The 12 Favorite Bloggers Christmas Edition of the Education Buzz--Life's a Carnival

I'm not exactly sure what happened to the entries this go-around. I apparently did something wrong with the carnival scheduling, so if you submitted something, I didn't get it. 

Did you think that little snafu would stop me? No, siree, Missy. We're going with Plan B. There's no stopping this fun-filled extravaganza.

So welcome to My 12 Favorite Bloggers Christmas Edition of the Education Buzz--Life's a Carnival. Instead of our normal eclectic smattering of things buzzing about the EduSphere, I thought I would give you 12 of my favorite education bloggers. If you have a favorite blogger who wasn't included, please post a comment.

So in alphabetical order…drum-roll pah-leese…

12 of Richie's Favorite Bloggers

1. Assorted Stuff

2. The Detention Slip

3. Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable

4. Joanne Jacobs

5. Learn Me Good

6. Right on the Left Coast

7. Scenes from the Battleground 

8. Scheiss Weekly 

9. Siobhan Curious

10. Steve Spangler (just because he blows up things) 

11. So You Want To Teach

12. Successful Teaching

Well that's it for this edition for the Education Buzz.  I sure hope you sang along to my Teacher's Twelve Days of Christmas posted below.

Join us here again on Wednesday, January 4 for the next edition. (I thought I would take a break from the carnival over the holidays.) Please submit your posts by Saturday, Dec. 31 by 5 p.m. CDT. Use this handy dandy form for your submissions, and this time, I think I did everything correctly so I should get them.

If you would like to host a carnival, 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.

Fitness Challenge Update

It's officially Week 16 of the "I'm-Frying-In-My-Own-Fat" Weight Loss Challenge. You can read my latest update Week 16–Taking a Breather in Skinny Jeans 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.

A Teacher's Twelve Days of Christmas

Every teacher knows the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas break is an educational No Man's Land. Many a good teacher has fought the good fight here and lost. Some have opted to declare a truce. Others just give up until the New Year revives them with a breath of hope.

Whichever category you find yourself in this holiday season, trying to keep the kiddos on task or teach them something during this time would even have tried the patience of  Mother Teresa.

Times like these call for a festive song of our very own. So raise the white flag, hunker down, grab some emergency chocolate and sing along…

Richie's Special
Twelve Days of Christmas for Teachers

On the first day of Christmas

my school gave to me…
one more required state exam

On the second day of Christmas

my school gave to me…

two broken desks

and one more required state exam

On the third day of Christmas

my school gave to me…

three more students,

two broken desks,

and one more required state exam

On the fourth day of Christmas

my school gave to me…

four calling parents,

three more students,

two broken desks,

and one more required state exam

On the fifth day of Christmas

my school gave to me…

five stupid things,

four calling parents,

three more students,

two broken desks,

and one more required state exam 

On the sixth day of Christmas

my school gave to me…

six new tech programs,

five stupid things,

four calling parents,

three more students,

two broken desks,

and one more required state exam 

On the seventh day of Christmas

my school gave to me…

seven frivolous field trips,

six new tech programs,

five stupid things,

four calling parents,

three more students,

two broken desks,

and one more required state exam

On the eighth day of Christmas

my school gave to me…

eight mindless meetings,

seven frivolous field trips,

six new tech programs,

five stupid things,

four calling parents,

three more students,

two broken desks,

and one more required state exam

On the ninth day of Christmas

my school gave to me…

nine snarky emails,

eight mindless meetings,

seven frivolous field trips,

six new tech programs,

five stupid things,

four calling parents,

three more students,

two broken desks,

and one more required state exam

On the tenth day of Christmas

my school gave to me…

ten extra duties,

nine snarky emails,

eight mindless meetings,

six new tech programs,

five stupid things,

four calling parents,

three more students,

two broken desks,

and one more required state exam

On the eleventh day of Christmas

my school gave to me…

eleven class interruptions,

ten extra duties,

nine snarky emails,

eight mindless meetings,

seven frivolous field trips,

six new tech programs,

five stupid things,

four calling parents,

three more students,

two broken desks,

and one more required state exam

On the twelfth day of Christmas

my school gave to me…

twelve annoying announcements

eleven class interruptions

ten extra duties,

nine snarky emails,

eight mindless meetings,

seven frivolous field trips,

six new tech programs,

five stupid things,

four calling parents,

three more students,

two broken desks,

and one more required state exam

Hold Your Horses, Missy! Call for Carnival Submissions!

