up and put on a 7 hour stand-up routine about history. No problem!
Well, okay, maybe a little problem. Problems. For starters, these ESL kids had been in the country for less than a school year. Most of them were low socio-economic background. Many of them couldn't read and write at grade level in their native tongue, much less English. They thought they were showing up for a conversation skills enrichment class, not a vocabulary-intensive social studies class. But hey, I like a challenge, and they were, by and large, good kids.
Dallas was one of 10 counties that received a grant to pay for this particular project. Part of their funding required participants like me to show up twice a week downtown at HQ to "debrief and reflect" with the other teachers. Silly me, I thought for $20 an hour, they deserved my honest opinion, and I gave it in spades. I think I was one of the more cynical critics at that. I was under the impression that by the end of the summer session, they were really happy to see me go.
And then yesterday I received a phone call from one of the coordinators: "Hello, Mr. Bosch. I bet you didn't think you'd hear from me again, did you?" No, no I didn't. This particular lady reminds me of Miss Eileen, my pre-school teacher, so I have to admit that I have a soft spot for her. Now that I think of it, I don't remember Miss Eileen sporting a rack like this lady's, so that may have contributed to said soft spot. Anyway, Miss Eileen II continued, "We were wondering if you'd like to be a presenter for the project's SIOP class. You wouldn't have to do every session, but we'll pay you $200 for co-presenting the material to other teachers." SIOP is alphabet soup for some inclusion training that everyone in the district has to go through. Me, one of the district's bigger AP elitists, presenting how to include limited English proficient students in your regular class. And the $200 is on top of my regular salary that I'd receive on staff development day anyway.
Man, I love suckling at the county teat; it's irony-flavored!
I taught US History to English as a Second Language students. I tried telling the project coordinators that I was an American Lit teacher, not an American History teacher, but they insisted that it didn't matter, and that it was all Kosher, and that they would pay me $20/hour to babble at the kids. There was an ESL teacher in the room to remind me to slow down; he was actually the one that was the teacher of record for the class (meaning he had to grade the papers), so my responsibility was simply to show up and put on a 7 hour stand-up routine about history. No problem!
Well, okay, maybe a little problem. Problems. For starters, these ESL kids had been in the country for less than a school year. Most of them were low socio-economic background. Many of them couldn't read and write at grade level in their native tongue, much less English. They thought they were showing up for a conversation skills enrichment class, not a vocabulary-intensive social studies class. But hey, I like a challenge, and they were, by and large, good kids.
Dallas was one of 10 counties that received a grant to pay for this particular project. Part of their funding required participants like me to show up twice a week downtown at HQ to "debrief and reflect" with the other teachers. Silly me, I thought for $20 an hour, they deserved my honest opinion, and I gave it in spades. I think I was one of the more cynical critics at that. I was under the impression that by the end of the summer session, they were really happy to see me go.
And then yesterday I received a phone call from one of the coordinators: "Hello, Mr. Bosch. I bet you didn't think you'd hear from me again, did you?" No, no I didn't. This particular lady reminds me of Miss Eileen, my pre-school teacher, so I have to admit that I have a soft spot for her. Now that I think of it, I don't remember Miss Eileen sporting a rack like this lady's, so that may have contributed to said soft spot. Anyway, Miss Eileen II continued, "We were wondering if you'd like to be a presenter for the project's SIOP class. You wouldn't have to do every session, but we'll pay you $200 for co-presenting the material to other teachers." SIOP is alphabet soup for some inclusion training that everyone in the district has to go through. Me, one of the district's bigger AP elitists, presenting how to include limited English proficient students in your regular class. And the $200 is on top of my regular salary that I'd receive on staff development day anyway.
Man, I love suckling at the county teat; it's irony-flavored!
Friday, August 20, 2004
Not Columbine, but Columbine Lite
So I'm killing time in my Learning Cottage (we're not supposed to call our portable classrooms double-wides, trailers, or anything else that detracts from the school's professional image) during 2nd period today. It's my planning time, and as usual, I was blowing off some steam with a friendly game of Half Life: Opposing Force. Yeah, I know it's like a decade old, but I like it. Anyway, Mr. Jones, one of the security people, sticks his head in my door and says, "Come on. We need you. There's a crisis."
Crisis? What kind of crisis? He's already out the door, going to the next portable to tell my colleague to batten down the hatches, and not to let anyone in or out of his class room. I catch up with Jones who has just heard something on the walkie-talkie and has taken off at a jog. I jog along behind him, more curious than anything else. He tells me to go to the main office where they'll tell me what's going on, but they don't. They order me to go stand by the middle door by the football field, and to not let anyone in or out of the school.
