THE DOG

Of course, it was my idea.  Aren’t all those brainchildren mine??  She’s a beauty and so smart.  O.K. that’s the problem – too smart.  Skipper (Yes, that’s her name.) can be sooooo sneaky.  I mean, maybe just stubborn; but I had children that were stubborn and eventually it served them well.  I guess that means I shouldn’t give up hope yet.  She brings the paper in, but doesn’t always want to give it up.  She comes, sits,  and stays, but runs off when she gets the opportunity.  She follows me everywhere, but acts like a blithering idiot around other people.  I mean flippin out crazy.  We call her the Beast when anyone comes around.  Her manners are so bad around other people that she is not even allowed to be around anyone else.  I have learned to make her jump on the couch if anyone comes, so I can quickly snap the leash on her and tie her to the refrigerator door!  So far she hasn‘t pulled the fridge out the door!

Today was so bad I threatened her with the pound.  I don’t think she believed me.  Ah I love my dog.

Spastic tubes???? Plllleeeeaaaasssseeee help us!!

Health Experts Dismiss Assertions on Rape

By PAM BELLUCK

Published: August 20, 2012

Dr. John C. Willke, a general practitioner with obstetric training and a former president of the National Right to Life Committee, was an early proponent of this view, articulating it in a book originally published in 1985 and again in a 1999 article. He reiterated it in an interview Monday.

“This is a traumatic thing — she’s, shall we say, she’s uptight,” Dr. Willke said of a woman being raped, adding, “She is frightened, tight, and so on. And sperm, if deposited in her vagina, are less likely to be able to fertilize. The tubes are spastic.”

Leading experts on reproductive health, however, dismissed this logic.

“There are no words for this — it is just nuts,” said Dr. Michael Greene, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. David Grimes, a clinical professor in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina, said, that “to suggest that there’s some biological reason why women couldn’t get pregnant during a rape is absurd.”

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/us/politics/rape-assertions-are-dismissed-by-health-experts.html?_r=1

 

 

Title IX and the athletes left behind

 

 

 

Not feeling very motivated to write lately, this one has caught me by the heart.  I am 58 years old.  In 1972 President Richard Nixon signed the Title IX legislation that made it illegal to discriminate against women in sports.  I graduated in 1971.

I was a tomboy from birth I guess.  I had little toy guns on my diaper pins.  My daddy was a baseball playing fool, and I benefited from that with many evenings of catch in the backyard.  Fortunately for me, my dad did not believe in cutting any slack to anyone (not even a girl) and I learned to catch a hot pepper just as well as any boy.  It was that or get hit with the ball and catching it was much less painful.  At the age of 12 we moved to a small town that had girls’ basketball, and even though it was three on three, I loved it.  By the time I was a freshman, the game had changed to the boys’ version of five on five, and I existed for sports.  The by-product of that was my coach made sure we kept our grades up, and I excelled on both the field and in the classroom.

By the end of 1968 our school board in Everman, Texas had decided that they could no longer afford to fund five  basketball teams.  At that time there was a varsity girls and boys team and a junior varsity girls and boys team and a boys freshman team.  That board, made up of entirely men, decided it could only fund three teams.  I imagine you can see where I’m going.  So behind the cloak of secrecy, it put in a girls’ coach with instructions to let the program go as far downhill as possible.  She held not one practice the final year we played.  Imagine – a team that did not practice one time.  We even went so far as to go to the gym on our own until we were barred for lack of supervision at which time our parents began coming with us.  We were then banned completely without a coach and our coach would not come – I imagine for fear of her job.  We got a petition up with many, many community signatures that was presented to the Board.  They thanked us.  That was all they did.  We lost miserably.  I had already had college coaches talk to me about playing for them, but with our program completely deleted when I was a sophomore that went down the drain as did my will to continue.

I lost the thing I loved and that motivate me the most.  I quit caring about school;  I experimented with things better left alone and who’s to say that wouldn’t have happened anyway, but I don’t believe it would have.  You SOB  bigoted all male school board took the very thing I was the best at and loved the most at that time because you were making decisions for women without any regard for women’s’ feelings.  I will always resent that and will never forget it.

