chatter from the Library Monkey

Where have I been

I started this on May 11th, but wrote nothing and didn’t even open it since then and it is early May 15.

The Tigers continue to lose and frustrate me. They are frustrating lots of fans as well

Weird thing happened at baseball practice today, a parent apologized to me. Not 100 percent why he did that, but it was appropriate. I guess he was at the game I was not and had the kids whipping around the bases on a team that they were thumping 20-0. He told me people were getting mad at him and his philosophy was to score as many runs as possible because he knew the pitcher in the last inning would give up 10 runs (not sure he knew how the pitcher would do)

I thought it was a pretty good practice, we worked on scenarios… (If you are playing third base, what do you do if the ball is hit to right field.) There are a couple kids that always know what to do, but never do it. Our best pitcher is like that. Last Friday he was playing third base and a couple times kids stole the base and he didn’t position himself right. I talked to him after the first time; he said he knew what he should do and gave me an excuse why he didn’t do the right thing. The second time he did the wrong thing.

I am glad school is wrapping up. I applied for a job in a K-5 school that is about 40 minutes north of my home town.

Up late, but I had a nap. I skipped my weekly nap, I don’t feel comfortable there.

I should be able to finish up the Joyce Carol Oats book: “After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away”

Gratitude (3)

nothing nothing

Another day consumed by a losing Tigers team.

I don’t feel as annoyed as I did on Friday.

I need to get moving on a few things… like applying for a job. There are a couple that in the area.

I have been doing fairly well at not eating before going to bed…but not great. Speaking of which I need to do some grocery shopping tomorrow.

well enough..

Gratitude (3)

why are parents blind

For the life of me, I can’t figure some things out. The parent’s who push their way into the modified team — making out a schedule (and scorekeeper), are now coaching from the stands.

The team got killed last night. For some reason the idiot coach didn’t put in a mercy rule. So the other team had the ability to run up the score. At that point the dad thought it would be smart to encourage kids to do stupid things…ultimately his family paid the price —- which is still stupid.

The first thing he did is tell the old, (albeit dumbest — you don’t flunk eighth grade for nothing) play that no one was covering second base. So bobo (yes stupid bobo) tried to steal second and got caught.

the next inning a player hits a single and this dad yells: “go to second.” The kid was safe and made it to third on an error.

The next inning his son gets on first — only by error, because the kid has been limping all week. He has some kind of hip injury. I asked him how he felt and he made some comment that indicated he was in pain. I think what happened was a walk, so the kid was on second base and stole third — the only reason I can think is that the kid got a signal from his dad… There was an overthrow and said kid goes home. He didn’t need to, but on plays at the plate kids have to slide. One play later it is an out and I find out that we are asking the umpire if we can put in a benched player to replace this kid, because he is hurting.

The game ends with two stupid things happening — our seventh grade pitchers either having sore arms or severe embarrassment. Bobo pitched for a couple-three innings, he did well if you count strikeouts, if you count the runs he gave up — he was crappy.

The ultimate bad decision was to let the local kid only play two innings. It went closely to saying six kids could only play two innings, yet six kids could play all seven

Purely foolish, from my perspective

The Tigers knocked off the yankers again that is always satisfying.

Gratitude (3)

The weekend isn’t coming fast enough

Tough night for me — tough week. It is a lot of things, The Tigers are playing so badly doesn’t help.

The main thing is the fact the coach I am helping has just been placed in a tough situation. A dad showed up to help with practice — it’s his second practice. He gave the coach a lineup. A lineup that goes 100 percent against my philosophy of instructional baseball AND to some extent life.

First he (with the assistance of his wife) scheduled his son second in the lineup and playing the whole game. Second he scheduled bobo (yes the guy who exhibited inappropriate behavior on the school bus with a girl and offered to burn down the library) to play the whole game. Those two players have missed a couple practices in the last two weeks, have argued with every decision the coach has made. Has not helped much in picking up the equipment.

AND, as if that wasn’t enough, have only participated in practice at about 75 percent because they are injured.

I find it hard to believe the arrogance of that kind of lineup. Yes it is a lineup oriented to winning, but disregards all principles. You don’t put players who argue with in the game, for the whole game, where they want to play, batting where they want to bat.

That wasn’t enough, and I hope they just didn’t think about it. We play with a combined school situation and we are playing at that school’s field and the dad didn’t put those players in the lineup, but for two innings each. I told the coach that he could do what he wanted, but there is no way he can not let the home team kid. Of course it is the same family that didn’t want to combine because they were afraid their kids would lose playing time. I don’t know what to do, the coach needs help, but it will be hard for me to be around if that parent has influence.

On Wednesday I had my normal dinner with a couple co-workers and I was telling the computer guy a story from the high school meeting. It was the time of the night when the other teacher falls asleep (8 p.m.), so I though I w talking to only him. I was telling how at the meeting all the new teachers were saying they didn’t feel supported. ALL THE NEW PEOPLE WERE SAYING THEY DIDN’T FEEL SUPPORTED. And the response was, “we can’t support you, or we would undermine your authority.”

At that point the teacher shows me she isn’t sleeping and says something like: “What do you want, you are always complaining about this, I don’t know what you want?” Which would be a great talking point, except she kept talking and basically kept saying I didn’t know what I was talking about. And when I said: “So when all new teachers say they don’t feel supported they are wrong?” she doesn’t answer that and says, “what job do you get supported, we have a mentor system.” and continues on. when i repeated: “are you saying when all new teachers say they don’t feel supported, they are wrong?” she continued to allude to me being a whiner (not directly) and not answer my questions.

I was so annoyed by the end of the night because she totally did not open up the discussion. I asked her if she wanted excuses and she wouldn’t respond. I told her there is no reason to discuss the issue if she had decided everyone is wrong.

This adds to the other things she has said in the past, she thinks my classroom management style is suspect. She doesn’t like that I would teaching typing, outside my certification. She is often critical of anything I do to help someone out — like helping the baseball coach out.

Which is the irony, here I am being supportive of the baseball coach and she is saying I am

The business teacher was told he wasn’t coming back. There are so many reasons, none that are obvious to him. An example would be he is doing a lesson on making a video — which he has allowed kids to go on YouTube and just watch as many videos as they want, while he goes to NFL web sites. I have nothing against youtube, but it should be structured.

Usually the people who obviously should be tossed, do things that make it clear, even afterwards. For example he told his students he was not coming back. I can doing that at the end of the school year, but not with five weeks to go. Most of the faculty didn’t know, but he told the kids. The kids put up a sign that said “keep teacher’s name” I guess this is easy for me to say

Much of that sign is due to the fact that his classes don’t teach the kids anything; have low expectations; and if you take his class your grade is an automatic 95. Lots of kids were thinking of signing up for his classes. In that regard, I guess it was good that the guy told the kids he wasn’t coming back, because everyone wanted to take his class for the easy grade.

Gratitude (3)