Mark Cuban, Dancing with the Stars & Pocket Change

I was flipping through my 300-plus channels of television satellite nothingness when I stopped at “Dancing with the Stars” to watch Maverick’s owner gajillionare Mark Cuban do some jive dancing. I just love it when the “Cubinator” (as the television host called him) pops up in the media. Mr. Cuban always makes me laugh.

I remember when he was fined $500,000 in 2002 for his now-famous comments about referees. Just in case you missed it, he told the Dallas Morning News, “Ed Rush (head of officiating) might have been a great ref, but I wouldn’t hire him to manage a Dairy Queen.”

Not only did that remark earn him the record-breaking fine, but it also spawned a media frenzy and a trip to a local Dairy Queen where Cuban served up Blizzards and such. Sometimes free speech isn’t exactly free. Cuban took it with a shrug.

Pocket change, I guess.

But that kind of change would, well, change my world.

Stuff like that always gets me thinking: If only I didn’t have (fill in the blank), I could…

Sometimes I amuse myself by drafting letters to the likes of Mark Cuban, Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates.

“Dear Mr. Cuban…Since you seem to have some spare change lying around, perhaps you could pick up my daughter’s college loans? We only owe about $40,000—that’s less than 10 percent of the fine for speaking your mind about those nasty refs…”

Or, “Dear Ms. Winfrey…Did I tell you about this little book I wrote that’s just guaranteed to fly off the shelves if you’d only help me get it published and make just a teensy, weensy mention of it to your book club…”

Or, Dear Mr. Gates…

Well, you get the picture…Twisted, I know. Needless to say, those letters never made it to the post office.

Still, the thought of what life would be like with the Cubinator’s pocket change gnaws at me on a fairly regular basis. It’s usually exacerbated by some dimwitted teacher in-service, or an unusually vitriolic parent phone call or even some Oprah giveaway. At this point, I’m probably on my “Get Rich Quick Scheme No. 782” to supplement my income or “How To Find That Corporate Sponsor No. 632 to help offset the costs of this or that publication expense.

Now, my “I-grew-up-in-the-depression” parents whose parents immigrated to this country in the 1920s always told me that no one gets rich without hard work. But if hard work and long hours were the main criteria for getting rich, Mark Cuban and I would be sipping drinks at dinner parties together and discussing the state of teens today. But we’re not because those of us on the front lines of public education cannot parlay our hard work into that kind of dollars and cents.

The best I can bank on is for one of my students to grab the American dream and become rich and famous, which would then allow me to sell something of theirs on eBay: Why here is the pencil Spencer used once when he was drawing his masterpiece, bidding starts at $1,000; here’s a notebook Eric used when he jotted down notes for his Great American Novel, a steal at a mere $2,500; there’s a sketch Carly made before she won the Nobel prize for her research, a real charmer at $800.

That, my friends, is what I fondly refer to as my “teacher retirement plan,” but quite frankly, I’m none too hopeful that I’m going to capitalize that way. Instead, I’ve started to think of other opportunities and am resigned that maybe I won’t look so bad in one of those Wal-Mart greeter vests.

iPods, Chinese fire drills and trucks

Podless.

iPodless.

There I said it. I am Podless.

"Hello, my name is Richie and I am podless…"

Yes, podless.

I am sure Steve Jobs would roll his eyes to know that.

Podless. Podless. Podless. (Sort of cathartic to do that like a third-grader in a school yard.)

I am not podless by choice. My two children, of course, have them as well as just about everyone above three feet tall and below the age of 86 who resides on the planet. But alas, it is one of those if-only-Oprah-would-discover-me type purchases. I can't justify the cost. And quite frankly, I'm a bit fuzzy as to all the reasons I should have one (because if you can't wear it or eat it, I'm not sure I need it).

But for a brief moment I needed it, wanted it… coveted it.

I was sitting with my editor going over editor things and needed to check the accuracy of an infographic. Since my editor is above three feet tall and definitely under the 86-year-old range, I asked her, "Hey, do you have an iPod?"

"No," she said, with a hint of sadness in her voice.

"Oh," I said, thinking that perhaps she was experiencing the same if-only-Oprah-would-discover-me financial pinch.

"I'm sorry," I said mustering my most somber tone while making my best sad face (which btw needs a tad bit more work).

"I used to have one," she said somewhat wistfully.

"What happened?"

"It got run over."

"What?"

"Yeah, a truck ran over it."

"No way… what happened?"

"Chinese fire drill."

"Uh, that's unfortunate."

Shortly after that, our artist walked in.

"I need an iPod," I told her. "She doesn't have one. It got run over by a truck."

"No way! Mine got run over too."

"Chinese fire drill?" my editor asked somewhat hopefully.

"Mom," the artist said. "Ran over my phone and my iPod."

"Truck?" I asked.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" she asked.

"Conspiracy theory," I said.

And with that, I thought, perhaps it was better not to covet the things we don't have.

Still, I was iPodless.

But it's OK. It'd probably just get run over any way…

…by a big truck

…during a Chinese fire drill

…on deadline.

It could happen.

