Yep sure.. that's me big alpha male...
ha!
Went to get a flu shot today.. No man flu this year I thought.. No sniffling and whining about how sick I feel.
Anyhow, two minutes after the needle was put in (which took about a second and didn't hurt at all(really!)) I woke up on the ground. The nice nurse (who was a great grandmother) had to catch me and guide me to the ground as I was out cold.
What is it about men and needles? The nurse assured me that it was not at all an uncommon occurrence. I can stand in front of a bunch of hostile adolescents and win them over.. but can't overcome the fear of a one inch bit of metal stuck in my arm.
Next time I'll just take the flu.
Thinking back though, I didn't feel weak until I watched Kendra get her needle. I think the thought of a loved one being hurt is also a factor.. of course I could just be rationalising what is a pretty pathetic incident.
I still feel horrible.
And now for my maths joke so you can all feel terrible too..
If a five sided figure is a pentagon and a six sided figure is a hexagon, what is it when your grandmother passes out?
A Nanagon of course! (Not to be confused with a Nonnagon (an italian grandmother) or a pollygone (a missing parrot)).
Must be the residual chemicals in the system!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Turning around struggling schools
I read this article with interest about schools being turned around.
"The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values."
Duh!
To not provide strong behaviour models is to invite failure. The ethic that work = results = success is not inbred in these kids by their immediate environment. Developmental programmes for these kids are inappropriate as they do not have a drive to develop.. we must first create this drive.
"Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes."
I like that.. "no excuses".. and it is so applicable to our public schools. In our society, everyone gets to have their say, anything can be rationalised as true and the time wasted unpacking excuses is.. well.. inexcusable.
"They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused."
Under the guise of political correctness and multiculturalism we accept a range of behaviours that interpreted under this model is inappropriate. Whether this is right or not is not a question I can easily answer but as a nation we need to decide what is acceptable behaviour and then teach it. Teaching a class of thirty under this model would require some bending of cultural mores in order to encourage a class environment of like behaved students rather than a group of individuals. To drive these kids towards developing the rigour for higher education would be fantastic.
"Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school."
I love the idea that those behind have to work extra hours.. how obvious.. if you're behind you need to do extra work to catch up, unlike our current policy of teach what you can in the time allowed which results in students that need more time to learn each topic falling further behind each and every day.
The sad fact is that creating a no excuse environment would take much commitment/courage and would create much heartache within the school community. I don't know if it could be done within the Perth environment with our inclusiveness of multiple cultures. It would be a move back towards creating "Australians" rather than a nation of multiple cultures. I don't think as a nation we have been driven to this yet.
If we could decide on minimum standards (minimum attendance requirements, obedience to teachers, zero aggression, completion of homework, minimum expectations of results before progression) perhaps it would be a small step to replicating the results found in Harlem.
"The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values."
Duh!
To not provide strong behaviour models is to invite failure. The ethic that work = results = success is not inbred in these kids by their immediate environment. Developmental programmes for these kids are inappropriate as they do not have a drive to develop.. we must first create this drive.
"Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes."
I like that.. "no excuses".. and it is so applicable to our public schools. In our society, everyone gets to have their say, anything can be rationalised as true and the time wasted unpacking excuses is.. well.. inexcusable.
"They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused."
Under the guise of political correctness and multiculturalism we accept a range of behaviours that interpreted under this model is inappropriate. Whether this is right or not is not a question I can easily answer but as a nation we need to decide what is acceptable behaviour and then teach it. Teaching a class of thirty under this model would require some bending of cultural mores in order to encourage a class environment of like behaved students rather than a group of individuals. To drive these kids towards developing the rigour for higher education would be fantastic.
"Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school."
I love the idea that those behind have to work extra hours.. how obvious.. if you're behind you need to do extra work to catch up, unlike our current policy of teach what you can in the time allowed which results in students that need more time to learn each topic falling further behind each and every day.
The sad fact is that creating a no excuse environment would take much commitment/courage and would create much heartache within the school community. I don't know if it could be done within the Perth environment with our inclusiveness of multiple cultures. It would be a move back towards creating "Australians" rather than a nation of multiple cultures. I don't think as a nation we have been driven to this yet.
If we could decide on minimum standards (minimum attendance requirements, obedience to teachers, zero aggression, completion of homework, minimum expectations of results before progression) perhaps it would be a small step to replicating the results found in Harlem.
Labels:
behaviour,
organisational leadership,
teaching
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Exercise bah humbug!
Over Christmas I stopped running in the morning. It took ages to get my fitness back to the stage of enjoying a run again and a whole heap of unadulterated pain.
Being someone that doesn't like pain and thinks that exercise is overrated, it was a big thing for me to get fit in the first place and rather unfortunate that I stopped exercise over the eating season. Hello 10 kg. Goodbye feet. My trousers are getting tight where I once needed a belt. It was probably time to do something about it.
My wife started hiding the chocolate biscuits. I had to do something.
Anyway, I had the bright idea to start running again.. so during the week I took out my running gear and each morning turned over and said to myself.. tomorrow is a good day to start again.
This morning I must have had some sort of brain malfunction and actually put the gear on and went for a run. It went great for the first 200m. The next 200m was getting tough. The next 2km was stabbing forks in my thighs and glass shards in my lungs. Unlike the propaganda for exercise (and consistent with anecdotal evidence of most unfit people trying to exercise), it was not fun, I do not feel good and wouldn't recommend it to anyone including the guy with a dog that poops on my lawn (well.. maybe him). Walking up the last hill, my legs were 200kg bags of cement and I could only breathe occasionally. When I finished I wanted to crawl into a small heap and moan at the moon.
What was I thinking??!?????
Will I do it again.. yes, probably.. like most addictions it crawls up at you and time to time demands that you again have a go.
Maybe I could just buy some new trousers....
Being someone that doesn't like pain and thinks that exercise is overrated, it was a big thing for me to get fit in the first place and rather unfortunate that I stopped exercise over the eating season. Hello 10 kg. Goodbye feet. My trousers are getting tight where I once needed a belt. It was probably time to do something about it.
My wife started hiding the chocolate biscuits. I had to do something.
Anyway, I had the bright idea to start running again.. so during the week I took out my running gear and each morning turned over and said to myself.. tomorrow is a good day to start again.
This morning I must have had some sort of brain malfunction and actually put the gear on and went for a run. It went great for the first 200m. The next 200m was getting tough. The next 2km was stabbing forks in my thighs and glass shards in my lungs. Unlike the propaganda for exercise (and consistent with anecdotal evidence of most unfit people trying to exercise), it was not fun, I do not feel good and wouldn't recommend it to anyone including the guy with a dog that poops on my lawn (well.. maybe him). Walking up the last hill, my legs were 200kg bags of cement and I could only breathe occasionally. When I finished I wanted to crawl into a small heap and moan at the moon.
What was I thinking??!?????
Will I do it again.. yes, probably.. like most addictions it crawls up at you and time to time demands that you again have a go.
Maybe I could just buy some new trousers....
Labels:
exercise
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
One for Ornithologists
Was caught today using one of my lessons from uni. It is about drawing histograms and the following data was used:
score. f
1...... 2
2...... 2
3...... 8
4...... 2
5...... 1
It was quite funny then but not really appropriate for a maths class.
score. f
1...... 2
2...... 2
3...... 8
4...... 2
5...... 1
It was quite funny then but not really appropriate for a maths class.
Labels:
funny,
mathematics,
teacher
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