Another New Years resolution
This year I decided to play it safe… no New Years resolutions that I wouldn’t keep. But not as safe as last year… there actually would be resolutions. So far, I resolved two things, and both are done or in process.
Keeping resolutions? Feels good. So I am adding another. I resolve to get my bathroom redone. Really. And no fooling around, waiting to see if I’ll keep this one. They took out my sink and cabinet and medicine chest yesterday…
New links for 2009 part 2
I’ve been updating my blogroll. There’s a lot of worthwhile stuff I’m reading that wasn’t on the right hand side. Bit by bit over the next few days and weeks I’ll fix that. And there’s some stuff that is going away, or has gone away. Some more new links:
- The Number Warrior. How in the world did I not already have him? I dunno. Good secondary stuff. And great contests.
- Math Tales from the Spring. HS math teacher, writes about math, math teaching, school policy. From West Texas. Regular, solid writing.
- Ms. Flecha blogs at My Life, Untranslated. Elementary, ESL, perhaps the best of the new NYC teacher blogs.
- The Washington Teacher. Technically already on the roll, but I’d never mentioned it. Pro-union, pro-teacher, independent individual blog.
- Sherman Dorn provides serious commentary on education from a fairly progressive point of view, and also, from Florida. Should have been listed long ago.
- Confused NYC Teacher. Fellow, maybe 3rd year, teaching math, commenting on school politics. I listed this blog last time, but it’s worth mentioning again because there is a ton of new content going up. It’s a mix of personal, school…. Definitely a worthwhile read.
Two disappearing links:
- Math in 153 shut down. Middle school math teacher from Texas. Honestly, I didn’t read often, but I think they didn’t update often.
- The Life and Times of a Rural Math Teacher just announced that it is being discontinued. I liked that one…
And a reminder, please submit posts for the Carnival of Mathematics (#47). It will be appearing here, late on Friday.
UFT organizes a KIPP school
Charter schools are mostly unorganized. The “charter movement” is mostly an anti-union movement. And “privately operated public schools” don’t match the idea most of us have in mind when we speak of public schools.
How are we going to break into other charter chains?
There are sharp differences among teacher unionists about how to cope with charter schools. My union, the UFT, set up 2 unionized charter schools a few years back (I can’t remember how I voted on authorizing this – I probably abstained as my gut said it was a bad idea, but didn’t want to deny them the chance to try).
This is a victory, and it belongs to all of us!
In Philadelphia, in Chicago, in New Orleans, around the country, there is concern about a growing non-union teaching workforce, and charters are central to those discussions.
Let’s brace ourselves. There will be a fierce barrage directed at teachers for daring to seek to act and speak collectively
So one place that we agree is that charter schools need to be organized. Another point, we know that they are hard to organize. In many cases the operators are fiercely anti-union. They propagandize freely against unions, and fire teachers who seek to act in concert with other teachers. And in many cases the schools are small, and developing union consciousness is harder in small workplaces.
So today the teachers at the KIPP school in Brooklyn cracked one of the toughest nuts. It’s a breakthrough, huge.
- Deep breath. We won something. And it wasn’t just outside agitators (as much as I love them). This was teachers organizing themselves.
- Study. Figure out what we did right. How are we going to get another KIPP school. And the one after that. How are we going to break into other charter chains?
- Brace ourselves. The anti-union, chartercrats and their paid theoreticians are going to be apopletic. There will be a fierce barrage directed at the KIPP teachers who signed up, for daring to seek to act and speak collectively, and their will be worse thrown at the UFT for daring to assist teachers in standing up.
But for today, congratulations to every teacher, in the KIPP school in Bushwick, in any school in NYC, in any school in the country. This is a victory, and it belongs to all of us!
New links part 1
My blog reader and blog roll have gotten badly out of synch. Not that they should match. But there’s a lot of worthwhile stuff I’m reading that wasn’t on the right hand side. Bit by bit over the next few days and weeks I’ll fix that. First up:
- Confused NYC Teacher. Fellow, maybe 3rd year, teaching math, commenting on school politics.