Other Duties As Assigned…

As I sat outside in 90-degree or so heat (this is Texas remember) supervising my one hour and 45 minute Homecoming Float Duty, it just made me run through that mental list of “Things We Didn’t Go to College For” that bounces around the back of my brain from time to time. But with teachers flanking both sides of me sitting in those “Soccer Mom” folding chairs and grading papers, my friend the Spanish teacher glanced over my shoulder as I compiled my list and duly noted that a better title would be: “What they really mean when they say, ‘Other duties as assigned…’”

And, as usual she’s right, so there it is, and here we are with a list culled from years of experience, a number of teachers and from a variety of school districts.

Other duties as assigned…

• Playing yearbook "bingo" in order to sort through 1,000-plus books by teacher name and an assorted array of customized extras in order to distribute the book. Trust me on this one, you don't want to know the rules. There's never a winner.

• Stuffing tootsie rolls in empty rolls of toilet paper and wrapping them up for cheerleaders to throw to fans at football games.

• “Designing” receipts through all manner and forms of technology for items purchased for kids after misplacing the original receipts.

• Ascertaining whether “Lick Lamar” was too graphic to put on a lollipop when trying to come up with a theme for the Friday night football game against Arlington Lamar High School.

• Luring kangaroo mice with sunflower seeds and popping trashcans over them because we legally couldn’t set mouse traps or bait.

• Taking the temperature of vents throughout the school because no one in maintenance (located in a separate building, on a different street, with working temperature controls) actually believed the air blows at a frigid 53 degrees. Instead, the infamous “they” believed the teaching staff was comprised of menopausal, hormonally whacked-out females suffering from faulty temperature sensations.

• Chasing chickens (yes, real ones, not the wacky rubber ones) down the hallway after some end-of-the-year prankster put them in the girls’ bathroom.

• Arranging cookies on cocktail napkins for parents at the end of an assembly just so we could thieve a snickerdoodle or two.

• Rewriting about 100 statistics from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test results on a blank sheet of paper during teacher in-service (staff development) to prove we can (a) find the data (b) accurately record the information and (c) waste all morning doing it.

• Trying to teach a computer class for six weeks without computers. Unless that was part of the “monitor and adjust” curriculum of Education 101.

• Being issued not red pens, whiteboard markers or paper clips but a yellow and black flashlight as the only piece of official equipment to cope with the anticipated power outages from low-bid construction crews hired to renovate the school. And, yes, of course, they were used.

• Painting [substitute your mascot’s name here] paws for a mile in preparation for the Homecoming Parade.

• Being assigned to the Noise Patrol to confiscate air horns and other noisemakers at graduation. Or, better yet, being pressed into duty as part of the Gum Squad–that’s G-U-M not G-U-N–to make would-be graduates spit out their chewy blobs before being allowed to bebop down the aisles to “Pomp and Circumstance.”

I swear all this is true…I couldn’t make this stuff up even if I tried. Sure would like to hear some of your stories. You can post them here or you can email me at mybellringers@gmail.com.

No Child Left Behind & My Rather Large Behind

Three weeks into school and already I feel as pressed as a dried flower squashed and forgotten in one of those classic-looking books. (You know, the ones that adorn bookshelves, not necessarily for reading pleasure, but strictly for looks?) This whole pressed and squashed thing got me thinking about the similarities between the No Child Left Behind law and my rather large behind–which, by the way, I truly would like to leave behind.

Now, I hope this will be blessedly short and sweet because progress reports loom ominously on the horizon. For you non-educators and non-Texans, that means papers have to be graded and those grades duly recorded by law at the three-week mark. At this moment in my frazzled existence, neither the jolly red grading giant nor the ruby-red rubric fairy has yet to darken my classroom door with an offer of assistance. Sigh.

But before we tackle this behind-thing, here’s a big disclaimer… This is not a political rant and I am not a political pundit. Rather, it’s an observation of similarities and coincidences…

Point #1…Let me say that I have never read the 670 page 1.8-MB file that contains the law, but trust me, I don’t need to see it to know it’s huge–just like I don’t need to dust off the bathroom scale hidden in the back of my closet to weigh in on my back side.


Point #2…Sadly, despite our most valiant efforts as teachers, realistically there is no way to save every school and every child. School administrators and politicos must have all attended the same seminar somewhere and heard the “Starfish” story, got teary-eyed and vowed to save each and every washed up urchin, thus sparking the birth of EUs (Educational Utopians). I must admit that I, too, have succumbed and spent hours tossing the creatures back in only to look up and realize that for every one returned safely another 10 washed back up. Which, in some twisted way, all oddly parallels the hours expended in my aerobics class. For every calorie I burn, I probably eat two more when I return home famished.


Point #3…Accountability is important in every facet of life. Education shouldn’t be an exception. Apparently accountability provides the cornerstone for the hundreds of pages devoted to this law. At the risk of sounding callous, don’t we need to factor in personal responsibility at some point? It’s easy to play the blame game and cry victim. I do the same thing. It’s those evil marketing ploys that make me grab the chocolate, shout supersize, gulp lattes and want more, more, more.

I swear sometimes I should just slap myself silly.

Point #4…Despite all the rumblings and grumblings, No Child Left Behind will be here awhile–as will my, ahem, wide load.

But let’s end this on a positive note, I’ve traveled frequently with kids, and never once left one behind. ;-)

So, it’s all good after all.

Unless, of course, I start beeping when I back up.