Wednesday, Thursday, Friday!

I learned that from my colleague here at the Teaching Underground.  I think people use the initials of those three words as an exclamation to express surprise, confusion, or perplexity... is that a word, if not, I want credit if you use it from now on.  So what are my Wednesday, Thursday, Friday moments from this week?

First, it's Mitt Romney.  Here's what he told Brian Williams at NBC's Education Nation:

I believe that we simply -- we simply can't have a setting where the teachers' unions are able to contribute tens of millions of dollars to the campaigns of politicians and then those politicians, when elected, stand across from them at the bargaining table, supposedly to represent the interest of the kids. I think it's a mistake.

I think we've got to get the money out of the teachers' unions going into campaigns. It's the wrong way for us to go. We have got to separate that.

Get the money out of the teachers' unions going into campaigns?  Never mind the money coming from Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Phillip Morris, or even PEARSON!  They don't use their money to exercise influence over the decisions of politicians.  And they count as people anyway since they're incorporated.  It's the money pouring in from the overpaid teachers that flooding our political system with graft.

Seriously, I hate to be immature, but this is stupid.  You're going to call out the teachers' unions for having too much influence and suggest their ability to contribute to campaigns be limited.  Maybe there's a better place to start if you want to remove the influence of money from education.

Romney also said:


So I reject the idea that everybody has to have a, if you will, a Harvard expense level degree in order to be successful. I find a lot of people have degrees from a lot of different places, public and private, that are highly successful.

He referenced Geoffrey Canada frequently in his speech and q&a session.  I attended a talk by Canada last year in D.C. where he said as a general rule of thumb, when you don't know what to do in education, "do what the rich people do?"  Romney was referring to the $38,000/year tuition at his former high school.  So, if money doesn't matter, why do rich people spend so much on education?  They're not rich because they waste money, apparently they understand it's value more than most.  So why do they insist on spending a high dollar amount to educate their own children?    Why doesn't the market bring this cost down, or do they just send their kids to keep them away from the riff raff one finds in public education.

Speaking of money, I've addressed my W,T, so here's my F.  One of our local teachers, Michael Farabaugh qualified for Jeopardy.  I'm a little bitter, because I made it to round two with him several years ago when the "Clue Crew" came to Charlottesville.  Neither of us made it to round three, but apparently he persisted while I gave up and helped start this little blog.  He'll be flying to California soon for taping.  Pretty cool achievement wouldn't you say?  Apparently not everyone thinks so.  Here's a link to the news story, but the comments are priceless.  Here's a sampling if you're not motivated to click the link provided to read them for yourself:

-What a shocker! Instead of actually doing what he is paid to do and that is teach, he is going off to try to get even more money, probably during school hours that he is being paid for! Greed! Greed! Greed! That is all we get from teachers! Certainly not results! 

-Are the taxpayers paying for substitute teachers so that these freeloaders can go win money on gameshows instead of doing their jobs?!?!?!?!?

No wonder the kids are as stupid as dead roaches! 

-They should dock his pay an amount equal to his winnings if he is getting paid to teach but is not doing it. 

-It is hard to have a positive impact on students when you cannot even be bothered to show up for your classes you are being paid to teach! I am paying his salary and I say fine him or fire him! 

For what it's worth, congratulations Mr. Farabaugh.  We know you've served your students and this community well and wish you the best on Jeopardy.

As for the comments, all I can say is Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

And to preempt any inevitable conservative backlash, be patient, we'll take a few jabs at President Obama and Arne Duncan in the near future.

NCSS National Conference Day 1

So as you may know we are attending the NCSS conference in DC.  Given we are pretty worn out we will simply provide a summary of the days events.  In no particular order here are some highlights and some of what we learned...

-TU appreciates having a point person to get us registered(Thanks Jen)
-Don't wear any attire with your school logo when traversing the vendor section...it's like wearing a bullseye.  "Hey ...AHS....Right"  Quickly annoying and makes avoiding eye contact nearly impossible.
-There is no clear delineation between the NCSS and the Washington Craft Show. Be careful out there.
-We sadly missed the "Using Yoga to Teach History" session.  Probably for the best.
-There are lots of great ideas among the sessions. 
-Some people don't turn their ringer off during sessions....no names mentioned but they know who they are.
-Diane Ravitch is the man.  I mean ...well her talk was spot on.  More on this in the future.
-Geoffrey Canada was quite inspiring.  He's practical, understands his community well and is willing to do what it takes to help kids in a sensible way.  Whether the establishment is on board or not.
-Kareem Abdul Jabaar is not only a great basketball player but also funny, knowledgeable and creative.
What we saw of his film On the Shoulders of Giants was memorable. 
-Pierre L'Enfant was a genius.  A maniacal genius. 

So that's about all we can muster but we'll leave you with this lasting image.

A meeting of the minds

Mr. Underground Goes to DC

Recently we got a call from some folks up in DC indicating they were interested in what we here at the Underground had to say.  Actually it was just an E-mail, and it was not a request to hear what teachers think about education it was only a confirmation that we were registered for the National Coouncil for the Social Studies(NCSS) Conference in Washington, DC.

So we packed our bags(a bag each actually) and headed north.   TU along with a handful of other teachers in our division were going national.  I mean we went past National, now Reagan National on our way here.  We also passed the Occupy DC site, the Washington Monument and our Hotel twice before we stopped.

Diane Ravitch.  Honorary TU Member.

Harlem Children's Zone Founder Geoffrey Canada

The conference is loaded with great topics and boasts an impressive list of speakers.  We anticipate the highlight of those being the speech by Diane Ravitch.  Also looking forward to hearing from Philip Zimbardo, Judy Woodruff, Geoffrey Canada, and Kareem Abdul Jabaar.  After registering, we learned Secretary of Education Arne Duncan would also be giving a speech.    (When I heard that I wanted to register under the name "R. Neese Tinks" but thought better of it.)  It wouldn't have mattered in the end as Mr. Duncan ducked us, indicating he had been called to the White House.  His appearance would be limited to the ticketed "President's Breakfast" where the Teacher of the Year Awards were given out. Oh well.  Mr. Tinks will not be in attendance and I will. 

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

That said we are pretty sure our attendance is an elaborate ruse to get us out of our building.  When we return we fully expect to to find all of our stuff gone from our classroom and a new teacher there who has replaced us.

We are hoping to learn a lot and perhaps leave with some ideas and tools to better serve our students.   Look for an update that covers our first full day in DC  soon.  We'll leave you with this NCSS link to some useful social studies classroom resources keep you busy.