Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Education Buzz Life's A Carnival

Well the carnival finally rolled into town. Sorry, folks no theme this time, but did you really expect one? Jeez Louise! It's summer after all. Grab a drink, some chips & salsa and take a look at these posts…

It ain't easy being green, but Maryland high school graduates will need to be. Check out Joanne Jacobs' latest post.

Meanwhile, Darren over at Right on the Left Coast is almost human. He also examines why "Berkeley Schools Suck at Teaching Minorities."

Pat over at Successful Teaching talks about Celebrating Uniqueness.

Mandy discusses whether current events have a place in public education.

Kate over at Parenting is… talks about  honesty & politeness.

Tim over at Assorted Stuff is hopeful that perhaps one day we will move from viewing students as merely consumers, but creators when it comes to technology.

For those of you who are fans of the show "Minute to Win It" will want to be sure to check out our favorite science guy Steve Spangler to see some of his science experiments and tricks that have made the show.

It's definitely not Mamacita's fault! Check out her post at Scheiss Weekly.

Of course, you'll want to read all about how I'm spending my spare time in my post "Summer, the Denton Beach House & Vanilla Ice."

Well that's all I have time for. I've got to go see how over-budget we are. The next carnival will appear here on July 6 (if this home renovation thing doesn't kill me). Send your posts using  this handy, dandy form.  Please send them before by July 3. You can send more than one if you would like.

Education Buzz Carnival Coming!

The Carnival is on its way! Delayed slightly by life's speed bumps (and work on the Denton Beach House).  The Carnival will appear here later this evening or tomorrow (Thursday, June 23).

Monday, June 20, 2011

Summer, the Denton Beach House & Vanilla Ice

I really do love teaching, but I would be a big, fat liar if I didn't say that with the stress of my job, I spend much of the year pining away for my favorite time of the year–summer!

I love summer.

I love everything about it… Mr. Sun, the beach, the pool, the heat, chips & salsa, lemonade, limeade, blue cloudless skies, puffy cloudy blue skies, the smokey smell of mesquite smoked barbecue.

I love the feel of warm sand, the sound of the ocean waves and the sight of pelicans flying.

So now that summer is here, you would think I would be well-rested and happy as a seagull snatching scraps of bread mid-air.

Yeah, you would think. Instead, immediately following my trek to the beach, I have spent most  of my waking, breathing moments working on our latest project, which I fondly (and not-so-fondly) refer to as my Beach House in Denton or simply the Denton Beach House. For those of you not familiar with North Texas, Denton is nowhere near the beach. In fact, it's about 600 miles away.

Blame it on all those HGTV and DIY home improvement shows. Blame it on my teeny, weeny, tiny brain that thought it was great idea to help my daughter buy a house instead of paying rent while she attended college. Blame it on… well, you fill in the blank.
Denton Beach House Shanty Shed

What I want to know is where in the Sam Hill is Scott McGillivray when I need him? Or how about Ahmed and the yard crashers? He would have loved getting rid of our shanty shed in the backyard. Is it really too much to ask for a little bit of Ice, Ice, Baby! 

Is it?

All this week when I returned home from working on the Denton Beach House, I just glare at the stack of school work on the floor that I brought home for the summer. You know, work to "catch up on." 

Piles of it.

Maybe, just maybe, I'm looking at this all wrong. Perhaps I'm waiting for the wrong people to knock on my door. Maybe just maybe Peter Walsh will appear with his magic and make all of that stuff go away.

In the meantime, I'm headed out to the pool.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Summer Updates, Education Carnival Submissions & Paid Posts

Ah… I know you missed me, but it took a bit more time to close out the year, and then, of course, I had to dash to beach for some much needed R&R.

Then, of course, once I returned I had to dash again to work on my beach house in Denton, Texas. (Right about now, those of you who know something about geography and the state of Texas realize that there isn't a beach even remotely close to Denton. But that's a another story for another day which I promise to get to sometime this summer.)

Instead, I need to catch everyone up on important stuff going on. First, there will be a carnival, but the Education Buzz will probably not be posted until Wednesday, June 22, so send me your musings, rantings and posts even if they were end of the year stuff. If you want folks to take a gander at them,  use this handy, dandy form to send them to me.  Please send them before June 19. You can send more than one if you would like. If you've already sent something, I still have that link and will go through those.

I have also decided to allow some paid posts to appear on my blog site partially because of that beach house in Denton and partially because I wanted to see whether my site can ever actually bring in some money. We shall see.  I will include a note identifying such posts. These posts like the carnival links that appear on my site do not mean an endorsement of the content. The first such post will appear tomorrow.