So I'm a good sport, I do what I'm told, especially after hearing a general announcement on the PA that we're going to hold the 3rd period bell for a while, and to not let anyone in or out of the classrooms. Another teacher joins me at the door, and we stand there wondering what the hell is going on. Armed school district security officers are now roving the halls, and she and I make cracks about rent-a-cops with Glocks and terrorist drills. A little later, I see fully armed Dallas Police officers are making stops room by room to speak with the teachers.
Now we're concerned. This isn't a drill.
I stop the officer from Dallas' Gang Unit to ask what's going on. He looks at us and says, "No one's told you yet, and you're guarding the door?" He hands me a piece of paper that says:
"This is NOT a practice.
STAY CALM.
We Have Lots of Help Here.
DO NOT SHARE INFO WITH STUDENTS.
We Need Staff Help Now.
We are looking for a student who fits this description:
African American Male
6 feet 3 or 4
Black jeans or shorts
White jersey with black or multicolored sleeves
Short afro about 1 inch
IF you have knowledge about this person, contact the front office. Security will be roaming.
Do NOT share this info with students.
Otherwise,
Keep your students in 2nd period.
Do not release until we give instructions.
We are looking for the above student.
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for keeping things calm.
Keep students working. Keep them on task.
Tell them a drill is taking place--we know they will be suspicious.
DO NOTHING TO CREATE PANIC.
DO NOT ALLOW STUDENTS TO CALL HOME WITH WORRY. JUST A DRILL."
A gun has been brought on campus. Some freshman did the right thing and told his teacher, who told the front office. The police officer then tells us that the suspect has most likely left campus already, but they have to check. Just hold tight. And that's just what the other teacher and I do.
Well, this drill-not-really-a-drill has been going on for more than an hour now. We're out of 3rd period and about to launch into 4th, and that means that lunch is going to be interrupted, man, I really hate having my lunch schedule screwed up like this, hey, what's that noise, some kind of a commotion upstairs.
"Young man, come back here... Young man!... Suspect fleeing, east side stair case by the football field!"
Hey! I'm at the bottom of that staircase!
I glance over at the other teacher, and her eyes are about as wide as mine must have been, and we do what any sensible person would do in a situation like that: we stepped back from the stairs.
It was at that moment that a plan hatched in my head. Hey, here's your chance. Just a quick leg whip as he's coming downstairs, then give him one of these while he's on the ground, and sit on him 'til the cops come. You'll be hero-guy, and everyone will love you. You'll be a bad-assed-mother-fu...
The kid hit the landing above me, charging downstairs at top speed, clutching some kind of large L-shaped object under his sweatshirt. Very large L-shaped object. Like: big mother-fucking high-assed caliber take-your-head-cleeean-off L-shaped object. And I said to myself, Aw, hell naw.
I stepped aside.
The kid ran out the door. The police came tumbling after. They ran him across the football field, past the Learning Cottages, past the batting cage behind my portable, over the back fence, down the block, and finally took him down by the old railroad tracks. Along the way, the kid had chucked the gun on top of the batting cage. Later, as I returned to class, the police were climbing on top of the cage to retrieve it. It was a frickin' huge revolver (I found out at the end of the day that it was a .357 magnum, unloaded), and I gave the police an oversized manilla envelope to to put it in.
I knew the kid. He broke his leg (thigh bone) during the first football game of the year three years ago. It was my first game as an assistant coach, and I rode in the back of the ambulance with him and talked to him while the morphine took effect. I don't coach anymore--not because of the ambulance ride; I simply hated coaching football.
At the end of the day, all of the faculty were assembled, congratulated on their professionalism, reminded not to talk to the media, and told to have a nice, restfull weekend after an otherwise smooth first week of school. Oh yeah, and don't talk to the media.
Crisis? What kind of crisis? He's already out the door, going to the next portable to tell my colleague to batten down the hatches, and not to let anyone in or out of his class room. I catch up with Jones who has just heard something on the walkie-talkie and has taken off at a jog. I jog along behind him, more curious than anything else. He tells me to go to the main office where they'll tell me what's going on, but they don't. They order me to go stand by the middle door by the football field, and to not let anyone in or out of the school.
