A friend posted his 10 non-political unpopular opinions on Facebook recently and then I saw someone else ask the question on Twitter. I’m not sure I can think of 10, but I decided to post some of mine. Elvis over the Beatles – It is probably because I grew up in an Elvis house and … More My Unpopular Opinions
The big news in schools locally is Montgomery County’s decision to remove all references to religious holidays from the school calendar. This move was prompted by the local Muslim community’s request to have one of their holy days off. It was a reasonable request. Most local school systems are closed for the major Christian and … More Montgomery County’s Stupid Move
I have once again made the mistake of engaging in discussions on Facebook about school calendars. I will try to be more coherent than normal by ranting in a numerical, topical order. 1. “You can’t make X change to the school calendar because I can’t/don’t want to find child care” – It is not the … More More school rants
I was already irritated with parents in Anne Arundel County due to my membership in the AMS PTA Facebook page. It is generally just a stream of constant complaints. Nothing is ever good enough for these parents and they want everyone to know it. My irritation once again expanded county-wide(see hurricane aftermath post(https://theycallmetater.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/a-note-to-anne-arundel-county-parents/) when AACPS … More School(parents) Drama Club
If you are friends with me on Facebook, you have probably seen the “stupid school” articles I share. Many of the stupid school decisions are based on a zero-tolerance policy. The most recent one that really made me mad was this one: http://espn.go.com/boston/story/_/id/9826842/high-school-athlete-massachusetts-suspended-driving-drunk-friend where a high school athlete was suspended after she went to a … More Zero Tolerance for Zero Tolerance
I recently joined the Facebook group for my daughter’s middle school’s PTA. There have been a large number of posts recently about how hard it is to get substitute teachers to come to the school because of behavior issues in some of the classrooms. These behavior issues include entire classes ignoring the teacher, Kids dancing … More Recess, Respect and Middle School
I read this article today – http://www.abc2news.com/dpp/news/national/students-in-5-states-to-be-in-class-longer about more states adding more time that students will be in school. According to the article education secretary Arne Duncan wants kids in school 6-7 days a week, 11 or 12 months a year. I guess we should just forget letting kids be kids and send them off … More School’s out…never?
Last weekend, The Washington Post ran an op/ed piece extolling the virtues of year around school. Today there was a small piece in the same paper about what activities to do with your kids to keep them from falling behind or apparently being “lazy” over the summer. I guess the summer days of riding bikes, … More No more lazy summer days?
The World's Common Tater 