March 15, 2008 by jmmblake.

It has been a long time since I have taken the time to attend an event like last night. I have been invited to this annual wild game cooking party, but something has always kept me from attending. When my father, 83, visited our family doctor this week he got invited again. The doctor is one of the main hosts of the event. He extended an invitation to me as well.

The weather was absolutely perfect. Cool enough so that the charcoal grilled venison steaks, grilled air-dried country sausage, (real) buffalo chilly, fried catfish, herb broiled quail, Eastern North Carolina chopped pork barbecue, baked yams, and my favorite- original recipe seafood gumbo. It was truly a feast to behold. The food was prepared by local businesses that sell products to farmers and landowners in our area. For example, the seafood gumbo was provided by a famous cabinet and construction company from Whiteville. I have know the owners since high school some 34 or so years. Mike, one of the owners of the cabinet shop, flew out to the mid west and killed the buffalo. He purchased a custom built rifle just for the hunt. If Mike had to put a price on the kettle full of buffalo chilly, he would have had to charge $1,000 per plate to come close to breaking even. Everyone was crazy about the gumbo. I noticed a local independent restaurant owner critiquing the steaming hot bowl of gumbo. I overheard him comment that he knew that a pot that large had to have cost over six hundred dollars to prepare. I immediately got another bowl full. Peanut butter sandwiches inhaled in my ten minutes of lunch time pales in comparison to the wild game cooked to perfection I eat Friday night.

As for those present, I will not try to list those that in attendance. However, I only saw two other teachers there. One was my future son-in-law. The other was a coach that is an avid outdoorsman. I did see a retired high school coach in the crowd. It was a real who’s who of movers and shakers from our rural county. Our NC State Senator made a brief appearance, As did our current Sheriff and several NC Highway Patrolmen, some off duty and some on-duty. Those on-duty officers eat and ran. They probably stopped to ask that we move all those four wheel drive pickup trucks off the shoulder of the road. I parked very close to the food so my father did not have to walk far.

The best part of the evening was shaking hands and getting caught up with all my old friends. I chatted with people I had not seen in 15 years. It was like a homecoming. The funny thing is that none of the men there has a blog, none of them have a wiki, none of them could tell you the difference between Facebook or MySpace. I would be willing to bet that less than 5 of them use email. Yet, they all are making a living, have sent kids to college, could buy and sell most any thing they want, and hunted everywhere in the world, have boats, lake front, river front, or beach or mountain vacation homes. Technology is not part of their lives. Sure they have cell phones so their kids and wives and keep up with them. I did not see a single one of them with a cell phone stuck in their ear. The doctors there left their pagers/cell phones at home. The judges walking around with plates of catfish and cups full of their favorite beverage, could care less about answering text messages or if iPhones will have push email in July.

Social networking still is all about face to face personal contact. I am not going to miss another one of those events. It has been too long since I have been to a pig picking/wild game cooking. Blogging compared to wild game cook offs are a waste of my time. No one reads what I blog anyway. Who cares what a small town school teacher has to say.

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February 17, 2008 by jmmblake.

News and Observer staff writer Steve Ford wrote a great piece about Wake County Schools, in North Carolina.

What Steve tip toes around is the fact that “money is the root of all evil.”

Those new rich transplants lured into the Triangle by the promise of a “chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage” are finding out that lots of different folks are attracted by the glitter of gold.

It’s all about the money! 

As for what Steve says about keeping Wake County School united, I think I would offer IMHO: United– Wake County (Schools) will stand; Divided– it will still stand.

Not that I have a dog in this fight between “Carywood” and “Raleighwood”, but “divorce” of the school districts sounds like it is around the corner. Heck, if they want to spend a few million on building a central office facility, hiring curriculum directors, and maintenance staff,  vehicles, computers, servers, copiers, telephones, cell phones, paying for an international search for a qualified superintendent and on and on well let them spend their money.

Cary’s mayor, Harold Weinbrecht, has stepped up to advise his constituents that firing on Fort Sumter, so to speak, would not be the smartest thing in the world. Not because Sheriff Donnie Harrison would have to send in his deputies to quash the rebellion, but because setting up an independent Cary school system would be so doggone expensive.

Whatever! This school system would not cost as much as a meal at Herons or a stay at The Umstead.

