6th grade science teachers
Rose Marie Holt
WTF is a "rubric" in Education Langridge?
Here is an interesting exchange. Names have been changed to protect the
f*kkin clueless:
From: Rose Marie Holt [mailto:rmh...@mindspring.com]
Sent: Thu 6/16/2005 3:30 PM
To: Teacher, Clueless
Subject: Roger
Dear Ms Teacher;
I need to check something out with you. My son Roger says that
he did almost all of his assignments and got As on every singe test.
He says you gave him a B for not being "totally absorbed with science".
I understand that he drew during class and occasionally quietly talked
to friends during class.
I cannot understand this logic. I used to draw during every class at
his age. It helped me listen and stay interested in classes that were
going a little slow for me. I had to erase one drawing once but none
of my teachers docked my grade for that. If he was disturbing the
class that is a disciplinary problem. I do not think it should affect
his grade.
If you can give me a good reason why Roger, who basically aced the
subject matter, did not get an "A" I'd like to know it.
I am speaking to [supervisor of some sort] about this.
Marie
On Monday, June 20, 2005, at 07:26 PM, Teacher, Clueless wrote:
Dear Marie,
I was just checking my district e-mail for one of the last times and
discovered your e-mail. I am sending my response to the three South
administrators who might comment on my explanation and my grading
approach. I am not, however, under contract in Nampa any more. The
administrator most familiar with my teaching is Mr. I. Dunno who was my
evaluator and who observed me many times. Mr. Who Cares also is
familiar with my approaches.
Firstly, I completely agree with you that Roger's drawing in class
should not have had any bearing on his grade. At no time did Roger lose
points because he was drawing. There were several times when I required
him to put a drawing away and to refocus, but I was always very aware of
Roger's ability to multi-task and was judicious in my decisions. Also,
talk was very much a part of our class and students frequently engaged
in conversations about science. Roger sometimes contributed richly to
whole class conversations, but was not the greatest contributor. His
class group had a very active interest in science discourse. At times
Roger was impatient with the pace of other students' development of
concepts and he would disengage. When Roger's disengagement also
disturbed his table mates, I would set boundaries. Grades were not used
to punish behavior.
As you know Roger arrives at school with a very strong science knowledge
base and he did do well on the fact-based tests. Tests were only part
of the total grade, however. I explained to Roger that his
lower-than-A grade was related to a somewhat lesser effort on some
in-class assignments. These were recording and lab-related assignments.
'A' -level work was always complete, thoughtful and detailed. My
grading rubric attempted to promote an attitude of excellence for
science written communication and inquiry. There was a distinct
difference in the 'A' and 'B' level work. The lower grade reflected a
missing response or a lack of detail. 'A' level work was rich with
observations and connections, often showing more effort in time and
thought. A 'B' certainly did not reflect poor standards or poor
understanding, but possibly lesser commitment to making science meaning
or communicating rich ideas.
My comments are general in nature because I do not have the assignments
or grades in front of me. I can say in defense of trying to avoid grade
inflation, that Roger's quality of work was not a consistent 'A' by my
rubric. I appreciate your frustration that a student who will make very
high scores on fact-based tests might not necessarily be an 'A' student.
I hope that you might agree that in the case of 6th grade science class,
we are trying to develop more than a fact base. We are attempting to
develop an attitude of inquiry, communication and explanation. This is
the foundation of science.
I acknowledge that my comments might not satisfy you. Please, however,
accept that there was no 'special' equation given to create Roger's
grade. It is just the summation of my efforts to make objective
assessments of the spectrum of student work. This is where Roger's
grade fell in the continuum and it is a good grade.
I enjoyed being Roger's teacher. I hope that he continues to find life
rich and rewarding. His drawings are entertaining and often expressed
the understandings he has. Keep drawing!
Clueless Teacher
________________________________
Ms Teacher;
I am a PhD chemist, so I am familiar with what science is and what
scientists do.
I am glad Roger was not downgraded for discipline problems. He gave a
fairly detailed account of a demerit system that ended up, in his
understanding, bringing down grades. Perhaps he did not understand your
rubric.
I disagree that Roger lacks the enthusiasm for science. I really doubt
he actually has lapses in interest, inquiry, and communication. His
extensive knowledge of the facts proves that. His interest in Camp
Invention every year and his desire to teach other kids as a junior
counselor this year proves this. His behavior at home, with his
terrariums, his bug collections, his many experiments and questions
prove this. What he may have lacked was enthusiasm for your class. I
dont blame him - from your description it sounds like he was bored and
frustrated by the limitations of your in-class requirements.
Not every rubric is suitable for every student. I think it is possible
from what you have told me that Roger did not fit your idea of what a
6th grade science student ought to be so he got downgraded. I assure
you, he is a natural scientist. He is also an eager student and wants
to do what his teachers want him to. Sometimes it does not make sense
to him and he gets frustrated. It is a shame you could not teach to him
instead of punishing him for not fitting himself into your mold. You
are not a scientist yourself, I take it. You have been told what a
science student ought to do and you are doing your best with that.
Roger could have taught you something as he did with his previous
teachers at Sunny Ridge who listened to him. It is a shame what US
science education has come to.
Marie
Theresa Willis
<rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>I am so f*kkin frustrated!!!!!!!!
>
>WTF is a "rubric" in Education Langridge?
>
Oh, sounds like someone trying to intimidate you with the BIG WERDS.
Blech. How incredibly stupid and frustrating.
Otto Bahn
attitude." You've got ammo and she is not there to defend
her childish behavior. Bitch until the grade is changed.
Then again, 6th grade? Unless this might somehow affect
whether or not he's in the schmart kids program later on,
you might want to let it slide. And teach junior about
diplomacy (how to break the rules without paying for it).
--oTTo--
Rose Marie Holt
"Otto Bahn" <GoAheadK...@Blew.Devels.com> wrote:
Yeh, he must learn how to survive in a world of retards until he gets
out of the lower grades.
he is in the schmart kids program and they did pretty good in Odyssey of
the Mind, and unlike his sister, his interest in a subject is not much
related to the teacher. He'll be OK. This kept him from getting a 4.0.
I am protesting mainly so he can see how unfair life can be. Just
because you have to live with it doesnt make it fair. I dont want him
not to trust his own judgment or to think I dont trust his judgment on
such things. I also want him to learn the fine art of sucking up and
this is probably a good teaching tool for him.
I also dont want the science teachers around here to think they know as
much as they think about what they are doing.
James Kibo Parry
>
> [on helping her kid complain about a wacky teacher giving him a lowly B
> due to his alleged "lesser commitment to making science meaning"]
>
> Yeh, he must learn how to survive in a world of retards until he gets
> out of the lower grades.
Wait, I'm not in the lower grades, so why is alt.religion.kibology
surrounding me with doofuses, dorks, dweebs, dimmies, dinks, drips,
dinguses, daffies, dreamstainers, and dreary dullards?
> [...] I also want him to learn the fine art of sucking up and
> this is probably a good teaching tool for him.
>
> I also dont want the science teachers around here to think they know
> as much as they think about what they are doing.
You should let him post to sci.physics. That would take care of those
two items on your Secret Heterosexual Homeschool Agenda. A week spent
interacting with sci.physics will give him a lifetime's worth of
experience dealing with the less-evolved.
Of course, it might give him a superiority complex from being surrounded
by nitwits, ninnies, nimnuls, no-brainers, nimcompoops, ninkers, nerts,
and numerous noisome nuts.
-- K.
This education lesson
was brought to you by
the letters "D" and "N",
and by my IQ and bowling
score, which add to 600.
Karlo X
09FE77.202...@news1.west.earthlink.net:
> I am so f*kkin frustrated!!!!!!!!
You know, it could be worse. Way worse.
Mr. Meier was my seventh grade science teacher, a plodding fellow
who seemingly felt like teaching science in a suburban Long Island
junior high school was a waste of his talents. Except for one
single solitary class, his level of disengagement from the teaching
of science approached legendary proportions.
Mr. Meier was a short, somewhat stocky fellow in his thirties, with
the sort of constitution that seems only minutes away from blooming
into morbid obesity and male pattern baldness. He also had something
approaching narcissistic personality disorder.
Science class was his personal show-and-tell. One day he brought in
a tire and wheel that had fell off his car while he was driving on
the Long Island Expressway. Instead of a germane discussion of metal
fatigue and materials science, we were regaled with the story of how
he had heroically saved the day by veering on to the shoulder and how
he got drunk that night celebrating his good fortune.
Another day, he brought a hunting rifle to class (this was 1972 or so,
so no Columbine-inspired zero-tolerance sanctions were applied). There
was no discussion of ballistics, or of the conversion of gunpowder to
kinetic energy. Mr. Meier just wanted us to see his penis^H^H^H^H^Hrifle.
Speaking of penises, Mr. Meier liked to place the more attractive girls
in the first row, especially Jackie, Jacquie, and Jacky, three fetching
Jewish-American Princesses who could fill a Huck-a-poo blouse and Guess
jeans like, well, you don't want to know.
Mr. Meier really liked to pick on one person in each class, and in ours
that unfortunate soul was Stephen Barsky, a pale, consumptive mouseburger.
Meier would be writing something at the blackboard, forming a question
for the class to solve. Suddenly he'd say "And the answer is...BARSKY?!?",
at which point he'd fling whatever was in his hand (chalk, eraser, etc.)
right at Stephen Barsky's head. More often than not, it would hit the
wall next to Barsky, but sometimes Meier would clock Barsky in the noggin.
Barsky died at age sixteen of a heroin overdose. I can't rightly say
these things were related, but they sure didn't help.
The one, single, solitary time that Mr. Meier shined as an educator
was when an assistant principal sat in on the class as an observer,
no doubt prompted by the complaints of parents and students. On that
day, Mr. Meier was masterful, giving a lecture on the structure of
cells that used houses as a metaphor, with clear, concise chalk
drawings, and a narrative that engaged the class in a rich learning
experience.
The rest of the time he was a fucking wanker and a failure as a teacher.
After that year I moved to Manhattan to live with my father and attended
a private prep school where the teachers actually taught and didn't
inflict their neuroses on the student body. Except for that one phys
ed teacher...
k.
--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are
really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Rose Marie Holt
Karlo X <kta...@artcrime.com> wrote:
Ahh, 1972. I remember it well. That was the year the basketball coach
taught chemistry in his spare time. One of my lab partners was one of
his star players and it JUST NOW occurred to me that this may not have
been a coincidence. D'oh!
We had a 7th Grade World Geography teacher who was about 99 years old
with breath right out of an ashtray from a 500 year old pub, gray hair,
and a voice that would raise a corpse long enough to kill it again. One
unfortunate young man was the repeat victim of her 3mm thick red-painted
claws, the dorsal surface of which she would use to take sonars of his
head.
The only real wanker I had as a teacher was Hans Tiefel who thought he
was God's gift to teaching. This was at my small private liberal arts
college in the southern part of a northern state somewhere out west. He
was an ass. I think he is at Wake Forest or Duke now, where he is more
appropriately greased I am sure.
James Kibo Parry
>
> Mr. Meier was my seventh grade science teacher, a plodding fellow
> who seemingly felt like teaching science in a suburban Long Island
> junior high school was a waste of his talents. Except for one
> single solitary class, his level of disengagement from the teaching
> of science approached legendary proportions.
>
> Mr. Meier was a short, somewhat stocky fellow in his thirties, with
> the sort of constitution that seems only minutes away from blooming
> into morbid obesity and male pattern baldness.
That's called testosterone.
> He also had something approaching narcissistic personality disorder.
*I* don't see anything wrong with that!
> Science class was his personal show-and-tell. One day he brought in
> a tire and wheel that had fell off his car while he was driving on
> the Long Island Expressway. Instead of a germane discussion of metal
> fatigue and materials science, we were regaled with the story of how
> he had heroically saved the day by veering on to the shoulder and how
> he got drunk that night celebrating his good fortune.
...fortunately, he was able to call a cab to pick him up on the Long
Island Expressway and take him the rest of the way to that party,
though it was stupid of him to make the cabdriver wait outside while
he walked up to the mansion and said "Fidelio!"
