anatomy of a shit-tastic day

1. slept less than 4 (nonconsecutive) hours last night
2. found out i failed my grad school project, so won't be having any more luck with PhD applications
3. there was nothing for breakfast so i ate a block of cheese and stale wheat thins
4. got two new students in the special ed class today, bumping up my class size to 12 (which, for special ed, is kind of a lot for me)
5. my students were CRAZY today (held a total of 7 students for detention, sent 2 out of the classroom)
6. the new students don't know how to add or multiply, and would prefer to ask me about my pets than learn how to find LCDs
7. one of the new students was sent to me for "taking a doo in the teacher's garbage can"
8. cold lasagna for lunch because there was nothing else to pack
9. no swimming after school because it's cold and i think i'm a little worn out already
10. tummy ache
11. it's friday and despite all the horrible work-related things, i'm still not so excited about this weekend

but good things that happened that i should remember:
1. traffic was almost non existent this morning
2. one more hour before i get to go home
3. i got Christopher and Alisha caught up on fractions (from LCDs, to simplifying, they can do it all now!)
4. my advisory class and those kids who make it seem like my class is the only one they come to school for
5. this article about Glenn Beck's "A Christmas Sweater," which i read at lunch and actually laughed out loud
6. only 2 more weeks to go before i can go back to Kentucky!

EDIT: i didn't actually fail the grad school project! hooray! the prof just make a huge error in entering grades onto blackboard. (i aced the project! all because of my editing skillz.)

here i dreamt i was an architect

spending the majority of your day among people half your age and size is an unnatural way of being. this is why our modern educational system is plagued with problems. Freire and Dewey and others have all touched on it before, but now, after 2 years of public school teaching, i'm beginning to fully understand what they mean.

seriously, think about how often you naturally or willfully come into contact with more than 3 or 4 children at a time. it typically doesn't happen because, except for at school, human children don't travel in packs. (unless, of course, they are "wilding".)

thus, i propose we do away with the education system as we know it, and revive apprenticeship! every adult in America should volunteer to adopt 2-3 children/young adults to mentor and guide into adulthood. this would more evenly distribute the adult-child interactions among the population, reduce crime, increase self-esteem among the younger species, increase general feelings of good-doingness, boost humanity's morale, in addition to solving the problems with education. that's like, a whole flock of birds with one giant boulder!

... and i once dreamt of being the next big Secretary of Education...

-stephan!e