When parents start whining about “leaving a school” or even the entire district, charter schools and private schools get their admissions forms photocopied and placed on the front desk. It’s going to be a boom private school enrollment.

If they do not like the schools, maybe the disguntled parents would rather move to a more rural part of our state commute. What about considering a move to Virginia and commuting.

I would like to let them try to tell our school board what to do. It would be on like Donkey Kong. I could here it now. Our school board members would tell them that they do not care how they did it where they came from.

Does the term “carpetbaggers” strike a familiar note here?

Since 1900 the term has also been used to describe outsiders attempting to gain political office or economic advantage, especially in areas (thematically or geographically) to which they previously had no connection. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetbagger

I do not feel sorry for the whiners in Cary, who don’t want their precious children to have to sit in a desk next to a child from another cast.

All I can say is where is Dr. Martin Luther King when the disenfranchised families of Wake need him?

Shame on ya’ll!

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February 10, 2008 by jmmblake.

I have always heard that eating too late in the evening can lead to nightmares. Is it true?

The other evening, my wife and I enjoyed a wonderful meal together at San Jose, one of our famous Mexican restaurant. San Jose is in Whiteville, North Carolina. It is located about 18 miles from our home. It is near Wally-World and Hibbetts Sporting Goods which we like to walk through after eating. The walk usually helps our meal digest. This dream may not have been the product of the meal, but it was weird.

In my dream, I had ordered a science kit to use with my students. One of those kits that come with everything we need. The kit arrived and my students were working on another project. Instead of using the kit, I put it way to later. My dream was interrupted by my dog jumping on my head and licking my ear. He does this when my snoring is so loud he can not sleep. I rolled over and fell back asleep.

When the dream resumed, some time had passed and I had pulled out the science kit. Students gathered around the box. It was a black box with handles. As the box opened, a plant-like puppet came out of the box. It was like the plant creature in some play I watched years ago- I think they called the man-eating plant–Seymour. Well, as the students participated in the activity, I noticed a packing slip that had written in bold print: “OPEN KIT IMMEDIATELY, CONTENTS ARE…I could not make out the rest of the notice. But in my horror, I realized that the kit had a human-like being in the kit that ran the puppet. It had been in the box, locked in the cabinet. Another piece of paper appeared stating that if the kit was not opened within two days of arrival, the school would be charged a daily rate of use for the kit. […dreams of fine print? Lord, help me!]

The dream seemed to restart at a point where the bill and the overdue fee for the rental of the science kit had come due. The school board had me sitting at a table and were threatening to fire me. This woke me up!

Someone could make this into a horror short-film. Maybe this summer, I can make the time to storyboard this nightmare.

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January 16, 2008 by jmmblake.

Teaching is a challenge. Students today are engaged in a plethora of hardcore criminal behaviors. Violent behavior is just beneath the surface of every conversation.  Drugs plague our communities and spill over into the school yard. My point is that teaching is a hazardous endeavor. NEA has an interesting article online at the link below. Now in my last decade of teaching, I look at the number in the NEA article and want to throw up. Teachers are blamed for everything. Poor test scores, drop-outs, poor eating habits of fat kids, and more.

Oh well, what do we know, we are just teachers.

Check out this interesting article: Be prepared to self-medicate.

NEA: Professional Pay - Myths & Facts About Teacher Pay

MYTH: Teachers make just as much as other, comparable professions.

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December 29, 2007 by jmmblake.

This post is inspired by an article I read in a Wired Magazine, Allen, David. “Tidy Up Your Desk….” Wired Aug.2006: 022-023.