> Another day, he brought a hunting rifle to class (this was 1972 or so,
> so no Columbine-inspired zero-tolerance sanctions were applied). There
> was no discussion of ballistics, or of the conversion of gunpowder to
> kinetic energy. Mr. Meier just wanted us to see his penis^H^H^H^H^Hrifle.
Now THAT'S called testosterone!
> [...]
>
> Mr. Meier really liked to pick on one person in each class, and in ours
> that unfortunate soul was Stephen Barsky, a pale, consumptive mouseburger.
> Meier would be writing something at the blackboard, forming a question
> for the class to solve. Suddenly he'd say "And the answer is...BARSKY?!?",
> at which point he'd fling whatever was in his hand (chalk, eraser, etc.)
> right at Stephen Barsky's head. More often than not, it would hit the
> wall next to Barsky, but sometimes Meier would clock Barsky in the noggin.
>
> Barsky died at age sixteen of a heroin overdose. I can't rightly say
> these things were related, but they sure didn't help.
Proof at last: Chalk is a gateway drug!
> The one, single, solitary time that Mr. Meier shined as an educator
> was when an assistant principal sat in on the class as an observer,
> no doubt prompted by the complaints of parents and students. On that
> day, Mr. Meier was masterful, giving a lecture on the structure of
> cells that used houses as a metaphor, with clear, concise chalk
> drawings, and a narrative that engaged the class in a rich learning
> experience.
>
> The rest of the time he was a fucking wanker and a failure as a teacher.
Did his final exam at the end of the year consist of "Write down ten
things you learned in my class."? I got one of those sprung on me
once, so I pretended I learned some stuff.
-- K.
Never mind that, what
type of rifle was it?
Glenn Knickerbocker
>WTF is a "rubric" in Education Langridge?
The rubric is the part of the book that's printed in a different color.
In her case, apparently it was printed in the invisible color.
ŹR \\ "More people are killed in cars every day than are
\\ killed by gay marriages. Why not outlaw cars?"
http://users.bestweb.net/~notr/cosmic.html \\ --Joe Guy
Rose Marie Holt
Glenn Knickerbocker <No...@bestweb.net> wrote:
Oh, yeah, like the Bible where Jesus' words are in red. So the
rubricified words are the holy ones, the gospel. Makes sense in
Clueless Teacher land.
Rose Marie Holt
ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) wrote:
>
> Did his final exam at the end of the year consist of "Write down ten
> things you learned in my class."? I got one of those sprung on me
> once, so I pretended I learned some stuff.
>
> -- K.
>
> Never mind that, what
> type of rifle was it?
If it wasnt specified that the stuff you learned had to be stuff he
meant to teach, you'd probably beable to come up with something even
just daydreaming, like the benzene ring.
Sean Case
Rose Marie Holt <rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> In article <he4fb15fomtne5fqu...@4ax.com>,
> Glenn Knickerbocker <No...@bestweb.net> wrote:
> > The rubric is the part of the book that's printed in a different color.
> > In her case, apparently it was printed in the invisible color.
> Oh, yeah, like the Bible where Jesus' words are in red. So the
> rubricified words are the holy ones, the gospel. Makes sense in
> Clueless Teacher land.
Much as I hate to add facts to this discussion, it's more like a
prayer book where you have the text of the service in black and
instructions like "read this out in a pirate voice" written in red.
http://www.decs.act.gov.au/bsss/TeachingAndLearning/PreparingARubric.htm
Sean Case
Captain Infinity
>
> This education lesson
> was brought to you by
> the letters "D" and "N",
> and by my IQ and bowling
> score, which add to 600.
Wow, your IQ is 506? That's incredible! Do you have to return your
brain to the rental counter when you're done thinking with it?
**
Captain Infinity
...and what kind of spray to they use to disinfect rental brains?
Captain Infinity
>Mr. Meier was a short, somewhat stocky fellow in his thirties, with
>the sort of constitution that seems only minutes away from blooming
>into morbid obesity and male pattern baldness. He also had something
>approaching narcissistic personality disorder.
I swear to GOD that I have never taught seventh grade, so STOP TALKING
ABOUT ME!
**
Captain Infinity
Rich Holmes
> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 02:24:35 GMT, Rose Marie Holt
> <rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> >I am so f*kkin frustrated!!!!!!!!
> >
> >WTF is a "rubric" in Education Langridge?
> >
>
> Oh, sounds like someone trying to intimidate you with the BIG WERDS.
Indeed, we all know Rose Marie is simply not capable ... oops, make
that "just can not"... deal with words of two sylla... two parts. And
six letters! (Glyphs.) How dare they.
> Blech. How incredibly stupid and frustrating.
You probably think ersatz, eschew, inchoate, qi, boson, chyme, sil,
bocal, and tensor are big words too. HAW HAW ROBORT TERRI DOESN'T
EVEN KNOW WHAT A BOCAL IS!
--
- Doctroid Doctroid Holmes <http://www.richholmes.net/doctroid/>
"Maybe I should ask sane people." -- Dag ]gren
plorkwort
Rich Holmes <rsholme...@mailbox.syr.edu> wrote:
>You probably think ersatz, eschew, inchoate, qi, boson, chyme, sil,
>bocal, and tensor are big words too. HAW HAW ROBORT TERRI DOESN'T
>EVEN KNOW WHAT A BOCAL IS!
__
AIR! SPARGING! BOCAL! BRUSH! o--) o(
)--===""""
/:|::|
/::|::|
========
plorkwort.
--
A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident.
A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident.
But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *that had to mean something*.
-- S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers"
Rev. Mercutio Jones
"Rose Marie Holt" <rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:rmholt1-09FE77...@news1.west.earthlink.net...
>I am so f*kkin frustrated!!!!!!!!
>
> WTF is a "rubric" in Education Langridge?
It's a fancy word for a checklist, with each item on the checklist earning a
certain rating or point amount. For example, if I was making one for
grading essays, I'd have one criterion for grammar, with three possible
points for perfect grammar, two points for a few errors, one point for many
errors, and zero points for sounding like Jar Jar Binks. I'd have an item
for cogency of argument, one for paragraph structure, etc.
Otto Bahn
> > Then again, 6th grade? Unless this might somehow affect
> > whether or not he's in the schmart kids program later on,
> > you might want to let it slide. And teach junior about
> > diplomacy (how to break the rules without paying for it).
>
> Yeh, he must learn how to survive in a world of retards until he gets
> out of the lower grades.
>
> he is in the schmart kids program
Regardless of whether you get the grade changed:
The occasional B will not get one kicked out of the
schmart kids program. Just don't get B's consistently
and his GPA ultimately won't matter until 9th grade.
--oTTo--
John D Salt
news:rmholt1-09FE77...@news1.west.earthlink.net:
> I am so f*kkin frustrated!!!!!!!!
I expect the teacher's less than thrilled, too.
It's only a mark, sorry, grade. Who gives a flying fig for
marks? Is Roger learning stuff, or not?
All the best,
John.
Chris McGonnell
KONTEXT AWA-A-A-Y!
>There were several times when I required
>him to put a drawing away and to refocus, but I was always very aware of
>Roger's ability to multi-task
This is priceless. We used to call this "daydreaming" or just plain
"bored" in a class where we already knew what the teacher was talking
about. Instead of yelling "Pay attention!" they now say "please
refocus" -- gawd!
--
Chris McG.
Harming humanity since 1951.
"McGonnell, welcome to Plonksville, population: You"
-- Stacia
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
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Chris McGonnell
>Rose Marie Holt (rmh...@mindspring.com) wrote:
>>
>> [on helping her kid complain about a wacky teacher giving him a lowly B
>> due to his alleged "lesser commitment to making science meaning"]
>>
>> Yeh, he must learn how to survive in a world of retards until he gets
>> out of the lower grades.
>
>Wait, I'm not in the lower grades, so why is alt.religion.kibology
>surrounding me with doofuses, dorks, dweebs, dimmies, dinks, drips,
>dinguses, daffies, dreamstainers, and dreary dullards?
Because you're a bozo?
>> [...] I also want him to learn the fine art of sucking up and
>> this is probably a good teaching tool for him.
>>
>> I also dont want the science teachers around here to think they know
>> as much as they think about what they are doing.
>
>You should let him post to sci.physics. That would take care of those
>two items on your Secret Heterosexual Homeschool Agenda. A week spent
>interacting with sci.physics will give him a lifetime's worth of
>experience dealing with the less-evolved.
>
>Of course, it might give him a superiority complex from being surrounded
>by nitwits, ninnies, nimnuls, no-brainers, nimcompoops, ninkers, nerts,
>and numerous noisome nuts.
You forgot numskulls!
> -- K.
>
> This education lesson
> was brought to you by
> the letters "D" and "N",
> and by my IQ and bowling
> score, which add to 600.
So you bowled a 550 series over the weekend! Was it with a leather
bowling ball or Archie Pu's head?
Jeremy D. Impson
[stuff]
Hey, I remember you! You're that cool Okie guy. Welcome back.
--Jeremy
--
Jeremy Impson
jdimpson can be contacted at acm dot org
http://impson.tzo.com/~jdimpson
plorkwort
John D Salt <jdsalt_AT_gotadsl.co.uk> wrote:
>Rose Marie Holt <rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote in
>news:rmholt1-09FE77...@news1.west.earthlink.net:
Kontext-Away creeps in on little cat feet, although the effect is somewhat
dininishd by the clouds of calico fur strewn across the floor in its wake.
>> I am so f*kkin frustrated!!!!!!!!
>I expect the teacher's less than thrilled, too.
Kontext-Away refuses to open the Obvious Bag enough to note that they have
medical solutions for a lot of these things these days, instead curling up
on it and falling asleep disdainfully.
Chris McGonnell
I say to you what my mother said to a elementary-school teacher who
claimed I should have straight A's on my report card: "He's a boy! You
can't expect perfection from one." This, of course, was back in the
late '50s when they also graded Conduct. And don't teach him to suck
up to teachers, please, Marie. They keep on sucking up in their adult
lives and become politicians.
Mark Edwards
<Infi...@captaininfinity.us>
[snips]
> ...and what kind of spray to they use to disinfect rental brains?
IWPTA "rectal brains" and said EWWWW!
Mark Edwards
--
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
Adam Funk
> No cluons were harmed when Captain Infinity
> <Infi...@captaininfinity.us>
>
> [snips]
>
>> ...and what kind of spray to they use to disinfect rental brains?
>
> IWPTA "rectal brains" and said EWWWW!
You've never met people whose brains were...?
Glitter Ninja
Well, I got a couple of interesting things out of that. One, she
graded him on a different scale than everyone else. And, two, she's a
complete moron. Excuse me: moran.
Teaching unfortunately attracts people who like to grade (judge)
others. Some of them like it more than anything else in the whole wide
world.
Stacia
Rox
"Rose Marie Holt" <rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:rmholt1-09FE77...@news1.west.earthlink.net...
> I am so f*kkin frustrated!!!!!!!!
>
>
>
count as 50% of your grade, homework is 25% and being really, really cute is
25%. It allows a teacher to give credit to students who don't do well on
tests credit for the effort they put into homework or classwork or
independent projects, etc. So if the rubric was set up as I laid out above
and every test was 100 and your kids is the cutest thing ever but he didn't
do any homework he's only get a 75 average.
Kevin S. Wilson
Ninja) wrote:
>[snip]
>
> Well, I got a couple of interesting things out of that. One, she
>graded him on a different scale than everyone else.
Uh-huh. Did you read the same post that I read?
>And, two, she's a
>complete moron. Excuse me: moran.
Right. In my view, the "complete moron" demonstrated far more
diplomacy, tact, and plain old garden-variety politeness than did her
correspondent. It's doubly impressive that she's able to do so when
one considers that she is probably responding to the umpteenth
complaint from parents about grades. She gave a thorough, articulate
explanation for her assessment of Roger's performance, and in no way
attempted to duck responsibility or sidestep the question.
> Teaching unfortunately attracts people who like to grade (judge)
>others. Some of them like it more than anything else in the whole wide
>world.
I have some sad, sad news for you, Stacia. Brace yourself.
YOU ARE BEING GRADED (JUDGED) BY NEARLY EVERYONE AROUND YOU NEARLY
EVERY MINUTE OF YOUR FREAKIN' LIFE.
