So, this year was to be the year we went "fake". Yep, that's right, a fake Christmas tree. You know, they have their advantages. But, being the money-conscious consumers that we are...yeah, right...we went to find a Jimmy Buffet Christmas house plant to decorate and put presents under because we didn't want to pay full price for a fake tree and we were going to wait until after Christmas to get a fake tree at half price.

SOOO, there we were, at Lowes garden center (I love this store...not like Target - where you can lose money...but there's an energy in Lowes that I feel I have yet to tap in to and that excites me) and we're walking around looking at these pitiful house plants rejected by the masses during this time of year who opt to buy dead trees. We want a norfolk pine (cool thing is we can plant it after Christmas). And, we walk by all of these beautiful wonderful smelling Christmas trees and they're so cheap!!! In the past, we have bought real trees from a charity. I had no idea how much the mark-up was on these things!!!

So, we're getting a real tree.

Again, this is an "at-work" entry...similar to one of those pitiful rejected house plants at Lowes...not flowery and filled with adjectives.

For some reason, the word ambition reminds me of Madonna.

K...seriously though, my new madonna....um..ambition is to blog more frequently. To help me with this mission, I have now updated my page including renaming it (and for those of you who are wondering ... chicken and egg...which came first, the title or the theme....I thought of the title first). Anyway, I am not working right now...and I should be. So, peace and I'm out.

Oh well. They lost. There's always next year. Besides, it was cold and snowing. And, Lord knows those boys haven't played in that kind of weather...maybe ever.

Now I'm back home, sitting in front of a well-made fire. What a wonderful delight the fire is. It purrs and crackles sending forth its warm blanket that let's face it, puts a person right to sleep. Its maker, my husband, has fallen victim to its magic. He's out...occasionally grunting to my comments about the game (like..oh look, the ceo of the New England Patriots just picked his nose on national television!!!) "Hmmmm," he says. He is so precious when he sleeps.

And now, that's all. It's time to settle down, relax, and possibly let the fire's magic wash over me.

PS Considering the week I have before me, I do so hope I will write again before next weekend BUT....well, here's hoping.

Okay, now that I'm getting the hang of this I can continue. So, I've got this sweet little class. They have no clue how far they are behind where they need to be, and I can't get them to utilize the skills I am teaching. (If you've never taught...this is the thing that kills teachers...not the paperwork, not managing the kids, sometimes the parents =), not the administration). And then, we hear word from the Mississippi Department of Education that Mississippi's "elite/advanced" students are merely average when compared to the nation!!!

I weep for a while when I hear this news. Not for myself but for the future of my dear sweet state. How long we have worked to build ourselves up!! How hard we have toiled to reverse the errs of our forefathers. The simple but heart-wrenching fact that poverty and ignorance begets poverty and ignorance. But, and I am saying this on my mount, as if preaching to the masses, the problem is deep. How do you take a child whose parents speak grammatically incorrect (ridiculously incorrect) and mold her into a fluent speaker?!? How does that happen?!?

Well, so, here's my theory for the sad state of our area/our state's children. WE CAN'T KEEP TEACHERS!!! The reasons for that fact are deep. But I will begin simply...it's the pay. I cannot tell you how many times I have bumped in to an old high school/college friend with my very same qualifications only to find their salary is twice what I make. Now the allure of making lots of money may seem shallow but that is not the problem. It's the respect that the money gives you. My sweet, innocent eight and nine year old girls play school at home because they want to grow up to be teachers. They respect teachers. (The boys all want to be athletes and firefighters). I don't know at what age children lose their naivety but I know that respect for teachers begins to diminish in 5th grade and continues on as children start turning in to teenagers.

I understand their anger. I too believed in the tooth fairy. I too hoped I could bust Santa coming down my chimney. I just knew that if I got into education, the money wouldn't matter. I would just love the kids and working with them and the parents and the administration. GIVE ME A BREAK!!!! The next time you hear someone say something so ridiculous, please call "Bullshit!" This is the excuse legislators and policy makers use when discussing our educators. I mean do you really think senators become senators because they really love their constituents and the laws and the paperwork and the whatever??? Please. Get real.

So, what can we do?? Well, it begins with this. We MUST keep teachers. Experience is of ultimate importance in the at-times impossible task of molding 24 children into 4th grade ready students.

Ponder this with me for a second....imagine a child, bursting with energy, so excited for the chance to go to school (most really are, seriously). She enters her very first classroom, ready, with a fistful of those huge Crayola crayons and a band-aid on her knee from falling on the last day swimming at the pool. Greeting her is her teacher, trembling because she drank two cups of coffee this morning in hopes of calming her first day of teaching nerves. She is 21, a graduate with honors of the local college that half of the community adores.

Together they walk side-by-side all year long not really knowing that they have no clue what skills they are supposed to learn or how they are supposed to behave (should they be wiping their own hineys? or, do all the kindergarten teachers wipe their students' butts?) And so, they reach the end of the year with hugs and kisses and a few tears. This year's been so great. We've both learned, next year will be better (for the teacher...maybe not so for the student as she is not quite ready for the first grade).

Now repeat the same scenario. For 2 more years. First grade, new teacher. Second grade, 2nd year teacher. Add it together and you have a happy child, not quite ready for the third grade. When they meet, me, the witch. With only seven years on my belt (which used to still be considered a young teacher), I yield a mighty sword. No, "B" was not one of your options. I asked you what 2 plus 2 is. The answer is 4. Let's all say that together boys and girls. Please wait for me. 2 plus 2 is four. 2 plus 2 is four. Who would like to say it for the class? Etc. Never mind the fact that this year we are supposed to be doing long division with remainders, measuring capacity in liters, comparing, ordering, adding, and subtracting fractions, finding the greatest common factor (you remember, right?). Oh, yeah, and that's just math.

And, no, I'm not knocking first year teachers. Heck, I was one just a few years ago. First year teachers do amazing things. They have heart and energy and passion and time....gobs and gobs of time. We've just got to do a better job of ensuring that those first years continue on down the line to become 2nd years and 7th years and 15th years (oh God!).

How does this happen? I don't know. These are the things I will be writing about over the next few entries. Right now, I've got to go watch the New Orleans Saints beat the tar out of the Chicago Bears!!! Go SAINTS!!!!!

Last year I "leaped" with my class. "Leaped" is a term one of my students (who was about to enter the 5th grade (!) called it. The actual term is looping, which is when a teacher and her/his students stay together for 2 or more years. In our case, we looped together for 3rd and 4th grade. God, I miss those kids. This year a simple error in tense would be a welcome problem (at least I might be able to teach to that problem). My current class does not seem to have an idea of the tensing of verbs. I, (and I would love to say we .. as in the rest of the class and me) but alas, the problem is deep. Battery dying. More later.

Last year I "leaped" with my class. "Leaped" is a term one of my students (who was about to enter the 5th grade (!) called it. The actual term is looping, which is when a teacher and her/his students stay together for 2 or more years. In our case, we looped together for 3rd and 4th grade. God, I miss those kids. This year a simple error in tense would be a welcome problem (at least I might be able to teach to that problem). My current class does not seem to have an idea of the tensing of verbs. I, (and I would love to say we .. as in the rest of the class and me) but alas, the problem is deep. Battery dying. More later.