Good intentions, poor results

I'm sure our school had great intentions when it purchased the Accelerated Reader program several years ago. Many educators swear by this program but the more I become familiar with how it works, the more disgusted I am by it.

The gist of this program is that kids can read a book, answer some comprehension questions on the computer and then receive points based on the number of questions answered correctly. The kids set a goal at the beginning of the year based on how many points they think they can get over the year, and everything is then tracked on the computer. The books are generally books that can be found in any library, so it's not like a school would have to purchase a particular series of books.

In theory, this is a wonderful idea. Teachers can easily track their students' reading to see how often they are reading and how well they're understanding the text. Kids get to see their progress as well, and have some control over their learning. Maybe it's just how our school is running it, but I have some real problems with relying on this program as heavily as our school does.

As a learning resource teacher, I have encountered some kids who get quite upset when the books I want them to read with me are not AR books. As soon as I introduce a new book, I can almost guarantee the first question out of some students' mouths are, "Will I get points for this?" If they can't, they almost instantly lose interest in the book. It's then tough for me to get these students interested in reading the book at all.

What bothers me even more, though, is that all of these points can be redeemed for insanely incredible prizes at the end of the year. I realize it sounds quite harsh, but I'm not sure that the prizes we give out are appropriate. I think a smaller prize where everyone who has hit a certain percentage of their goal is fine, but the expensive prizes given out are a little extreme. Thankfully the kindergartens don't have anything to do with AR (they begin in grade 1) so I don't either.

To me, it perpetuates the attitude that everything they read should be for AR points so they can get a prize. Whatever happened to intrinsic motivation? Nowadays it seems like kids need to be rewarded for everything in order for them to do what their responsibility as children and students is anyway.

I'm not completely bashing the AR program. It does have its benefits, but our school (and I'm sure a lot more) should reevaluate how it uses this program. I really believe the kids are reading for all the wrong purposes.

On a different note, check out "my boyfriend's" (his words, not mine) blog. George Strombolopolous is my new favourite tv personality. I try to go to bed so early every night, but that damn show "The Hour" is on at 11:00 every night on CBC and it sucks me in every time. Anyway, just wanted to recommend the show to you.

My personal challenge

Last weekend Judith, a friend from town here, came with me to Toon Town. I enjoy traveling with her because we always have some thought-provoking discussions. The big debate this time was on the environment.

We agreed on most things so it wasn't much of a debate I guess. The only thing we disagreed on was whether or not to let vehicles run without anyone sitting in them. It angers me when I drive into a mall parking lot in the winter and see a big truck running with no one in it. Judith argued that it's worse to start your truck over and over again; I say it's worse to leave it running, especially when the truck has been running for over 20 minutes. In fact, why do people really need big trucks like that anyway? I support farmers in driving these vehicles for work-related purposes but that's about it.

Anyway, that's not the point of this post. Judith was telling me about these people who limited themselves to one bag of garbage a month. I'm not sure I have the energy or discipline to challenge myself like this, but I decided that I can start off small. I decided that I was going to limit myself to one shopping bag of garbage a week.

I know it doesn't seem like a lot and I'm sure lots of people only generate that much garbage anyway, but I generally bring work home with me and I can create a lot of garbage from that. I'm also constantly throwing out stuff that I don't need/want anymore. I figured my challenge would be a lot more difficult than it actually was.

It's Wednesday night and my garbage bag is 2/3 full. (Notice I didn't say 1/3 empty, haha.) It's mostly food scraps, actually, and I'm realizing how much I could compost if I was set up for it. I'm already a decent recycler - I recycle absolutely everything I can, right down to empty granola bar and kleenex boxes. Considering I have one night left until I'm heading back to Stoon, I think I'm doing really well.

It's easy for me to say because I live alone and I solely control what goes into the garbage. But even if you live with others, I recommend you challenge yourself for one week. [Insert touchy-feely, pump-you-up comments here.]

Random Thoughts

- They should put a disclaimer in all acceptance letters for B.Ed programs, warning how sick you will be in your first few years of teaching. I have the stomach flu for the 3rd time this school year.
- Did you know China still produces CFCs? It's probably common knowledge but I didn't know that so leave me alone. (Read The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery - awesome book.)
- When you drop food colouring and then dish soap into milk, the colours "explode", producing a really cool design in the milk.
- Spring is wonderful, but "wet kid" stinks.
- I believe that Sasktel's Jim ("it's like McGivor, cool!") would be a lonely, lonely man with no love life if he wasn't fictional.
- My words of wisdom for you today: Just because you can reproduce, doesn't mean you should.

