Give Me A Big Ol' YEAH

School is OUT. Time to go dream it all up again and take a nap. Uh, I mean get to CHA and work my butt off and work on the house.

I just hope that I don't end up sleeping in public places.

images from flickrstorm

Soaking it up while I can

I stayed out a little too late last night, but it was worth it.

And I had possibly the best bacon cheeseburger ever at Clover Grill.

Don't worry Mom, I didn't look like this guy this morning.

New Music

I've been raiding my roommate's music collection. Weird artist and band names, yeahuh.

Amon Tobin
Burning Airlines
Crystal Kay
Do Make Say Think
Dragon Ash
Failure
Grandaddy
Meat Beat Manifesto
Mouse on Mars
orange pekoe
Sneaker Pimps

Maybe I'm a real life sneaker pimp.

So Extremely Damn True

"Only a few years ago, on the night of Bush’s victory in 2004, the conservative movement seemed indomitable... Conservatives knew how to win elections; however, they turned out not to be very interested in governing."

Hit up The New Yorker for the full article. Even if you think I've just committed fairly ultimate political heresy. It might be good for you.

American Airlines announces bag fees

WHAT THE FAT. $15 for a bag and $25 for an extra bag.

American Airlines, hit hard by escalating fuel prices, said Wednesday passengers will be hit with fees to check any bag, starting with tickets purchased after June 15.

American and its American Eagle subsidiary will also trim their fleets, cut their flight schedules and lay off workers in the coming months.

Read the full report here.

Is it passion or athlete's foot?

Ok, now you're putting down the book that is not a book. It's a Reader's Digest condensation of literature, which is like drinking orange juice made from concentrate. It has no pulp. The key vitamins have been processed out. You're pressing your head against his shoulder. I can see your toes move inside your pink socks on the coffee table. What's with this toe movement? Is it passion or athlete's foot? There is some kind of serious itch there.

--David Klass

now i know what's been wrong with me all year.

They say that even one night of sleep deprivation leads to power failure in da brain.

image from flickrstorm and Out Came the Sun

What movies would you show to an 8th grade class?

I'm taking suggestions.

Someone who is filled with ideas, concepts, opinions and convictions cannot show hospitality. There is no inner space to listen, no openness to discover the gift of the other. It is not difficult to see that those who “know it all” can kill a conversation. Poverty of mind as a missional stance is a growing willingness to recognize the vast mystery of life.

To prepare ourselves for mission we have to maintain an articulate not knowing, a docta ignorantia, a learned ignorance. This is very difficult to accept for people whose whole attitude is toward mastering and controlling the world. We all want to be educated so we can make things work according to our own need. But training for mission is training not to master God but to be formed by Him.

--Henri Nouwen

I wish I could use a pressure washer on my classroom walls.

It's kind of over

The eighth graders finished today. I still have to go to work and 7th, 9th, 10th, and 11th graders still have to go to school until the end of May. But much weight and stress and craziness is gone. Today I felt like the mounted cops on Bourbon Street at 12:01 am on Ash Wednesday, since I was walking through the halls proclaiming and commanding: "Eighth grade is over, now GO HOME."

I have said the funniest things this year

"Get down and don't shake your booty ON THE TABLE. If you're gonna shake your booty, shake it ON THE FLOOR."

I might miss 'em a little bit

Cupcakes

How do you deal with making 120 cupcakes in 24 hours? Rum and coke.

So how did the kids react when I brought them cupcakes today? "Maybe Mr. Hardie put something in these." "No, he didn't, he ATE ONE!"

When you get to the end of baking that many little cake things you don't even want to lick the mixing bowl, even if there is extra CHOCOLATE batter. Though it would have been kind of nice to have someone grab the bowl out of my hand and shout, "Since I have been deprived of your company while you've been baking for those little wretches, this is MINE!"

By the way, if you make 5 batches of cupcakes you can get away with using 4 tublets of frosting. I chose 2 cream cheese, 1 strawberry, and 1 chocolate.

Annie (the other Annie, not the sun will come up tomorrow one)

I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea of the power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flare; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may walk someday and take offense; or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return.

Annie Dillard

My girl

is going on tour again. I just have to figure out how to see her, since she's not coming to NOLA...

Bell to Bell?

We're constantly urged to teach bell to bell.

I have trouble dealing with that expectation. When 4H kids get pulled out of first block with no warning. When the teacher appreciation donut cart pulls up outside my door during class. When I am asked to sign special ed documents during second block.

What the heck.

Oh, and the male student bathrooms have been out of tp for about a month now.

However, my 8th graders will be done with classes on Monday. Then they have two days of testing and they're DONE. I still have to go to work, but I don't have to teach. I have almost made it.

Heart

I love google documents. Especially since I can't find the word processing software on my work-issued laptop.

