July 2009 Lower Family Newsletter

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Chad T. Lower

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Jul 12, 2009, 6:10:23 PM7/12/09
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So over the past month, we have had a lot of exciting stuff going on in the Lower household.
 
Susan is currently between writer's conferences.  She has been a busy woman as regards to travel.  In late June, she went to the St. David's Christan Writer's Conference in Grove City, PA and had a great time.  She has told me that she learned a lot (in fact, as she was going over one of her "old" manuscripts this week to edit it, she commented on how bad it was!!).  While at the conference, all of the attendees were allowed to enter up to 4 writing contests (there were probably close to 10 to choose from).  Suzy entered 4 and won awards in three of them!
 
Upon returning home, she had a few days off before we headed to my Aunt Kathie and Uncle Roy's house in New Jersey for my mom's family reunion (more on that later).  As I type this, Suzy is preparing for her second writer's conference which she will be attending next week in DC.  The Romance Writer's of America is having their annual conference in which Suzy has wanted to attend for several years.  This is the first year she is finally able to attend.  While at the conference, she has appointments to meet with an agent and an editor.  Part of her problems in submitting manuscripts in the past is that she did not have an agent to represent her and many publishing companies won't accept unsolicited manuscripts.  Easy to get around--just find an agent to submit for you... except most agents aren't accepting new authors.  One of the major goals of these conferences is to establish a network that she can work in towards getting published nationally.
 
Speaking of being published, Suzy has published a journal and an organizer.  When she gets back from DC, she will work on updating her organizer for the year 2010.  She wrote an organizer specifically with the needs of people with mental disorders in mind (things like depression, bi-polar, etc.)  The organizer does the same things that other organizers do--tell you dates and allow you to write down appointments--but it also allows a person to monitor their mood on a day to day basis to try to find any patterns that may be present.  In addition, at the start of every month, she has written a short, uplifting note (similar to her encouraging words on her blog http://passiton.today.com).  The organizer runs from December the year before to January the year after so there is a little overlap from year to year in case a person gets an early or late start ordering their organizer.  Although both of these works are self-published, you can buy them on Amazon.com or directly from the publisher (look for the author MRsCHADT).
 
As for our children, they are enjoying their summer.  Bella is done with summer school and was having success during her few weeks there.  I hope that this attitude will continue when she goes back to school in the fall.  Ali used the potty for the very first time this month and seems more comfortable sitting on the toilet than she did before.  Ironically, she likes to sit on the big potty than using either of the two potty chairs we have that are her size.  She has also learned how to crawl out of her crib which has made bedtime more challenging.  We are contemplating moving her to a toddler bed, but she doesn't sleep in the same spot in her crib (she rolls around more than her mom does!!) so we are not sure how she would handle the toddler bed.
 
So far, their highlight of the summer was our recent trip to NJ for my mom's family reunion (as mentioned above).  When I was a child, I remember going to visit my mom's family every Labor Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas time.  As I got older and graduated high school, I was unable to attend as often due to work or schooling.  Even after getting married and having children of my own, working retail often prevented me from attending these events.  Sometimes Suzy would take the kids and go without me; other times, she would stay home instead.
 
Now that I work at Penn College and get holidays like everyone who doesn't work retail, we have been able to attend more of these gatherings.  Because I am teaching summer school, we left Williamsport Thursday, July 2nd, after class arriving in NJ late that evening.  We stayed until Sunday afternoon although other people stayed as late as Wednesday.  Other than our first night there (where we ate dinner, visited, then went to bed), the days were relaxing and almost identical.
 
We woke up.  The kids asked if they could get in the pool.  We told them not until after breakfast.  So they ate breakfast and got in the pool with their cousins.  They splashed and played having a good time until we made them get out for lunch.  Immediately after lunch was over, they got back into the pool where they played some more until it was dinnertime.  When they came out for dinner, they were done with the pool for the day.  After an exhausting day in the pool, they slept well (except Ali, who kept crawling out of her Pack `n' Play and refused to go to sleep).  The next morning, they woke and repeated the process.  In the pool all day except for when they were eating lunch.  I'm sure if they had their way, they would have ate lunch in the pool!!
 
As for me, summer school started June 16 for my first class and Jun 23 for my second class.  Both classes meet Monday though Thursday until August 6 (the first is 8 weeks long, the second is 7 weeks long).  In a nutshell, we cover two lessons a day and assign homework on two lessons a day.  Each class is a developmental class and one of the perks we offer for developmental students is that the have an opportunity to retake each test if they don't do well on it the first time.  Since there are 5 units, there are 5 tests and 5 retests along with a final exam which means they are to be testes up to 11 times during this 7/8 week class.  Of course, that also means I will be grading 11 tests (times two classes) this summer as well.
 
