I know that most of my students have been exposed to a dictionary at least a few times in their school careers by now, but most find it much easier to just skip over a word they don’t know or ask a teacher what a word means. Sometimes this does have its plus side.
Yesterday, Edgar (not his real name. OK, yeah, it is) came up to me and asked me for some clarifica
tion on the pronunciation of a word. He was certain that he had it right. I assured him, after much debate, that the word was not pronounced misconscrew. He still isn’t convinced. However, when one looking over the nonsensical AYP and API numbers, it is fitting that we sometimes feel they are misconSCREWED by the folks up on the hill. Or wherever.Here is a shot of the Camp Nickleby Webster’s New World Dictionary, Concise Edition. It has a 1958 copyright and features a lovely duct tape binding. If you’re looking for a word coined after the Eisenhower administration, you’re SOL. I don’t think that’s in there either! But it is CONCISE!
6 comments:
Sigh...I share your pain. When, after using a pitch pipe, as well as my own voice, illustrating the pitch on the whiteboard, even using hand movements, I still had one pig staring at me in disbelief, as if I was mistaken, that that could not possibly be the correct pitch.
Well, that is all in a day's work, of teaching swine to sing, one pig at time.
I didn't know we were teaching the PIGS to sing!?!?!?! I have been making silk purses out of their ears this whole time ....no wonder they can not hear the correct sounds...
"A wonderful, magical animal"
Camp Councilor ALERT! (or are we camp guidance technicians now, animal trainers…I forget??)
Everyone should be getting their PEARLS all cleaned up for our faculty casting competition today at recess. Grand prize this year is a new velvet lined poke.
Why a poke? Well, wikipedia says Pig-in-a-poke is an idiom that can be applied to accepting an idea or plan without a full understanding of its basis. Originally it refers to a confidence trick originating in the Late Middle Ages, when meat was scarce but apparently rats and cats were not.
The scheme entailed the sale of a delicious, suckling pig in a burlap sack (poke) that instead contains only a disgusting cat.
*notice pigs are delicious and cats are disgusting!
Let us look to The Simpsons for our motivation for today:
Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Ham?
Lisa: No.
Homer: Pork chops?
Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal.
Homer: Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.
Oh, don't worry, Sanders, all my little piggies have their ears. However, I will double check, just to make sure.
Hmmmm, yes, if somehow they lacked ears, why, that would mean that I could not possibly teach them to sing...Ah, that NCLB thing is a good example of a pig-in-a-poke. How can I teach pigs to sing, if they have no ears!! Now, Sanders, I am truly troubled!
Sanders, here is what happened when I confronted my principal re pigs without ears in my chorus. He said that next year I will have a pig or two without ears, but not to worry, as the consulting group he hired told him to tell me to just have the pigs with ears sing louder.
He also said that next year the number of pwe will not be of significance, but the next year he will put more pwe in my choir, resulting in a significant group to improve. If my pwe don't improve their singing, the state will send in another conductress to make them sing! Sanders, this is preposterous! How can someone else make these pwe sing?? I am a highly trained conductress, and now I am highly disturbed!
Maybe there is a way out of this mess. You see, it turns out that any pwe who can't sing but is sent to a rendering plant still counts as a singing swine. So, the pwe who are sent on their way, with proper documentation, count as much as my swine who can sing! I know, I know, this all sounds crazy, but what is a swine conductress to do??
I've given my life to teaching my wonderful swine, and I love them dearly, and I used to feel that we were all making a contribution to society, me, my pigs and I, but now I'm not so sure. Why, if I can't teach every pig to sing, even pigs without ears, I and they will be labeled failures!! My pigs are not failures!!
"Ooops! My bad"....to put this in little swine vernacular
I feel a bit of guilt over all this... since as a camp counselor of LANGUAGE ARTS .....I didn't realize the pigs would ever really need their ears, AND it is truly easier to get them to focus on reading without distracting sounds. I will have to rethink this practice...
I have been assured is writing by the NCLB committee that only the three "R" really matter ..and that language arts is all the ART that is needed for a complete education whereas, the other arts are merely FLUFF....
(the three "R"s :I am sure one R is reading , I think the other two are reteaching and recollecting,or remembering...I am not positive so don't quote me on those)
I will have to consult the magic eight ball of education on this one..... Shaking the eight ball and closing my eyes..."Will no child get left behind?"
Eight balls says"● Better not tell you now "
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