Unfortunately, other than a quick visit to Lake Tahoe, the above is the only travel that I’ve done this summer. There is still time though. Well, one month to be exact!

As a novice gardener I have learned many lessons. We bought our house in 2007 and since that time I have managed to plant over twenty different types of trees. There’s something about buying your first home and feeling pride in making your home look nice. There is also the satisfaction one gets from gardening. I would always wonder why my parents spent so many hours outside tending to their numerous llerbas and arbolitos. I just didn’t get it. Now I do. Gardening relaxes the mind. As a teacher getting outside and talking to the trees is such as a stress reliever, especially during the school season. I’m not sure what I would do if I lived in an apartment building without a yard.

Lesson number one of planting trees for the novice gardener is to plant the tree at the correct height. I’ve been lucky with most of my trees…except two. Two of my my eight Japanese Maples were planted too deep. Beyond the appearance which makes the trees look like utility poles, planting a tree to deep means that the tree’s roots are not getting enough oxygen. There can also possibly be trunk rot. Although the tree can survive for several years it is doomed especially when the tree essentially commits suicide with it’s own roots wrapping themselves around the trunk and choking it. Weird I know. To sum things up plant your trees the right way by making sure that the root flare is visible and that it’s at soil level. Don’t let containers or burlap bags trick you. Both may be hiding the root flare.

The last thing you want to do is to have to elevate the root ball on two of your Japanese Maples because you planted them too deep. I am praying to San Judas that my trees make it.

The real Mexican dream, not the false one, not the one that the intellectuals like myself make up, but the real one is that people leave for the United States, find a well-paying job, improve their income level slightly over time, eventually obtain papers, bring their family or create a family, build a family in the United States. And then later on in life, depending on their age and how they do, etc., maybe go home to Mexico to retire. But to retire at an early age, at 50ish or something like that. I think that to a large extent that is the Mexican dream. Because the other one is that they could find the same sorts of jobs in Mexico that they find in the U.S., and that hasn’t happened for the last 100 odd years, and will not happen at least for the next 15 or 20 years.

-Jorge Castaneda

Go Tigers!

There is a lot of things wrong with teachers losing their jobs because of political decisions or lack thereof. Even worse is the fact that fat isn’t skimmed off the top. It’s also a concern that teachers are laid off not because of performance but on the basis of years of employment. There is something inherently wrong with highly qualified teachers getting laid off in favor of teachers that have a longer tenure at a school district. I would’ve been in the same boat if I had made the switch to a different district this past school year. I guess you can say that I lucked out. Don’t get me wrong. In no way am I saying that tenure should be done away with. Instead, guidelines should be set in place to evaluate teachers on a combination of performance and tenure.

This Post is only intended for information directed at those that were to young and have no knowledge of how Schools worked in years past. Taking note that the High School Graduation rate was in the area of 95-100% in that time frame.
First off, there was no Teachers Union and there was no Tenure.
Parents worked hand in hand with the School Boards and were part of the system.
There were no workers in the Library. Teachers with a free extra period were assigned to the Library. Students taking a Library Class ran the Dewey Decimal System, Books and so forth.
There was no such thing as a Safety Monitor. High Schools had Student Cops and a citation might mean picking up paper on Campus.
There were no counselors. There was a Home Room Teacher that helped organize classes, and might on occasion offer counseling advice.
It was not a perfect setting, but for sure better than what’s going on today, with the Teachers Union and Tenure running the School System.

Damn, teachers everywhere are feeling the pinch. Visalia Unified is laying off 60. Porterville Unified is laying off 19. In the surrounding areas of Tulare and Kern County all these pink slips could possibly end with hundreds of teachers being unemployed. Instead of supporting pedagogues I am starting to see a backlash against the CTA (like the above commentator on the Visalia Times-Delta). Somehow it’s the union’s fault.

Will I wear pink tomorrow? Probably not. I think that wearing black would be more appropriate.

Dan Goldhaber, an education professor at the University of Washington, said the obsession with class size stemmed from a desire for “something that people can grasp easily — you walk into a class and you see exactly how many kids are there.”

“Whether or not it translates into an additional advantage doesn’t necessarily matter,” Professor Goldhaber said. “We know that teachers are the most important thing, but teacher quality is not stamped on someone’s forehead.”

In all honesty I can teach a class of 35 students but don’t expect me to be as effective in my teaching. Don’t expect me to be able to meet the needs of all learners, especially English Language Learners. When you teach out of a portable classroom and your students barely fit, forget about small group instruction. Teaching a class of 20 or less makes life easy for the teacher and the student. Teaching classes of 30 or more expect students to fall through the cracks. I feel that this is the unfortunate reality for many students. Class size reduction works. Perhaps it is not reflected significantly in scores but it is apparent in the learning that takes place by ALL students.

Link:New York Times