OK, so maybe the week off for Thanksgiving made me a bit lazy. And, maybe I spent this past weekend trying to catch up, and as usual, time seemed to run out. 

So-o-o-o-o, wait a few more days for my post and if you want to submit to the Holiday Edition of the Education Buzz–Life's a Carnival, please do so by filling out this handy, dandy form. 

The holiday carnival will appear back here on Wednesday, Dec. 14, so what are you waiting for? Get your submissions in by Sunday, Dec. 11!

Friday Night Lights Prove To Be Budget Busters

[This article was first published as Friday Night Lights Prove To Be Budget Busters on Technorati.]

To not like football, somehow seems un-American.

And if you hail from the great state of Texas, to say anything remotely negative about Friday night lights and high school football, well, that's akin to trying to yank the buckle off the belt in the South. (And if you don't know what that means, then maybe you need to dust off the Good Book.)

So before we go anything further, let me just say I do like football, and I'm even the proud owner of season tickets to my town's high school football games.

But while I may be a football fan, I am first an educator.  So I read with interest (and a touch of dismay) an article in The Dallas Morning News about how high school football revenue rarely generates a profit, and, in fact, sustains pretty hefty losses. 

Of the 31 schools the newspaper surveyed in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, only three schools generated revenue over a five year period. The rest lost between $132,000 to almost $11 million over those same five years. 

Of course, that kind of loss had to have been absorbed somewhere in all those school district budgets.

You know, the budgets that cut funding for classroom supplies. The budgets that cut teachers. The budgets that cut field trips. The budgets that cut electives. 

Yep, those budgets. 

What's even a little more disconcerting is I'm pretty sure Texas isn't standing alone on this one either.

5 Things We Wish We Didn't Have To Whine About

For those of you who care, my ankle now shows a wide blend of CMYK colors and  appears now only to be roughly twice the size of my other ankle. (You can read about the entire forlorn tale here.)

And since my right ankle still hurts like the dickens, I've had more than just a tad bit of trouble being my normal chipper, funny, quirky self.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you find all of that hard to believe.

Having a big, fat ugly boot hasn't helped my sunny disposition either--although it has given rise to certain fantasies involving kickboxing certain people through walls like a Ninja fighter.

But that probably wouldn't bode well for Ninja teacher or that whole flying under the radar thing. In fact, kickboxing certain people through walls like a Ninja fighter would probably put Ninja teacher smack dab on someone's radar.

And I'm thinking it's probably a radar we don't want to be on. No siree, Missy.

So since this ankle injury has relegated me to couch potato status, I've had time to think about things. And we all know how I feel about those darn tootin' things. And, of course, when I think about those darn tootin' things, I whine. And since this has more or less been a no-whining blog since its creation in 2007, perhaps now is a good time to come up with a list of  5 Things Teachers Wished They Didn't Have To Whine About.

How about a festive drum roll pah-leese…

5 Things Teachers Wished 

They Didn't Have To Whine About

No. 5… Printing out grade validation sheets even though grades from sea to shining sea are entered on computers and stored on servers and backed up onto other servers hidden somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Wasn't all this technology stuff suppose to save us time, money and trees?

No. 4… Being told from fields of amber waves of grain to those purple mountain majesties that we are using entirely too much copy paper printing out stuff. Hmmmm wonder if that has anything to do with No. 5?

No. 3… Assisting PBs (as in Powers That Be) with their new technology gizmos even though we don't have those gizmos, but would like to have those gizmos, and maybe have even requested those gizmos, but alas, there is no money for those gizmos for the lower case pb's (as in peons that be).  

No. 2… Having to embrace newfangled technology, software or trendy new educational panaceas that are suppose to save us time, but actually add time.

No. 1… Stories that claim that teachers are overpaid. I'm not exactly sure where these teachers work or what school districts employ them. And, I'm not sure exactly how many hours they log in. What I do know is that they obviously haven't taken a peak at my paycheck or yours either.

It's enough to make you want to kickbox certain people through walls like a Ninja fighter.

But then that probably would put Ninja teacher smack dab on that radar.

And that, my fellow lowercase pb's, would be a very, very bad thing indeed.

Is Anyone Really Out There?

It's officially Week 12 of the  "I'm-Frying-In-My-Own-Fat" Weight Loss Challenge. My latest post appeared was first published as Week 12 Update–There Ain't No Cheese With This Whine 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.