- (x, why). Another math comic. Really, just funny math images. Look. Smile. Refuse to laugh. Try
- Intrinsically Knotted. Susan, math grad student, upstate. Some puzzle-y stuff.
- Coffee and graph paper. HS math teacher. I thought he was already here?
- Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere. Sam Shah, high school teacher, private school in Brooklyn, good, hard, high school math.
And a reminder, please submit posts for the Carnival of Mathematics (#47). It will be appearing here, late on Friday.
1 week paid summer study for teachers
Each summer the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) sponsors some 4 – 6 week workshops for teachers. Major time investment!
But more recently, they started sponsoring 1 week “Landmarks of American History.” They pay $750 and reimburse transportation. The week is 5 days. You hang out with other teachers. And learn something. And visit somewhere. It’s a good, cheap (you might come out ahead) vacation. And, if you teach something other than social studies or English, they still take you. (application deadline is March 19)
I did two of these two years ago. I highly recommend the week in Lowell, Massachusetts, at the cotton mills there (with a side trip to Old Sturbridge Village, and another to Concord and the battle site and the Thoreau museum and the Alcott house and Walden Pond….
Link: National Endowment for the Humanities, Landmarks of American History
List with dates below the fold
More information below the fold
Brief listing:
- Emily Dickinson: Person, Poetry and Place, Amherst
- Shaping the Constitution: A View from Mount Vernon, 1783-1789
- “Stony the Road We Trod”: Alabama’s Role in the Modern Civil Rights Movement, Brimingham, Selma, Tuskegee
- Remembering the Alamo: Landmark of American History and Culture, San Antonio
- The American Skyscraper: Transforming Chicago and the Nation
- Partisans and Redcoats: The American Revolution in the Southern Backcountry, Cowpens, Kings Mountain…
- The Most Southern Place on Earth: Music, Culture, and History in the Mississippi Delta, Cleveland Mississippi with trips to Memphis and elsewhere
- Pearl Harbor: History, Memory, Memorial
- Jump at the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston and Her Eatonville Roots
- Huckleberry Finn in Post-Reconstruction America: Mark Twain’s Hartford Years, 1871-1891
- War of Invasion—War of Liberation: Occupied Nashville and the Civil War and Emancipation in the Upper South, Nashville and vicinity
- America’s Industrial Revolution at the Henry Ford, River Rouge
- A Revolution in Government: Philadelphia, American Independence, and the Constitution, 1765-1791
- “Aiming for Pensacola”: Riding the Underground Railroad in the Deep South
- Abraham Lincoln and the Forging of Modern America, Southern Illinois University
- Crossroads of Empire: Cultural Contact and Imperial Rivalry at Old Fort Niagara
- Ellis Island: Public Health, and the American Workforce, 1891–1924
- A Rising People: Benjamin Franklin and the Americans, Philadelphia
- Women’s Suffrage on the Western Frontier, Wyoming
- Inventing America: Lowell and the Industrial Revolution
All on my own in the NYC blogo-edusphere?
Not really. But time for a brief story.
Back in Fall 2005 the UFT was arguing over a horrible proposed contract. The teachers lost (the contract was approved) but that’s another story. This story is about something that happened at the same time: Leo Casey set up EdWize, a UFT blog, and brought in Kombiz to set it up and run it.
And EdWize was immediately dominated by contract discussion, and that was the first time I got involved in following a blog discussion, and I ended up commenting quite a bit. My first comment was about math curricula. My second was about the proposed contract:
- When we leave the job, it should be better than when we came to it. Are we all really willing to take money in return for making the job worse for the next generation of teachers? Let’s see the fine print before we make final judgment, but as of now I do not think my conscience will permit me to vote yes.
But this post isn’t about the contract, not about EdWize. It starts with Kombiz. He found me at a Delegate Assembly, introduced himself. We corresponded: union, contract, blogging. He persuaded me to start a blog, which I did (4/13/2006), and then he prevailed on me to abandon blogger and come over to wordpress. I did that, too (4/19). And I am still here.
