President Obama, Speeches & Rubber Chickens

Today’s the big day––the President Obama Speech Day, and I’m not quite sure what all the fuss is about because, you see, on any given day probably 99 percent of teachers in the country can’t access anything on the Internet any way.

I along with my EduSphere bloggers have ranted about that before. Some school districts like McKinney ISD have become so paranoid that they have implemented policies restricting even email contact between teachers and students. Hails Bails, friends tell me all the time about how they can’t access my blog at their schools. And don’t even get me started on trying to download images from Google at school. Teachers across this great land of ours have to resort to pretending we’re Russian and surf on over to the communist side. (Are Russians still considered communists?) Ah, the things one must do in the name of education.

So, to President Obama, I say good luck with that whole speech thing and getting through the school house door.

Here’s a tip though, Mr. President, in case you do managed to break through: I noticed there was absolutely no mention of a rubber chicken in your address. Now, Mr. President, if you want those kiddos to listen to you, well, you better rustle one up speedy quick.

You’re going to have to trust me on that one.

Back to School, YouTube Videos & Shadow Puppets

Like most teachers on the planet--or at least in these parts--I spent last week frantically trying to organize my room and plan for the upcoming school year in the moments provided between attending meetings, learning how to bond with my fellow teacheroos and setting goals.

While at these meetings, we got to watch several nifty little PowerPoints along with nifty little YouTube videos. Don’t you just love those videos? I do.

Jeez, I’d love to show nifty little YouTube videos to help keep my kiddos engaged, but sadly I do not have the keys to enter the YouTube video kingdom where all is nifty and fan-tab-u-lous.

No Siree, not me.

Try as I might, St. Bernard, our school’s Internet gatekeeper, blocks me. No YouTube video kingdom keys for me. No Siree. I couldn’t watch Mr. Teacher’s rather fab-u-lous rendition of Darth Vader explaining the Pythagorean Theorem on YouTube no matter how hard I try.

Nope. No can do. And if you’re reading this from your school, you probably can’t go there either.

And, I’m sad to report that I can’t show an interesting video by that University of Virginia professor to my newly bonded teacheroo friends to discuss how the professor basically cans everything I’ve ever been told about learning styles when he proclaims “Learning Styles Don’t Exist.”

Try accessing that at your school. Nuh-uh. Sorry. No can do. The watcher of all that is Internet will not allow access.

So much for the free flow of ideas. I’m down to a trickle here. I bet you are too. It’s enough to make you think you’re in China. Hey, maybe Chinese spies created Internet blockers.

Now, I could request access from my tech guy buddies, but with our tech guys opening up two campuses and troubleshooting all the computer scheduling problems etc. that surface at the start of the school year, I didn’t because (1) I really, really do like our tech guys and I didn’t want to bother them and add to their stress, and (2) I know this request isn’t that important so it probably stands as much of a chance (at this point in time) as this guy.

So in the meantime until things settle down, I guess shadow puppets will have to suffice.


And if you don’t think I’ll do that, well then my friends, you don’t know me well at all.