I love it when she sings

Do Hard Things

This book, and these guys, have a point. I teach 8th grade, and one of the hardest things to watch/see/endure are the students who consistently choose to not do their work, who choose to not pay attention (not that I have brilliant things to say), who choose to check out of the current moment because they would rather be video gaming or myspacing or smoking up or drinking. It's pretty awful to see kids waste their time in my class, not because it hurts my professional feelings, but because they are learning to hold back, not use their brains, not think, not do something that they can because they don't want to or because they've learned that they don't have to.

Somehow my students have learned, erroneously, that the standardized test is more important than passing 8th grade English. A lot of them were passing time before that test and now more of them have checked out. And somehow hey didn't "get" that if they passed my class, they would pass the test.

There are some students that are motivated to do well, and God bless 'em, they do their best to ignore the clowning and cutting up.

Alex and Brett are all about challenging teenagers. They write to instigate a teenage rebellion against low expectations and they have some good things to say.

"Where expectations are high, we tend to rise to meet them. Where expectations are low, we tend to drop to meet them. And yet this is the exact opposite of what we're told to do in 1 Corinthians 14:20: 'Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.' Our culture says, 'Be mature in evil, but in your thinking and behavior be childish.' Of course, sometimes we like being able to do things we know we shouldn't do--or getting away with less than our best. We excuse our choices because that's what teens are supposed to do or by thinking, Well, I'm not as bad as some people I know. We go with the crowd. We do what comes easily: we certainly don't do hard things."

The authors coin a term--rebellution. They constantly use it to refer to the movement they see in teenagers to stop drifting through their young years and start "doing hard things." The term gets on my nerves. I'm not sure if it's because I'm an English teacher and I think you shouldn't go messing with the actual words of the English language or because it seems slick.

The book is OK, and I wish it had been great While they want to challenge teenagers, the book itself is not challenging. Like a lot of books I've seen in the genre of Christian self-improvement, you could speed through it in about an hour. Their "hard things" seem pretty simple. Maybe our pretty insulated Christian culture has classified hard things as impossible, and the really difficult things just take a little effort. Looks like we're still waiting for real challenge. Maybe all of us, older and younger, need to get out of our current head spaces and get about the business of challenging ourselves and changing our own expectations.

I'd love to think that another book would change Christian culture. But I don't think that another book that doesn't really make us think will change our thinking.

About the authors: Alex and Brett Harris founded TheRebelution.com in August 2005 and today at age 19 are the most popular Christian teen writers on the Web. The twins are frequent contributors to Focus on the Family’s Boundless webzine, serve as the main speakers for the Rebelution Tour conferences, and have been featured in WORLD magazine, Breakaway, The Old Schoolhouse, and the New York Daily News. Sons of homeschool pioneer Gregg Harris and younger brothers of best-selling author Joshua Harris (I Kissed Dating Goodbye), Alex and Brett live near Portland, Oregon.

Student Quote of the Day

"Mr. Hardie, you're skinny."

"Is that a compliment?"

"No, it ISN'T!"

Student Quote of the Day

"I'll start with the ugly words."

Teacher Bites Student

I'm trying to imagine how it could come to this. How embarrassing.

Just so you know

Mr. Hardie does not have a hole punch. Even if you ask him four times he will still not have a hole punch. If he did have a hole punch he would not let you use it on your ID made of very sturdy plastic.

Mr. Hardie will not turn the lights out in his classroom without windows during movies.

Mr. Hardie loves movies, so he does show them when he can work them into his lesson plans.

Mr. Hardie doesn't talk about individual students to other students or about classes to other classes. That's why he doesn't respond to your accusations of favoritism.

Mr. Hardie will not talk to you about your grades while he is talking to the class.

Mr. Hardie will be happy to talk to you about your grades after class, during lunch, or during individual work.

Mr. Hardie wonders why some students are suddenly concerned about their grades at the end of the year.

Come Volunteer

"So much good is coming out of all of this," added Jeanne Elizardi, as we drove around looking at the building projects. "We just hope people don't forget that we still need everyone's help."

Alright people, it's going to take more than ribbons

More than two million children worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS in 2007, according to a joint report released Thursday by UNICEF, UNAIDS and the World Health Organization, Reuters reports (Worsnip, Reuters, 4/3).

According to the report -- titled "Children and AIDS" -- most children living with HIV/AIDS acquired the virus through mother-to-child transmission. The report also found that 290,000 children under age 15 died last year of AIDS-related causes and that 12.1 million children in sub-Saharan Africa lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS (AFP/France 24, 4/3). In addition, the report found that young people ages 15 to 24 account for 40% of new HIV cases among people older than 15 (Deen, IPS/AllAfrica.com, 4/4).

"Today's children and young people have never known a world free of AIDS," UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman said, adding, "Children must be at the heart of the global AIDS agenda." Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, said "Much more needs to be done to prevent HIV amongst young people and adolescents if we are to make a major change in the direction of the epidemic" (IPS/AllAfrica.com, 4/4). Kevin DeCock, director of HIV/AIDS programs at WHO, added that "health systems and their most precious component, the health care work force, must be strengthened" to address HIV/AIDS in children (AFP/France 24, 4/3).

You can read more here and find a link to the entire report here.