Early Release, Snipers & Patience

A good five minutes have ticked on by, and I have sat here staring blankly, reviewing my week for funny, witty, inspiring anecdotes to post. Still, nothing comes to mind.

My yoga teacher advises us to meditate for at least five minutes a day, but something tells me this little slice of time doesn't fit her idea of meditation.

Somehow I have got to get my funnyback. The fact that I misplaced it somewhere is a bit disconcerting, and from hearing from quite a few of you out there, you're having that kind of year, too.  You know, the kind of year that makes you feel like you've been ridden hard and put up wet.

The start of my work week promises to be interesting. We have an early release day which means the kiddos only come for half a day. Then the rest of our day is supposed to be allotted for that fun-filled extravaganza we refer to as "teacher inservice"  or "professional development." (And, we all know how I feel about that.)

We actually have an interesting one planned. Former Navy Seal Chris Kyle is coming to talk to us. Called the "most lethal sniper" in American history, he penned the bestselling book called "American Sniper." He just happens to be a graduate of the school I teach at.  Thus, the invite to talk to us.

And, no, I was not teaching there when he was a student. And yes, I'm reading the book. And yes, I have the highest respect for our military soldiers. But no, I'm not quite sure what the correlation is between being a Navy SEAL and a high school teacher or being a sniper and a high school teacher.

I was hoping that perhaps the invite was some sort of precursor to a newfangled security system, and that maybe, just maybe, we'd all be issued tasers or something. 

But no siree, Missy, sadly, that apparently is not the case.

Naturally, all of this buzz about Mr. Kyle coming to our school got me to thinking a lot about his talk, and what--if any--similarities there are between the two jobs. Well, here are my best list of possibilities…

•Emotional Detachment… SEALs and snipers have to perform their duties without letting their feelings get in the way, and teachers can't very well call someone a big fat stupid head in their classrooms, now can they? Hmmmm, although now I'm thinking that Navy SEALs can pretty much call anyone anything they want at anytime, so maybe we should strike this similarity off our list.

•Paperwork… I don't need to explain the paper trails running through schools across our great land, but I certainly was surprised that even snipers, according to Mr. Kyle's book, must fill out paperwork justification. Really? How crazy is that?

•Danger… My hall buddy Rhonda recently got beaned in head by a wayward rubber eraser someone threw during a passing period and the art teacher injured her leg when some art stuff fell on top of her.  OK, OK, OK… so being a SEAL is way more dangerous, so that can't be it.

•Patience… Ah, now this might be the real correlation between being a sniper and a high school teacher. No one can argue that both require an inordinate amount of patience. I'm hoping Mr. Kyle can give me a few pointers there. 

I'm thinking this should be a pretty interesting talk after all.

Carnival Submissions

Several of you have emailed that you have been having trouble submitting to the Eduction Buzz--Life's A Carnival. I'm not quite sure what the problem is. I have tried using the submission form and have not been successful either. I have contacted the carnival people and we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, if you would like to submit to the carnival, please email me the link to your post at mybellringers@gmail.com

Submission deadline for the next carnival will be 5 p.m. CST Sunday, March 4. I hope to post the carnival on Wednesday, March 7. Thanks for your patience.

Bellringers Update

For those of you who follow this blog, I apologize for my lack of education posts. This year has been more than a tad difficult.

Between trying to whittle down my size (which has become a full time challenge in itself), I have also been beaten down by my newspaper and yearbook publication schedules. Let's just say it's been less than a stellar year. (We've all had those, I know.) So let's just say it's been a tad bit difficult to find the humor, or when I have found the humor, it usually falls into the category of "things that will get you fired" if I write about them.

Or, as one email I received noted, there would be "consequencies." Too bad I can't share the rest of that one with you.

Despite all of that, I hope to be back on track in a week or so with regular posts, and, of course, an education carnival. I'll post info this weekend on when the next education carnival will be.

In the meantime, you can still check out my weight loss updates on my fitness blog or over at technorati. Those posts have proven to be fairly popular. Who knew losing weight would garner attention?

Support Groups, Dropping Out & Boredom

(This article was first published as Students List Boredom as Reason for Dropping Out on Technorati.)

Students List Boredom as Reason for Dropping Out

Things lately have gotten so bad at school I even unfriended my yoga support group.

And, as if that isn't enough to engender a passel of bad karma, not only did I unfriend them--I felt pretty darn tootin' good about it. Yep, that pretty much sums up the kind of school year I’ve had so far.

I'm just tired. I'm not really sure when things went south, I'm just sure that they did, and I figure no amount of yoga musings can fix that. 

So I really am not in the mood for all these quick fixes people keep coming up with or reasons this study or that study gives to solve or point out flaws with our educational system.

For instance, recently there was an article in the Dallas Morning News about a study indicating students dropped out because they were bored.

Bored?

