Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2004
Kick Ass Teacher, posted at 5:07 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com If you don't mind me saying so, I have been kicking ass as a teacher since the new semester started. It's amazing what a well-planned, cohesive unit will do for not only my peace of mind and lack of stress, but also for my students' success. Today felt like a major victory. I had low-level ninth grader dissecting multiple choice AP questions based upon To Kill a Mockingbird, identifying the traps that might have made them fall into one of the wrong answers. I'm really trying to improve these kids' performance on multiple choice tests, because right now they're really sucky and I'm sick of using "These kids just aren't good at multiple choice" as an excuse. I then spent all of my planning period calling parents of kids who are off to a slow start because they're not doing the reading. That feels really good.I'm hoping to whip all of these kids into shape by the time baseball season begins. I'm excited and scared by the prospect of the season. First of all, it will be my first time coaching alone, and I'm a little nervous about that. Plus, there's the whole eyesight thing that will make me scared even to play catch. Next, there's the fact that 40 young men are trying out and I've somehow got to figure out a way to whittle that number down to 20 before the season. I can already feel the pressure a little.
Tryouts begin March 1. I'm not ready.
***
It's heartening to me that, like in baseball, just because you have the most money doesn't mean you'll get the victory. You'll be a contendor - like Dean was and like the Yankees always probably will be - but you won't necessarily be the winner. Kerry was taking a mortgage out on his house a month ago. The Marlins had a third of the payroll as the Yankees. It's not all about money.
Dean just wasn't that great of a candidate. I like that he tried to move the party left - the direction it needs to go to survive, IMO - but he came across as unreflective (he was as impulsive as Bush) and opportunistic (choosing the popular position when he didn't have to make the tough choice to allow force in Iraq). I would have had a hard time voting for him.