So I'm a good sport, I do what I'm told, especially after hearing a general announcement on the PA that we're going to hold the 3rd period bell for a while, and to not let anyone in or out of the classrooms. Another teacher joins me at the door, and we stand there wondering what the hell is going on. Armed school district security officers are now roving the halls, and she and I make cracks about rent-a-cops with Glocks and terrorist drills. A little later, I see fully armed Dallas Police officers are making stops room by room to speak with the teachers.
Now we're concerned. This isn't a drill.
I stop the officer from Dallas' Gang Unit to ask what's going on. He looks at us and says, "No one's told you yet, and you're guarding the door?" He hands me a piece of paper that says:
"This is NOT a practice.
STAY CALM.
We Have Lots of Help Here.
DO NOT SHARE INFO WITH STUDENTS.
We Need Staff Help Now.
We are looking for a student who fits this description:
African American Male
6 feet 3 or 4
Black jeans or shorts
White jersey with black or multicolored sleeves
Short afro about 1 inch
IF you have knowledge about this person, contact the front office. Security will be roaming.
Do NOT share this info with students.
Otherwise,
Keep your students in 2nd period.
Do not release until we give instructions.
We are looking for the above student.
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for keeping things calm.
Keep students working. Keep them on task.
Tell them a drill is taking place--we know they will be suspicious.
DO NOTHING TO CREATE PANIC.
DO NOT ALLOW STUDENTS TO CALL HOME WITH WORRY. JUST A DRILL."
A gun has been brought on campus. Some freshman did the right thing and told his teacher, who told the front office. The police officer then tells us that the suspect has most likely left campus already, but they have to check. Just hold tight. And that's just what the other teacher and I do.
Well, this drill-not-really-a-drill has been going on for more than an hour now. We're out of 3rd period and about to launch into 4th, and that means that lunch is going to be interrupted, man, I really hate having my lunch schedule screwed up like this, hey, what's that noise, some kind of a commotion upstairs.
"Young man, come back here... Young man!... Suspect fleeing, east side stair case by the football field!"
Hey! I'm at the bottom of that staircase!
I glance over at the other teacher, and her eyes are about as wide as mine must have been, and we do what any sensible person would do in a situation like that: we stepped back from the stairs.
It was at that moment that a plan hatched in my head. Hey, here's your chance. Just a quick leg whip as he's coming downstairs, then give him one of these while he's on the ground, and sit on him 'til the cops come. You'll be hero-guy, and everyone will love you. You'll be a bad-assed-mother-fu...
The kid hit the landing above me, charging downstairs at top speed, clutching some kind of large L-shaped object under his sweatshirt. Very large L-shaped object. Like: big mother-fucking high-assed caliber take-your-head-cleeean-off L-shaped object. And I said to myself, Aw, hell naw.
I stepped aside.
The kid ran out the door. The police came tumbling after. They ran him across the football field, past the Learning Cottages, past the batting cage behind my portable, over the back fence, down the block, and finally took him down by the old railroad tracks. Along the way, the kid had chucked the gun on top of the batting cage. Later, as I returned to class, the police were climbing on top of the cage to retrieve it. It was a frickin' huge revolver (I found out at the end of the day that it was a .357 magnum, unloaded), and I gave the police an oversized manilla envelope to to put it in.
I knew the kid. He broke his leg (thigh bone) during the first football game of the year three years ago. It was my first game as an assistant coach, and I rode in the back of the ambulance with him and talked to him while the morphine took effect. I don't coach anymore--not because of the ambulance ride; I simply hated coaching football.
At the end of the day, all of the faculty were assembled, congratulated on their professionalism, reminded not to talk to the media, and told to have a nice, restfull weekend after an otherwise smooth first week of school. Oh yeah, and don't talk to the media.
Friday, August 13, 2004
Dept. of Free Association
Follow me, my little monkeys, because this here's a pretty fair summary of the way my mind works:
While reviewing my class rosters, trying to figure out how to pronounce names, I ran across a kid named Nestor. (It's worth noting that the real reason I go through these is so that I can get any stupid puns I might come up with out of my system.) Naturally (for me), I immediately start thinking up stupid puns when I get to his name, obscure references to the Trojan War and Telemachus, "So, do you know where I can find Ulysses," etc.
Well, not even five names later, I have another kid named Ulises! O frabjous joy! Calloo callay! My geeky little English major heart is about to explode with delight. Could it get any better? Is there an Agammemnon Jablonkawicz later on in the roster? An Aeneas Romano?
It got better: the last girl on the list is named Molly. yes I said yes I will Yes.