Don't believe me? Try doodling and daydreaming through your next work
day and see how long it takes before someone "grades" you as lazy, or
unfocused, or just not worth the trouble. Try neglecting routine
maintenance of your rental property, or try neglecting to pay rent on
time, and see how long it takes before you landlord "grades" you as a
bad renter.
Sometimes, as with scholastic grades and annual performance
evaluations, this "judging" of which you speak is a formal process.
Other times, it's called discernment, discrimination, and taste. It's
what enables one to conclude that CAL is a crude buffoon, that Tim
Chuma is too sensitive for his own good, and that Seth ain't never
going to be funni.
Or for you to conclude that I'm an arrogant ass. (See, there is an
upside.)
Most of life is a test of one sort or another. They are ALL graded
tests, and the grades become a part of your Permanent Record. Don't
like it? From where I sit, that's just too bad.
This episode of "Not Bitter" has been brought to you by A Guy Who Is
Paid to Draw Upon His Experience, Expertise, and Knowledge to Assess
the Performance of Others (tm).
John D Salt
news:d99m6s$cj1$2...@news.xmission.com:
[Snips]
> Teaching unfortunately attracts people who like to grade
> (judge)
> others. Some of them like it more than anything else in the
> whole wide world.
You've met teachers who like marking?
What planet were they from?
All the best,
John.
Joseph Michael Bay
>In article <u4oe9zs...@mep1.phy.syr.edu>,
>Rich Holmes <rsholme...@mailbox.syr.edu> wrote:
>>You probably think ersatz, eschew, inchoate, qi, boson, chyme, sil,
>>bocal, and tensor are big words too. HAW HAW ROBORT TERRI DOESN'T
>>EVEN KNOW WHAT A BOCAL IS!
> __
> AIR! SPARGING! BOCAL! BRUSH! o--) o(
> )--===""""
> /:|::|
> /::|::|
> ========
__
)o (--o RUBBER! POLICE! MAN!
""""===--( I! HARDLY! KNOW! ER!
|::|:\
|::|::\
========
--
Chimes peal joy. Bah. Joseph Michael Bay
Icy colon barge Cancer Biology
Frosty divine Saturn Stanford University
By reading this line you agree to mow my lawn. NO GIVEBACKS.
Joseph Michael Bay
>sta...@xmission.com (Glitter Ninja) wrote in
>news:d99m6s$cj1$2...@news.xmission.com:
>[Snips]
>> Teaching unfortunately attracts people who like to grade
>> (judge)
>> others. Some of them like it more than anything else in the
>> whole wide world.
>You've met teachers who like marking?
Sixth grade teachers, I'd believe, yeah.
>What planet were they from?
Heh. In my junior or senior year of high school I had a teacher
whose grading system consisted of taking the mean of your prior
grade and your most recent grade. This may be so stupid that you're
sure I'm describing it wrong, so I'll rephrase: each grade counts
about half as much as the next one, with the last grade (be it from
a test, a quiz, or a graded homework assignment) counting as half
the overall grade for the term. He could not see how this system
could produce a different result from taking the mean of all one's
grades for the term, and in fact insisted that they were the same
method. He was not, fortunately, a mathematics teacher. He was a
religion teacher. The other religion teacher for that year actually
taught one of those "thermodynamics proves the existence of God"
things, so I was pretty glad, on balance, to be in the class I had.
Neither of these teachers were clergy; most of the science teachers
were priests or nuns (and pretty good at teaching science). In
general I thought that the priests did more than lay people.
He also could not grasp that the term "minority" could be used
to refer to something other than an ethnic minority.
Otto Bahn
[Snip Catholic school horrors]
> In general I thought that the priests did more than lay people.
I don't know if I should call for Terri or Kontex-Away.
--oTTo--
Reformed Cath-o-lick
shelly
Michael Bay) wrote:
>Heh. In my junior or senior year of high school I had a teacher
>whose grading system consisted of taking the mean of your prior
>grade and your most recent grade.
one of my high school math teachers (a right bastard in every possible
way) believed in natural breaks. it was the grading curve from hell. i
recall getting 85% on one test and flunking it, because mine was one of
the lowest grades. that wouldn't have been *so* bad, but he took the
(IMO arbitrary) letter grades for each test/assignment and converted
them into a 4.0 scale, then averaged those to come up with your final
grade for the course. i was never very good at math, but i worked my
arse off in his class and got a C-, even though my actual average for
the class was 93%.
oh, and the guy was a major perv, too.
i *so* hatehatehate math.
--
shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net || http://cat-sidh.blogspot.com
Whose pig is this?
-- Eddie Izzard
Joseph Michael Bay
>On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:56:05 +0000 (UTC), jm...@Stanford.EDU (Joseph
>Michael Bay) wrote:
>>Heh. In my junior or senior year of high school I had a teacher
>>whose grading system consisted of taking the mean of your prior
>>grade and your most recent grade.
>one of my high school math teachers (a right bastard in every possible
>way) believed in natural breaks. it was the grading curve from hell. i
>recall getting 85% on one test and flunking it, because mine was one of
>the lowest grades. that wouldn't have been *so* bad, but he took the
>(IMO arbitrary) letter grades for each test/assignment and converted
>them into a 4.0 scale, then averaged those to come up with your final
>grade for the course. i was never very good at math, but i worked my
>arse off in his class and got a C-, even though my actual average for
>the class was 93%.
Argh, that's annoying. Curves shouldn't work like that.
Also, they're usually not "curves" but monotonic statistical
adjustments. Constants, even.
My favorite math teacher did this thing where he'd take the
square root of your grade and multiply that by ten to get a
grade that fit in with the "A = 90+, B = 80+, etc" schema
that the school used. So that was cool, I think, since the
high end was reasonable and but could still get by with a
low grade, meaning the tests themselves didn't have to
contain a bunch of "filler" that anyone who was awake could
answer correctly.
>oh, and the guy was a major perv, too.
>i *so* hatehatehate math.
This is one of the worst things, that a bad teacher or two
can really screw up a whole subject for someone. It's a
sucky fact of life.
Otto Bahn
> Sometimes, as with scholastic grades and annual performance
> evaluations, this "judging" of which you speak is a formal process.
> Other times, it's called discernment, discrimination, and taste. It's
> what enables one to conclude that CAL is a crude buffoon, that Tim
> Chuma is too sensitive for his own good, and that Seth ain't never
> going to be funni.
I once noted that Seth is a state of mind not unlike Vermont.
But that was in 1987, on an entirely different medium, and it
was probably a different Seth. It still seems appropriate
though.
In other news, do not let the Burlington area ruin your image
of quaint old Vermont. It's still there, and with the exception
of the bread n' breakfast industry, they are embarrassed about
the gay marriage thing. Killington tried to secede to New
Hampshire. The whole state got behind taking the US to all
the way to the Supreme Court over the drinking age thing. To
a Vermonter, there is something orgasmic about taking money
from a New Yorker, and they've never liked doing what Washington
tells them to anyway. In 1941 Congress dragged its feet and
Vermont declared war on Germany three days ahead of them.
The Supremes wouldn't have upheld that one either, but it was
a nice way to say, "Fsck you, Hitler!"
That, and there is no substitute for maple sugar, is all you
need to know about Vermont. You can visit but don't stay.
Hitler was pissed Vermont had no coastline for his subs to
target. Tons of Canadian homegrown travels down the good Lake
Champlain -- in summer by boat, in winter by snowmobile.
If Canada were to put a stop to this, their currency would
plummet.
--oTTo--
James Kibo Parry
>
> [...]
>
> Teaching unfortunately attracts people who like to grade (judge)
> others.
When I was eight, I wanted to be a teacher.
> Some of them like it more than anything else in the whole wide world.
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, baby.
Unfortunately, teaching doesn't just attract nice people who like
to be in charge of other people. It also attracts pedophiles and
the most common type of dysfunctional teacher, those who just feel
it is their societal duty to keep the youth of the nation in their
place. Basically, people who hate kids and feel someone's gotta
be around a kid yelling "SIDDOWN AN' SHADDUP!" all day every day.
(Not all those people become teachers. Most become bus drivers.)
The ones who like grading people are control freaks, while the
ones who just hate kids are more about discipline for the sake
of discipline, thinly rationalized as serving a societal function
(i.e. "I have to keep showing these kids that people older than
them are always in charge, and always will be!")
I'd particularly like to see a good sociological study of the
causes of gym teachers. Sure, a lot of them have that job because
they want to help kids learn how to live healthy lifestyles.
And sure, a lot of them have that job because of Woody Allen's
career advice, "Those who can't do, teach, and those who can't
teach, teach gym." But I think a lot of gym teachers are in that
job because it allows them to play drill sergeant without having
to actually be in the Army, i.e. they can spend all day toughening
up those little crybabies by forcing them to throw dodgeballs at
each other's faces. We're talking serious psychopathy here, the
sort of person who would be an Army interrogator in Iraq if they
could handle being part of a chain of command instead of just some
guy yelling at kids to inflict pain on each other.
Those of you who grew up in schools which didn't have dodgeball,
you just don't know the fear that runs up and down our spines
when we hear that distinctive clanky BONK sound of one of those
rock-hard, over-inflated, rough-textured smelly rubber balls
hitting anything. Next time you're at the mall and the toy store
has a bin of those "playground balls", pick one up and throw it
against the hard floor and see how many passersby execute a
"Halt And Cringe" maneuver.
-- K.
And what of the lunch ladies?
Do they just hate humanity?
TimC
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> No cluons were harmed when Captain Infinity
> <Infi...@captaininfinity.us>
>
> [snips]
>
>> ...and what kind of spray to they use to disinfect rental brains?
>
> IWPTA "rectal brains" and said EWWWW!
And IWPTA "rectal brown", and said EWWWW!
Give me a break, I only just woke up, and my eyes are still fuzzy.
--
TimC
vi is [[13~^[[15~^[[15~^[[19~^[[18~^ a
muk[^[[29~^[[34~^[[26~^[[32~^ch better editor than this emacs. I know
I^[[14~'ll get flamed for this but the truth has to be
said. ^[[D^[[D^[[D^[[D ^[[D^[^[[D^[[D^[[B^
exit ^X^C quit :x :wq dang it :w:w:w :x ^C^C^Z^D
-- Jesper Lauridsen <rors...@daimi.aau.dk> from alt.religion.emacs
James Kibo Parry
>
> Heh. In my junior or senior year of high school I had a teacher
> whose grading system consisted of taking the mean of your prior
> grade and your most recent grade. This may be so stupid that you're
> sure I'm describing it wrong, so I'll rephrase: each grade counts
> about half as much as the next one, with the last grade (be it from
> a test, a quiz, or a graded homework assignment) counting as half
> the overall grade for the term. He could not see how this system
> could produce a different result from taking the mean of all one's
> grades for the term, and in fact insisted that they were the same
> method.
So what you're saying is that your life was actually like one of those
game shows where the first-round questions are worth one point and the
second-round questions are worth ten points?
What did you win? Or did you get zonked?
> He was not, fortunately, a mathematics teacher. He was a
> religion teacher.
You can't teach religion! All you can teach is the fear of the
wrath of God! (And that's something that's best learned in science
class, during the unit on lightning!) To teach religion, you'd have
to turn all the great religious texts into textbooks with teacher's
editions with answers in the back, which would not only violate
Hebrew law (you can't add anything to the Torah), it would require
making up answers to a lot of unanswerable questions.
Like, suppose you have yourself cloned. Then you and the clone are
each sliced in half down the middle, and the left half of your body
is grafted onto the right half of your clone's body and vice versa.
So, when you go to heaven, which of you has to hold the gate open
for the other? I'd like to see an answer key deal with that!
> The other religion teacher for that year actually
> taught one of those "thermodynamics proves the existence of God"
> things, so I was pretty glad, on balance, to be in the class I had.
But thermodynamics says that Maxwell's Demon can't actually exist,
so the fact that there are demons flying around all over the place
proves that there's no such thing as thermodynamics! Also,
THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY IS JUST A THEORY, UNLIKE THE BIBLE,
WHICH IS A BOOK, AND HOW COULD PEOPLE HAVE "EVOLVED" FROM APES
WITHOUT ALL THE APES ESCAPING FROM ZOOS?
So, on a related subject, I'd like to open up the floor to a contest.
