EDUCATIONAL 'TOOL' FOR FEBRUARY

Well, we almost got to the end of February without finding our Education 'Tool' for the month. Luckily, Rick Santorum came to the rescue. Great article I found today at Crooks and Liars.

http://crooksandliars.com/blue-texan/rick-santorum-flunks-basic-history-agai

Thanks Rick for all of your help. I really hope this guy gets the Republican nomination.

GEOLOGICAL HUSBANDRY 101

Our new science teacher, Munthelda Münchausen, looked a bit distraught in the faculty lounge at lunch today. In fact, she was displaying an obvious facial tic that I hadn’t noticed before. I asked her if everything was OK. She told me that Billy Ray Throdd, a 9th grader in her earth science class, asked her how to tell if a rock is a male or a female!* Taken aback by the young lad’s question, she asked him how he ever got the idea that rocks have gender. Billy Ray replied, innocently enough, “Well Ms. Münchausen, then where do pebbles come from?”

Feeling the blood actually draining from her skull and unable to offer young Billy Ray a reasonable answer that even he could understand, she unfortunately heard the words ‘you friggin’ hillbilly moron’ spew from her mouth.

Her appointment with Human Resources is scheduled for next Tuesday.

*Based on a true story. The names were changed to protect the innocent. Or, like, whatever.

MORE FUZZY MATH

For some reason, many of my young scholars choose to use my art classes as ‘study’ halls, where they can work on assignments from other, ‘real’ classes, text their friends from the secretive confines of their backpacks strategically placed in front of them on the table, or just sit there and drool into their left shoe for fifty minutes each day.

Yesterday, I overheard two math geniuses discussing their
homework. One of the Einsteins asked another, “What is eight times nine?” His multiplication-challenged friend answered, perfectly sincere, “Forty-five!” I wasn’t really sure if that is what I heard, so I asked them to repeat themselves. Yep, they were both happy with the answer, and Einstein number one dutifully placed the answer into his worksheet.

Both of these mathematicians have passed the High School Exit Exam and are ready to be unleashed on an unsuspecting American public in June.

Wow, just . . . wow!

TAILS OF RETAIL FAILS #815

Went into theSpawn of Satan (WalMart) down in Hog Lick Corners a few days ago to pick up some supplies for the classroom. After making my way through the hordes of ‘interestingly dressed’ customers, I found what I needed and placed them in my handy shopping basket. For some reason, I wandered into the electronics department. They had micro-SD cards for sale. 8GB for $14.88. I needed one for my digital recorder, so I placed one in the handy shopping basket too. It was, of course, locked up in a plastic security box. When I got to check out, the clerk attempted to free the SD card from the security box. No luck. She called a co-worker to try her luck. She was not successful either. I let them try every conceivable tool at their disposal (BIC pen, nail file, screwdriver, etc.) to get the card out. Nothing. After ten minutes of this nonsense, I decided I really didn’t need that SD card after all and told them, “Have a nice day!”

ALEC Education "Academy" Launches on Island Resort | Truthout

THIS IS JUST A TAD SCARY, NO?

ALEC Education "Academy" Launches on Island Resort Truthout

MY FAVORITE PART . . . ALEC's education bills encompass more than 20 years of effort to privatize public education through an ever-expanding network of school voucher systems, which divert taxpayer dollars away from public schools to private schools, or the creation of new private charter schools with public funds, and even with private online schools (who needs actual teachers when you can have a virtual one?). The bills also allow schools to loosen standards for teachers and administrators, exclude students with physical disabilities and special educational needs, escape the requirements of collective bargaining agreements and experiment with other pet causes like merit pay, single-sex education, school uniforms, and political and religious indoctrination of students.

TALES OF RETAIL FAILS #715

Ah yes, we often hear the wingnut talking point that "Schools should be run like a business!"
Yeah, that would make all the difference.

Was in the Office Depot in Cedarville yesterday, doing a little last-minute shopping. I wanted to get a digital camera for my son. After looking at way too many brands and models at several stores, I settled on a Canon at O.D. A salesperson asked me if I needed help. After my initial shock of actually having my presence in the store acknowledged, I told him I wanted to purchase the Canon. He looked up the model number to see if they had any in stock?!? He assured me that, indeed, they had three (3) in stock. I took the inventory tag to the counter to buy the camera. The salesgirl told her associate to get the camera from the stock room. Her associate came back to the counter at least two times to get the model number. Writing it down the first time would have been too difficult for her, apparently. And the clock began to run. I waited and waited and waited. The clerk told me, "She's having a little trouble locating it in the storeroom!" And I'm thinking, do they not have things organized as to product and product number on the shelves, or is everything they sell just in a large pile?

I told the clerk that she had two minutes to find it. And I waited, and waited and . . . I gave up. And this is why I shop online.

CAMPERS POISONED BY TURKEY STUFFING GONE AWRY

Yesterday’s annual Thanksgiving lunch feast was marred by an unfortunate and unintentional, accidental poisoning of several of our campers. Seventeen campers in all were affected by consuming turkey stuffing that went terribly awry. Of these seventeen students, nine needed to be hospitalized. Of those nine, seven have been sent home, but two remain in intensive care, including Bwenda Neengle, the daughter of one of our counselors.

Camp lunch lady, Munthelda Dwerm, made a last-minute substitution to her favorite stuffing recipe. Handed down for generations from her Jamaican-born grandmother, it calls for one cup of chopped habanero peppers, to give it a little ‘zing”. As she was in the middle of preparation of the stuffing, she realized that she failed to purchase peppers at the local market. As luck would have it, Ms. Dwerm had the TV turned to FOX News. Ace TV journalist Megyn Kelly mentioned on air that pepper spray was “a food product, essentially.” She then remembered her ex-husband, Fenbrook Dwerm, left several canisters of Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band Pepper Spray, from his days as a campus cop at UC Davis, before he left to go back to Huntsville, Alabama. She ran home and retrieved a canister and brought it back to camp.

The recipe called for one cup of chopped peppers. Ms. Dwerm, not being a mathematician, wrongly interpolated that a three-minute spray of the ‘food product’ would successfully add the needed ‘heat’. She was terribly, terribly wrong.

Within several minutes after the campers sat down to their holiday feast, screams of pain and terror could be heard emanating from the cafeteria. Many students ran out, mouths open, and headed for the lake, where some were able to subdue the pain by gulping down lake water.

Bobbie Dean Prunt, one of the affected campers, was asked by a reporter from the local newspaper what the stuffing tasted like. He replied, “It tasted like burning!”

And that’s the news from Camp Nickleby, where students enjoy daily, mountain hikes, and no child’s left behind.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!