He also got me to a blogger get-together in Central Park. April 20, 2006. I had been blogging less than a week. There were only 7 of us. And where are they now?
- Nancy and her sister. Nancy was the blogger. Her sister was bored, and along for the ride. Nancy still blogs, but she left teaching high school English last winter to have a baby.
- Kombiz blogs. I think. But he left the UFT after another year. Got a job working for the Democratic Party in DC. Blogging. And then?
- Frizzle! She was the greatest. But she left the country. Started another blog. Suspended Frizzle. Came back. Started Frizzle again at a different site? I forget. Started another blog. Left teaching. Started another blog, just writing. Worked on another blog. And just went back to teaching. Here in New York. But as a non-blogger
- And that left Julie. Mildly Melancholy. She was at the picnic with new boyfriend, who has since become BF. He had already left teaching some time before. But Julie taught and taught, and when she thought she’d had it, picked up and went to teach at a charter school. She was the only edublogger left from the picnic. And this Thursday? She got fired. I feel bad for her, though her posts seem chipper, and she never really liked being at that school anyway,
but I feel strange for me. These were the people who sort of introduced me to blogging… and since there’s been many others and we read each others’ stuff, comment, write… but still, it’s kind of like being on my own.
Carnival of Mathematics coming here – submit posts soon!
jd2718 will be hosting the next Carnival of Mathematics. It is due to be published this coming Friday.
I have hosted three carnivals previously: 9, 18, and 27. But the pattern broke down (as so many do). Neither 36 nor 45 were here.
But, the CoM returns. Strangely, I can’t tell if there was a carnival posted January 2. Will this be #47 or #48? Big mystery….
(Honestly, I don’t know. And the carnival traditionally opens with some discussion of the carnival number, so, please, if you know… Help!)
Send links to your posts/articles about math, problem solving, adventures in teaching (elementary, secondary, and post-secondary, all levels, all good). Send links to your posts about probability, computer science, anything else related. Math in popular culture. Math in unpopular culture. Games. History. Even humor.
The best way to submit is directly to me, at [this blog name] at [gmail] dot com. There is a carnival submission tool, as well, though I am nervous as it is not pointing to me, yet. In either case, include a brief description.
Not only cream rises – DoE reorganizes, a little
I’ve got nothing to say about the minor power shuffle in Tweed. But the primary beneficiary, Eric Nadelstern, has been featured in a few previous posts on this blog.
NYCDoE: lousy minischools, by the dozen – an indictment of the policy of breaking up big schools and opening cookie cutter mini-schools without buy in from administration, staff, students, or parents. It identifies Nadelstern as one of the primary architects and beneficiaries of this anti-teacher, anti-kid, anti-Brooklyn and anti-Bronx (that means, essentially, racist) policy.
Here Nadelstern returns, with some Gates money, and the idea that all of the Bronx will be converted into mini-schools. Why? Because of the great success they were having with top-down imposed small schools so far, of course.
Well, no. There was no success to point to. I think that they were looking to further damage public education in NYC, to help set the stage for vouchers, charters, privatization. And I think they were looking to damage the teachers union.
The stuff that makes carefully planned mini-schools work is totally absent in the centrally imposed, mass-produced Nadelstern-failure schools.
Let Nadelstern Write – an appeal to not invite this flimflam artist to waste the time of UFT Delegates, when he had not made full disclosure publicly.
More recently, he was a leading force in breaking up large Bronx high schools, a program that continues to cause dislocation among our teachers and students, and that has failed to deliver on its promises, while destroying decades of history and tradition. Later, Nadelstern’s name showed up prominently in the Mr. Diana Lam imbroglio and disgrace.
Bronx Science math teachers: inspiration
Struggle is inspirational? See what you think.
Confused NYC Teacher is wondering about what to do about the crazy scheduling ideas that his principal is implementing (likely to completely disrupt the school and the children’s education), and about the unfair excessing that seems to be going on. But after reading about the math teachers at Bronx Science standing up, writes:
What do angry teachers do? They unite, take charge and get the UFT involved. With all the upheaval and uncertainty at my school, it’s great to know some teachers can still pull together and work toward the common good. Here’s the scoop on what’s going on at Bronx High School of Science, one of NYC’s most elite schools. If teachers at all schools can unite like this, we would be a truly revolutionary force for education!
