The Two Minute History Lesson

For those who don't like to spend the time to read...

"Our History in 2 minutes"

Substitute Teacher - FAQ

Someone suggested that I needed a "frequently asked questions" section so...

FAQ's - Elementary School

"Do we have too?"

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

"What time is it?"

"Is it time for recess?"

"When's lunch?"

"Can we have P.E. today?"

"What do we do when we're done?"

...and this is just from today's 4th grade class.

(feel free to add your contribution(s) to this list in the comments section)

Planet Earth...

 After a long day at school, it's nice to find something to relax with...

It's official - School Year 2012-13

The new school year started last week and I was able to pick up a half day in a 3rd grade classroom on Monday and a two day, 5th grade assignment for Thursday and Friday.  

The two days with the 5th graders was just average. Constant requests to "watch a movie" (not on the lesson plan) and requests for when they get P.E. (also not on the lesson plan). The best part of this assignment was the Hawaiian shortbread cookies and chilled Diet Pepsi the teacher left for me (That was on the lesson plan!).

I needed the caffeine.

The 28 newly minted 3rd graders on the other hand, couldn't have been more fun. One boy surprised me with his problem solving math skills.

The worksheet question was: How many teddy bears are there in the picture?

While all the other kids started counting, he called out "13" without apparently counting. I asked how he came up with the correct answer so quickly.

"It's easy! There are three rows of four bears and one extra. Three times four is twelve and one extra makes 13"

I not sure at what grade they start teaching multiplication facts, but I'm pretty sure this kid is ahead of the curve.

I Don't Upgrade Often...

I don’t crave the newest "whatever" when the next "better" one comes out.

I’ve been operating the last nine years on a state of the art desktop PC built in 2003. Yes sir! An Intel Pentium 4 processor, 1Gb of memory and a 120Gb of disk space should be all I’ll ever need.

While it has been pretty much trouble free and is still operating, the disk is kinda full. Full of what I can’t imagine. It’s probably all those photos, blog posts and ten years of M/S Windows upgrade files.

While it was blistering fast in 2003, it’s painfully plodding in 2012.

Most times, I can’t operate Quicken AND a web browser window at the same time as it sometimes takes 2-3 MINUTES to actually switch from one program to the other as the disk activity light churns continuously. Online videos stumble and pause, making a 2 minute video stretch to a 10 minute, unintelligible feature film.

So it’s time to retire the old man and upgrade to something bigger, faster and more up to date. I ordered a new PC with an Intel i7 core processor, 2Tb HD and 16Gb of memory.

That’s 6x more processor(s) power, 20x more disk space and 16x more memory than the old man has and yet…

And...today I ran across this breaking development that appears to obsolete my new computer even faster that the old one:

 "...Harvard’s Wyss Institute have successfully stored 5.5 petabits of data — around 700Tb — in a single gram of DNA, smashing the previous DNA data density record by a thousand times."


(Update: 09/26/2012 - New computer up and running. Now working on how to network the "new" to the "old" so I can retrieve documents and pictures...)

The Start of School Year - 2012/13

 The 2012/13 school year began this week. I got a teacher emailed request to sub her class this Thur/Fri. 

This will be the first assignment(s) for this new school year…IF they aren’t snatched away in favor of the RIF’d teachers list.

I was told that there were some pink slipped teachers that will have priority over us part-time employees.

Crossing fingers…

Sunday update: The assignment showed up on my class list today

Substitute Summer...

Summer vacation is almost over as school starts again next week (August/15).

What does a substitute teacher DO during the summer? The school district does not as a rule hire substitute teachers to work summer school so I don’t know what a school does if a "regular" summer school teacher gets sick but I know they don’t call me.

Substitute teachers pretty much do what most of the students do during summer vacation – watch TV. Fortunately, every four years there is something to watch.

A friend sent me this earliest known photo of an Olympic "swimmer"...