Divemedic

Parents are more immature than kids

I have been quite busy. The main thing that has been taking up my time is the new career as a High School Science Teacher. I have been working so much that I don’t have time to read blogs, let alone write one. Let me explain how my week typically goes:

I spend about 20 hours a week teaching class.
I attend about 2 hours a week in training.
I spend another 10-15 hours a week grading papers.
I takes me about 4 hours to plan the next week’s classes.
Then I spend about 3 hours a week on parent conferences.
I spend 3-4 evenings a week attending High School sporting events (JV and Varsity Football, Girl’s Volleyball, Swimming, and Golf.)

This was supposed to be a part time job (I only get paid for 20 hours a week). That leads me to my troubles of the past month:

I had a problem with many of my students not turning in their work. Those that were turning it in, were not really trying all that hard. In fact, more than half of my students had earned a grade that was below a C. I was desperately looking for a solution. I finally found one: There is a school policy stating that any student receiving below a C in a core course (Math, Science, English) will be placed on mandatory tutoring.

So what I did was establish two days a week as tutoring days, and the sessions would last for one hour. Any student who had below a 50% would have to attend both days each week, and any student who had a grade between 50 and 70% would have to attend one. During the sessions, the students would be working on and turning in any assignment that they had received an F or a Zero on.

It worked even better than I had hoped. Every single student increased their grade as a result tutoring. My classes went from having a 62% average with 23 F’s, to a 74% and only 4 F’s. There are only 10 students left with a D or an F. 4 students went from an F to a B, and all but 7 of the students increased by at least a full letter grade. I did all of these tutoring sessions off the clock, and didn’t get paid for a minute of them. Good work, right?

The parents of one of my students are furious, as is their child. This child doesn’t want to sit in tutoring and do work. She is demanding that the student be given extra credit to take home and bring back. I explained to them that I don’t do extra credit, and if the students would just do the work as assigned, that is sufficient to get a passing grade. The parents are emailing the Principal and the Superintendent and claiming that I am punishing their child by holding them after school and giving a bad grade. This is reflected in the student’s attitude. The student called me stupid, refused to do any further assignments, threw her books across the room, and then stormed out of the classroom by kicking the door open while declaring that she was going to report me to the principal and to her parents.

We scheduled a parent/teacher conference. (For the third time this year with this parent.) I explained that I just grade the homework as done or not done, and the exams, which are multiple choice, and there is no teacher discretion built into my grading plan. I set the course up this way so no one could claim that I was being unfair. The parent still insists that I am giving their student a D just to punish them. The father used as an example that I reduced his daughter’s grade because she turned in an assignment late, as per class policy. (My class policy is 10% off for each day late). He said that the paper was turned in the next morning, which was only 18 hours late. I asked him what happens if you mail in your tax return 18 hours late. Then I showed him his wife’s signature and his daughter’s signature on the classroom policy paper, where they acknowledged that policy. He was furious. When I mentioned the student’s temper tantrum from the other day, the parent told me to my face in front of the Vice-principal that I was “a damned liar.” They have threatened to get an attorney.

It has since come out that the student is secretly taking photos and video in class to use as proof that I am not teaching to the student’s and parents’ standards. If this student would only pay attention in class instead of trying to prove me wrong, they would be earning a better grade than a D in my course.

This morning, the student tweeted out “Fuck my science teacher. We r gonna get him fired.” Don’t think that I am not giving that particular tweet to the Principal.

In other news, while proctoring the SAT, a student showed up without photo ID. No photo ID, no test. Those are the rules. The teachers don’t make the rules for the SAT, the College Board does. The parent immediately launches into a tirade about what an asshole the teacher is, and how the teachers are personally responsible for ruining his child’s chances at a future because they won’t let him in without ID, and now the kid can’t get into college without his SAT scores.

The parents are more immature than the kids. Teaching is easy. It is dealing with the students and the parents that is hard.

By Divemedic, ago

Tipping madness: Marriott

Marriott Hotels are now demanding that I pay them for a clean room, and then pay their employees for cleaning it.

Jessica Lynn Strosky of DuBois, Pennsylvania, who earns $7.75 an hour cleaning rooms at a hotel that’s not a Marriott, says only 1 in 15 or 20 guests leaves a tip. When they do, it’s a dollar or two; she’s lucky to get $20 a week in tips. “I’ve talked to lots of people who say they don’t know they are supposed to tip,” she said.
Unlike waitresses who earn less than minimum wage because tips are expected to raise their earnings, hotel housekeepers are paid minimum wage, and in expensive markets, substantially more. In Washington D.C., Sorenson said, Marriott housekeepers start in the mid-teens per hour.
Most hotel maids clean 14-16 rooms in an 8 hour shift. If Marriott’s formula of $1-5 per guest is followed, then their maids will be making anywhere between $9.50 and $17.75 an hour. For making a bed? No way is unskilled labor worth that kind of cash.