Then follows the transcript of today’s NY1 story, that I hadn’t seen.
Teachers Claim Mistreatment At Bronx School
Bronx Science Math Department woes in Daily News
Today’s Daily News reports on the ongoing problems with an abusive administrator at the Bronx High School of Science. Last month I added Bronx Science to the Do Not Apply list, and last week I published the math teachers’ collective special complaint against the assistant principal from last Spring.
This is the Daily News article, in its entirety:
New administrator blamed for faculty revolt at Bronx High School of Science
Thursday, January 8th 2009, 3:47 AM
A faculty revolt over working conditions is rocking the storied Bronx High School of Science, causing teachers to leave the elite public school.
Math teachers in particular blame a new administrator – Assistant Principal Rosemarie Jahoda – for verbal abuse, claiming they are admonished in front of students and have had their jobs threatened.
The percentage of teachers who had stayed at the school for more than two years had dropped to 66% in 2007 from 80% the year before. Read more…
Exhaustion, Resolution, Humor
When a bunch of bloggers wrote that they’d like a few more days (or weeks) of vacation, we all smiled. Heard the same thing at school on Monday. But, ladies and gentlemen, when I stayed a bit late Monday, grabbed some food from a diner, got home, read e-mail, yawn, and fell asleep before 7PM… My body is still demanding a return to last week’s schedule.
This year I resolved to make specific New Year’s resolutions, ones I could keep. And I am most of the way there. #1 was to give away my car. Done. I will be receiving a replacement (moving up from an 88 to a 99) in a week or two. #2 was to deal with my hair, in two stages. Stage 1 is now complete (a four plus hour ordeal; the Senegalese woman only thought it would take two…)
Here’s a funny starting the New Year math teaching post from Texas, and here’s a funny before the New Year little kid teaching post from New York.
Can you find what’s missing?
Gotham Schools runs a rise and shine section with links to New York education stories, mostly from the big dailies. Yesterday they linked to an article from the NY Post that caught my attention.
[Trivia: what’s the difference between the New York Post and the Weekly World News? Answer at bottom.]
Ok, nine days out of ten I don’t click on the link to the Post. The reporter may be a decent guy, but the paper. euww. But this time the Gotham Schools blurb grabbed me:
The city’s teaching force has grown more experienced in recent years.
Really?
I clicked.
Here’s the entire Post article:
The city’s public-school teaching force has grown more experienced, new data show. Read more…
Teacher Pay from far away: Detroit
[Note: Reader K.A. points out that there are four more steps, bringing top salary over $70k. Corrected scale to be posted soon. -jd, 08/30/09]
Detroit. The Motor City. Devastated when auto moved away. Once almost 2 million people lived there. Now? 900,000.
By the way, teachers can earn a few hundred bucks for visiting the River Rouge complex this summer. I’ll blog about that, soon.
Anyhow, teachers in Detroit have it hard. There were layoffs in October, though the DFT got some of them rolled back in November. There is a threatened state takeover. At least they work a short year (174 days)
What do teachers in Detroit make? Much less than New York teachers. Pay starts at $39,647 and maxes at $56,017. Only 6 steps, and only 3 differentials
Full scale, beneath the fold:
Puzzle and Game: Maximum Product
Puzzle:
Concatenate the digits: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 and create numbers with as high a product as possible. Each digit must be used exactly once. (Why not create the same puzzle, but with maximum sum?? Well…)
[Subpuzzle: assume that a candidate is a pair of numbers of, with the digits in each number strictly descending from left to right. How many candidates of lengths 2 and 4 are there? Of lengths 3 and 3?]
Game:
Each player sets up 6 blanks: __ __ × __ __ __ __
A non-player generates a series of random integers, 0 – 9, and calls them out, one at a time. As each number is called, each player must place it into one of the remaining blanks. Maximum product wins.