Whose shop teacher had the fewest fingers? The winner will receive
a lifetime supply of little coal scoops made from galvanized sheet metal.
-- K.
They also work for picking
up dog poop, assuming you
train your dog to only poop
in "V"-shaped ditches.
TeaLady (Mari C.)
news:d99alc$jjm$1...@gargoyle.oit.duke.edu:
I was in 2 schmart kids programs. The cool one was for those
schmart kids who were so bored they stopped participating.
Then the system made it a private club for A students. Suck.
The regular one was advanced classes. I was bored in most of
those, too.
--
TeaLady (mari)
Sunshine is not conducive to the efficient work environment.
Therefore all access to the outdoors shall be limited to those
persons who perform non-productive tasks, and managers.
TeaLady (Mari C.)
news:nnhgb1pihsvai8t0g...@4ax.com:
> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 02:24:35 GMT, Rose Marie Holt wrote:
> KONTEXT AWA-A-A-Y!
>
>>There were several times when I required
>>him to put a drawing away and to refocus, but I was always
>>very aware of Roger's ability to multi-task
>
> This is priceless. We used to call this "daydreaming" or
> just plain "bored" in a class where we already knew what
> the teacher was talking about. Instead of yelling "Pay
> attention!" they now say "please refocus" -- gawd!
>
Damn - I had answer for that, if the teaches had used it on me
back when:
Refocus ? Sorry, I can't focus at all without my glasses, which
I left at home, again.
Rose Marie Holt
Roger was dawdling if you define dawdling as getting the work done and
the concepts down and twiddling your thumbs waiting for the rest of your
group to catch up without being rude and mischeivous. I think the boy
showed amazing restraint.
Today the teacher basically admitted she couldnt keep Roger interested
because she had too many students and he was too schmart.
Her assessment was articulate but did not make sense.
Sometimes we are judged unfairly. One of my colleaugues had a hissy fit
over some perception that I wasnt working hard enough because HE was too
busy. He said I was judged by my actions. I thought about it and
bounced it right back at him, referring to his unprofessional behavior.
My shrink said I handled it better than he would have - not the hightest
standard, but acceptable.
Rose Marie Holt
Chris McGonnell <sme...@NOkey-net.net> wrote:
I told her that I drew a lot in class and it helped me to focus when
things were going too slowly. Which was a lot.
James Kibo Parry
>
> I have some sad, sad news for you, Stacia. Brace yourself.
>
> YOU ARE BEING GRADED (JUDGED) BY NEARLY EVERYONE AROUND YOU NEARLY
> EVERY MINUTE OF YOUR FREAKIN' LIFE.
Nuh-uh. For instance, Kevin, I'm not judging you right now.
I completed my assessment a long time ago.
> [...]
>
> This episode of "Not Bitter" has been brought to you by A Guy Who Is
> Paid to Draw Upon His Experience, Expertise, and Knowledge to Assess
> the Performance of Others (tm).
Pleased to meet you. I'm Paid To Hurt People Who Think They're Better
Than Everyone Else. But first, I'm going to watch you eat all 128 of
your Crayolas. Starting with the silver one.
-- K.
And I didn't say you could
peel the wrappers off.
Rose Marie Holt
"Otto Bahn" <GoAheadK...@Blew.Devels.com> wrote:
> "Rose Marie Holt" <rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote
>
> > > Then again, 6th grade? Unless this might somehow affect
> > > whether or not he's in the schmart kids program later on,
> > > you might want to let it slide. And teach junior about
> > > diplomacy (how to break the rules without paying for it).
> >
> > Yeh, he must learn how to survive in a world of retards until he gets
> > out of the lower grades.
> >
> > he is in the schmart kids program
>
> Regardless of whether you get the grade changed:
>
> The occasional B will not get one kicked out of the
> schmart kids program. Just don't get B's consistently
> and his GPA ultimately won't matter until 9th grade.
>
> --oTTo--
Oh, I know. He is my boy and I am his protector. Grrrrrrrrowf! This
is how gorillas decide who is to be the alpha male - who has the
toughest mother.
James Kibo Parry
>
> [...]
>
> Mr.Pratt wasn't a perv though. But he really hated my guts
> and took every opportunity to humiliate me in front of
> the entire class and I was one of those extremely shy kids
> who would rather get an F than stand up in front of the class
> and I never knew why.
I remember you in second grade. You were that shy girl who
spoke really quietly and pressed her chin against her chest
and so when the teacher called on her, Ms. Teacher ordered,
"EVERYONE, TERRI TALKS VERY QUIETLY SO WE HAVE TO BE VERY
QUIET AND LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY BECAUSE TERRI IS TRYING TO TALK,"
and then Jerry Seinfeld started dressing like a pirate.
> I ran into that bastid years later. Too bad it wasn't
> when I was in my car.
Please to not be re-enacting scenes from "Pulp Fiction" without
giving me enough warning to get all those clocks set to "4:20".
-- K.
Hmm, how to tie pirates
into that scene from
"Pulp Fiction"? It seems
impossible -- oh, wait:
"[Serial] killers are not alien creatures with deranged minds,
but alienated men with a disinterest in continuing the dull lives
in which they feel entrapped. Reared in a civilization which
legitimises violence as a response to frustration, provided by
the mass media and violent pornography with both the advertising
proclaiming the 'joy' of sadism and the instruction manual
outlining correct procedures, they grasp the 'manly' identity
of pirate and avenger."
-- Elliott Leyton,
"Hunting Humans: The Rise of the Modern Multiple Murderer"
Theresa Willis
Parry) wrote:
>Rose Marie Holt (rmh...@mindspring.com) wrote:
>>
>> [on helping her kid complain about a wacky teacher giving him a lowly B
>> due to his alleged "lesser commitment to making science meaning"]
>>
>> Yeh, he must learn how to survive in a world of retards until he gets
>> out of the lower grades.
>
>Wait, I'm not in the lower grades, so why is alt.religion.kibology
>surrounding me with doofuses, dorks, dweebs, dimmies, dinks, drips,
>dinguses, daffies, dreamstainers, and dreary dullards?
BECAUSE WE WUV YOU IN ALL CAPS!!!!
Why do dweebs
Suddenly appear
Everytime
You are near?
Just like me,
They long to be,
Plonked by you.
Theresa Willis
<rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>In article <kibo-20060...@10.0.1.2>,
> ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) wrote:
>
>
>>
>> Did his final exam at the end of the year consist of "Write down ten
>> things you learned in my class."? I got one of those sprung on me
>> once, so I pretended I learned some stuff.
>>
>> -- K.
>>
>> Never mind that, what
>> type of rifle was it?
>
>If it wasnt specified that the stuff you learned had to be stuff he
>meant to teach, you'd probably beable to come up with something even
>just daydreaming, like the benzene ring.
Even if it was specified, would you have to prove it?
"But dude, you did teach us about the benzene ring? Back in March,
remember?"
Theresa Willis
<GoAheadK...@Blew.Devels.com> wrote:
>"Joseph Michael Bay" <jm...@Stanford.EDU> wrote
>
>[Snip Catholic school horrors]
>
>> In general I thought that the priests did more than lay people.
>
>I don't know if I should call for Terri or Kontex-Away.
Ooh, tough call, for sure.
Glitter Ninja
>[Snips]
>> Teaching unfortunately attracts people who like to grade (judge)
>> others. Some of them like it more than anything else in the
>> whole wide world.
>You've met teachers who like marking?
>What planet were they from?
Kansas. Please don't get me started.
Stacia
Glitter Ninja
> Kevin S. Wilson <res...@spro.net> wrote:
>> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:27:40 +0000 (UTC), sta...@xmission.com (Glitter
>> Ninja) wrote:
>>
>> > Well, I got a couple of interesting things out of that. One, she
>> >graded him on a different scale than everyone else.
>>
>> Uh-huh. Did you read the same post that I read?
I will assume you're not trolling, and that you've given up the "but
I'm not a teacher!" meme, and just point out that I arrived at my
opinion because of a few little phrases sprinkled through the teacher's
email, such as, "As you know Roger arrives at school with a very strong
science knowledge base" and "I can say in defense of trying to avoid
grade inflation, that Roger's quality of work was not a consistent 'A'
by my rubric."
It is my opinion, though. Is my opinion right? Who knows.
>> Right. In my view, the "complete moron" demonstrated far more
>> diplomacy, tact, and plain old garden-variety politeness
You expect a waitress to be be polite after the umpteenth time someone
orders the Denver omelette then a teacher can be polite after a parent
exercises their right to ask why a certain grade was given.
>> YOU ARE BEING GRADED (JUDGED) BY NEARLY EVERYONE AROUND YOU NEARLY
>> EVERY MINUTE OF YOUR FREAKIN' LIFE.
Get over yourself, Kevin. I'm not about to get into a philosophical
argument about judging people, especially on ARK, and most especially
with someone like you. The fact that you then name some ARKers of
various stripes and judge them to "prove" what you said just makes you
even creepier than I already thought you were. Yeah, it could be a
troll, but your trolls are always the "some truth in the jest" kind of
trolls anyway.
>> Most of life is a test of one sort or another. They are ALL graded
>> tests, and the grades become a part of your Permanent Record.
Yeah, that's a troll alright.
>Roger was dawdling if you define dawdling as getting the work done and
>the concepts down and twiddling your thumbs waiting for the rest of your
>group to catch up without being rude and mischeivous. I think the boy
>showed amazing restraint.
The level of learning is much different, but I taught a special needs
class where some of the students were on their 10th year of trying to
spell their name (3 letters long) and some students were reading at the
6th grade level. Our job was to handle a classroom full of different
needs and abilities, and it can be done. Seriously, if I can do it
(sort of, I wasn't particularly good at teaching) then Miss Politely
Coherent could, too. If nothing else, the teacher could have given
Roger library time, or asked him if he would like to volunteer for a
freelance project, or something to keep him occupied.
Stacia
Glitter Ninja
> You expect a waitress to be be polite after the umpteenth time someone
>orders the Denver omelette then a teacher can be polite after a parent
>exercises their right to ask why a certain grade was given.
Jesus, that's a terrible sentence. This kind of tragedy only happens
when I edit. I snip here, add there, do the hokey pokey and the next
thing I know, I write like I work for the Associated Press. Terrible.
Stacia
James Kibo Parry
FLUNK!!!
That's my main problem with writing and rewriting too. I push the words
around to shift the emphasis (for dramatic moments, the "hot" word goes
at the start of the sentence, and for comedy, the "hot" word goes at the
end) and to make stuff flow better and even to make the lines wrap more
evenly, and amid all the move-this-here-then-that-has-to-do-a-knight's-
move-to-here sometimes a sentence gets damaged in a way a spell-checker
can't catch where it comes out with no verb, two verbs, a boy named Sue,
or two hundred tons of cosmetic lava. I'm a good speller, and I try
to spell-check the important articles, but I just can't avoid making
an "edito" once in a while. Plus, I like to write sentences that don't
follow the puny Earth rule about no sentence containing more than eight
separate thoughts, 'cause that's the way I talk, and if I were reading
this article aloud I would do this whole paragraph in one breath and
I think Quentin Tarantino talks too slowly.
Also, I give waitresses permission to be rude if and only if they get
my order right. Fun fact: Studies actually show that waitresses who
act surly and hassled get better tips -- some of them actually game
the system by exaggerating this attitude to make you think they're
working really hard under an impossible workload and what's the big
deal about you never getting your soup, anyway?
What I hate are appliance salesmen who have read that study about how
if they touch you it makes you more likely to give them more money.
Whoever did that study never tried putting his hand on _my_ shoulder.
-- K.
Even if you're not a salesperson,
it's good to read up on point-of-sales
techniques 'cause then you can have
fun jerking these people around when
they try them on you. Like, drop
the magic phrase, "I came in here
'cause I saw this bargain advertised,
but now I'm thinking I might need
something with more features,
because I have a wife and kids..."
Paula
<sme...@NOkey-net.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 02:24:35 GMT, Rose Marie Holt wrote:
>KONTEXT AWA-A-A-Y!
>
>>There were several times when I required
>>him to put a drawing away and to refocus, but I was always very aware of
>>Roger's ability to multi-task
>
>This is priceless. We used to call this "daydreaming" or just plain
>"bored" in a class where we already knew what the teacher was talking
>about. Instead of yelling "Pay attention!" they now say "please
>refocus" -- gawd!