I have had some rather strong opinions about tipping for years. Many servers at restaurants complain that they do not receive enough in tips, even when they are making $100-200 during an 8 hour night. This is far more money that other, more skilled positions are paid.

Servers making $400-800 a week in tips, or maids making $400 a week is more than enough for the skill that they bring to the table. My sister and daughter are both working in tipped jobs. They each bring home $300 a week in tips. That is $300 in TAKE HOME tips, plus the $5 an hour they get from their employer. That is the equivalent of $12 an hour.

I tip 10-20% of my check at restaurants, with a maximum tip of $10. Any more than $10 for a fraction of the server’s time for the hour that I am there is more than I am willing to pay.

I am not tipping maids.

If you want to make $50,000 a year or more and can’t get that off of tips, here is my tip to you: Get an education and get a better job, but stop whining about the pay you make for unskilled labor. If Marriott feels that strongly that their employees should be paid more, then they should raise the price of a room and give the maids a raise. The market will then decide if the extra cost is worth it.

By Divemedic, ago

Are my standards too high?

This week, my students turned in a scientific research paper. They have been working on it for the past 4 weeks. To begin, the due date was discussed every class period for the past two weeks. The paper was supposed to be research on the topic that they chose to do experiments on, so that they would know the background science.

I have 75 students. I received 24 papers today. Meaning that 67% of my papers are either going to be late, or not coming at all.

For the ones that were turned in, there were a number of rules that I had for the paper:
-Must be typed. Times New Roman font, 12 point, double spaced, 1 inch margins
– Reference page, with at least 5 references, and these references had to be from scientific, peer reviewed publications. Not popular press, and no Wikipedia. I even had the learning resource department come in and give a lecture on proper references and how to cite them.
– must look professional and neat
– do not mention your experiment, this is a review of the relevant science, not a proposal about your experiment.
– No first or second person pronouns: Me, my, you, yours, and the like are not to be used.
– Spelling, punctuation, and grammar count

Only four of the papers had a title page. Three were script fonts, and one of those used a different color for the text of each paragraph. One had what appears to be pizza sauce on it, another was water stained.

Not one of them had 5 valid sources. Some sources included: an FAQ page from the Mayo clinic, an article in people magazine, and links to the web page for a television show. My personal favorite was the student who stated on his resources page: “Google the underlined text in each paragraph for relevant sources and further reading.”

There were frequent errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Then there were the factual errors:
– “Dolphins make squeaking noises with their mouths.”
– “when dolphins are at high speeds, they leap to save energy, so that explains why dolphins attend to leap out of the water so that they can get more air to restore more energy just like humans.”
– “The largest dolphin are the Amazon Dolphins & they can reach 2.7m in feet”
– Listening to the wrong type of music can cause a heart attack, or lower your heart rate and cause death.
– 

Are my standards too high? I don’t see a single paper worthy of an A. There may be 2-3 B grades, and maybe 5 or 6 C’s. The majority of them have not even attempted to turn in a paper, and the rest appear to have phoned it in.

This is why we are getting our butts kicked as an economy. The kids just don’t care, and then they grow into adults that just don’t care.

By Divemedic, ago

The Obama doctrine

During the Bush administration, there was a big deal made about the so-called “Bush Doctrine.” With that in mind, I want to take a look that the “Obama Doctrine” with regard to Russian relations.

On June 24, the White House released a fact sheet on US-Russian relations, and the “Reset.” It read like this:

In one of his earliest new foreign policy initiatives, President Obama
sought to reset relations with Russia and reverse what he called a
“dangerous drift” in this important bilateral relationship.  President
Obama and his administration have sought to engage the Russian
government to pursue foreign policy goals of common interest – win-win
outcomes

President Obama outlined the steps that he would  take to reset US-Russia relations. These steps included:

–  A New START Treaty that reduces limits on U.S. and Russian deployed strategic warheads by approximately one third. Now we have Russian bombers practicing nuclear missile runs on the US.

– Russia confirmed
that it will not deliver S-300 missiles to Iran, in accordance with a UN resolution.
Iran now has the missiles, claiming that they made them locally, but rumor has it that they were sold to Iran by Croatia.

– The United States and Russia were to have collaborated closely within the
framework of the G20 on measures to address the global economic crisis,
and on the coordination of the reform of financial regulation.

Sanctions put in place because of the Ukraine crisis have forced Russia to deepen ties with China and other states that have grown tired of the US using its economic influence as a club.

The Obama doctrine is an abject failure.