This is similar to a game that Dave Marain posted at Math Notations last month. I have seen lots of variations; you could make up your own (quotient of a 4 digit number and a 2 digit number works. But so do lots of others.)
More about Bronx Science: Special Complaint
Putting Bronx Science on the Do Not Apply list was not a simple thing to do; it is so different from the other schools on the list. I think I was right to want more evidence before adding it. And evidence I got.
Harassment of new teachers in the Bronx Science mathematics department had become so serious last spring, that the teachers joined together and filed a special complaint. What follows is an edited version of the Special Complaint.
The original is dated May 14, 2008. It is written to the Bronx UFT HS DR, and signed by 20 of the 22 members of the department. The signatures and the names of individual teachers have been removed.
We, the undersigned teachers of the math department at The Bronx High School of Science, are writing to you because we are sincerely concerned about some of the actions taken by Rosemarie Jahoda, A. P. Mathematics. We believe that these actions are harmful to both staff and students. We have tried, both collectively and as individuals, to address our concerns directly to Ms. Jahoda, but when we have attempted to address and amicably resolve these issues, Ms. Jahoda has not been willing to listen.
We feel that it is important that you know that the decision to write this letter was not taken lightly. In fact, a step such as this has never before been taken by members of the math department. This alone highlights its significance.
In general, we feel that Ms. Jahoda’s management style has led to the creation of an unpleasant, and in some cases, hostile work environment. She has intimidated teachers, particularly the untenured faculty, and has been unreasonable in her requirements of staff. Her actions would lead a reasonable person to conclude that she has targeted certain teachers with whom she has had disagreements, or, for some reason, does not like. Ms. Jahoda has stifled creative thinking and free speech. We are extremely disheartened as we think of what the mathematics department has been and has the potential to be.
Some of the issues are the following: Read more…
Lack of resolution
Ignoring the whole idea of New Years resolutions is easy for me. I grew up in a non-resolution house. They were silly, almost superstitious. And people didn’t really mean them.
Fast forward many, many years later. Resolutions are all over the place. Lots of people make them. It is tempting…
But what sort of resolution? The standard eat better, not be late, lose some pounds, be more active, get nicer clothes… All nice. All things worth working on any time, not just New Years. And why resolve what will not be resolved? (ie completed. The grammarian in me says resolutions should consist of perfective, not imprefective action) “Do you promise to do better?” “Yes, I do” is a silly dialogue, whether in class with a kid or here now. I will not engage in it.
Something specific? How about two things…
- Replace my car (built during Reagan’s second term, in West Germany)?
- Cut my (quite long) hair?
So what if I had decided to do them earlier. I resolve… and they will be done. The car goes tomorrow (giving it away). The hair will go through an intermediate phase first… the cut will wait a month or two. Two issues resolved.
Anti-experience reformers and the new year
TfA, Klein, Rhee…
We know they are anti-teacher (but they have no monopoly there). We suspect they are anti-public education. But again, that hardly makes them unique. But their hostility to experience is defining. As is their partiality to power.
We’ll develop this more fully, but a few notes for now:
- Less experienced principals. Principals who have never taught. (Leadership Academy)
- Scores, budgets and other numbers recast so that non-education technocrats can intervene in educational decision-making. (Teacher Data and Aris benefit DoE’s central offices far more than they could benefit any teacher, school, or class)
- Emphasis on scores over qualitative evaluations (of teachers, of students. Inexperienced administrators have a chance with numbers, not with observations)
- Less experienced teachers (high turnover)
- Attacks on experience (ATRs, probes against tenure, ‘open market’ hiring)
- TfA prefers a person with a fancy degree teaching for a year or two to experienced teachers. (After which they are supposed to do anything they like, but TfA deems them qualified to run a school system.)
TfA and Klein’s hostility to experience is defining
It’s turning our teaching corps whiter and less experienced. It’s giving kids in poor neighborhoods a transient teaching force. It’s the anti-experience ed reform movement.