In addition to teaching math, I am still teaching Motorcycle Safety.  This weekend was the first day on motorcycles for my current class.  (There are two classroom days and two range (on motorcycle) days).  Not only do I have 22 students to train, I also have an intern who just finished training to be a RiderCoach (MSF Instructor).  If he has a successful internship, then he will be able to teach these classes on his own.  His name is Steve and he recently got a job in Virginia teaching, but has family in PA so will come back in the summer to teach these classes.  To become a RiderCoach, (after applying and being interviewed) you must train for 75 hours then do a 25 hour internship for a total of 100 hours.  There is a $100 fee to cover books and materials, but if you successfully make it to your internship, the internship is paid and you earn $530 which more than covers the cost of training.
 
Speaking of motrcycles, Suzy is not the only one who has attended a conference this summer.  June 10-12 (right before summer school started), I rode my motorcycle to Cape Cod for an AMATYC (American Mathematics Association of Two-Year Colleges) Summer Workshop.  The ride was long, but fun with good weather for most of it.  Some of you may remember the Iron Butt ride I did a few years ago (1000 miles in 24 hours or less).  This wasn't nearly as far or as long, but I employed some of the same startegies when preparing for this trip.  I was able to learn a lot, some of which I have already used in my summer classes.  The biggest perk of the trip, though, was being able to watch the Red Sox on TV every night!  I have been a Red Sox fan since 1986, but since we only have rabbit ears and the Red Sox are so far away, I don't get to watch them that often.  Fortunately for me, they won all the games that I saw, but one was an extra innings game (13) which made for an early morning the next day.
 
For a writing update, Suzy and I are still writing for eHow.  Again, all of her articles can be found at
http://www.ehow.com/members/mrschadt-articles.html.  Her popular ones from this month are:
 
With not teaching the first half of June, I was busy writing myself:
 
I even took some time this past month to update my website (http://chadtlower.tripod.com), something I haven't done since 2007.  Realize that not everything has been updated yet (for example, look at the picture of my brother http://chadtlower.tripod.com/family/todd.html).  By the way, my brother just graduated from Penn State ('Grats bro!) if anyone knows of any job openings...
 
Speaking of jobs, when I completed my Master's degree, I joined the Teach for America program and was placed in Detroit as a high school math teacher.  Although the TFA program is only 2 years, as an alumni, I still receive information on what they are doing.  In this summer's alumni magazine, they published an interview with Jon Schnur (senior advisor to the Secretary of Education).  When asked, "What do you see as some of the major challenges to executing [education reform strategies]?" he replied:
 
The first big challenge, I think, is probably public attitudes.  There are still too many people in the country who do not believe tht kids in poverty can acheive at high levels, and do not have a sense of confidence about the strategies that we can take as adults to deliver on our kid's potential.  I think challenging that set of attitudes is going to be crucial in order to make a lot of policy reforms successful.

I want to ditto his remarks, but apply them not only to education reform, but also to... well... everything!!  I think in our society today, we (generally) have a laid back, I don't care attitude.  The right attitude is crucial when trying to do anything.  Abraham Lincoln said, "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing."  Henry Ford said, "If you think you can do a thing or you can't do a thing, you're right."   Sam Walton constantly attributed his company's success to "ordinary people doing extraordinary things."
 
Since math is near and dear to my heart, if you look at numbers a few years ago, you would find that males did better than females in mathematics, but only after middle school.  A new study out now shows that males and females are scoring identically (at least at the 11th grade level)... the contributing factor that ijmproved performance?  Girls were taking more math classes in middle and high school then before.  Yet, the "stereotype" is still out there and going strong.  I overheard a female in one of my classes talking about a conversation she had with her mom.  She told her mom she wasn't doing well in my class.  He mom told her, "That's okay.  I was never good at math either."  NO NO NO NO NO!!!  As Henry Ford stated, If you think you can't, you're right.  This mom (I hope unintentionally) just gave her daughter permission to stop trying.  It's not that she can't do it; she already gave up.
 
Attitude.
 
How's your?

Chad T. Lower
a.k.a. Chopper
http://chadtlower.tripod.com/

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Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others.
Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.
Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.
                              Philippians 2:3-4
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