1. “Stack the Knickknacks”, well, not sure teachers have these because students do not give teachers anything these days. My desk is covered with curriculum CDs, a US/NC flag, whiteboard markers (most of them are almost dried out), a cup for pencils I find on the floor, and several coffee mugs. I guess coffee mugs would qualify as knickknacks. Pile it up until you can see the desktop
2. “Line up the books and binders to establish a perimeter for your work area.” I would not really recommend this for a classroom. Piled up books end up falling when students  try to slip late homework on your desk and then accuse you of not asking for their homework or tell their parents or guardian you lost it on your desk. Do I like do, throw the textbooks in a box and stick them in the back seat of your car. I have used the say textbook for so many years I have the answers memorized. I only use them to write lesson plans. They have the Standard Course of Study numbers our school district requires on lesson plans so they can fire teachers that have poor test scores by saying we are not teaching the curriculum.
3. “Hit the Container Store.” Container Store? Forget that! The only place I can afford to go to is Big Lots. I bought some cheap CD containers. They are full. I need to weed my collection. Bet I have some CDs of Apple software that will not run on Leopard. I also park my truck near the school dumpster at the beginning and end to the school year. When teachers retire or quit, I volunteer to carry their old stuff to the dumpster. If there is something like document trays or pencil holders, I just drop them in the back of my truck and keep on going.
4. “Set Aside A Few Minutes daily to clear your desk.” The Wired Magazine article suggests using your daily planner to schedule time each day to clean off your desk. Use iCal or Google Calendar to make a repeating appointment, each school day, to remind you to clean off your desk.
5. “Create A Folder Hierarchy.” The article changed describing the desk to the computer desktop. Tip: “group files into folders labeled by year, then make subfolders for each set of tasks. Make sure your naming conventions are clear and concise.” This is a problem on my Windows machine. However, I love Leopard’s new feature called Quick Look/Slideshow. This is awesome for unorganized teachers like myself. I never remember what I saved a file as. If I download a curriculum file from our State Department of Ed, they name their files differently and I never remember to rename them.
6. “Color Code Your Files.” Sweet! I am not going to do this. The article recommends using bold colors for “urgent” files.
7. “Move Your Folders.” This tip is lame. “…create a desktop shortcut pointing to current assignments.” Have you heard about Box.net? Instead of using a flashdrive, I am trying this. Shortcuts are useless if you are having to work on multiple computers at home and at school.
8. “Choose Attractive Wallpaper.” I like this tip- “if you’ve got a background worth looking at, your’re more likely to keep the desktop free of file and folder clutter.” I am doing to download some photos from Harley-Davidson for their bikes and maybe set up that “retirement date” ticker. That is worth looking at. Cheers! 

Happy New Year.

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December 23, 2007 by jmmblake.

With temperatures in the lower 70’s today and upper 60’s yesterday, fruit flies have invaded the sweet potato processing plant next door. I have sprayed Black Flag so much that my coffee tastes like bug spray. If I had the money, I would be on a cruise or in the mountains skiing. However, low teacher pay makes this only a dream.

The exact same thing- Invasion of the Fruit Flies, last year at Christmas time.

Prevention

The best way to avoid problems with fruit flies is to eliminate sources of attraction. Produce which has ripened should be eaten, discarded or refrigerated. Cracked or damaged portions of fruits and vegetables should be cut away and discarded in the event that eggs or larvae are present in the wounded area. A single rotting potato or onion forgotten at the back of a closet, or fruit juice spillage under a refrigerator can breed thousands of fruit flies. So can a recycling bin stored in the basement which is never emptied or cleaned.

People who can their own fruits and vegetables, or make wine, cider or beer should ensure that the containers are well sealed; otherwise, fruit flies will lay their eggs under the lid and the tiny larvae will enter the container upon hatching. Windows and doors should be equipped with tight-fitting (16 mesh) screens to help prevent adult fruit flies from entering from outdoors.

Eradication

Once a structure is infested with fruit flies, all potential breeding areas must be located and eliminated. Unless the breeding sites are removed or cleaned, the problem will continue no matter how often insecticides are applied to control the adults. Finding the source(s) of attraction and breeding can be very challenging and often will require much thought and persistence. Potential breeding sites which are inaccessible (e.g., garbage disposals and drains) can be inspected by taping a clear plastic food storage bag over the opening overnight. If flies are breeding in these areas, the adults will emerge and be caught in the bag.

After the source of attraction and breeding is eliminated, a pyrethrum-based, aerosol insecticide may be used to kill any remaining adult flies in the area.

simple fruit fly trap

A better approach, however, is to construct a trap by placing a paper funnel (rolled from a sheet of notebook paper) into a jar which is then baited with a few ounces of cider vinegar. Place the jar trap(s) wherever fruit flies are seen. This simple but effective trap will soon catch any remaining adult flies which can then be killed or released outdoors.

Source: http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef621.asp

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November 25, 2007 by jmmblake.

