You cannot make up for the mistakes of the past at the cost of our future!

Teachers continue to fight in Wisconsin for quality education. We are paying attention to their efforts, meanwhile right here in North Carolina the General Assembly is considering legislation to limit teacher pay and school funding and basing pay strictly on merit and eliminating a pay schedule all together. Educators are consistently sent a contradicting message from government from "We are falling behind in education compared to nations around the world and we need to step up our efforts to improve," to "We must cut funding in schools in order to meet or to make a budget." Government "leaders" you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot cut teacher pay, school funding, eliminate teaching positions and reduce the resources available AND expect the quality of education to improve. It is an impossibility.

You cannot make up for the mistakes of the past at the cost of our future!

The students of today are the ones who will ultimately pay the price and in turn our nation will continue to fall further and further behind making it more and more difficult for the United States to compete in the global economy.

As a teacher in North Carolina, I have had my salary frozen for 2 years with the projection for it to be the same for 2 more. Yet rates of inflation continue to rise, gas prices are soaring. With the increased cuts in school and the elimination of teacher positions, my classroom (a doublewide trailer) is about bursting at the seams with students. I am unable to devote enough attention to each student to determine their needs and target their learning. And yet, if we go to a merit based system, my salary will be based on how difficult the government makes it for me to teach my students.

To all my NC friends, please pay attention to what is going on, write the state legislature, let them know that cutting teach pay and school funding is not the way to make North Carolina and the United States ready for the future. Let them know that you support education and its promise for the future. Use the link below to send a message directly to the members of the NC Senate and NC House Appropriations committees.

http://capwiz.com/nea/nc/issues/alert/?alertid=30777516&type=CU&show_alert=1

June 10, 2010: The Best Part About Summer Break...

...is the freedom! The biggest perk of the summer break, is the freedom. Realizing that you are in control of your schedule is the best part of the break. It allows teachers the opportunity to indulge in their hobbies and creative interests. This is in stark contrast to during the school year. During the school year a teacher can go on vacation or take "time for themselves," but in the back of their mind is always the nagging thoughts all teachers are concerned about: "When will I grade those papers?" "I hope no parents email me." "Did I forget some random piece of paperwork?" "Do I have a good lesson plan ready for my next day at work?" See, there is no time off for a teacher during the school year - contrary to popular belief. (Mind you, I am not saying other occupations do not provide people with concerns and worries during their downtime.) But it is very difficult to enjoy what from the outside seems to be the copious amount of "vacation/holiday" time teachers receive. During the summer the teacher gets the opportunity to, as my principal told us today, "recharge our batteries." By the end of the school year the energy level of teachers dwindles while the students' energy levels build. Imagine those days when your child is being "difficult." Multiply that by 90 children and that is what a high school teacher has to potentially deal with.

Please understand, I am not at all complaining about my job - I am sure I would receive little sympathy from anyone who works in what teachers call "the real world." I am just trying to put into perspective what people on the outside of the teaching profession may not think about. Overall, I enjoy my job, like any other jobs there is an upside and a downside. But the beauty of being a teacher is you get to live vicariously through your students. You get to recapture a tiny bit of your youth in watching and empathizing with their daily lives. With regard to this there are two types of teachers - the ones who get old quickly because they cannot tolerate the teenage behavior, and the ones who remain young by taking that energy and drinking it in like the fountain of youth. I like to consider myself a part of the latter group and it is the summer break that allows me to feel that youth while tempering it with the experience of my age. The expression "youth is wasted on the young" does not have to be true, we can choose to live life youthfully.

June 8, 2010: Summer is here...

Not officially, but summer is here in the school sense. Today was the last day with students - that is, the last day of exams. Tomorrow will be make-ups and a few retests but overall, the teaching part is over (actually it has been for almost a week). We all know how much we loved the summer as a student. We remember the little song, "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks! Kick the tables, kick the chairs, kick the teacher down the stairs!" And it sure was fun, but from the other side of the desk, the summer is SO much more gratifying! Students progress on through their high school career (with some exceptions). Teachers do the same thing over and over and unlike most professions, there is a definitive beginning and end. At the end of each school year, while we are looking forward to the relaxation and leisure of our "mini-retirement" we look back, at least for a moment, at what we could have done differently, better. It may not be until August (September in the north) that we really reflect on it by adjusting and hopefully improving our plans from last year. But the best part of the end of the school year is knowing we have the chance to do it again better next time - a clean slate. How many people can boast that about their careers?

Today, after administering the last regular administration of our Civics and Economics End-of-Course Exam I began the process cleaning up the room from the school year. All the desks and chairs are stacked neatly against the wall and all the textbooks are accounted for (at least those that were returned). Tomorrow I will spend my time putting away papers into my unit notebooks so I can find them for next year (without having to print a new copy each time). After that, I consider myself done with still Thursday and Friday to go. Graduation is tomorrow and pretty much every teacher is assigned a duty. It is held at the Raleigh Convention Center. My biggest dilemma is to leave early (as we were given permission for) to get dressed for graduation, or stay at work, get dressed there, and proceed directly to graduation. I am leaning toward choice B so I can get more work done. We'll see, but I think I will bring my clothes to change into this way I leave my options open.