I am slowly going crazy one two three four five six switch

Don't you hate it when you get a really annoying song in your head? I teach kindergarten and special education, but I'm also the K-5 music teacher at our school. Some of the songs we sing are great and others.. well, not so great.

My grade 4/5 group is quite creative and they enjoy "composing" and performing songs with actions. Today I introduced a song called Ko Ay E or something like that. It's a song from the Maori tribe in New Zealand and there's a stick dance that goes along with it. I taught the kids the song and then split them into groups, where they had to create their own stick dance to go along with the song.

The kids really liked it but the song itself is extremely annoying. Its melody is almost like a lullaby and very very catchy. Unfortunately, it got stuck in my head during that class and I can't seem to get it out. What's worse, I've played it over and over in my head to the point that I can't actually remember the words. It's something like Ko Ay E, Ah Ta O, something something something.

Argh!!! Thankfully I'm having a couple of girls over to paint Ukrainian easter eggs. They should be here any time now. I'm hoping they'll be able to distract my brain from this stupid song.

Stoopid, stoopid

I had Sean call Sasktel for me today to figure out my internet problem. When I do a speed test my upload rate sucks, and I think it's affecting all of my downloads and even streaming video.

Tonight, for instance, I was trying to do the Test the Nation special on CBC and the streaming video on the test froze up. It's a pretty long test and of COURSE I was almost finished.

Sasktel better fix this problem soon, I tell you. I'm paying good money for this internet stuff and I can't even get the most out of it. What really makes me mad is that I've called Sasktel twice to see if they could do anything and they've brushed me off, saying that the speed test is coming up fine so that's just as good as I'll get it. Sean calls today and he's on the phone 5 times longer than I am, doing all of these extra tests and being promised that they'll look into it in the next few days. I can't believe sexism still happens, but I really believe that's what happened here.

(No offense Lacy, I know you work for them, but I have many issues with them.)

Wedding Blog

It's an exciting weekend here in the metropolis I live in! This morning, Sean and I went out for breakfast, then drove half an hour to buy Ukrainian easter egg supplies. I was a little pissed off when I got all the way home and realized that one of the dye packages was MISSING the dye. Of course it was the black dye that had to be missing; to me that's the best colour. Oh well, somehow I'll survive.

When we got back, we headed to the school and photocopied our wedding invitations. We spent the rest of the afternoon addressing invitations (or trying to, since we still don't have all of the addresses we need).

This brings me to the actual point of this post. I'm sure most of you won't care, but in case you do, here is our new wedding blog! It's a way for our guests to RSVP and to read about the most recent wedding plans. Isn't that technological of us?

O'Doyle rules!

Actually, geeks rule. I am a geek. You know what I did tonight? I finished my term paper. I'm fairly proud of it, especially considering I haven't written a term paper since my second year of university (4 or 5 years ago). My undergrad education classes were so lame - no term papers, no finals. I thought it was great, until I get to these special ed classes and find that I have to write a final exam and a term paper. I always worry about it for nothing though. I'll check it over tomorrow, submit it, then forget about it. It feels so good to be done!

I really miss getting involved in community things. Back home, I was heavily involved in my church, in my school and in other community things that made me feel like I was doing something worthwhile. I joined the Kinettes group here but as a newcomer to a community it's difficult to contribute to certain things because you just don't know everyone. So I was thinking - when I move to Saskamatoon in July, what will I do?

Sean's involved in politics. That's not my thing. I could join the Kinettes group there, but I'd like to try something new. Sean had talked about getting involved with the city to develop better recycling programs and stuff, but it didn't really work out. I think that's something I'd be interested in.

Brea, do you remember that Kids' Environmental Club we tried to make when we were younger? My favourite book back then was "50 Ways Kids Can Save the Planet" and I had this bright idea that we would start a kids' club with monthly newsletters, complete with info on topics like global warming and tips on how to be more environmentally friendly. Again, I'm a geek. But what a good idea, eh?

Obviously that didn't work out. But I've always been into recycling and the whole bit and I used to get very upset when people would litter. I always thought that Stoon did a pretty good job of setting up recycling centres around the city until we went to Ontario last summer.

Hamilton, along with a lot of other cities, organize their trash according to specific criteria. They have a blue bin for this, another bin for that, and it's all picked up by the city. Last night the National on CBC featured Sudbury's environmental initiatives. I realized then that Saskatoon really sucks in this regard.