And they get in trouble if they call copying from someone else's paper
"cheating." Dr. Rose Marie is just not hep to the parenting thing
these days. All hell should break loose over every little thing.
None of this polite email seeking an explanation shit.
Last week, I had to meet with the assistant principal and a parent who
had told him that I had called her daughter a bitch. Which of course
is exactly what I do all day because I have nothing better to do. Oh,
how I wished I could just tell her that I hadn't called her daughter a
bitch but it would have been a different story had I been talking to
the mother. By the way, when the mom found out I was telling her
daughter and the other girl involved that whoever called the other a
bitch first (we had had several "but she called me a bitch first"
rounds), it wasn't going to solve the problem to call it back and they
would both end up in trouble if a teacher heard them, she was still
upset with me. Apparently, it is far more offensive to quote someone
saying it than to call someone the same word, at least if it is your
little angel who can do no wrong. So much for a thanks for saving her
daughter from a suspension for threatening to beat up the girl she had
been suspended for fighting the week before.
--
Paula
"Anyway, other people are weird, but sometimes they have candy, so it's best to try to get along with them." Joe Bay
TeaLady (Mari C.)
news:rmholt1-071F37...@news1.west.earthlink.net:
> Sometimes we are judged unfairly. One of my colleaugues
> had a hissy fit over some perception that I wasnt working
> hard enough because HE was too busy. He said I was judged
> by my actions. I thought about it and bounced it right
> back at him, referring to his unprofessional behavior. My
> shrink said I handled it better than he would have - not
> the hightest standard, but acceptable.
>
I have a mug that says "I'm not lazy - I did it right the
FIRST time"
My bosses all started with the perception that I was a time
waster, due to my love of yakking. Then they noticed that I
get more work done than most other people in the time I spend
not yakking - and the same amount of work done as most folks
WHILE yakking. With fewer errors.
Then they tell me it is too bad I never completed a degree, as
I would make a great (insert degree required position here).
I donut geddit, as if I would make a great whatever anyhow,
why is the damn piece of paper so friggin important ? Give me
the job, dammit, if you think I can do it. Sometimes I have
voiced this opinion.
Than I get a talking to for bad attitude.
Rose Marie Holt
sta...@xmission.com (Glitter Ninja) wrote:
> Rose Marie Holt <rmh...@mindspring.com> writes:
> > Kevin S. Wilson <res...@spro.net> wrote:
>
> Yeah, that's a troll alright.
>
> If nothing else, the teacher could have given
> Roger library time, or asked him if he would like to volunteer for a
> freelance project, or something to keep him occupied.
>
> Stacia
I decided it was a troll when he started dissin me. That is
pathognomonic. Teh keV would never dis me. Altho he no longer wants to
be seen in public with me.
Just quizzed the boy. he says he did the labs while his partners
screwed around. Yeah. B work.
Roger would have done fine with extra projects. In his spare time he
composes piano pieces "Mom when can I have the computer? I need to use
Finale (notation software)" "After I am through jacking away my life on
ark! And clean your room!"
Marie
Best
Marie
David DeLaney
>Kontext-Away refuses to open the Obvious Bag enough to note that they have
>medical solutions for a lot of these things these days, instead curling up
>on it and falling asleep disdainfully.
Hmfy! Mff mrfle mmph MRF!!1!
Dmphvf
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Rose Marie Holt
ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) wrote:
>
> So, on a related subject, I'd like to open up the floor to a contest.
> Whose shop teacher had the fewest fingers? The winner will receive
> a lifetime supply of little coal scoops made from galvanized sheet metal.
>
> -- K.
>
> They also work for picking
> up dog poop, assuming you
> train your dog to only poop
> in "V"-shaped ditches.
MIne had 9.5. Sorry, but as a gurl I was excluded from all but one shop
class, so low N.
TeaLady (Mari C.)
news:d9ad82$tfc$1...@news.xmission.com:
One, at least, from Ohio. She used to punctuate my poetry,
returning it with red slashes where she thought I should have
broken a line, arrows where didn't think I should have, commas
where she wanted to pause, etc. I tried reading a few to her,
to show her what her changes did, but she insisted that her
punctuation was correct no matter how it altered the flow or
meaning of the words.
For grading, this teacher used a total point system, assuming
that with perfect grades and a certain amount of extra-credit
work, the maximum points achievable would be XXX. I skipped
doing a few major projects (boring - and no way to get a fair
grade as the grading was subjective, and she hated me) but
turned in tons of extra credit writings - poetry, poesy, short
stories, book reviews. Beat her point system big time, totaling
something like XXXX. She had to give me an A, but she dropped
me out of the advanced english courses - because of my attitude,
not my abilities.
I don't know if she ever changed her system, or if she simply
limited the amount of extra work you could get credit for. Or
did none of the above, assuming I was an anomaly. I left that
school system the next year.
Oh, and several of the poems that she corrected were published,
in the original form, in various magazines. I didn't get any
money for it, but a great deal of satisfaction made up for that.
David DeLaney
>Kevin S. Wilson (res...@spro.net) wrote:
>>
>> I have some sad, sad news for you, Stacia. Brace yourself.
>>
>> YOU ARE BEING GRADED (JUDGED) BY NEARLY EVERYONE AROUND YOU NEARLY
>> EVERY MINUTE OF YOUR FREAKIN' LIFE.
>
>Nuh-uh. For instance, Kevin, I'm "not judging you" right now.
However, I am "fixing a post".
>I completed my "assessment" a long time ago.
Practice practice practice!
>> This episode of "Not Bitter" has been brought to you by A Guy Who Is
>> Paid to Draw Upon His Experience, Expertise, and Knowledge to Assess
>> the Performance of Others (tm).
>
>Pleased to meet you. I'm Paid To Hurt People Who Think They're Better
>Than Everyone Else. But first, I'm going to watch you eat all 128 of
>your Crayolas. Starting with the silver one.
Just let Roger read in class, as long as he's got the work done AND can
give the right answers when called on. Sheesh - teach the kids to read,
and at least you'll always know where they are.
Dave "been there done that sat at the separate table with the college-level
English book one afternoon and sat at a desk of my own in the hall by the
principal's office one entire semester; Not Bitter, just really really
what's the word, not separate-but-equal but you know what I mean" DeLaney
David DeLaney
>> Teaching unfortunately attracts people who like to grade (judge)
>> others.
>
>When I was eight, I wanted to be a teacher.
I wouldn't have minded being a teacher, BUT know for a fact that I could not
have stood teaching students below the college level. High school students
would be teh worst (though these days the kids are getting the adolescent
attitude earlier and earlier and HEY GET OFFA MY LAWN).
>Unfortunately, teaching doesn't just attract nice people who like
>to be in charge of other people. It also attracts pedophiles and
>the most common type of dysfunctional teacher, those who just feel
>it is their societal duty to keep the youth of the nation in their place.
Plus which it's no exception to the rule that many people who can't actually
do something still think they can AND don't know that they actually can't.
Especially if they manage to get paid for it.
> And what of the lunch ladies?
> Do they just hate humanity?
Dave "it's a cookbook, I tell you, A COOKBOOK" DeLaney
Rev. Mercutio Jones
"Jeremy D. Impson" <jdim...@acm.spam.org> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.63.05...@monster.apt.net...
> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005, Rev. Mercutio Jones wrote:
>
> [stuff]
>
> Hey, I remember you! You're that cool Okie guy.
No, you're thinking of Fonzie Joad.
--
******************************************
Mercutio Jones
http://groups.msn.com/DayoftheSick
http://dayofthesick.oklahomapunkscene.com
************************************************
Paula
<rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>I am so f*kkin frustrated!!!!!!!!
Tonight my fourth grader is in tears. Every hour she breaks out
sobbing all over again. Her teacher decided to have all the kids make
posters about what they had learned in math this year. They were to
be judged on how much math was on the poster as well as creativity,
but mostly the math since that was supposed to be the point. Then she
let the kids vote on who won the competition. That's kind of bad when
of course kids that age vote more for their friends and the cool skull
and crossbones poster than whether it has much to do with having
learned any math. But then she has the brilliant idea of telling
every kid how many votes they got on their poster instead of just
announcing the winners and getting it over with. My daughter got zero
votes because she thought it was selfish and dishonest to vote hers as
the best when she really thought another one was best. This was
announced to the whole class. Then the winner was given 50 points and
everyone else was given zero points anyway, so there really was
absolutely no point in saying just how few votes any particular poster
got. Was this a lesson in math or humiliation? The winner was the
skull and crossbones with flames and only one math problem in the
middle, because almost all the boys in the class voted for it.
Paula
<spres...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Then they tell me it is too bad I never completed a degree, as
>I would make a great (insert degree required position here).
>I donut geddit, as if I would make a great whatever anyhow,
>why is the damn piece of paper so friggin important ? Give me
>the job, dammit, if you think I can do it. Sometimes I have
>voiced this opinion.
I am not going to be working at the middle school any longer because
they decided to hire full time people directly through the district
instead of part time people through my agency (I work at a couple of
different schools). They got the bright idea that a PPS credential
would be required. The district lady who oversees counseling
services, who has a PPS credential by the way, asked if I had one. I
said I didn't but did it really matter since I'd been doing the job
well for almost three years, she said a PPS credential was required.
Then she had the nerve to ask that I keep working on this huge project
I had been doing on my own time "because it would be a great help to
the person who took my place." I did not tell her to kiss my ass, but
I did provide only the research article that says that the way they
have been doing things may actually do harm instead of good without
any of the other research and analysis on how to fix the problem. I
hope she dies of a panic attack, but she'll probably just be pissed
off at me. Unfortunately, I will still be working under her, just in
more elementary schools and no middle school. Fortunately, I don't
give a rat's ass what she thinks of me at this point.
Now I get to hear constantly from teachers who are outraged that they
fought the Board to get five days of counseling just to have the
counselor they were fighting to get more time from thrown out of the
job. Not that anyone cares what any of them think when it comes to
district level decisions.
James Kibo Parry
>
> Tonight my fourth grader is in tears. Every hour she breaks out
> sobbing all over again. Her teacher decided to have all the kids make
> posters about what they had learned in math this year. They were to
> be judged on how much math was on the poster as well as creativity,
> but mostly the math since that was supposed to be the point. Then she
> let the kids vote on who won the competition. That's kind of bad when
> of course kids that age vote more for their friends and the cool skull
> and crossbones poster than whether it has much to do with having
> learned any math. But then she has the brilliant idea of telling
> every kid how many votes they got on their poster instead of just
> announcing the winners and getting it over with. My daughter got zero
> votes because she thought it was selfish and dishonest to vote hers as
> the best when she really thought another one was best. This was
> announced to the whole class. Then the winner was given 50 points and
> everyone else was given zero points anyway, so there really was
> absolutely no point in saying just how few votes any particular poster
> got. Was this a lesson in math or humiliation? The winner was the
> skull and crossbones with flames and only one math problem in the
> middle, because almost all the boys in the class voted for it.
Didn't you hear? Ordinary old math is out. It was replaced by
"new math" around 1965 (because of "Star Trek") and now it's been
replaced by "pirate math". So a pirate flag with "TWO PLUS TWO
EQUALS SOME NUMBER" is now mathier than a poster showing the entire
Periodic Table matrix-multiplied by tomorrow's Sudoku.
And a FLAMIN' pirate flag is the international symbol of Math Pride.
From now on, instead of just displaying "E" when you make them think
too hard, pocket calculators will pop up a little tissue-paper pirate
flag which will burst into flames (refills sold separately, not for
internal use.)
Anyway, basically, this is probably a good way for you to segue
into explaining to her that peer pressure makes people do stupid
things that cause hurt feelings, and she should never do anything
her friends do if she doesn't want to turn into a boy.
It's time like this that I really wish MTV's series "Daria" had
been released on DVD. There's a nice episode where the teacher
forces all the kids to make posters, requiring them to submit them
to some sort of student art exhibition, but modifies Daria's poster
and refuses to let Daria withdraw it from display so then Daria
gets in trouble for vandalizing her _own_ poster to undo the censorship.
(The moral was to have a mother who is an attorney.)