Tomorrow, what I like best about being out for the summer.

April 18, 2010: Another Fast Weekend

And just like that the weekend is over. Good thing is it was pretty productive. Got a bit of yard work done as well as cleaning out the gutters on Saturday. Sunday consisted of a couple of birthday meals - Chuck's and Mercer's. Chuck's was earlier this week but we went to brunch today to celebrate. We ate at Joyce's Family Restaurant in Fuquay. It was some really good home cookin'! Good enough to rival Mama Dip's Kitchen! None of the food would be suggested to anyone looking to lose weight before the summer. Dinner was Applebee's for Mercer's birthday, which is actually today. To compensate for brunch, I decided to have a half order grilled chicken caesar salad, followed by a trip to Ben & Jerry's (oh well, there is always tomorrow).

From the Classroom

Friday, 1st period was interesting. It went smoothly from the start, but something unusual happened towards the end of the period. The class had finished taking a test and a few students who were absent the day before were taking notes from the board when I heard quite a bit of discussion and conversation outside my trailer. When I stepped outside and stood on the stoop of my trailer several students, around eight, began to scatter in all directions - not running, but walking briskly - some walking away from campus, some back onto campus, but none I was going to be able to catch neither by my chasing them or calling on the phone for an administrator. So I had to let them go. However, down the sidewalk I recognized one of my student who was talking with his mother. As it turns out, she had returned to campus to drop off a student at school, I am not sure if it was a friend of the family or a younger sibling, and saw her son, not in class. We met on the stairs and we had a pleasant conversation about her son who has a habit of not being in class and who did not do well at all last semester. The thing of it is that if he were to come to class regularly he is smart enough to easily pass the class, most likely with a grade in the 80s at least. We spoke to him encouragingly though we clearly showed our disappointment with his performance. I told him that I was there to help no matter what and that there are many opportunities to get and turn in missing work and gave all of my professional contact information to his mother. Despite having caught the student skipping class, I felt good about the situation and am confident that is the student commits to being in class, he will do well and I would work with him regarding his third quarter grade.

April 15, 2010: Tax Day

Yes, it is Tax Day, but it is a non event for us, have already received our tax returns. Our philosophy is simple, "Pay, pay, pay, and get a refund." We know we are not disciplined enough with our money to have money in savings in case we owe in taxes. Therefore we claim the least deductions possible, allow the government to take as much of our income as possible, and then settle up with us next year. In this way, we are involuntarily saving money and giving ourselves a gift each spring when the tax return checks come. Sure, I know, if we kept the money ourselves and held onto it in even a basic savings account we would collect interest on the money and technically we would have even more money when it is all said and done. But like I said earlier, if we see that money is in the bank, it won't be in the bank for long.

From the Classroom

I have been teaching at Leesville Road High School for almost 14 full years, but I know I still have a lot to learn about teaching. Just yesterday I made a couple of observations that will be pretty important in the future.

1) Students are superstitious.

My 1st period class, regular Civics and Economics, was viewing a Power Point presentation and taking notes. I offered to put the presentation online on my website - both the Power Point Show and the handout/paper version. The hope was to speed up the class by not having to spend so much time on each slide while the students all copied down the information. Mind you, although I have done this with my two honors classes this semester, I have been reluctant to do so in the regular class because I do not trust that they will actually view the presentation on their own time. But I took a chance and let them have a try. More importantly was that some of the students who were the biggest advocates for putting the presentation on line continued to write down the notes during class. So I did not save any time at all! From this I have that the students are superstitious, they will stick to their habit out of fear that if they don't do things the way they always have, that they will not do as well. I think I will change the expectations from the beginning and give them more independence from the start.

2) Some Students Need a Forum

I have student in my 2nd period honors Civics and Economics class who needs to be in the spotlight. This student has gone so far as to challenge me to a foot race (although we did not race, I am confident I would win). The class has discovered that his goal is to fill all silence in the class with words. He does not understand the idea of "meaningful silence." Every time I pause he will interject with a story or a "what if" type question. Yesterday this became painfully obvious because I needed to finish up a unit as I was giving test on the information today. True to form, every time I paused to allow the students to think on an idea or write some information down, he filled the space with a question. I learned a valuable lesson from this, do not give him an audience and he will eventually stop. For most of the semester I have enabled this behavior by entertaining most of his questions and comments (it is social studies, being social is an important skill). But out of necessity, I had no time to entertain him and so I was forced to move on and ignore him - which at times came of as though I was being rude. We did finish the lesson yesterday and had the test today. I must remember to keep the spotlight for myself.

