AC at night
Who else could we place here?
support for all
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Headbands
Yeah, just what is it about headbands????? Katie D and I were discussing this today. They look so good. They look so cute. They come in all sorts of colors, and materials and sizes!!! You always want them, you always buy them, and then and then and then >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>they NEVER STAY ON YOUR HEAD!!! The slide up behind your ears! They fall forward towards your bangs! They squeeze your cerebellum head bumps until you want to scream! They leave marks on your hairline! Is it just me? Do i have an oddly shaped noggin? I think NOT I think that Headbands= evil devices...........almost as evil as mascara :) Definitely NOT for the common good!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Job Switch: not mine thanks Sharon M!
Next Season on Survivor
Have you heard about the next planned "Survivor" show?
Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped in an elementary school classroom for 1 school year. Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her school district's curriculum, and a class of 20-25 students.
Each class will have a minimum of five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.H.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three students will be labeled with severe behavior problems.
Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance, with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create their materials accordingly. They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences. They must also stand in their doorway between class changes to monitor the hallways.
In addition, they will complete fire drills, tornado drills, and [Code Red] drills for shooting attacks each month.
They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, and attend curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the ASK tests. If they are sick or having a bad day they must not let it show.
Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment to motivate all students at all times. If all students do not wish to cooperate, work, or learn, the teacher will be held responsible.
The business people will only have access to the public golf course on the weekends, but with their new salary, they will not be able to afford it. There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to thirty minutes, which is not counted as part of their work day. The business people will be permitted to use a student restroom, as long as another survival candidate can supervise their class.
If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials before, or after, school. However, they cannot surpass their monthly limit of copies. The business people must continually advance their education, at their expense, and on their own time.
The winner of this Season of Survivor will be allowed to return to their job.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
welfare for the common good?
Well, my cousin was visiting me today, and shockingly, though we both are on different ends of the political spectrum, we agreed about many things!!!!! The fact that greed, for example, is killing the country. The idea that even taxes could be fair if people wanted them to be. We spoke of the difference between the doers and the nondoers. We agreed that some people who are on unemployment take a break until their money runs out and then look for a job. But some people hate being unemployed and take any job to get going again. We remembered that my grandmother refused to take handouts during the depression, because she felt there were people who needed the money more than she did. She grew vegetables and sold them, she took in boarders, she made ends meet because she had the intention of doing so.
After we discussed the "old days" we decided that if we were king of the world we would change a few things. Or at least I did :)
My first change would be a flat tax rate for everyone. No deductions, no loopholes, no nothing. Let's say 10% for all, which is more than fair. So people making 10,000 dollars a year would pay $1000 a year in taxes and people making 1,000,000,000 dollars would pay 10,000,000 a year. Seems fair. NO deductions for kids, NO deduction for health care, NO deductions for losses, NO deductions for education. NO deductions period. Sound harsh? Not when you consider that if everyone pays their fair share, then the social "entitlements" like health care, education, social security, head-start programs, school lunches, etc, would be fully funded! There would plenty of money to pay for everything we need from the government, and we wouldn't have to fight over which state would get the pork. And for the common good maybe people could afford to take a vacation for longer than a week once in a while! Who loses here? Oh yeah, the fat cats would have to pay their fair share and maybe the gestapo-like IRS would be put out of business. Because if people couldn't lie on tax forms, what would we need them for???
In one of my former posts I spoke about "intent". I likened making education better by putting as much energy into it as we put into little league. I think the idea of intent works for solving social problems as well. If we intend to do right for the people, then we will. If politicians started caring more for their constituents than lining their pockets, things would be grand for all. If they intended to clean up the mess the country is in, they would. I intend to cut my grass when it starts growing, and then i actually do it, or else the grass just continues to grow unabated.
This brings me to the crux of this message. What started me thinking about welfare was an argument I had with my dad at the dinner table some 40 odd years ago. We were at Uncle Al's house and during the antiposte, I mentioned that I thought we weren't doing enough to help the poor in the inner cities. I spoke with a young person's conviction and righteousness and stated flat out that we should all be adding to the $$$$ needed by these poor people, My father argued that just giving people money ie: welfare, was the rich man's way of keeping the poor down and "in line". I, of course, vehemently argued this, and felt my father was being blind to social justice.
Now, many years later, I understand his point. It seem that no one intends to solve the problems of the inner cities. I think my dad was right, we do keep people down by giving them money for nothing. I recall that maybe 15-20 years or so ago, the mayor of Bordentown tried to change this money for nothing idea by instituting a "work for pay" program for the people who were on the town's welfare lists. Somehow it turned into a court battle and the city subsequently lost and the idea was dropped. I never understood why? Who was being hurt by giving poor people jobs?
