Friday, August 28 - A Different Destination

I'm on vacation this week and in keeping with the plan for the week - to do nothing involved with work - I won't be posting a Friday CPR today. 

Instead I am redirecting your attention to an article written by a blogging friend of mine who happens to be a teacher with a lot of insight.  Her blog is wonderful and she also writes a newspaper column.  Whether you have children in school now or not, or whether you have been a teacher or worked with children, you will enjoy this post of hers. 

To the teacher, from the mom......

Friday, August 21 - Who's Distracted?

I was in the examining room at my doctor's office today and saw this sign:

Please refrain from
using cell phones during
your examination.
They are a distraction
for our dedicated staff.

Really?

I want a sign that says:

Please refrain from
using cell phones
in our office.
We really don't want
to know what you did
this weekend.
We'd much rather know
who you are and why
you are here.
Or better yet, who the
dirty sneakers you just
dropped on the counter
belong to.

Friday, August 14 - Custodial Caution

As I was walking down the hallway to deliver something this week I thought I might have wandered into a crime scene.

You see, our custodians got hold of some of that yellow caution tape and tied up all the bathroom doors. It took me a while to figure out why they did that.

As they finished cleaning the bathrooms they taped them up like that so no one would use them. That way they didn't have to keep cleaning them everyday.

Yes, our custodial staff has been diligently working to clean and prepare the school for opening day.

I keep a map of the school on my counter and as they finish a room they highlight it. This way I know which rooms are done when a teacher calls to see if they can come in to work in their room.

These guys crack me up. They all want to be the one to do the coloring! If one gets there before the other they are truly disappointed. Imagine grown men arguing over whose turn it was to color in a square on a map.

I told them I'm going to get them some highlighters and coloring books for Christmas.

Friday, August 7 - Living Materials

I've been ordering materials for the new school year these last couple of weeks.

Our fourth and fifth grade science curriculum includes living materials. We get frogs, millipedes, fish, and I think crabs.

Once each marking period a different set of teachers calls up the company in North Carolina and gives them their order number along with the dates that they want each "material" delivered.

These boxes come shipped overnight and they only ship them on certain days of the week so as not to have a box of dead living materials show up.

The teachers take these materials to their classrooms and use whatever the rest of the curriculum prescribes to set up these lessons.

Once the lesson or the marking period is over, the teachers can disperse or dispose of these materials as they wish and by that time they're really anxious to get rid of them because, to put it in their words, "they stink up the room".

One fourth grade teacher even admitted to me that she actually looks forward to the things dying because they smell so bad.

Thankfully, she's also the one who has confided to many that she never intends to have children of her own.