From the Sports Desk

Last night, Fences of Cary Blue (our softball team) had a "West Coast" game - not literally, but since it started so late it felt like I was up late watching a game from the west coast. We learned that we are not an 8:45pm team, we do much better when we begin our game at 6:45pm. We lost 16-6, run ruled in the 6th inning. Overall our bats didn't come together for most of the game until the late innings, and our defense was less than spectacular. Tack on to that the fact they were good hitters that seemed to always find the holes in the field made it very difficult to get any momentum in the field. I did continue my usual contribution going 3-3 with two doubles, one single, one run batted in, and one run scored. I do take blame for some of the things that went wrong in the game. Right from the beginning, I tried to stretch a double into a triple to lead off our half of the first inning and was thrown out at third. It is the first game this season that I led off with an out. I put us out of our rhythm from the start. It is also the first game this season we did not score any runs in the first inning. I did learn a bit from the game, but I will see just how much come next week.

To see my website for my classes, visit: Caggia Social Studies. It will always be a work in progress. So far the only pages with content are under Civics & Economics.

April 13, 2010: It's Official, the Mets Suck!

Were it not for the lowly Houston Astros (0-7), the New York Mets (2-4) would boast the worst record in the National League. But do not worry Mets fans, the season is still early, they could have the worst record before you know it. Mets fans nationwide (if there ARE Mets fans nationwide) had high hopes after their 7-1 drubbing of the Marlins on opening day, but since then it has been a train wreck. Tonight, by the 3rd inning the Mets were already trailing 8-0 to the Rockies. It seems I will have not have a team to get excited for until the fall when hockey season starts up again. I would like to say I could get excited for football, but let's be realistic, I am a Browns fan, what do I have to be excited about?

Today was an average day. I gave a LOT of notes to my honors classes today. I really hate doing it, but sometimes it has to be done. Some students began to complain citing the pain in their hands as the symptom. There was not much for me to do or say, so we trudged on until we were done. I am trying to catch up, not that I am behind, but I want to keep at the pace we have been - I want to give a test on Thursday.

I have been feeling a bit "lazy" lately, although I am not sure "lazy" is the correct term. Perhaps distracted would be more accurate. The weather is beautiful and the last thing I want to be doing is working (but I am sure that is true of everyone!). I am finding myself a little behind in my planning; I am getting to work needing copies for that day. Pretty much all year I have been doing well keeping ahead of my planning by turning copies in well in advance. I would like to get back to that and I think I will be able to after this up coming test.

I have also been having a difficult time exhibiting the will power to stay away from snacks at home. I am enjoying the taste of cookies and sweets of late and I really would like to lay off of them so that I can lose the rest of the weight I have set for my goal - ~15 more pounds to get to 160 lbs. I will continue to be more active with softball and getting in a few workouts here and there at the gym, but the will power just isn't where it needs to be. I need a little something to push me over the edge back to the level of dedication I had last year around this time. Maybe if I put on a bathing suit from last summer I may find the the incentive I need.

April 12, 2010: Crazy turn lanes!

I didn't realize it had been since Wednesday that I posted! I knew I took off for the weekend but forgot I hadn't posted at the end of the week either! Oh well, here we go.

So the Town of Cary comes up with a brilliant idea that violates rule #1: "If it's not broke, don't fix it." (Actually, Rule #1 in my class is "Read the Directions", so this is a later rule). Well apparently Cary thought it had a better idea than your usual turn arrows. It now has a crazy plan with a strange blinking yellow arrow. When the light for the oncoming traffic turns green, the turn lane will show a blinking yellow even if your side of the road remains red. It is the stupidest thing I ever saw. So now, when you get a blinking yellow, you don't really know what you are supposed to do... Do you wait because your traffic has a red, do you go because your light changed? The correct answer is choice 'c', take your chances and good luck! I saw an accident Saturday because the light turned blinking yellow and a car turned while the oncoming traffic turned green. This could easily have been avoided if the town had simply LEFT THINGS ALONE!

The weekend rolled by way too quickly. Before I knew it I was getting ready for school this morning. At least I like my classes this semester, but still getting up at 5am and being at work before 7am just seems unholy. We are rolling through the branches of government and will be testing on executive and judicial branches by the end of the week. The problem is, I am not sure what to do between now and the test. Do I bore them to death and just give them worksheets? Or should I try to be creative after years of having my creativity stifled by apathetic and unmotivated students? I am trying a few things differently; my honors class emailed their assignment to me this weekend, it was due by 7:25am this morning to my inbox! It was a current event project of sorts and I think it went over well. I will figure out how successful it was once I grade everyone's work. I have now assigned a timeline project for the President's cabinet. This is due next Monday, it is to be a poster so no email this time.

Evan and Michelle went to Wrightsville Beach for the day. They seemed to have a nice time but Michelle did not put sun block on in time and now looks like a lobster. One day she will learn, but I doubt it.

Another softball game today. We won again, this time 11-6. We are now 3-0 and in first place! I am still hitting well, I went 3-4 today, with one double, 2 runs scored, and 1 run batted in. So far I am 9 for 12, with 2 triples, 2 doubles, 6 runs batted in, 5 runs scored. I account for 26% of our run production! I feel really good about my contribution to the team! I am a little disappointed and relieved at the same time - no one is hitting the ball to me. I like to think it is because they know better, but I just think they just haven't hit the ball to me for no particular reason other than it just hasn't happened. For that I am disappointed because I want to field the ball, get some action out there. On the other hand, my should is probably around 60% and it is a good thing I haven't had to throw and make any plays.