My youngest just heard that she was selected to be in our local High Schools Singing/Dance Troop. Since the mascot of the school is a Locomotive, they call the troop Locomotion. Over the years this has been an award winning group of young singer/dancers. The competition for spots is almost fierce. I always thought she had the voice to be in it, but I wasn’t sure of the dance moves. She gets none of that talent from me, I know very little about singing or dancing (and I couldn’t care less). I am proud of this wonderful young lady who tried out year after year, finally making it in for her Senior year.

This will give me one more thing to write about, as she travels to dance competitions, and does local performances. I know I’m in for an interesting year, and so is she.

Again, not by me.

EDUCATION HUMOR– WORST ANALOGIES USED IN ESSAYS
These are the winners of the “worst analogies ever written in a high school essay” contest

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes…

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and “Jeopardy” comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:\flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like “Second Tall Man.”

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

Well, today I was a floater at a middle school, meaning that I would sub for different teachers throughout the day as they went to meetings.  When I arrived they gave me a list.  Four classes.  Were they serious?  I thought I had it fairly easy yesterday with five classes (in middle school six is typical, with a planning period, team meeting- subs not invited, and lunch).  In this district one period is homeroom, making a total of ten periods of which a sub usually works seven when homeroom is added in.  This meant that I had three extra periods off!  A half-day of work for a full day’s pay!  Then again, this is me we’re talking about.  I didn’t feel quite right about this so I asked at the office a few times if I was needed elsewhere during these breaks.  They didn’t have anything as was typical, so it would seem that I would get all the time off after all.  However, in the afternoon the teacher I was subbing for for 7th and 10th periods decided she could use me after all to help out while she tried to get some other work done.  I stress tried because in fact since she was in the room her students still came up to her and asked questions.  By the way, they were doing research in the LMC so I mostly babysat as I couldn’t answer a lot of the questions since I didn’t know all the expectations of the project.  Still not bad- a very easy day.

Now, some may think the title of this post applies to the above paragraph since I asked for extra work instead of just saying nothing and sitting in the lounge all day.  Well, it always pays to not get on their bad side- I already don’t take TA positions which pay about $30 less per day- and besides, I would have missed the situation I am about to write on. 🙂  Well, what happened was during one of the periods a couple of students came in who weren’t a part of the class.  Remember, this was the LMC and not a classroom.  That would be very strange if random students just came into a classroom where they were not a part of the class…  Anyway, I wasn’t aware of this at first and so questioned them when I saw they were not doing the research with the rest of the class.  They told me they were here while their class was on a field trip.  Were they being punished?  Nope.  They were seventh graders in an eighth grade math class, and all the eighth grade was on the field trip.  Now I thought I was pretty good at math being in algebra in eighth grade, but here they were, two seventh graders in the eighth grade class.  And to make matters worse, this seemed to be the top eighth grade math course, algebra 2.  That’s right, 2.  I didn’t take algebra 2 until my sophomore year (they split the two courses with geometry in the middle, which I took as a freshman).  These two seventh graders were two years ahead of where I was when I was in middle school.  They expect to be bused to high school next year for math as they apparently were bused to the middle school when they were in 5th grade…  I guess if this keeps up they will be taking calculus in their junior year instead of in college, unless they bring themselves even further ahead in the next three years.  Definitely two top engineers in the making.

Apparently parents of a high school student are considering just that after a teacher woke up a student by slapping her hand on the student’s desk.  According to their claim he suffered hearing loss as his ear was on the desk at the time and the sudden sound ruptured his eardrum.  If this is true, then I fully understand the parents’ concern, but something doesn’t seem quite right here.  From the article:

Barry said the boy’s ear hurt instantly after Nadeau hit his desk.

“He woke up and immediately felt pain in his ear,” Barry said. “I think he was so taken aback that he didn’t say anything at the time.”

The next day, Vinicios’ parents took him to the hospital after he complained of hearing loss and they discovered a bloody fluid on his pillow.

If his eardrum burst as they say, wouldn’t he have been in so much pain he would have said something?  Screamed out in pain?  Immediately gone to the nurse? I just don’t know…

Sleepy Student Claims Teacher’s Wake-Up Slam Caused Hearing Loss