"Daria" taught a lot of other inspirational lessons (I particularly
liked the episode where she and Jane babysat the two really good kids
and taught them how all the bedtime stories would _really_ end.)
Since your daughter's probably a couple years too young for the
"Freaks & Geeks" episode where the heroine is required to participate
in the Math Olympics against her will, I can't think of any other
age-appropriate DVDs that will explain that math teachers are evil
and suck all the joy out of math. "The Simpsons" has the proper
attitude but it's diffusely scattered through over 300 episodes and
I don't think you want to wait twenty years for them to finish
bringing out a season's worth every year and a half, by which time DVD
players will have been replaced by direct-connect DNA twist-ties anyway.
Have you considered putting her poster on the Web so we can say
nice things about it? That's assuming you got it back -- it's possible
the mean teacher flipped it over, drew a skull on the back of it,
and burned it.
Another good therapy idea would be to encourage her to draw a picture
of SpongeBob tying the teacher to a flagpole and setting her on fire
(because remember, in the SpongeBob world, you can set anything on
fire underwater.) But then you have to get her to promise never to
show or mention the picture to anyone because this is the sort of
healthy expression of frustration with those f'ing a-dultholes that
would make those f'ing a-dultholes go positively bugfuck. Maybe now
would be a good time to teach her the word "bugfuck". (If she draws
that picture, I want to see it too. But knowing her, I wouldn't be
surprised if she just said "I won't draw a picture like that, that's
mean! I'm just going to have SpongeBob be nice to Ms. E. Vilteacher
by giving her a plane ticket to Afghanistan!"
-- K.
Maybe Lots42 would be
cool if he set his
pirate hat on fire
while wearing it.
Glitter Ninja
>something like XXXX. She had to give me an A, but she dropped
>me out of the advanced english courses - because of my attitude,
>not my abilities.
That ain't right. That's about as bad as my small-town high school
changing "Gifted" so that all the rich kids could get in because they
were teh jealous of the two whole people who were really in "Gifted" (me
and Olivia. Hi Olivia! Your dad says Hi, and I really do tell everyone
about you trying to steal my shoes that time. I mean, because, hey.
Used shoes.)
I mean, seriously, have some guidelines for being in the advanced
classes and stick to them. Unless kicking someone out of the smart
class because they're not happily whistling Carpenters tunes all day is
a guideline. Then we'd both be boned.
Stacia
Glitter Ninja
>Paula (mmmtob...@earthlink.ent) wrote:
>>
>> the best when she really thought another one was best. This was
>> announced to the whole class. Then the winner was given 50 points and
>> everyone else was given zero points anyway
I hate this time of year. Just before summer vacation is when all the
teachers in the world go fucko bazoo all at once.
>Anyway, basically, this is probably a good way for you to segue
>into explaining to her that peer pressure makes people do stupid
>things that cause hurt feelings, and she should never do anything
>her friends do if she doesn't want to turn into a boy.
Good advice. The best advice there is. OK, thread's over, nothing to
see here.
>It's time like this that I really wish MTV's series "Daria" had
>been released on DVD.
It's not? I bet every episode of "Radio Free Roscoe" is on high
definition DVD with commentary tracks, but "Daria" will never be
released.
>forces all the kids to make posters, requiring them to submit them
>to some sort of student art exhibition, but modifies Daria's poster
It's Jane's and Daria's work. Jane painted a cute blonde high
schooler and Daria wrote a caption about how the girl feels good about
herself because she's thin, due to her habit of vomiting up dinner.
The principal likes the cute blonde girl image but not the ugly flip
side caption. Hilarity ensues.
>(The moral was to have a mother who is an attorney.)
Yeah, but ending a story is HARD. Cut them a little slack.
>would make those f'ing a-dultholes go positively bugfuck. Maybe now
>would be a good time to teach her the word "bugfuck".
Also "fucko bazoo". Please.
Stacia
Rose Marie Holt
Paula <mmmtob...@earthlink.ent> wrote:
Sheesh. Well, at her 20th high school reunion, she will be the most
popular. These things have a way of working out.
twillis
Paula wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 02:24:35 GMT, Rose Marie Holt
> <rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> >I am so f*kkin frustrated!!!!!!!!
>
> Tonight my fourth grader is in tears.
Ooh, I'd like to get all Dalek on that teacher's ass.
I bet your kiddo's poster was pretty cool. I'd like to see it, as I
have kind of an interest in math combined with art.
It's really frustrating when you play be the rules and someone else who
disregards the rules get rewarded. And the whole reading out the points
thing was just sadistic.
You tell kiddo that this demonstrated that she has lots and lots of
integrity and that teacher was just an incredible ass.
Kevin S. Wilson
<GoAheadK...@Blew.Devels.com> wrote:
>I once noted that Seth is a state of mind not unlike Vermont.
>But that was in 1987, on an entirely different medium, and it
>was probably a different Seth.
But that was in another country; And besides, the wench is dead.
Chris McGonnell
>Roger was dawdling if you define dawdling as getting the work done and
>the concepts down and twiddling your thumbs waiting for the rest of your
>group to catch up without being rude and mischeivous. I think the boy
>showed amazing restraint.
In grade school I used to sneak a book into school and slide it across
the textbook and read intently. If I didn't have a book, I'd just
slump down in my chair and crack wise. I continued doing the latter in
high school.
>Today the teacher basically admitted she couldnt keep Roger interested
>because she had too many students and he was too schmart.
>
>Her assessment was articulate but did not make sense.
>
>Sometimes we are judged unfairly. One of my colleaugues had a hissy fit
>over some perception that I wasnt working hard enough because HE was too
>busy. He said I was judged by my actions. I thought about it and
>bounced it right back at him, referring to his unprofessional behavior.
>My shrink said I handled it better than he would have - not the hightest
>standard, but acceptable.
Being a smartass means never having to see a shrink.
--
Chris McG.
Harming humanity since 1951.
"McGonnell, welcome to Plonksville, population: You"
-- Stacia
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
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Chris McGonnell
>
>"Jeremy D. Impson" <jdim...@acm.spam.org> wrote in message
>news:Pine.LNX.4.63.05...@monster.apt.net...
>> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005, Rev. Mercutio Jones wrote:
>>
>> [stuff]
>>
>> Hey, I remember you! You're that cool Okie guy.
>
>No, you're thinking of Fonzie Joad.
No, he's thinking of SpongeBob Switzer.
James Kibo Parry
>
> James "Kibo" Parry (ki...@world.std.com) wrote
> >
> > I remember you in second grade. You were that shy girl who
> > spoke really quietly and pressed her chin against her chest
> > and so when the teacher called on her, Ms. Teacher ordered,
> > "EVERYONE, TERRI TALKS VERY QUIETLY SO WE HAVE TO BE VERY
> > QUIET AND LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY BECAUSE TERRI IS TRYING TO TALK,"
>
> Where you that short kid who sat behind me and kept
> flipping my hair with his pencil?
> (Everybody_ was shorter than me back then.)
No, I was normal height until I became tall. And since all normal
guys are taller than all gals, I was taller than you.
> Yeah, I was painfully shy. Like Carrie, but
> without the powers of telekenisis.
I'm trying to remember which Japanese movie I watched this week had
a couple scenes of them talking about "Carrie". I think it was the
"KITTY!KITTY!KITTY!KITTY!KITTY!KITTY!" movie. Did your ballet teacher
ever burn your thighs to make you unhappy enough to be a good dancer?
> Somewhere along the way I gained confidence and
> learned to enjoy standing up in front of a room full
> of people and even got A's in communications classes in college.
> I think it wasn't so imagining a room full of people
> in their underwear that did it as much as it was imagining a room
> full of Mr.Pratts suspended from the ceiling in a pair
> of manacles while I vigorously applied the cat o' nine
> tails to his rat bastard back.
"Rat bastard"? I'm sorry, but we were doing "Pulp Fiction" until
you decided you'd rather be Dreadlocked John Travolta With Action Codpiece
from that much worse movie. So now I have to blow up your entire planet by
teleporting a match to it before we can go back to "Pulp Fiction".
I want to know more about your secret plan to clone bad people just
so you can simultaneously flog two of the same person with your two
hands. So tell me about your strokes.
> > Please to not be re-enacting scenes from "Pulp Fiction" without
> > giving me enough warning to get all those clocks set to "4:20".
>
> Okay, consider this your advanced warning.
Fine, I'll telegraph Christopher Walken to synchronize his watch
by kegelcizing.
-- K.
I think all public-speaking
classes should have a day
where everyone has to be
in their underwear just to
prove that that technique
never relaxes anyone.
Kevin S. Wilson
<spres...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I skipped
>doing a few major projects (boring - and no way to get a fair
>grade as the grading was subjective, and she hated me)
See, this is the part of this discussion that I just donut get. In
what way is a subjective assessment of your performance unfair? How
does a subjective assessment prevent you from receiving a fair grade?
What exactly is a "fair grade," anyway?
Maybe I'm mis-reading what you wrote, and what you meant is more like
"Because she hated me, I was certain that she would use the subjective
assessment to give me a poor grade." But I've had similar
conversations with dozens of students over the past 20 years. Each
time I have begun by agreeing with their principal assertion, that
grading in a writing class is almost wholly subjective.
I then shrug and say, "So?"
Eventually I get around to explaining that my subjective assessment of
their performance is no different than the subjective assessment their
performance is likely to receive in the workplace. It is based on my
experience as a tech writer and a teacher, and on my understanding of
the characteristics of excellence in tech writing and my understanding
of the form and function of technical documents. Why students think
things should work differently is a mystery to me. I mean, that's what
many of us -- if not most -- do at a university: We make subjective
assessments of student performance, while at the same time trying to
be fair.
mich...@masto.com
James "Kibo" Parry wrote:
> Karlo X (kta...@artcrime.com) wrote:
> Proof at last: Chalk is a gateway drug!
Of course it's a gateway drug; that's why I'm enrolled in the education
program at my university. I want to learn how to buy a Gateway.
> Did his final exam at the end of the year consist of "Write down ten
> things you learned in my class."? I got one of those sprung on me
> once, so I pretended I learned some stuff.
Thanks! You've just given me an idea of how to model all my future
final exams!
Rich Holmes
> Kevin S. Wilson (res...@spro.net) wrote:
> >
> > I have some sad, sad news for you, Stacia. Brace yourself.
> >
> > YOU ARE BEING GRADED (JUDGED) BY NEARLY EVERYONE AROUND YOU NEARLY
> > EVERY MINUTE OF YOUR FREAKIN' LIFE.
>
> Nuh-uh. For instance, Kevin, I'm not judging you right now.
> I completed my assessment a long time ago.
I'm not judging Kevins! I'm praising him with my foot!
[[...] elided.]
> > This episode of "Not Bitter" has been brought to you by A Guy Who Is
> > Paid to Draw Upon His Experience, Expertise, and Knowledge to Assess
> > the Performance of Others (tm).
>
> Pleased to meet you. I'm Paid To Hurt People Who Think They're Better
> Than Everyone Else.
There's a Barber Paradox in there somewhere, it's just too early in
the day for me to go digging it out.
> But first, I'm going to watch you eat all 128 of
> your Crayolas. Starting with the silver one.
Can I just say I think it's cool how Crayola has always dedicated
itself to teaching kids powers of two? My computer programming skills
are, I believe, due in part to the influence of Crayola. Even if my
parents never did buy me the 64-crayon box. For which I have forgiven
them. Well, not really, but I probably will sooner or later.
> -- K.
>
> And I didn't say you could
> peel the wrappers off.
The wrappers are the best part, anyway.
--
- Doctroid Doctroid Holmes <http://www.richholmes.net/doctroid/>
"Maybe I should ask sane people." -- Dag ]gren
Otto Bahn
> > This episode of "Not Bitter" has been brought to you by A Guy Who Is
> > Paid to Draw Upon His Experience, Expertise, and Knowledge to Assess
> > the Performance of Others (tm).
>
> Pleased to meet you. I'm Paid To Hurt People Who Think They're Better
> Than Everyone Else.
I'm torn between two one-liners:
"We got it, you're a leatherman."
"SELF-REFERENTIAL INTEGRITY!"
