October 13, 2009
The Audacity of People
As I was driving home from campus today, I witnessed a hit and run at a busy intersection. A woman and her young daughter were crossing a busy street, when a woman came screaming around the corner, making a left turn, right into the woman. I was the first car in line to turn right and it was right in front of me. The woman was hit in the legs and the force of it threw her back and onto her back and butt. She never left go of her daughter's hand. The little girl was unharmed, although I'm sure that seeing your mother hit by a car isn't exactly the best thing for a little one.
I immediately threw my car into park and got out. Two other men did too. I screamed "Are you ok?" at her as she slowly got up from the ground. I reached back into the car and grabbed my cell phone. The other men who were out of their cars were closer to her. I dialed "911." Clearly, she should have been at least looked at. The woman continued to stand in front of the car holding her daughter's hand, as she gave the driver, a young woman herself, a piece of her mind. The woman who hit her never even got out of the car, not when she had initially knocked her down, not as she slowly made her way back to her feet, not at all.
What was even more shocking than the fact that the woman did not get out of the car was that there were cars behind the driver who were beeping. Everyone clearly saw what happened, and you know, who cares? We have places to go, things to do, people to see. . .
Unbelievable.
And then, even more unbelievable is that the driver edged her car around the woman and sped off. I was on the phone with the 911 operator at the time and quickly regurgitated the license number as she sped off. The woman repeated it back to me and I hope to God that she got it. I didn't have time to commit it to memory or write it down. I just read it off and then turned right to try to follow her and make sure I was right.
The 911 operator kept trying to transfer me to the local police but it wouldn't work. I told her everything I could, and that the woman who had been hit was slowly walking up the sidewalk of the same street. I lost the car in a sea of traffic at a shopping center and that was that.
I drove back to the intersection and tried to find the woman and her child to see if she was ok and to tell her that she should really be seen by a medical professional, and to let her know that I had given the police the woman's license number, but she was gone too. I don't know if she went in one of the many buildings for help or if she got on a bus and went back to her life.
All I know is that people completely shock me. It absolutely blows my mind that if you hit someone with your car, you wouldn't immediately get out and make sure the person is ok. It is unfathomable to me that someone could just drive off, because I would never do that. And it's even more shocking to me that someone would have the audacity to honk their horn so that a victim who was just knocked down on the street would move so that they can all move on and go about their day.
I don't understand why people don't care about other people and why people don't possess common decency. All I know is that I am so thankful that I'm not one of them.
October 12, 2009
On Pooping Animals
After spending some time around some very large horses this weekend at a Family Fall festival, Lil C told me she might like to switch her Halloween costume from a mermaid to a horse or maybe a camel. As we were brainstorming how we could create such a costume, I told her she would have to carry around brown marshmallows and drop a few every couple feet to mimic horse/camel poop.
Both girls thought this was hysterical. Poop, when kids are this age, is always funny. We've been seeing a whole lot of pooping lately after a visit to the zoo and the fall festival.
Then Lil C made it even more funny, "Yeah, then I could pick up those marshmallows and eat them" she giggled.
We definitely spent too much time hanging around at the gorilla exhibit at the zoo last weekend. Entirely too much time.
October 9, 2009
Mermaid Cookies & Under the Sea Fun
Tonight I'm taking my Mom out for dinner and a movie, but I didn't want another post to go by without sharing Lil C's birthday with you.
I imagine it must be difficult to visualize airplane cookies turning into mermaids, but I swear they did. Here's the photographic evidence.
Here's some of the food. The fruit kabobs were a big hit.
Here's the starfish bread bowl I made for the crab dip.
Here's the other one. . .
Here's one of the kid activities. They made "under the sea" things to hang on their bedroom doors.
This was a game for the Mer-Dads. They had to eat all the Swedish Fish on their plate and they just happened to be under a huge pile of whipped cream. No hands allowed. They were such good sports.
Mr. BBM was a good sport. The man can eat whipped cream like no one's business. He barely even got messy.
Here are all the good sports.
Of course, the kids needed a turn too.
Here's the awesome Ariel cake.
And the birthday girl. . .
Here are some of the under the sea decorations.
More pics of the camel ride on her actual birthday to come!
October 9, 2009
Mermaid Cookies & Under the Sea Fun
Tonight I'm taking my Mom out for dinner and a movie, but I didn't want another post to go by without sharing Lil C's birthday with you.
I imagine it must be difficult to visualize airplane cookies turning into mermaids, but I swear they did. Here's the photographic evidence.
Here's some of the food. The fruit kabobs were a big hit.
Here's the starfish bread bowl I made for the crab dip.
Here's the other one. . .
Here's one of the kid activities. They made "under the sea" things to hang on their bedroom doors.
This was a game for the Mer-Dads. They had to eat all the Swedish Fish on their plate and they just happened to be under a huge pile of whipped cream. No hands allowed. They were such good sports.
Mr. BBM was a good sport. The man can eat whipped cream like no one's business. He barely even got messy.