(and the new year? I just threw that in. December 31 and all. Happy New Year, and thanks for reading)
Last two firsts of two thousand eight
First time in the Oyster Bar. Really. And first raw oyster.
The Oyster Bar is something of a New York institution. It opened with Grand Central almost 100 years ago. I’d always meant, but never went. Until yesterday.
Raw oysters? They had lots and lots of varieties. But I had no intention…
We were sitting at the bar in the Saloon, eating cooked sort of food, when a woman sat down next to us and seemed to receive far too much of the uncooked sort of food. There had been a mistake, but they weren’t taking it back, and she offered… I stared… she lemoned one up, added horse radish, cocktail sauce… it wasn’t nearly as disgusting as it looked… but I didn’t immediately order more.
As to the Oyster Bar itself… lots of ‘ambiance’ but fairly high prices. I’m sure I’ll be back… but not too soon.
Puzzle: consecutive dice
You hear someone in the next room roll two dice.
“Look at the two numbers. Do you see an odd number?”
“Yes”
Now, what is the probability that he rolled two consecutive numbers? For example, 3-2 or 5-6
Please use the comments section for discussing, clarifying, etc. But please, no solutions below.
Enter your solutions at Solutions: consecutive dice.
Solutions: consecutive dice
You hear someone in the next room roll two dice.
“Look at the two numbers. Do you see an odd number?”
“Yes”
Now, what is the probability that he rolled two consecutive numbers? For example, 3-2 or 5-6
Please use the comments section below for posting solutions.
For discussion, clarification, etc, click over to the problem post. Read more…
I was once in a math war skirmish… Part 3: teaching Math Connections
In the late 1990s the Math Wars, ignited in California, were spreading across the country. I was a witness (participant?) in a skirmish in the Bronx.
Part 1: Curriculum Imposed
Part 2: Math Teachers organize
Summary of Part 1: In 1999 our superintendent forced schools to pilot a choice between IMP and Math Connections. My school went for MC, as did about two thirds of the Bronx. The following year we faced full adoption, without seriously examining how the pilots ran. The first group of teachers involved got jobs with the publisher, and became (in many instances) unpleasant enforcers of the publisher’s will. All the MC classes went to newer teachers (with, generally, poorer classroom management) Training was lousy (trainers focused on constructivism; teachers needed content.)
Summary of Part 2: Senior teachers started to become concerned in 2000, and they helped set up a union response. A handful of us met over the course of a school year, and filed a request for professional conciliation. A skilled District Rep (a science teacher) pushed us with tough questions. We knew what we were against. We found it harder to identify what we were for. But we had enough together for a hearing in June 2001.
But after our hearing, we had to wait for a decision. It would be over the summer. In the meantime, we were entering another year with Math Connections in our school. 1999-2000, Year 0, we had a pilot class. 2000-01, Year 1, all the freshmen were enrolled. 2001-02, Year 2, we now had one group ready (not really, but let’s just say) for Math Connections Year 3.
And I was assigned to teach it. Read more…
Are you sure?
Isn’t this a horrible question to use in the classroom?
Every kid knows the game: read the teacher’s reaction for hints. And this is a doozy. “Are you sure?” = correct yourself quickly.
But in 2718’s class, the question works differently.
Roughly 2 out of 3 times I use it, the kid was right. It forces them to stop, think. The answer is not automatic.
Why do I ask “are you sure?” Well, first off, I don’t ask it a lot. It’s still not a favorite question.
- Sometimes, just to throw a curve.
- Sometimes, a kid who participates a lot is answering too fast. It forces reflection.
- Sometimes I get an answer, a number, a word, when I wanted an explanation. Contrast “Can you tell us how you got that answer?” with “Are you sure?” [response] Can you explain why?
- Sometimes, it pulls the class’ attention, hard.
- Sometimes to let a kid off the hook. “I thought it was like the previous question, but, no, I am not sure.”
- Sometimes to make a kid feel good [scrunches up face because he’s not positive, runs the math in his head, and triumphantly exclaims] “Yes, I am sure!”
Books for Barack (CUNY edition)
My other union, CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC), AFT Local 2334, has encouraged members to send book suggestions to president-elect Obama.