Different, not betterer,
--oTTo--
Chris McGonnell
>I am not going to be working at the middle school any longer because
>they decided to hire full time people directly through the district
>instead of part time people through my agency (I work at a couple of
>different schools). They got the bright idea that a PPS credential
>would be required. The district lady who oversees counseling
>services, who has a PPS credential by the way, asked if I had one. I
>said I didn't but did it really matter since I'd been doing the job
>well for almost three years, she said a PPS credential was required.
>Then she had the nerve to ask that I keep working on this huge project
>I had been doing on my own time "because it would be a great help to
>the person who took my place." I did not tell her to kiss my ass, but
>I did provide only the research article that says that the way they
>have been doing things may actually do harm instead of good without
>any of the other research and analysis on how to fix the problem.
See? We smartasses woulda told her to kiss off instead of swallowing
rage into a tight ball. When I went to grad school, I couldn't believe
the number of people enrolled because they needed that diploma to keep
their job or get a promotion. It reminded me of NY state's "permanent
certification" law in the 1950s. My parents had to have 36 hours of
grad school in guidance or in their field to be permanently certified
as a teacher. What a crock.
>I hope she dies of a panic attack, but she'll probably just be pissed
>off at me. Unfortunately, I will still be working under her, just in
>more elementary schools and no middle school. Fortunately, I don't
>give a rat's ass what she thinks of me at this point.
That's very healthy: she probably wouldn't last a week doing your job,
you know.
>Now I get to hear constantly from teachers who are outraged that they
>fought the Board to get five days of counseling just to have the
>counselor they were fighting to get more time from thrown out of the
>job. Not that anyone cares what any of them think when it comes to
>district level decisions.
Good teachers know who's good at counseling and bureaucrats hate them
if they make waves. Our school boards around here are small enough
that if respected teachers want something done, squads of former
students show up demanding it be done. Gym teachers aren't included,
of course.
Jeremy D. Impson
> Also, I give waitresses permission to be rude if and only if they get my
> order right. Fun fact: Studies actually show that waitresses who act
> surly and hassled get better tips -- some of them actually game the
> system by exaggerating this attitude to make you think they're working
> really hard under an impossible workload and what's the big deal about
> you never getting your soup, anyway?
Does an episode of "This American Life" really count as a study?
--Jeremy
--
Jeremy Impson
jdimpson can be contacted at acm dot org
http://impson.tzo.com/~jdimpson
Mark Edwards
No cluons were harmed when ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry)
wrote:
[snips]
> Did his final exam at the end of the year consist of "Write down
> ten
> things you learned in my class."? I got one of those sprung on me
> once, so I pretended I learned some stuff.
I had an electronics class in high school, that gave a test with
questions like "How many wheels are on a megacycle?", and "What grows
in a magnetic field?".
The smart aleck in our class gave witty answers, appropriate to the
questions, like "A magnetic field is incapable of growing anything
other than weaker or stronger." (sorry, that's the only answer that
stuck with me over the last 30 years).
The teacher, Mr. Watts (IANMTU), told the other teacher, Mr. Beall
(Otto Moe Beall - also NMTU) that they should pass the smart aleck
(one Jimmy Slagle), and flunk the rest of us.
Good thing he was smiling, or we'd have had to charge him, despite
his capacity for resistance...
Mark Edwards
--
Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request
Wiblur the Once
@10.0.1.2:
> So, on a related subject, I'd like to open up the floor to a contest.
> Whose shop teacher had the fewest fingers? The winner will receive
> a lifetime supply of little coal scoops made from galvanized sheet metal.
I had a shop teacher in 8th grade who had all of his fingers, HOWEVER, one
day, while we were doing an assingment in the classroom, he was using a
table saw to make a round table top out of a square piece of wood (sawing
off bits of the corners until they were almost round, then sanding). All
of a sudden we hear this mighty scream and notice that one of the corner
bits had flown up and cut his nose in half.
This was the same brain trust that somehow managed to fall asleep while
standing at the chalkboard (allegedly) teaching.
--
"...The job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which
strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater
than the need for an answer." - Ken Kesey
http://www.aros.net/~jchapman - The Wiblovian Institute of Kibology
Glenn Knickerbocker
> On Monday, June 20, 2005, at 07:26 PM, Teacher, Clueless wrote:
...
> I hope that you might agree that in the case of 6th grade science class,
> we are trying to develop more than a fact base. We are attempting to
> develop an attitude of inquiry, communication and explanation. This is
> the foundation of science.
I hope that you might agree that I'm not the only one here who thinks the
extent of inquiry and explanation involved in a sixth-grade lab
assignment is pretty much limited to "It didn't come out the way the book
said. What did I do wrong?" In fact, the same could really be said for
my 300-level physics lab course. Until you reach the point of actually
investigating something new rather than reproducing a textbook author's
results, just how much "attitude of inquiry" can you display?
There may be all kinds of ways in which Clueless Teacher judged Roger's
work unfairly in comparison with that of his classmates, but it seems
likely to me that the root of the problem here is really her assumption
that there's more for someone to investigate who already knows the facts
being studied and can complete the lab work without difficulty.
Well, that and her belief that saying a B "is a good grade" should
placate an exceptional student.
ŹR
Kevin S. Wilson
Parry) wrote:
>Kevin S. Wilson (res...@spro.net) wrote:
>>
>> I have some sad, sad news for you, Stacia. Brace yourself.
>>
>> YOU ARE BEING GRADED (JUDGED) BY NEARLY EVERYONE AROUND YOU NEARLY
>> EVERY MINUTE OF YOUR FREAKIN' LIFE.
>
>Nuh-uh. For instance, Kevin, I'm not judging you right now.
>I completed my assessment a long time ago.
Uh-huh. Don't forget to put a cover sheet on the TSP report when you
get around to filing it.
>> [...]
>>
>> This episode of "Not Bitter" has been brought to you by A Guy Who Is
>> Paid to Draw Upon His Experience, Expertise, and Knowledge to Assess
>> the Performance of Others (tm).
>
>Pleased to meet you. I'm Paid To Hurt People Who Think They're Better
>Than Everyone Else.
Yeah, yeah, we know.
"I look down my nose at people who think they're better than me."
Message-ID: <kibo-27090...@192.168.200.201>
I find it amusing that the word "judge" elicits such a myopic response
from so many people. If I say, unabashedly and without apology, that I
judge people all the time, then surely I must mean that I form
negative opinions about people all the time, for surely there can't be
any other manner in which one might judge people. No, to judge is to
be judgmental, and everyone knows that being judgmental is a Very Bad
Thing Indeed (tm).
Judging (oops!) from the response of far too many people, it is
apparently impossible to judge someone positively, simply because the
act of judging people is a social transgression just slightly north of
public masturbation or being a used-car salesman. If such people are
to be believed, it is impossible for me to arrive at a positive
judgment, such as that . . . oh, I dunno . . . Kibo is a real schmart
guy.
(For more on this phenomenom, see "Stacia, knee-jerk, reaction".)
>But first, I'm going to watch you eat all 128 of
>your Crayolas. Starting with the silver one.
>
> -- K.
>
> And I didn't say you could
> peel the wrappers off.
Feh. I find Timmy Chuma's blusterings about nose-punching to be far
more scarier.
PS: When I describe myself as A Guy Who Is Paid to Draw Upon His
Experience, Expertise, and Knowledge to Assess the Performance of
Others, I am in no way suggesting that I'm "better than everyone
else." I'm simply acknowledging an undeniable fact: As a teacher,
that's part of what I get paid to do. Sadly, you've either overlooked
or chosen to ignore the fact that my assessment of others often
involves fulsome praise, letters of recommendation, nominations for
honors, and high grades.
But I gotta stop doing that. Wouldn't want to be thought of as
judgmental.
Kevin S. Wilson
Ninja) wrote:
>Rose Marie Holt <rmh...@mindspring.com> writes:
>> Kevin S. Wilson <res...@spro.net> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:27:40 +0000 (UTC), sta...@xmission.com (Glitter
>>> Ninja) wrote:
>>>
>>> > Well, I got a couple of interesting things out of that. One, she
>>> >graded him on a different scale than everyone else.
>>>
>>> Uh-huh. Did you read the same post that I read?
>
> I will assume you're not trolling,
Nope. Serious as a heart attack.
> and that you've given up the "but
>I'm not a teacher!" meme,
<sigh> Over the past 19 years I've taught in academia and the
corporate world, but teaching is not one of my job responsibilities
and hasn't been for quite some time. "I'm not a teacher" seems as
suitable a response as any to morons who assume that everyone who
works at a university is a professor.
>and just point out that I arrived at my
>opinion because of a few little phrases sprinkled through the teacher's
>email, such as, "As you know Roger arrives at school with a very strong
>science knowledge base" and "I can say in defense of trying to avoid
>grade inflation, that Roger's quality of work was not a consistent 'A'
>by my rubric."
> It is my opinion, though. Is my opinion right? Who knows.
Dunno. I sure didn't draw the same conclusions you did, certainly not
that the boy was graded "on a different scale than everyone else." In
fact, if by "rubric" the teacher means what I understand "rubric" to
mean, then she has supplied the class with clear, comprehensive, and
specific grading criteria and has applied those criteria to everyone.
>>> Right. In my view, the "complete moron" demonstrated far more
>>> diplomacy, tact, and plain old garden-variety politeness
>
> You expect a waitress to be be polite after the umpteenth time someone
>orders the Denver omelette then a teacher can be polite after a parent
>exercises their right to ask why a certain grade was given.
No argument here. My point wasn't so much that she was able to be
polite, but more that she was, in fact, polite.
BTW, saying that she "demonstrated far more diplomacy, tact, and . . .
politeness" doesn't necessarily mean that I found Rose-Marie's writing
to be undiplomatic, tactless, and impolite. Let's just say I thought
it was a tad defensive and a bit too argumentative to be called
diplomatic, tactful, and polite. A matter of degrees, really.
>>> YOU ARE BEING GRADED (JUDGED) BY NEARLY EVERYONE AROUND YOU NEARLY
>>> EVERY MINUTE OF YOUR FREAKIN' LIFE.
>
> Get over yourself, Kevin. I'm not about to get into a philosophical
>argument about judging people, especially on ARK,
She said, while engaging in a philosophical argument (though not a
very compelling one) about judging people.
> and most especially
>with someone like you.
Someone like me? Careful, Stacia. I do believe you're just a smidgen
away from judging someone. But you don't do that sort of thing, right?
>The fact that you then name some ARKers of
>various stripes and judge them to "prove" what you said just makes you
>even creepier than I already thought you were. Yeah, it could be a
>troll, but your trolls are always the "some truth in the jest" kind of
>trolls anyway.
You simply cannot get beyond your knee-jerk reaction to the word
"judge," can you? As I said to Kibo elsewhere, there are any number of
judgments I might make about people, even about a particular person,
ranging all the way from negative to indifferent to positive. Yet you
immediately assume that all of my judgments would be negative and
further imply that only negative assessments could ever arise from the
reprehensible practice of judging.
Would you have felt differently if I had said, "it's called
discernment, discrimination, and taste. It's what enables one to
conclude that Stacia is often very funny, that Kibo is a real schmart
guy, and that oTTo would make a wicked-cool older brother"?
I doubt it. You had already decided that I judge people, and judging
people is always a Very Bad Thing, so I must therefore be creepy.
That's not just piss-poor muddy thinking, it's hypocritical. What are
you doing by calling me creepy, if not judging me?
You're judgmental every day of your life, Stacia, and I don't have to
point to your Google Mountain to prove it. Hell, the fact that you
apparently can tell when a waitress is being impolite means that you
have judged at least one aspect of that person. You could at least be
honest about things, rather than acting as if you've somehow gotten
through life without ever judging others, assessing others, or
weighing the relative merits of others.
>>> Most of life is a test of one sort or another. They are ALL graded
>>> tests, and the grades become a part of your Permanent Record.
>
> Yeah, that's a troll alright.
Um,no. The first two independent clauses are dead-serious assertions.
The last is what we in the Industry call "a joke."
<snip some stuff I didn't say>
Piss-poor, muddy thinking about judging others finds its most
pathetic, banal, and infuriating expression in the phrase "It's all
good." You can totter on down that illusory path if you like, but I
prefer to acknowledge that it ain't all good, including people.
But there I go again, being all, like, judgmental and stuff. My bad,
d00d.
