Thursday, Feb. 20, 2003
Digging doesn't help, posted at 4:52 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I had big dreams and high hopes for today. Get up, get my shit together, go to the gym, and run for sixty minutes. I felt like I needed to sweat away the shitty things I've injested into my body this week. I've been lifting weights a bit, but it's so hard to maintain cardiovascular health when a person is snowed in.The sun was shining and the snow was melting, so I figured I would have no problem getting out. Wrong. I spent about an hour trying to dig myself out, and was unsuccessful. None of my allegedly friendly Baltimore neighbors offered to help, so I dejectedly went inside. My shorts and tennis shoes are still in a plastic bag on the passenger seat, waiting to be used. Oh well.
So I have come in, and spent more time wasting my day away. I created a fantasy baseball league and invited fifteen of my friends to join. I argued with a friend over e-mail as to whether Mickey Tettleton would be a hall of famer if he had had three more good seasons. (Yes, he would be. Or at least should be.) And now I'm journaling, despite the fact that I have nothing inspiring or life-affirming to say.
I am also wondering how our school system will address all of these missed days. By my unofficial count, we have now had eight snow days, as Friday is already cancelled. That is six that we have to make up. Boston Betty was a senior in high school in 1978 when Boston had a huge blizzard, and that school system fixed it by arriving at school fifteen minutes earlier and dismissing fifteen minutes later for the remainder of the year. That accounted for the missed days. I'm not sure if that would work here, as schools start at different times all over the city. Plus, I would really hate that. My days are already long enough.
The obvious way to fix it is to tack the days on at the end of the year. As miserable as it is to teach in a building without air-conditioning in June, this is my preference. I do not want to give up my spring break. And I still say that the worst part about being a teacher is the summer vacation, and the stress of finding a job for eight or nine weeks and making ends meet during that time. Give me a 12-month contract, and I'll be happy. Hell, you could give me a year-round school year, just sprinkle in some more breaks, and I'd be very satisfied. The kids would be better off, too. The only reason we have summers off is antiquated farming policies.
My fear is that the state will just lop those days off of the school year because of budget problems. Our society is devaluing education more and more, and the results will be frightening. Heck, one day we might have a leader who brags about his lack of education.
Oh. Wait. That's already happened.
The "Leave No Child Untested" policy would be a good place to start cutting, I say. It costs $250 a child for all the shitty testing that has to be done. The tests are commisioned and scored from outside organizations, and that costs big bucks. I hear of some school districts that have been asked to go without lights to save on electricity, yet the testing continues.
And, just when I think I've got it bad, I read the shit that Oregon voters are doing to Ms. Boombastic and all the other teachers there. Unbelievable.