By Divemedic, ago

Ignorance of the law is no excuse

Ignorance of the law is no excuse. That is what the powers that be in this country keep telling us, anyway. The law in Florida the prohibits carrying a concealed weapon say that:

(1) Except
as provided in subsection (4), a person who carries a concealed weapon
or electric weapon or device on or about his or her person commits a
misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.
(2) A
person who carries a concealed firearm on or about his or her person
commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

Then it goes on to say, in 790.25:

(3) LAWFUL USES.—The provisions of ss. 790.053 and 790.06
do not apply in the following instances, and, despite such sections, it
is lawful for the following persons to own, possess, and lawfully use
firearms and other weapons, ammunition, and supplies for lawful
purposes:

 

(n) A person possessing arms at his or her home or place of business;

A trial judge got it wrong, and was overturned. There is something wrong with a justice system where citizens are required to know the law, and those charged with enforcing it are not.

By Divemedic, ago

View of a teacher with a month on the job

I have been teaching at the college level for over 8 years. I just started teaching high school this year. A month into my job as a high school science teacher, and I have a few observations:

This job requires far more hours of my time than I am paid for. I work at home for about 3 hours per night, planning lessons, designing lab activities, and grading papers. I’m hoping that next year it will be easier, because the lessons will all be planned out.

The kids, for the most part do good work. Very few of them do great work. Currently, only 3% of my students have an A. The majority of the class are average students, with about 30% of them earning a B, and about 35% of them have a C. There are about 20% that have earned a D, and if it were up to me, a D would not be a passing grade. Finally, 12% or so are failing my class.

The students that are failing my class are also failing others. I have one student that is failing my class along with 3 others. He is failing Geometry, Biology, English, and History. He has a D in an elective, and an A in art. I would not take bets on his ever making it through high school.

The number one reason why kids are failing? They don’t turn in any assignments.

Number two? Cheating.
I caught three kids so far cheating by cutting and pasting WikiPedia pages into their report. One of them actually turned in a wiki page that I had written. Plagiarism is cheating, and anyone caught cheating in my class gets a discipline referral and an automatic zero for the assignment.

Number three? Just not studying. I can see who logs into the class website to retrieve class notes and power points. There are quite a few that never log in, have never checked out a textbook, and cannot understand why they get a 40% on the test.

I email weekly progress notes that include a copy of their grade book marks to every parent. If your child has a D or an F, I email you personally and notify you that your child is doing poorly. In many cases, it helps. In some, it does not. On average, I schedule 3-4 face to face parent/teacher conferences a week.

Still, there are students who have a 45% average in my class.

That is American Education. Don’t blame the teachers. There are teachers that phone it in, but there are many parents that just don’t care how their kids do.

By Divemedic, ago

IRS struggles

I got a letter in May from the IRS. Yeah, one of THOSE letters. It was a letter telling me that the IRS didn’t agree with my tax filing for 2012, and explaining that they took the liberty of doing my taxes for me. Then it said that, by their calculations, I owed them another $8,400 and change in taxes. I had two options: I could either send a check, or I could send a letter as to why I didn’t agree.

They disagreed with my income, because they claim that I didn’t report income from a 1099 that I had received from a customer that I had done some consulting for. I checked, and the income HAD been reported, but on the form for reporting business income, and not personal income. I sent proof.

They disagreed with my reporting of income from investments. I under reported my investment income by $4. I couldn’t argue there. I forgot to include the $4 in interest that I had earned on a small savings account.
 
They disagreed with my deductions, claiming that I had taken a lifetime learning credit for a school that is not confirming that I was a student there. I have receipts and a 1098-T. I sent them in.

I just got a follow up letter. They agreed with me on the reporting of my income. Now, according to the IRS, I “only” owe them $1,200. They still say that they school is refusing to verify that I was a student there. I have a 1098-T. I have bank records, a $12,000 student loan, my student ID card, and receipts to prove that I was. If I have to pay taxes on this because I can’t prove I attended this school, then why should I have to repay the $12,000 student loan. After all, if I wasn’t a student of their school, then how did they give me a $12,000 student loan?

So I will be sending the next letter out this weekend.

By Divemedic, ago

Tyrants

The Mayor of Winter Garden ordered a man to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance which ended with a prayer, and when the man refused, the Mayor ordered the Chief of Police to escort him from the city council meeting. [Mayor] Rees said he considered the man’s refusal to stand for the Pledge of
Allegiance to be disrespectful to American military troops who are
serving overseas and others who have given their lives in defense of
freedom.

Well, Mr. Mayor. I don’t see how you honor men who have died for freedom by ordering the man to leave a government meeting AT GUNPOINT  because he refuses to pledge his allegiance and pray to your version of god.

The article then says:

Though Rees said he did not know Richardson by name, he recognized him
from previous meetings as the man who sits in the front row and then
leaves after the invocation and pledge. “He doesn’t come to the meetings
because he cares about the city,” Rees said.

So the Mayor gets to decide who cares and does not care about the city?

I fought in a war so that people would be free from petty tyrants, not to empower those same tyrants. Don’t you DARE invoke my name to enforce your power on others.

By Divemedic, ago