I have spent much time here blogging my complaints about the greediness of the rich, but maybe by making all people repsonsible, the poor as well as the rich, we can improve the common good. Right now, it seems to only be the middle class that bears the full burden.
Why can't we find jobs for people in the ciities who cannot find one on their own? I could name plenty of ways people could help out in my town . Along with supplying jobs might we also be giving these people a feeling of self worth and accomplishment? Might we also be teaching them a marketable skill? Might we be showing them a way to rise above their circumstances and take back their streets from drug kings? Might they then start to acquire the ability to improve their own situations and produce a better life for themselves and their children? Obviously I think we might. And if we care enough about people in the poor areas of our cities, might we also be improving our own lives and those of the common good?
.
After we discussed the "old days" we decided that if we were king of the world we would change a few things. Or at least I did :)
My first change would be a flat tax rate for everyone. No deductions, no loopholes, no nothing. Let's say 10% for all, which is more than fair. So people making 10,000 dollars a year would pay $1000 a year in taxes and people making 1,000,000,000 dollars would pay 10,000,000 a year. Seems fair. NO deductions for kids, NO deduction for health care, NO deductions for losses, NO deductions for education. NO deductions period. Sound harsh? Not when you consider that if everyone pays their fair share, then the social "entitlements" like health care, education, social security, head-start programs, school lunches, etc, would be fully funded! There would plenty of money to pay for everything we need from the government, and we wouldn't have to fight over which state would get the pork. And for the common good maybe people could afford to take a vacation for longer than a week once in a while! Who loses here? Oh yeah, the fat cats would have to pay their fair share and maybe the gestapo-like IRS would be put out of business. Because if people couldn't lie on tax forms, what would we need them for???
In one of my former posts I spoke about "intent". I likened making education better by putting as much energy into it as we put into little league. I think the idea of intent works for solving social problems as well. If we intend to do right for the people, then we will. If politicians started caring more for their constituents than lining their pockets, things would be grand for all. If they intended to clean up the mess the country is in, they would. I intend to cut my grass when it starts growing, and then i actually do it, or else the grass just continues to grow unabated.
This brings me to the crux of this message. What started me thinking about welfare was an argument I had with my dad at the dinner table some 40 odd years ago. We were at Uncle Al's house and during the antiposte, I mentioned that I thought we weren't doing enough to help the poor in the inner cities. I spoke with a young person's conviction and righteousness and stated flat out that we should all be adding to the $$$$ needed by these poor people, My father argued that just giving people money ie: welfare, was the rich man's way of keeping the poor down and "in line". I, of course, vehemently argued this, and felt my father was being blind to social justice.
Now, many years later, I understand his point. It seem that no one intends to solve the problems of the inner cities. I think my dad was right, we do keep people down by giving them money for nothing. I recall that maybe 15-20 years or so ago, the mayor of Bordentown tried to change this money for nothing idea by instituting a "work for pay" program for the people who were on the town's welfare lists. Somehow it turned into a court battle and the city subsequently lost and the idea was dropped. I never understood why? Who was being hurt by giving poor people jobs?
I have spent much time here blogging my complaints about the greediness of the rich, but maybe by making all people repsonsible, the poor as well as the rich, we can improve the common good. Right now, it seems to only be the middle class that bears the full burden.
Why can't we find jobs for people in the ciities who cannot find one on their own? I could name plenty of ways people could help out in my town . Along with supplying jobs might we also be giving these people a feeling of self worth and accomplishment? Might we also be teaching them a marketable skill? Might we be showing them a way to rise above their circumstances and take back their streets from drug kings? Might they then start to acquire the ability to improve their own situations and produce a better life for themselves and their children? Obviously I think we might. And if we care enough about people in the poor areas of our cities, might we also be improving our own lives and those of the common good?
.
Monday, March 7, 2011
High Paid Teachers
I am sure you have seen this but i just have to repost:
Are you sick of high paid teachers? Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.
That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan — that equals 6 1/2 hours).
Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.
Now how many do they teach in day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! We're am not going to pay them for any vacations.
LET’S SEE…. That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. HUH?
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!
The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)
That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan — that equals 6 1/2 hours).
Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.
Now how many do they teach in day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! We're am not going to pay them for any vacations.
LET’S SEE…. That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. HUH?
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!
The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)
Imagine if you had to pay someone to watch your kid all day! Think 1.42 and hour would do it???
I THINK NOT> teachers work for the common good folks!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)