Should teachers pay for their own lesson plans? Would teachers pay for their own lesson plans?

Even if they were only two bucks a pop?

Okay, on one hand, as teachers, we already pay for so many of our school supplies that adding another $2 to the fire here and there doesn’t seem to bother me much. (As long as the materials were of high quality.) On the other hand though, if the school site isn’t to be expected to pay for the educational resources I use in the classroom, what the heck are they paying for, the rent on the building?

Is my district just a landlord with a whole lotta goofy, bean-counting, bubble test rules? (Don’t answer that.)

Maybe I’m just employed under the barbershop model whereby I work at a station but I am required to bring my own scissors, hair gel and blow dryer in order to do my job and they’ll provide the toilet paper in the restroom, but it will be the cheap, rough kind. Free, but grainy, a devil’s compromise if ever there was one.

Sure would be nice if I knew the terms of our fiscal agreement on these matters though, wouldn’t it?

I mean really, what is my school supposed to pay for? And what should I be expected to pay for? And where is it written what is what so that there is some transparency to the process of all of this?

And how come after all these years as a teacher I still really do not know the answer to this stuff?

Is this like one of those “need to know” matters where I don’t have security clearance that’s high enough to be welcomed into the loop?

What should they buy, what should I buy and why-oh-why does the thought of all this always make me want to sigh, cry and kiss this job “goodbye”?

So people are now being sued for libel based on the content of their tweets. And while the courts are struggling to keep up with technology — and how free speech plays out in evolving social networking mediums — there is a lesson for all to be learned, I believe, in the idea that “slander is slander”.

This article raises some interesting ideas. Worth a read.

A quality line I like in the article comes from Jeffrey Toobin, the CNN Legal analyst:

“You have a robust debate on a million different subjects every day on the Internet,” he said. “But on the other hand, is that a license to damage people’s reputation with knowing falsehood?”

Worth a lesson to teach to our students, no? I mean we have so many kids that flame one another on MySpace and FB that might not see the repercussions of just sliding over to falsely torching professional businesses, business people and so forth… that’s gonna bring out the sharks, er, lawyers.

All of us need to be aware. Seems to me the safest rule in the 21rst century belongs to what mamma used to say back in the 1100′s…

“If you don’t have anything nice to tweet about someone, don’t tweet anything at all.”

Even if they are an no brain, cankerous, lying, slutty, sum bee-yatch!

BTW, you can follow me on twitter @alansitomer… to keep track of how many times I don’t take my own advice, of course.

LOL!!

So what is to be done when a student farts in class?

Hey, don’t laugh, this is a serious academic issue.

The way I see it, there are a coupla options.

1) Try to pretend it didn’t happen. Of course, if it’s stinky one, the boys sitting in and around the — let’s pretend I teach in a church — the boys sitting in and around the “pew” are gonna keep disrupting whatever progress you want to make in your lesson with commentary and insights about the aroma.

Of course, when you try to actually teach an ELA lesson on the need to use precise, descriptive, vibrant vocabulary in English class, you get papers back that lay flat and are filled with bland vanilla. But let a kid break wind and all of a sudden, the vocabulary being bandied about the room would make a lovelorn poet from the Romantic era proud of its richness and poignancy.

2) Scold the perpetrator. Now for me, this one would never work. First of all, I am still immature enough to find farts kinda funny so to actually try and castigate a kid would probably result in me cracking a smile in the middle of trying to keep a stern face. (Note: I think there is a fart joke in almost every book of young adult fiction I’ve yet written. And the new books that’ll be out next year, well… let’s just say it doesn’t look like the streak is in any danger of being broken right now.)

3) Pretend nothing actually happened and keep pressing on with the lesson. Probably the best route, when all is said and done, but meta-cognitively, an educator must know that for up to 180 seconds after student cheese-cutting, a teacher shouldn’t relay any truly valuable academic information — or else you will need to make a plan to re-teach it. After all, one good blasting of some backdoor breeze from a kid in class is enough to render even the most diligent of AP kids out of sorts for a while.

I guess the question I, as the teacher, have to really ask myself before I go down the road of condemnation for public flatulence is, to what end am I going to reprimand a student for this stuff? Am I going to send a kid to the Dean? Am I going to give the kid detention? Come on, let’s be honest, the more I keep the main subject of the classroom on student gas, the more tickled the kids are that we are 1) talking about this and 2) not talking about things like appositive phrases. I mean I have boys that would gladly engage in a 20 minute analysis on the type of wind currents able to be generated through the human digestive tract — the tone, the pitch, the pungency, the types of foods best suited to achieve optimum results — and if I were to give fart homework, I have a feeling my some of my most reluctant students would suddenly turn into verifiable scholars.

You want student engagement in the classroom? Try a Socratic Seminar on bottom blasts from the big brown horn. Guaranteed participation from all kinds of kids.

You want to teach vocabulary? Use farts. They’ll never forget the definition of turgidity again.

And not to be sexist, but how come I’ve never once had a freshman interrupt class with the declaration, “Ew, Kimberly farted!”

I get, “Ew, Michael farted!”
I get, “Ew, Joesph farted!”
I get, “Ew, both Michael and Joseph farted!”

But never the girls. Hmmm… worth more investigation.

The Conundrum of Student Farts… in my opinion, it’s an issue that needs more high level discussion.

Hmmm, will digital textbooks simply replace traditional textbooks so that the wheels of these entrenched, corporate behemoth money making machines just keep chugging right along?

Let’s look at 9th grade…

Why would I pay for Romeo and Juliet when the full text of the play is already online free of charge in more places than I can even count?

I wouldn’t.

So then schools like mine will just pay for the accompanying lesson plans, right?

Not so fast.

I mean why pay for lesson plans when there are literally a host of INCREDIBLE lesson plans already online free of charge? I mean the Royal Shakespeare Company is pretty reputable, wouldn’t ya say? And they provide SO MUCH material smoking material it feels like it would be an honor to have them help me in my class.

Then add in the resouces being provided at NCTE or the stuff I can find on websites like WebEnglishTeacher.com and I can do some pretty sweet stuff.

Okay, R&J is covered. So what about The Odyssey?

Check.

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud?

Check.

The Scarlett Ibis? The Gift of the Magi? The Lady or the Tiger?

Check. Check. Check.

And are there resources for teaching these on the web? And good ones?

CHECK!!!

And do I then get to go back to doing what the state wants me to do, teach to the standards in a way that doesn’t come from one myopic source that attempts to be one-size-fits-all but rather empowers me to PICK and choose materials as I best see them working, as most appropriate to the needs of my individual students as I professionally diagnose their academic needs?

Check.

Indeed, my school used to shop for our entire grocery budget at the textbook supermarket — but now, it’s just looks like we’ll just be taking a banana please… and it better be a darn good one in order to justify the expense otherwise… I’ll just get the rest of our groceries elsewhere.

And look at all the money I’ll have left over in my wallet for other household needs. Wow!

And so, will digital textbooks simply replace traditional textbooks so that the wheels of these entrenched, corporate behemoth money making machines just keep chugging right along?

I wouldn’t bet on it.

P.S. For a really interesting view on textbooks which Jim Burke passed along to me, check out this blog post by Seth Godin.