So after a nice hiatus, I’m back to blogging. Yet the year did not start out on such a great note as this morning I became part of a scary statistic. According to some estimates, 2000 people accidentally put their cell phone through the washing machine every day. I’ve now become one of those lucky few.
Anyway, despite my knuckleheadedness, I still move on. Today I discovered a really cool website, called Quizlet which allows users to create flashcards, and practice those flashcards.
Seeing as my kids largely struggle with division, I took it upon myself to create some division flashcards which I hope to get in the habit of using a bit in class, and hopefully encouraging them to use a bit at home.
It’s finally vacation time! Tomorrow, I’m heading out to visit family in sunny and warm upstate New York, and I’m NOT TAKING MY LAPTOP! Despite the knowledge that I will probably spend my first entire day back in Los Angeles in January wading through the mountains of emails and RSS feed posts that I will have missed, it will be well worth it to simply get away from the madness for a while!
In the meantime, Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!
True story. I promise. Today in my fourth period class my kids were silently finishing up a quiz while I was walking around the room. One of my top students, Jerry*, raised his hand and so I walk over to his seat, leaning over to hear his question.
“Mr. Hunsberger, do you know Kelly Duncan?”
“Why, yes! She worked really hard in my class for two years, and achieved some amazing results!”, I replied. Kelly, a former student, currently a 9th grader, had been a fairly average student at first in her 7th grade year, but by the end of her 8th grade year, she had really put all the pieces together and did extremely well. “How do you know Kelly?”, I asked.
“She goes to my church”, Jerry responded, “and she said to say hi.”
“Great! I’m glad you know her. Did she tell you anything about her experience in my class?”, I then prodded, hoping that she would have passed on a great message to Jerry about hard work, asking questions, and striving for nothing short of excellence.
Jerry’s response simultaneously shocked and delighted me: “Yes, Mr. Hunsberger. She said you were a really great teacher and that if the school ever fired you, she’d come and start a riot.”
LAUSD headquarters. Downtown Los Angeles. Yesterday, as I headed to the Beaudry Building to pick up nearly 300 LAUSD magnet school applications, I was surprised by two things: 1) the brand new security gates recently installed in HQ (which appeared to be equivalent to about 10 teachers’ salaries), and 2) the quote on the wall which simply stated “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning” (Bill Gates).
Yesterday was kind of a big day around Beaudry. The school board voted to buy out the remaining two-years of the current superintendent’s contract. Is it too little, too late? No doubt. At least it’s a step in the right direction.Meanwhile, if I could only get my kids to multiply….
Hello, my name is Kyle, and I’m a Microsoft Outlook addict.
“Hi, Kyle.”
As some of you may know, I use Outlook for a variety of functions, not the least of which is as recurring three day reminder to post to this blog. Should one of my Outlook tasks go uncompleted (gasp!) it becomes a brilliant red the next day. Needless to say, the task “post on Hunsblog” has been red since Friday, a testament to the craziness that occurs when weekends are filled with non-”productive” things such as a free chamber concert, filming two new Hope Change Choices videos, writing a spiritual inventory, watching “Milk” (two positive reviews from two opposite sources, here and here), celebrating Advent Sunday II, chowing down on terribly unhealthy yet terribly wonderful flame broiled chicken at my new favorite hole-in-the-wall place called Dino’s, attending small group with folks from Mosaic, and finally, writing long and winding sentences (a characteristic which should strictly be reserved for “roads“).
What is perhaps the very best part about the weekend of Thanksgiving is the fact that more often than not, it ends with a beginning, namely the beginning of the Advent season!
And as much as I consider Mosaic my church family, one of my biggest gripes is that we seem pretty oblivious to about 2000 years of Christian history and what can be a pretty amazing season of celebration and expectation goes largely ignored. Oh well. I guess that’s one of the nice things about the 6pm gatherings — it frees up the mornings to go celebrate advent with communities that do get this right.
All in all, it’s been a much needed relaxing 4 days off from work, and as I go back tomorrow and face the ba-jillion (if that’s not a real number, I hereby appeal to the MAA for it’s official incorporation) tasks to be accomplished between now and December 19th, the final day of school before the winter recess. On the immediate docket: decimals, percents, commissions, markups, taxes, etc… which should be easy to incorporate into my students real lives as they start drooling over the sales and gadgets at their local Game Stop, and/or Best Buy.
I always thought that the point of propaganda was to be fiendishly effective in converting an audience to your own perspective. And certainly with all the inadequacies and administrative bumbling that has plagued the Los Angeles Unified School District over the past few years, now is certainly the time for it.
But come on. Come on! Beginning today’s press release with the phrase "Move over Oprah for the next talk show host of prime time — Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent David L. Brewer III." First of all, who cares about Brewer’s ability to host a television program. I’m more concerned with his inability to lead our school district! Second of all, what does it say about the desperation of the school district to grab for any positive press, no matter how ridiculous it is!
And so in signing off, I offer up a plea. Move over Oprah! Hire Admiral Brewer for a full-time television gig, and leave the school district in more capable hands!
So after a nice hiatus, I’m back to blogging. Yet the year did not start out on such a great note as this morning I became part of a scary statistic. According to some estimates, 2000 people accidentally put their cell phone through the washing machine every day. I’ve now become one of those lucky few.