Here are all the good sports.
Of course, the kids needed a turn too.
Here's the awesome Ariel cake.
And the birthday girl. . .
Here are some of the under the sea decorations.
More pics of the camel ride on her actual birthday to come!
October 8, 2009
Get Rid of the Warm and Fuzzies
Last week, I had a student skip his scheduled speech date. In order to pass the class, students must give all speeches. I also don't allow late assignments. So when he came in my class and asked what he should do about it, I had a decision to make.
I happen to like this kid and think he has great potential; but he is such a slacker right now and he needs to get organized. So I decided to allow him to give his speech a class late for half credit. It's still a failing grade, but at least he won't have to dig himself out from under a big 0. I told him though, that the only way I was allowing him to deliver his speech was if he wrote a personal improvement plan, a plan that detailed how he was going to get his act together.
Today he came to class on time and with his plan in hand. I allowed him to deliver his speech and with any luck, he will pass this class, probably by the skin of his teeth.
But that's not what I want to talk about today.
What I want to vent about is what was in his personal improvement plan. Apparently, this student has some learning issues and spent much of his high school career being pulled out of mainstream classrooms to be coddled. He says so himself. He goes so far as to say that he was actually "spoon-fed" answers on tests on most occasions and that because of this he entered his freshman year of college without any skills when it comes to getting work done and correctly. Things were done for him in high school.
He is not the first university student I have had with these types of problems; and frankly, something needs to be done about it. We spend so much time in education, stressing the importance of making students feel good about themselves by handing them answers and spoon-feeding them, that we forget that we're doing a huge disservice to these students. When you're used to being spoon-fed, what will you do in the work force? I'll tell you what, you'll fail in that arena too.
When I taught high school, my second year of teaching I was given three special education TAM classes which means that I had a special education teacher in my classroom during those three classes and my students' issues ranged from not being able to read, to having ADHD, to having severe behavior problems. I was at first, very upset about having these classes. I didn't get any special education training when I was getting my Master's in education. I didn't have any idea what to do or where to begin; and personally, I felt it was grossly unfair to my non-special ed students since they made up less than 50% of the classroom and were surrounded by many more special education than state-mandated laws should have allowed. Fortunately, I had a talented teacher in my classroom to help me. She provided accommodations to students, but one thing she did not do was coddle them or give them answers. Because of this, I would sometimes hear students talk about how much easier the other special ed. teacher was to work with. This teacher was notorious for handing kids A's when they did nothing to deserve them. It was extremely frustrating for me and for my TAM teacher.
Having moved on to teach at the university level, I am increasingly frustrated with where education is going. Some of these freshman are completely unprepared to handle the responsibility of a college class. This isn't high school. I shouldn't have to write assignments on the board each day, when they already have a syllabus. It can be a frustrating job of taking them out of the hand-holding attitude they've grown up with to one that stresses personal responsibility.
While I fully realize that kids with learning disabilities and behavior issues need modifications, simply providing them with answers they don't have to work for isn't helping anyone. Self-esteem is definitely important when it comes to education, but shouldn't we be helping students with their self esteem by giving them the tools and resources they need in order to find the answers on their own. Isn't this actually what education is intended to be? Isn't the feeling kids get from actually accomplishing something on their own better than us lowering expectations and still patting them on the head?
I'd like to know when special education became a warm and fuzzy thing where instead of teaching kids alternate ways to get to the answers, we decided it's best to just hand them the answers. There is a trickle down effect to this that is bringing students into universities unprepared. And if students go directly from high school to the job market, then what?
One may think that I haven't experienced any issues with my own kids, and therefore can't speak to this issue; but that is simply not true. In 1st grade, Big I was pulled out of class several times a week to get extra help with reading. She didn't like being pulled out and I didn't like it either. I fought it her entire Kindergarten year and finally gave in during 1st grade. She was behind the other kids when it came to reading. She needed to get caught up. After a couple months of extra help, she was able to stop going to the reading resource teacher. The teacher, although tough at times, didn't hand her answers. She taught her better ways to read and Big I got it. She didn't get a sticker every week; she got one only when she had done really well. It paid off. Now in third grade, Big I is one of two kids in an independent reading group. She doesn't need guided reading because her reading comprehension is off the charts. I recognize that kids need extra help sometimes; but they need the right kind of help to really get somewhere.
I've heard a lot of talk recently about extending school days and extending the school year. Maybe instead of adding more time to the school year, we should be changing what happens in the classroom during the hours they are there. Ten hours of handing kids the answers isn't going to be any better than eight hours of doing the same thing. However, eight hours of actually teaching kids with learning issues how to work more efficiently and find the answers on their own is going to benefit not only the students, but future employers and our country as well.
The dumbing down of American students has to stop if we want our country to be successful an competitive. Instead of lowering expectations, we need to raise them and help students find ways to get there. Spoon feeding is for babies, not grown-ups; and something clearly needs to change.
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