Kind of reminds you of today doesn’t it? Leave my vagina alone and guys — give up trying to make decisions for women.  We are quite capable.  I hope the young women and their parents of today are stronger than we were.

How many stories are there like this?

http://www.wnba.com/titleix/powerofnine_060812.html

 

I’m ticked off all over again about teachers being second guessed

 

What is wrong with people?  Mr. Romney, in a school, says that he checked to see if smaller class sizes had anything to do with standardized test scores, and it didn’t.  A perfect case of a person that doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.  After retiring from 22 years in public education I can tell you that if you were a smart person you would defer to the experts on this one.  Yes, the superficial correlation do not appear to show that, but it only applies to the upper half of students.  In other words, for the politicians that can’t read above an 8th grade level, for students that make good grades, they can survive in a larger class, but it is the student that struggles who need the smaller groups.  To be exact, for those students behind grade level the most important thing for them is small group instruction with qualified teachers.  I have seen it; the statistics are there to find if you care to; Mr. Romney you are just another in a long line of second guessers that have never taught a group of students already behind usually through no fault of their own.  It is often because of societal issues they are born into.  They get into PK and K with groups of 20 to 30 and don’t get the small group instruction they need, and it is downhill from there.  No one at home is reading to them and with them.  No one is working with them on their homework. No one is enhancing their natural curiosity with proper time and questioning.

SHUT UP PEOPLE THAT DON’T KNOW.  EDUCATORS KNOW THE ANSWERS ON HOW TO IMPROVE EDUCATION.  IT IS SIMPLE.  JUST ASK THE RIGHT PEOPLE. FOLLOW THEIR SUGGESTIONS.  GIVE THEM THE MONEY TO MAKE HAPPEN.  IT’S CHEAPER THAN THE INCARCERATION DOWN THE ROAD.

 

 

Cheating – – but not by kids?

This is one of the hardest stories to tell, but it has been on my mind since 1984.  These are secrets that are normally carried to the grave, and but for one little student teacher that has had her conscience troubling her ever since so would this one.

I was doing my student teaching.  It was the end of the year in May and cheerleading tryouts were underway for the year.  One of the most intense ones was the competition of the 6th graders to make the Jr. Hi team.  Only two 6th graders would make that team and there was around 20 girls trying out for those two positions.  It appeared to be above-board.  A jury of college cheerleaders made the decision after a tryout that included several different ways to show their stuff.  In the end the two girls that won were the two that were expected to win.  They were definitely the most popular girls in the 6th grade.

Within a week tragedy stuck.  One of the girl’s father was transferred unexpectedly out-of-town, so she would be unable to serve. Thinking that the easiest way to remedy the situation, and without having to go through the entire process again, it appeared that to take the next person down would be the simplest explanation.  The files were pulled out in the teachers’ lounge to check on the third place person.  Low and behold it was a student that some of the teachers found a little less than desirable.  You know, family problems, druggie older brother, poor white wrong side of the track sort of thing.  No matter that she was  a beautiful, striking, athletic, intelligent girl who may have needed this more than any other of the girls.  Then, much to their surprise, the fourth place girls was a teacher’s kid – really good kid, straight As, conservative dresser, good family, etc. They justified their decision by the fact that it was the “right” thing to do.

I sat in the corner ignoring the entire process.  I was just taking a class and happen to be there, and I really had no say.  I’m having it now.  After very little discussion, the decision was made to skip the third place, go to the fourth place, shred all the paperwork and who would ever know the difference.  They know, and I know.

It still makes me sick, but doesn’t it remind you of our government? And al those good people wonder what is wrong with our society.  They never believe they have anything to do with its corruption.

The need for cameras

I know all the arguments about privacy and stuff, but after 22 years in education in every position from coach, teacher, assistant principal,  and principal, I believe there should be video cameras in every classroom, locker room and any other place that children interact with adults in school.