While reviewing my class rosters, trying to figure out how to pronounce names, I ran across a kid named Nestor. (It's worth noting that the real reason I go through these is so that I can get any stupid puns I might come up with out of my system.) Naturally (for me), I immediately start thinking up stupid puns when I get to his name, obscure references to the Trojan War and Telemachus, "So, do you know where I can find Ulysses," etc.
Well, not even five names later, I have another kid named Ulises! O frabjous joy! Calloo callay! My geeky little English major heart is about to explode with delight. Could it get any better? Is there an Agammemnon Jablonkawicz later on in the roster? An Aeneas Romano?
It got better: the last girl on the list is named Molly. yes I said yes I will Yes.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Babble on, Babylon
So I was sitting in the living room channel-surfing the other day(which for me means hopping back and forth between Headline News, the History Channel, and the digital guide to what's on) when some guy said something about all the early civilizations being pretty much the same. He referenced the Babylonian Flood story and compared it to some other Middle Eastern somethinornuther, and this led me to my personal library to look up Babylon, which led me to the Enuma Elish.
"What's that, Mr. Bosch?" you ask.
Well, a full translation of it can be found here: http://www.cresourcei.org/enumaelish.html
Enjoy.
"What's that, Mr. Bosch?" you ask.
Well, a full translation of it can be found here: http://www.cresourcei.org/enumaelish.html
Enjoy.
Bad IDEA
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is ruining my day. Not that I have a problem with giving people a chance, mind you. I'm just very concerned about the upcoming school year. Allow me to 'splain.
I teach AP English, meaning Advanced Placement English. Back in my day (the mid-80s), AP classes were for smart folks. If your GPA slacked, you didn't take AP. Tough class, smart kids, college-bound, story's over.
Today, I teach in an inner-city school where the minority are the majority. In an effort to be inclusive, we have mainstreamed a lot of special education students, which means we've taken them out of the special room with the helmets and beanbag chairs and put them in normal classrooms with normal kids. By and large this is a good thing. It reduces the stigma of the special ed label, makes teachers teach up to the gifted (which is a form of special education), helps level the playing field for the short bus set, yadda yadda yadda, and long story short it gives kids a chance to excel within their limits. I italicize this for a reason to be revealed in a moment.
Let me go back to the 80s for a moment: I had the opportunity at my high school to take advanced calculus. Only two guys were in the class, so there was plenty of room for me to be included, but the problem was I didn't know jack shit about calculus. Hell, I had more trouble than I was willing to endure in college algebra, and I had already dropped regular calculus. You see, I did not possess the necessary skills to succeed in advanced calculus. There was no way I could have passed the class unless the teacher modified the curriculum for me. (Modification is a Special Education term for altering the requirements of a class to fit an exceptional child's need. Exceptional is another term meaning 'exception to the rule,' not necessarily 'really smart.') In other words, the teacher would have had to ask only questions within my capabilities, which was on the college algebra level. College Algebra is not Advanced Calculus.
Meanwhile, back at the present, I have a student who for the sake of argument I'm going to call Timmy (not his or her real name). Timmy reads on the eighth grade level because he has a learning disability, thus making him eligible for modification. Timmy is a nice person, I'm certain. I have not met Timmy as of the moment, but I have it on good authority that he is dilligent, sweet, tries hard, etc. The simple situation exists, however, that Timmy does not read on grade level, does not write on grade level, does not have a grade level vocabulary, and takes, literally, more than five times the same amount of time to complete a task. No, really; a three minute reading exercise for a normal AP student will take him no less than 15 minutes. This student is a junior, but reads on the 8th grade level. Not that any of that is his fault. Stuff happens to the nicest people.
I've had dyslexic kids in my classes before. They take longer to read, but they read on the appropriate grade level. Were Timmy's modifications anything so simple as extra time to complete projects, that would be the end of the story. But it's not. He is able to have a test that only asks him questions on the 8th grade level, and I am required by law to give him that 8th grade level test in an Advanced Placement class. It's as if he were taking a calculus test, but being graded on a pre-Algebra scale.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act says that I, as a teacher, have to provide "appropriate special education and related services and aids and supports in the regular classroom to such children, whenever appropriate."
http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSERS/Policy/IDEA/index.html
The administration at my school considers AP a "regular class." Why in God's name would anyone want to put a kid through that kind of hell when he has less than a snowball's chance to pass?
I teach AP English, meaning Advanced Placement English. Back in my day (the mid-80s), AP classes were for smart folks. If your GPA slacked, you didn't take AP. Tough class, smart kids, college-bound, story's over.