Otto Bahn
> I find it amusing that the word "judge" elicits such a myopic response
> from so many people.
That this might be due to issues of low self-esteem
is an observation, not a judgment. Probably some
of the bandwagon effect too. The weird part is that
for the several controversies you've been in lately,
I can see both POV. Technically you are correct,
but why be perceived as a jerk? On the flip side,
even the geeks seem willing to troll, which is just
a different form of picking on someone.
Society is not black and white, or even shades of
grey. People both take the Usenet too seriously
and there's nothing wrong with it being important.
You're allowed. You're allowed to hate, or to post
movie reviews, or make fun of them, or chide you
for doing so. There's no One True Path (tm), only
peer pressure and bozotic regulations/laws.
Personally, I try to only be a jerk in self defense.
(I like to think I'm a better jerk than you, but that
is a tough thing to measure.) As to trolling, I think
I am doing people a favor. Better to learn from such
a nice as troll as me than to bust a vein arguing
with the nastier trolls.
Therefore I judge myself to be better than all of you.
Duck and cover,
--oTTo--
A goose is nicer than a poke
Kevin S. Wilson
<rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>In article <d9aecu$tfc$2...@news.xmission.com>,
> sta...@xmission.com (Glitter Ninja) wrote:
>
>> Rose Marie Holt <rmh...@mindspring.com> writes:
>> > Kevin S. Wilson <res...@spro.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> Yeah, that's a troll alright.
>>
>> If nothing else, the teacher could have given
>> Roger library time, or asked him if he would like to volunteer for a
>> freelance project, or something to keep him occupied.
>>
>> Stacia
>
>I decided it was a troll when he started dissin me. That is
>pathognomonic. Teh keV would never dis me.
And I don't believe I did dis you. If it came across that way, I'm
sorry; it wasn't my intent to dis you. In fact, I sat on my hands for
the longest time primarily because I didn't want to hurt your
feelings. I didn't mean to imply that your writing was undiplomatic,
tactless, and impolite; it just didn't strike me as being as
diplomatic, tactful, and polite as it could have been.
>Altho he no longer wants to
>be seen in public with me.
Not true. Invite me to your Christmas party again and I'll prove you
wrong. Better yet, want to come to a BBQ at my place?
Otto Bahn
[Snip]
I swear that last post I wrote was before I read
this one. And I might change my mind on the bigger
jerk thing, even if everything you said is pretty
much (poor) spot on.
If this thread blossoms into an (un)civil war, I'm
going to be on both sides. I'm not sure if I'll
end up shooting myself or not. It'll be fun though.
Plus, I'll be able to trade tobacco and food with
myself.
> >>> Most of life is a test of one sort or another. They are ALL graded
> >>> tests, and the grades become a part of your Permanent Record.
> >
> > Yeah, that's a troll alright.
>
> Um,no. The first two independent clauses are dead-serious assertions.
^^^^^^^^^^
IBYM: "Simile". I ain't takin' no stinkin' test.
> The last is what we in the Industry call "a joke."
Is there a word for a joke with a serious point?
Change that to "Semi-Permanent" and it is (poor)
spot on.
"Kevin S. Wilson" <res...@spro.net> also wrote
> >I decided it was a troll when he started dissin me. That is
> >pathognomonic. Teh keV would never dis me.
>
> And I don't believe I did dis you. If it came across that way, I'm
> sorry; it wasn't my intent to dis you.
Back when I was in APA's I learned that my writing style,
while appreciated, was coming across a lot meener/tougher
than I intended[1]. Sometimes that means you might want
to soften things up, and sometimes it means the other
people should just deal with it. [Shrug[2]]
1. It helps when half of the group lives in the same town
and parties together a lot.
2. The "Shrug" in "[Shrug]" should only be followed by an
exclamation point if you are trying to ham it up.
--oTTo--
Mark Edwards
[snips]
>...act of judging people is a social transgression just slightly
>north of
>public masturbation...
Waitaminute! Public masturbation is bad? Even in the stacks?
Guess it's back to peeing on the books then <heavy sigh/>.
James Kibo Parry
> >
> > Kevin S. Wilson (res...@spro.net) wrote:
> > >
> > > I have some sad, sad news for you, Stacia. Brace yourself.
> > >
> > > YOU ARE BEING GRADED (JUDGED) BY NEARLY EVERYONE AROUND YOU NEARLY
> > > EVERY MINUTE OF YOUR FREAKIN' LIFE.
> >
> > Nuh-uh. For instance, Kevin, I'm not judging you right now.
> > I completed my assessment a long time ago.
>
> from so many people. If I say, unabashedly and without apology, that I
> judge people all the time, then surely I must mean that I form
> negative opinions about people all the time, for surely there can't be
> any other manner in which one might judge people. No, to judge is to
> be judgmental, and everyone knows that being judgmental is a Very Bad
> Thing Indeed (tm).
Really? I find it amusing that pushing hot-buttons invariably elicits
a lengthy, predictable response from one person who never gets tired
of whining that we don't respect his opinions more than our own
because he is, after all, a Technical Writer In Initial Caps.
> Judging (oops!) from the response of far too many people, it is
> apparently impossible to judge someone positively, simply because the
> act of judging people is a social transgression just slightly north of
> public masturbation or being a used-car salesman. If such people are
> to be believed, it is impossible for me to arrive at a positive
> judgment, such as that . . . oh, I dunno . . . Kibo is a real schmart
> guy.
See, if you spend your time worrying about how smart I am, then
you're an idiot.
> [...]
>
> PS: When I describe myself as A Guy Who Is Paid to Draw Upon His
> Experience, Expertise, and Knowledge to Assess the Performance of
> Others, I am in no way suggesting that I'm "better than everyone
> else."
No, it's when you say you're NOT suggesting that you're better than
everyone else that you're acting better than everyone else.
After all, I _know_ I'm better than you, so if you're bragging
about not having that character flaw, it just proves that you do.
> I'm simply acknowledging an undeniable fact: As a teacher,
> that's part of what I get paid to do. Sadly, you've either overlooked
> or chosen to ignore the fact that my assessment of others often
> involves fulsome praise, letters of recommendation, nominations for
> honors, and high grades.
Yeah, and NOBODY else here on the entire Internet has ever been PAID.
You must live in a BIIIIIIG house! With a toilet and everything!
> But I gotta stop doing that. Wouldn't want to be thought of as
> judgmental.
You can keep thinking of me as "a real schmart guy" at least until
you realize I'm never going to pay you. Too bad, too, because being
paid to do something is what makes someone's opinions right.
-- K.
So why DID you
make Paula's
daughter cry?
Jeremy D. Impson
> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 19:56:23 -0400, ki...@world.std.com (James "Kibo"
> Parry) wrote:
>
>> Kevin S. Wilson (res...@spro.net) wrote:
>>>
>>> I have some sad, sad news for you, Stacia. Brace yourself.
>>>
>>> YOU ARE BEING GRADED (JUDGED) BY NEARLY EVERYONE AROUND YOU NEARLY
>>> EVERY MINUTE OF YOUR FREAKIN' LIFE.
>>
>> Nuh-uh. For instance, Kevin, I'm not judging you right now.
>> I completed my assessment a long time ago.
>
> Uh-huh. Don't forget to put a cover sheet on the TSP report when you
> get around to filing it.
That's "TPS report", moran.
TeaLady (Mari C.)
news:qdqhb1h00s9ljbf4k...@4ax.com:
> On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 02:24:35 GMT, Rose Marie Holt
> <rmh...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>>I am so f*kkin frustrated!!!!!!!!
>
> Tonight my fourth grader is in tears. Every hour she
> breaks out sobbing all over again. Her teacher decided to
> have all the kids make posters about what they had learned
> in math this year. They were to be judged on how much math
> was on the poster as well as creativity, but mostly the
> math since that was supposed to be the point. Then she let
> the kids vote on who won the competition. That's kind of
> bad when of course kids that age vote more for their
> friends and the cool skull and crossbones poster than
> whether it has much to do with having learned any math.
> But then she has the brilliant idea of telling every kid
> how many votes they got on their poster instead of just
> announcing the winners and getting it over with. My
> daughter got zero votes because she thought it was selfish
> and dishonest to vote hers as the best when she really
> thought another one was best. This was announced to the
> whole class. Then the winner was given 50 points and
> everyone else was given zero points anyway, so there really
> was absolutely no point in saying just how few votes any
> particular poster got. Was this a lesson in math or
> humiliation? The winner was the skull and crossbones with
> flames and only one math problem in the middle, because
> almost all the boys in the class voted for it.
>
That is just mean. Just plain old unnecessary mean. Any
teacher who pulls that sort of stupidity deserves to be fired
and banned from teaching, period.
Damn.
--
TeaLady (mari)
Sunshine is not conducive to the efficient work environment.
Therefore all access to the outdoors shall be limited to those
persons who perform non-productive tasks, and managers.
Dave Brown
> I was in 2 schmart kids programs. The cool one was for those
> schmart kids who were so bored they stopped participating.
> Then the system made it a private club for A students. Suck.
The schmart kids' program in my high school was run by a guy who
had Actual Genuine Clue, and so there were a number of ways of
getting in.
The first way was to have a super-duper high IQ, as demonstrated
by some trustworthy IQ test (stop laughing in back), thereby
qualifying you to be in the schmart kids' program.
The second way was to have super-dooper ace grades all the way
through school, demonstrating that you were an official schmart
kid, qualifying you for the program.
The third way to get in wasn't so involved: you asked to be in the
schmart kids' program, they let you in.
You would be *astounded* at the absurd number of kids to whom this
had never occurred. The amount of bitterness at the kids who
learned that I'd gotten in not by taking complicated IQ tests or
by having ace grades, but simply by saying "is it okay if I join
the schmart kids?" was endlessly amusing.
In twelfth grade, they had the brilliant idea of combining the
Officially Schmart kids and the Officially Dumb kids, to the
enormous benefit of both groups. (I think that, for the
Officially Dumb kids; many of whom were, amazingly, from the
low-status racial group; it was the first time anyone had treated
them as if they had working branes.)
When I grow up and have kids, I want them to go the kind of high
school I went to. No doubt such things will have been thoroughly
stamped out by the time that happens, though.
--Dave
--
"The liter is derived from this as 1 liter = 10^-3 m^3, permanently and by
definition. As opposed to, for example, the barn, which is 10^-28 m^2, also by
definition, but forbidden from use. Why anybody wanted to build such small
barns even when they were allowed to, I don't know." -- Maarten Wiltink
Dave Brown
> contest. Whose shop teacher had the fewest fingers? The winner
> will receive a lifetime supply of little coal scoops made from
> galvanized sheet metal.
There was a shop teacher whose classes I never took for some
reason, who had a hook for a hand.
Instead I had an electronics teacher who had managed to grind his
teeth down to itty bitty little tiny stubs, probably as a direct
result of spending his life dealing with 15-year-olds who wanted
to make an amplifier that was LOUD DAMMIT and weren't quite so
interested in such subtle things as whether it actually reproduces
anything resembling the signal that went into it. 150dB of
pure feedback, why, that would suit 'em just fine. WHAT'S THAT
YOU SAY?
--Dave
--
"I'm not half-bad looking. I think that's cool. But I don't
think anyone would really be interested in me just from, you know,
a visual image."
-- Vanessa-Mae Nicholson, violin player (cough)
Dave Brown
> composes piano pieces "Mom when can I have the computer? I need to use
> Finale (notation software)" "After I am through jacking away my life on
> ark! And clean your room!"
Have you considered getting him his own computer?
WARNING: DO NOT GET HIM ONE WITH ONE OF THOSE "DO-IT-YOURSELF"
OPERATING SYSTEMS, LIKE LINUX. HE'LL ONLY GROW UP TO BE A
SYSADMIN. AND YOU WOULDN'T WANT THAT, WOULD YOU?
Get him a Mac instead. That'll teach him the value of obedience,
and doing things exactly the way that Steve Jobs wants him to do
them.
--Dave
First Linux computer in 1993
Now a professional sysadmin
Don't let this happen to YOUR son
--
"At this rate it'll not be so much a case of Four Horsemen as
Death, War, and all their friends in the Cavalry Charge of the
Apocalypse."
-- Dan Holdsworth