We don’t have any problem having cameras in the hallways and cafeterias in case students “act up”, but we have yet to go to the next step of putting them in the classroom.  Just think of the advantages; you could share all good teaching techniques and exceptional lessons with others; you would have video for parent conferences to show how students behave at school; adults and students that know they are being video taped will monitor their actions a bit more; and finally, it would provide any “evidence” that might be necessary when we get into the he said/she said arguments.

If you still are skeptical, watch this video, but be prepared to be disgusted.

Click on this to hear UTUBE video

President Bush likes to moutain bike ride – how nice.

If he had just let it go at that, but no, true to form, he had to keep talking.  He went on to say he loved to ride; he said he didn’t even mind getting beat. If he had just let it go at that, but no, true to form, he had to keep talking.

Bike wreck without being in a race.

“I don’t like to be beat by a one-legged veteran.”  He didn’t really say that did he. Inappropriate sense of humor hasn’t changed at all.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/04/fmr-president-bush-hosts-100km-bike-ride-with-wounded-iraq-afghanistan-veterans/

Did we use to beat up coaches or did I just miss all the fun??

Ind. basketball dad knocks coach unconscious because he forced daughter to run laps

Two stories in two days about coaches getting whipped up on by their kids’ parent or another coach.  I coached for many years, and even though I made people mad (one time my very close friend), they never threatened to beat me up, and they certainly never attached me.  One parent in particular (a mom) returned after a late night practice and screamed and cussed for about 20 minutes before I finally told her to go F herself.  Boy, she turned on her heel and out the front door she went, jumped in her pick up truck(yes pick up truck) and threw gravel all over the place (popularly called spinning out).  I went and tried to call my superintendent;  phone was busy;  she had beat me to it;  she was the school board president’s wife.  I called the principal tha told him he might want to find a replacement, and that I was pretty sure I had just given cause to be fired.  He told me to stay home the next day, he would take care of it.  He did.  Nothing ever came of it.  Evidently she acted that way with everyone so nobody cared what I said to her except me.  I felt bad for cussing.  I went to apologize to her at her house, and she very nearly didn’t let me in for fear I was going to beat her up.  It was all good after that.  In fact, she kept sitting by me at games, and I almost couldn’t get rid of her and her husband.  Well, everything is temporary in this life.

But, back to the violence.  It wasn’t too long ago a parent went into the field house and shot a coach.  He recovered, but others have not.  I don’t get it.  If they want to coach, they are free to travel the road we coaches did and become one.  The one that includes people leaving their children after games until late in the night before picking them up because they expect a babysitter and forget that coaches have families too.  The one that include holiday tournaments – oh joy.  The one that includes antacids, perpetual hoarseness and pay of .05 (cents) and hour by the time you count all the practices and games after school hours.  All that because we love kids and want to teach them all about the game, not just the game, but how to win and how to lose.  How to come back when all looks futile and how to be gracious when we inflict that kind of pain on others.  How to get along in the world.  How to teach by guiding, not just by lecture.  Most good coaches make good teachers for that reason.

I really do think it is time to remove sports from public schools and move it to the club sector.  Let people pay for their kids to play.  After all, it’s not a right; it’s a privilege.  I think it works that way in Europe.  Lets do it America.  Club ball instead of school sponsored sports.  Think of the money we could save.  No more stadiums, locker rooms, baseball diamonds to spend our public school money on.  All academics in school.  What a thought.  School for academics, not for cheerleaders and jocks.

But then I see things like this.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/soccer-dirty-tackle/guilty-italian-striker-pulls-off-epic-deliberate-penalty-183931638.html

Oh yeah, in the NCAA basketball tournament, the ball was obviously knocked out of bounds by one team, and the refs gave it to the other team.  I just kept waiting for the commercial where the boy admits, in a championship game, that he touched it last and goes and tells the ref.  Oh well, that’s just a commerical.

Real Life

http://www.values.com/inspirational-stories-tv-spots/106-Basketball

http://www.sportsgrid.com/ncaa-basketball/asheville-out-of-bounds-call/

 

 

Fairy Tales