I wonder how that would fly in my job… or your job… or any job… "Gee… Sorry, I don't want to do that because frankly I don't find that very interesting, exciting, thrilling…" Oh, let's just use the buzz word du jour… engaging.

Former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise who currently serves as the president of a Washington, D.C. policy and advocacy organization was quoted in the article as saying, "The results from that survey are born out by national surveys. Those are the issues listed. One that seems to be listed often is that 'I'm bored.'"

I'm not really sure what to do with all of that. Don't get me wrong, the drop out rate is a national crisis with 1.2 million kiddos checking out of school every year, according to the Broad Foundation. The New York Times reported that we had slipped to No. 21 in high school completion and outlines the high cost of high school drop outs.
Obviously, we need to do something about the drop out rate. I'm all for making school relevant, but sometimes relevant isn't terribly exciting.
I suppose we could form a support group, but then I'd probably get bored and have to unfriend you.

The Numero Uno 2012 Edition of the Education Buzz--Life's a Carnival

Welcome to our first Education Buzz Carnival of the New Year. I initially resolved to have a clever New Year's Resolution Edition, but that resolution lastest about a nano-second because I was having trouble focusing and being witty–probably because of this whole weight loss thing. So let's just cut our losses (or the lack thereof) and call this edition the Numero Uno 2012 Education Buzz--Life's a Carnival and get cracking…

Let's do a little re-gifting with Nancy Flanagan's post. No, silly, not the present kind. She's talking about  "Re-Gifted: The Prickly Politics of the Academically Able over at Teacher in a Strange Land. She asks, "Are we cheating the gifted? Not any more than usual." 

Promise me you won't  become one of those Teachers You Don’t Want To Meet that Pat talks about over at Successful Teaching. 

Darren shares some More California Lunacy over at Right on the Left Coast.

Education guru Joanne Jacobs presents College dreamers meet reality giving us an update on what happened to those 59 fifth graders who were promised a college education back in 1988.

Jane Goodwin champions learning for those late risers over at Scheiss Weekly. while Tim over at Assorted Stuff shares how to be a better learner.

Oh and don't forget to check out my post on why we should all try out for Survivor.

If you missed science guru Steve Spangler's video about how to open a can of Pringles, prepare frozen food and celebrate Tebow touchdowns, you need to watch his video. (It's hilarious especially the ending.)

Funny About Money offers a solution for high education woes with his Modest Proposal while Mike the Gardener offers up how to combine vegetable gardening with science and math.   

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Well that concludes our Numero Uno 2012 Edition of the Education Buzz–Life's a Carnival. Join us here again on Wednesday, Feb. 1 for our next edition of the Education Buzz. Please submit your posts no later than Sunday, Jan. 29 by 5 p.m. CDT. Use this handy dandy form for your submissions and please keep in mind our submission rules…

1. No spam
2. Must be education related
3. Since the carnival may be organized around themes, not all submissions may run.
4. Please remember to post and link back to the carnival.

If you would like to host a carnival, pah-leese let me know by emailing me at mybellringers@gmail.com.  Also, don't forget to let me know if you find any broken links or problems with this edition of the Ed Buzz. 

As always…

“I’ve got this feeling that there’s something that I missed…”
–Snow Patrol

And, if I did, my apologies.

Fitness Challenge Update

For those of you keeping up with my "I'm-Frying-In-My-Own-Fat" Weight Loss Challenge, check out my latest post, Will Power and Outsourcing Self Control Key Factors in Keeping Diet Resolutions on Technorati.

To read it, you can click on the article name or the scale above, or you can go over to my fitness blog and read it there.

Survivor & the New Semester

(Editor's note: Don't forget the next Education Buzz: Life's A Carnival is scheduled to run Wednesday, January 18. Please turn in your submissions by Sunday, January 15 to be included. And, no you didn't miss the last one. Life just got in the way, and I wasn't able to pull it together in time. If you want to submit, use this handy, dandy form.)

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This upcoming week poses some interesting challenges.

Interesting as in how will we survive an entire week back.

Interesting as in how to survive the fourth newspaper deadline.

Interesting as in how to survive yearbook.

It always comes down to survival, doesn't it. And if I were on that reality TV series Survivor, I wouldn't survive a nano-second.

The new season, Survivor One World begins Feb. 15 on CBS.

Or, perhaps maybe I would.

People like me (teachers/publications advisers) possess a certain skill set.

You know, skill sets like…

•Surviving in a room surrounded by teenagers

•Thriving under pressure

•Problem-solving with limited resources

•Team building in the face of insurmountable odds

•Meeting deadlines

•Flawless communication skills which, at this point, in our society means the ability to talk, like, in complete sentences, you know, without, you know, using "like" like a gajillion times or "you know."

Hey, sounds a lot like those "qualifications" for those reality show contestants.

Perhaps we should sign up.