It doesn't matter that Saskatoon is much smaller than these cities and it doesn't matter how much curbside programs cost; what matters is that we need to do more. Not everyone has a car to take their recyclables to the blue bin depots that are scattered around the city. I see on the City of Saskatoon's site that not a lot is happening. They were taking applications for an advisory committee, but the deadline has passed and it doesn't seem that there is much else for people to get involved with.

Crappy. It's something I'm really interested in. Until another opportunity comes along, I'll nag my city counsellor repeatedly and hope that they get on the environmental bandwagon.

Road Rage

Over the past year or so, I have developed a bit of road rage. Driving two and a half hours every other week gives me a lot of time to witness stupid drivers in lots of close calls. Today was no exception.

I was just leaving Humboldt when I caught up to this junk bucket of a car going about 80 km/h. I sped up and passed them (safely, I might add), then continued on my merry way. The car sped up a bit but was still quite far behind me.

Five minutes later, the car sped up and sat right on my ass for a few minutes. I might add here that we had been the only cars around for awhile. THEN, as we FINALLY met a car, the car behind me decides to pull out and pass. The car coming at us was OBVIOUSLY way too close to pass, but the car still did it. If I hadn't swerved onto the shoulder, that car would have hit the oncoming car head on.

THEN, to make matters WORSE, two minutes later he passes a pokey car that we had caught up to. Did he learn from his mistake and wait until the coast was clear? Nope.

The schmuck decides to pull out and pass when there's another oncoming car, only this car is MUCH too close for him to safely pass. I gasped and almost covered my eyes, but then realized I was still driving, so I watched in horror as the oncoming car swerved onto the shoulder and the car that the idiot was passing stayed in his/her own lane.

I was tempted to pin on it so I could pass him and give him the finger, but I didn't do it for two reasons:
1) I'm a pansy
2) I live alone. If this psycho decided to follow me home, I wouldn't have a big strong man there to protect me.

I wish I could say that natural selection almost took its course, but it didn't. The victims of this idiocy would be the innocent drivers he was trying to pass. I'm getting angry all over again. Honestly, how can people be so stupid?

Faulty internet?

If you're looking for something to do (you must be pretty desperate if you're reading my blog) would you do me a favour? Go to TSN and click on a broadband game on the right-hand side of the screen. How long does it take for the game to start? It takes almost 10 minutes for a game to load up. The Sasktel guy told me (in a very unconfident voice) that it's probably the TSN site. No matter how many times I told him that ANYTHING I download takes a long time, he assured me that my download rate was fine.

Stupid Sasktel. I hate their monopoly on the Internet services here. It really limits you, especially if you live in rural SK. If you could check out TSN for me I would really really appreciate it. Thanks!

sdkjel;hnslkjei;n,

Yep, that's what I felt like yesterday. I had Educational Consultants up the wazoo all day. The Occupational Therapist and the Ed Psych were in all day, we had a team meeting for a designated student (so the Student Services Coordinator, parent and new social worker were in for that), the counselor was there all day, PLUS I had kindergarten. Right after school - meeting with the OT and some parents (which always goes way too long). Off to Wadena early to get groceries and gas. Then curling at 6:00. Curl 6 ends because it's a ladies' league and 8-end games are rare. Come home to plow through all of the SK Learning documents I have to read and somehow make a term paper out of. I feel asleep on the couch at 10:30 so I dragged my butt to bed and slept like a rock until 7:07 this morning.

At the end of the curling game I felt like running. Even now, at 7:53 am, I feel quite wound up. I hope this energy will be put to good use when I'm trying to work on my term paper tonight.

Curling coachdom

My brief but rewarding career as a curling coach will be over in T-minus 5 hours. Yesterday we went to districts and had a ton of fun. We didn't win our games, but the kids still curled pretty well considering this is the first time some have curled on artificial ice.

In other news, Telemiracle is on tonight!! I'll get to stay up as late as I want to watch it tonight because Sean is stuck in Madison, WI. Can these airlines ever be consistent? He has had such crappy luck with flying lately. Last night he checked his flight before leaving the university and realized that his flight had been cancelled due to mechanical trouble. He was supposed to get into Stoon at 12:30ish and then drive out here to see moi, but now he'll have to come out tomorrow.

Oh yeah, I was talking about Telemiracle. It's always been a tradition in my family to stay up late, watch the show and eat a bunch of junk food, then camp out in front of the tv. This is the second year in a row that things haven't worked out. Last year Brea came over for a sleepover because Mom was working or something, and this year I'll be all by my lonesome. I think I might invite one of the other teachers over to watch it with me. If she doesn't come, more junk food to myself!