chatter from the Library Monkey

doing good

Two things happened today (Friday). Continuation for the eighth graders and in the middle school meeting a discussion of retaining students in the middle school.

It is clearly one of the problems of school. Moving kids on that have not passed their current year. There are reasons to do it, most often it is “because they are smart.” That is, if the kid would apply his or her self, s/he would have passed. That is probably true, but so what. Jobs/work is the easy to grab analogy in this situation. How many people have gotten a raise because, ‘they are capable of doing the work’ ? Ultimately the world is what we prepare students for. While I say we spend way too much time preparing kids to play baseball, it is clear to me that moving a kid to the next grade when they haven’t learned anything from the current one is doing a disservice for all.

Another reason they move a kid up is to keep them from shaving in fifth grade. That wouldn’t be the clinical term, but I don’t know the clinical term. There is one kid at my school who I would guess has a 40 average across the board (enhanced by the fact that his mom took him on vacation the week before all his final projects were due) and they are moving him up because he is a big kid.

I have two thoughts on this. First — kind of mentioned already — how prepared are students if they haven’t learned anything. It’s not like these kids are going to suddenly going to catch up on their own.

The second reason to hold the kid back. Let’s start setting an example. If you want to spend all day making jokes, maybe you ought to see your audience getting younger.

The question is asked, “are we doing the student any good by holding him back?” depends if you want them to learn cause and affect.

The Tigers lost last night, hopefully they are back on track tonight, especially since Whitesox lost, but the Cleveland Indians just took a lead in the 11th. If they win, the Big Cats will have to win tonight to stay in third place.

Gratitude (3)

so long to do so little

Started this way long ago, but did nothing. Now it is time to post something

I am happy on this hot weekend that I figured out how to take a cold shower. Until now I would turn the dial to about 3 o’clock or so. It would be pretty hot. I tried for the first time to turn it to 6 o’clock and it was actually cool. I learned this after a bike ride yesterday. It was close to 90 degrees at the time.

Not sure if it is cooling off soon, but it got into the high eighties each day this weekend. It will definitely be hot in the school. We have a mediocre air conditioner, that can’t keep up. When one of two things take place — Temps above 90 or temps above 80 and lots of kids in the library.

Learned of good news from my landlord. I can keep te place during the summer, or there might be an intern looking for a place to stay. So I have this place ad it is not going to cost me too much.

That was the good news, I had planned on going to the home town, but it looks like I need a new alternator on the truck. that really crimps things since it doesn’t look like I can go home next weekend — I am dog sitting… I am also on tap to help with a bike race

I am going to have a neighbor below me — a family of one kid — who is a first grader.

I am hot, but I can feel a cool breeze slipping in the window. I just checked the weather — it is going to be warm for a while. It will be nice to get out of the school tomorrow when we take the student helper to breakfast.

The Tigershave a two game win streak over Cleveland Indians. Hard to get too excited over those victories — considering how badly the Indians are playing. We need wins, but to think two wins will gurantee we will win against the Indians tomorrow or Chicago Whitesox on Tuesday

Gratitude (3)

Slow month

What a slow blog month — May — on all accounts. I have probably started and sat on a posting more than any other time. That is, I started one, thought I would write one, but four days later I haven’t added anything. That is how I am ending the month (in June).

It might be reason that the visits to this page are down, perhaps it is because of lack of activity. This year is about half of what the previous year was.

I had a funny experience. I haven’t been posting to MotownSports — as I have mentioned. So it comes time to put sTODDgy Jones in and I am reading the forum and notice someone else uses my gif. No big deal persay, but then I noticed the guy is posting the image from HIS photobucket account.

It caused me to wonder what other pictures (of mine) the guy might have there. When I go there I realize he has figured out a way to lock his account, so you can link a picture, but you have to know the url. You just can’t go and look at the pictures. So the guy ‘borrows’ my picture, but I learn to lock photos. Won’t stop people from taking my images, but it is a way to make sure people can’t just pursue my whole account.

Last night I found myself doing the horrible —- rooting for the yankers. They were playing the Twins and the more that the other teams in the AL West lose, the more the Tigers have a chance.

That said, The Tigers need to play much better if they want even a slim chance

Cleveland is loosing to Kansas City — one of the worse teams — which says as much about the Indians. KC had something like a 12 game losing streak before Cleveland came to town.

MLB is doing a neat thing. they are broadcasting Ken Griffy Junior’s at bats live — on MLB TV. This gives everyone with high speed a chance to watch Griffy try to hit homerun 600

It always seems so hard to get those things. Some of it has to do with the fact that if the guy is a homerun hitter, then you do things to not let them hit one. As in they just intentionally walked Griffy.

I had planned to go to the home town, but it has raind this whole weekend. If I can’t mow the grass there isn’t much of a reason to head home. Some one is kind of interested in renting the house Aug — December. I think she might have given up though, because she was suppose to call me, but has not. o well

Gratitude (3)

Technorati Tags:
Baseball, Big Cats, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Indians, MLB.com

Now to get back on track

Tom Hamilton is not as enjoyable when he announces a game that the Tigers lose. Which is what is happening tonight. I was able to tune in 1100 am and get a scratchy Indians’ broadcast. What is frustrating about those kinds of broadcasts is the fact that to hear the play by play you have to have the volume way up. I would guess the play buy play is 40 decibels, but the static is 87 dbs.

I’m up early, after a rough night. I didn’t roll the futon out. I have most of my blankets in the school town so it was hard to stay warm. That led to a stiff back. That could also be because I shoveled some snow or because I didn’t do any exercises.

I’m tuning into the local talk show and am reminded of the nuts that live in my town. They are complaining about tases right now — and I think the taxes are too high, at least for the average person. Seems to be several problems: 1) people don’t want less services; 2) people all have their favorite services (being it snow removal or youth programs); 3) there are two factors in taxes — a) property value and b) tax rate.

The hot news is one town wants to hold back an assessment. Sounds good, except if you lower the assessments (or even keep them flat) only matters if you don’t raise the tax rate, which means you have to cut spending — which no town official wants to do. Like baseball, I think there should be incentives for taxes.

hmmm, I had written more, but the transfer from one computer to another didn’t work. I suspect it might have to do with pulling the USB memory out of the computer without saving it. la te da

I think that will keep thing short because of that.

The Tigers win tonight (Saturday), so they are back to rolling

Gratitude (3)