Today, I teach in an inner-city school where the minority are the majority. In an effort to be inclusive, we have mainstreamed a lot of special education students, which means we've taken them out of the special room with the helmets and beanbag chairs and put them in normal classrooms with normal kids. By and large this is a good thing. It reduces the stigma of the special ed label, makes teachers teach up to the gifted (which is a form of special education), helps level the playing field for the short bus set, yadda yadda yadda, and long story short it gives kids a chance to excel within their limits. I italicize this for a reason to be revealed in a moment.
Let me go back to the 80s for a moment: I had the opportunity at my high school to take advanced calculus. Only two guys were in the class, so there was plenty of room for me to be included, but the problem was I didn't know jack shit about calculus. Hell, I had more trouble than I was willing to endure in college algebra, and I had already dropped regular calculus. You see, I did not possess the necessary skills to succeed in advanced calculus. There was no way I could have passed the class unless the teacher modified the curriculum for me. (Modification is a Special Education term for altering the requirements of a class to fit an exceptional child's need. Exceptional is another term meaning 'exception to the rule,' not necessarily 'really smart.') In other words, the teacher would have had to ask only questions within my capabilities, which was on the college algebra level. College Algebra is not Advanced Calculus.
Meanwhile, back at the present, I have a student who for the sake of argument I'm going to call Timmy (not his or her real name). Timmy reads on the eighth grade level because he has a learning disability, thus making him eligible for modification. Timmy is a nice person, I'm certain. I have not met Timmy as of the moment, but I have it on good authority that he is dilligent, sweet, tries hard, etc. The simple situation exists, however, that Timmy does not read on grade level, does not write on grade level, does not have a grade level vocabulary, and takes, literally, more than five times the same amount of time to complete a task. No, really; a three minute reading exercise for a normal AP student will take him no less than 15 minutes. This student is a junior, but reads on the 8th grade level. Not that any of that is his fault. Stuff happens to the nicest people.
I've had dyslexic kids in my classes before. They take longer to read, but they read on the appropriate grade level. Were Timmy's modifications anything so simple as extra time to complete projects, that would be the end of the story. But it's not. He is able to have a test that only asks him questions on the 8th grade level, and I am required by law to give him that 8th grade level test in an Advanced Placement class. It's as if he were taking a calculus test, but being graded on a pre-Algebra scale.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act says that I, as a teacher, have to provide "appropriate special education and related services and aids and supports in the regular classroom to such children, whenever appropriate."
http://www.ed.gov/offices/OSERS/Policy/IDEA/index.html
The administration at my school considers AP a "regular class." Why in God's name would anyone want to put a kid through that kind of hell when he has less than a snowball's chance to pass?
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Damn
Well, I was going to write an outrageously funny post about being pursued by the US Army, but it's going to have to wait. I found out earlier today that one of my former students was shot and killed by a cable installer in a road-rage incident. This story was on the news this evening:
http://www.nbc5i.com/news/3639508/detail.html
A couple (only a couple?!?) of things bother me about this: 1) this is my fourth year of high school teaching and my second dead student (Lorena Osorio, aged 21, was thrown from the I-75/I-635 freeway-overpass-exchange-concrete-leviathan known as the High-Five by her 30-year-old boyfriend); 2) I'm more upset at the fact that I don't feel more upset over Gustavo's death. I feel more like, "Gosh, that's just bad luck." I really want to work up some kind of Jesus-based, paradigm shifting, redneck-ass-whupping, gun-toting lather over this, but instead I just feel tired. I feel old.
Gustavo was an intelligent, thoughtful, well-mannered kid. He was not a banger. He was a very fast learner of English. He was going to be an upper-classman this year. He will be missed.
http://www.nbc5i.com/news/3639508/detail.html
A couple (only a couple?!?) of things bother me about this: 1) this is my fourth year of high school teaching and my second dead student (Lorena Osorio, aged 21, was thrown from the I-75/I-635 freeway-overpass-exchange-concrete-leviathan known as the High-Five by her 30-year-old boyfriend); 2) I'm more upset at the fact that I don't feel more upset over Gustavo's death. I feel more like, "Gosh, that's just bad luck." I really want to work up some kind of Jesus-based, paradigm shifting, redneck-ass-whupping, gun-toting lather over this, but instead I just feel tired. I feel old.
Gustavo was an intelligent, thoughtful, well-mannered kid. He was not a banger. He was a very fast learner of English. He was going to be an upper-classman this year. He will be missed.
Friday, August 06, 2004
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