You can find the list (and add to it) at this PSC page. Each person described the book or explained the recommendation a bit.
They published the first few in the Clarion (the PSC’s award-winning paper). Here they are:
- The Origin of the Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, by Thomas Sugrue. (suggested by Bridgett Davis, Journalism, Baruch)
- Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad, by Marnia Lazreg. (suggested by Marnia Lazreg, Sociology, Hunter and the Grad Center)
- This Other World, by Richard Wright. (suggested by Kimiko Hahn, English, Queens)
- 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive inside the Twin Towers, by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn. (suggested by Paul Moses, Journalism, Brooklyn and CUNY Journalism)
- The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, by Niall Ferguson. (suggested by Andrew Beveridge, Sociology, Queens and the Grad Center)
- The Green Collar Economy, by Van Jones. (suggested by Vernon Morgensen, Political Science, Kingsborough)
- Nursing Against the Odds: How Health Care Cost Cutting, Media Stereoptypes, and Medical Hubris Undermine Nurses and Patient Care, by Suzanne Gordon. (suggested by Catherine Alicia Georges, Nursing, Lehman)
- Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, by James MacGregor Burns, Abraham Lincoln, the Man Behind the Myths, by Stephen B. Oates, The Bending Cross, by Ray Ginger, and Yertle the Turtle, by Dr. Suess. (suggested by Joanne Reitano, History, LaGuardia)
- The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, by Robert Tressell. (suggested by William Tabb, Economics (emeritus), Queens)
- Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, by Daniel Pink. (suggested by Nicole Tschampel, Art, Hunter)
- The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, 1945-1948: The Human Rights Years, forward by Hillary Rodham Clinton. (suggested by Blanche Wiesen Cook, History, John Jay and the Grad Center)
- The New York City Law Review (11 volumes). (suggested by Ruthann Robson, University Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law)
- Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely. (suggested by Ellen Balleisen, CLIP Teacher, Bronx Community College)
- Migration: New and Selected Poems, by W. S. Merwin. (suggested by Grace Schulman, English, Baruch)
So, readers, what think you? What do you think of the suggestions? Have you read any? (I have. But just one). And what do you think of the exercise?
They are trying to fire NYC teachers without cause
First it was the ATRs. The DoE wanted to fire them if they remained unplaced. We stopped that.
Then it was the RTRs. Just this month. We field the grievance, got an injunction, an extension, beat back their appeal. And we have enough confidence in the strength of our position (legally) and the strength of our position (solidarity with all our members, as a union) that we have put up a substantial bond.
One day they will come back after the unplaced ATRs. The DoE is looking for ways to chip away at our job protection. They are as patient as they are vile, and after each loss they regroup and look for a new line of attack.
Read the case of the longterm sub at a Bronx middle school who was just fired: (she was wrongly being paid as a per-diem)
Was teacher fired for consulting union?
by Kate Pastor
PS 207 parents are rallying around a teacher who they say was suddenly and unjustly fired just days before the Thanksgiving holiday.
Ada Luna, who was filling a position as a first-grade English as a Second Language teacher, said she was fired on Nov. 24, after trying to discuss her salary with the principal, Maria Rosado. After the principal brushed her off, she said, she met with the school’s United Federation of Teachers’ representative, Leida Romero-Lopez, and was promptly fired for doing so. Read more…
LOL Cats programming language
hat tip: Rolfe
I sneer at lots of things. LOLcats among them. But sometimes I smile, too. At the same cats. I mean, they’re too cute, saccharine, and that silly language, meh, but sometimes they are kind of funny…
OK, so apparently there is now LOLCode for programming. Hey, I don’t program. But I know the simple commands, and I know something about how the stuff is structured, so I can read this:
HAI CAN HAS STDIO? I HAS A VAR GIMMEH VAR IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10? YARLY BTW this is true VISIBLE "BIG NUMBER!" NOWAI BTW this is false VISIBLE "LITTLE NUMBER!" KTHX KTHXBYE
and this: Read more…
JD2718 