Cold drizzling rain and cloudy skies met me and our dog Gavin on the Sunday, the last day of Thanksgiving vacation. The weather ran us back into warmth of comfortable couch and my MacBook. While checking my email, I glanced at the list of articles in summarized in the New York Times. I subscribe to their daily email feeds on a few topics that that generally find interesting and thought provoking.

This morning, I read an article that warmed my heart and got me to thinking about why I teach. Let me just say, it is complicated. This article has a great phrase that I plan to steal: ‘crackjack’.

Let’s ask the question: Is Your (our) school- crackjack? If not, then why.

The New York Times: Reference Search for ‘crackerjack’

crackerjack
Jump to:
Dictionary| Thesaurus| WordNet
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Dictionary

crack·er·jack (krăk’ər-jăk’) pronunciation also crack·a·jack (krăk’ə-)
adj. Slang.

Of excellent quality or ability; fine.

[Probably from CRACK, first-rate + JACK.]
crackerjack crack’er·jack’ n.

logo The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. See crackerjack on Answers.com

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November 18, 2007 by jmmblake.

School take a bad rap when it comes to fat kids and teachers like me. I eat school cafeteria food Monday-Friday during the school year. Where else can anyone buy a warm meal for under $3.00 in Whiteville, NC? Fast food vendors may offer 99 cents fries or hamburger. I do not know a single teenager that can make it all day on one of those dinky tasteless cheap burgers. Add to that the cost of gasoline and school lunches are even a better deal. It is all I can do to keep from commenting out-loud when I hear students that receive “free lunches” complain about the food. If they were at “MacWendy”, they could ask for their money back. However, if it is free, why complain? The only meal I refuse to eat from the school lunch is pizza. It is always cold and never cooked enough. The kids like it doughy. Many of my students could eat pizza everyday. I have noticed this year, pizza is only available on Fridays. What a wonderful strategy.

newsobserver.com | Kids’ waistlines vs. bottom line

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November 12, 2007 by jmmblake.

The radio alarm clock and wake-up timer on my old-school TV came on as programmed precisely at 6:00 a.m.  I took the dog out in the 35ish degree morning air as he sniffed his way across the edge of the frost covered lawn. The sound of a few early travelers rushing who-knows-where was clearly audible in the cold. The trip was short- Gavin was ready to head back inside for the warmth of the couch and snuggling under my fleece jacket. Coffee would be nice about now. My wife is able to rest. She came down with a nasty cold Thursday, and has been coughing and sneezing ever since. Today, we are attending a grave side service at 1:20 p.m., and then we will be going to Wilmington to eat out. We are celebrating 30 years of marriage today. It seems like yesterday. My words just can not describe it. All the joy, excitement, ups and downs, families, friends and more.

I love my wife. It is a great day to have off so I can spend time with her.

Got to turn off this computer!

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October 8, 2007 by jmmblake.

EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference.

And it is not
a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School
2.0 conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we
want to come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the
future of schools. We are looking for people to present ideas,
facilitate conversations, and share best practice.

The Axioms / Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.0:

1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.
2) Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen
3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
5) Learning can — and must — be networked.

Call For Conversations

In
addition to the many informal conversations we believe will be a big
part of EduCon 2.0, we do want structured sessions in the following
broad strands:
School 2.0 — What are the schools we need to prepare kids for the world to come?
Classroom 2.0 — What are the classrooms our students need — today and into the future?
Student 2.0 — How should the student experience change in our schools?
Teacher 2.0 — How should the profession of “teacher” change?
Innovation 2.0 — How do we best act as agents of positive change?
Library 2.0. – What is the role of the library in the future and what does it looks like, act like, feel like?

Conference proposals are due Nov. 1st. Please submit proposals via Survey Monkey — Call for Conversations.

All proposals should include:
Title:
Conversational Strand:
Conversational Focus / Main Idea / Presentation (in 250 words or less):
Conversational Practice –
How will you make this an conversation, not just a presentation?
Skypecast? Conversational Protocols? Building a wiki together? For more
ideas, visit Stephanie Sandifer’s post on Conference 2.0 Resources or the wiki page “Protocols Examples”.
Conversation Website (Optional):
Presenter(s) Names:
Presenter(s) Afflilation:
Contact Email:

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