So, I had my first time substitute teaching today, and it went fairly well. I had 8th grade science kids, 3 normal sections, 2 ap. FIrst off, ap meant nothing diferent from normal except the kids finish the exact same worksheet faster and therefore have more time to be little bastards. Anyway, after lots of using the word "quiet" and lots of quesitons about how many litres are in 382 mL [i had to pull up the good ol alcohol knowledge of 1000ml is a litre cuz the one size of liqour is 750ml and the next largest is the 1 litre..hehe] and lots of explaining that i have a girlfriend and her name is katie and lots of questions about music and stuff, it went alright

the kids were easy to scream, easy to intimidate, and have more hormones than a bus full of mid school boys, oh wait, thats what they were, except coed and not just boys. so yea

my contention or bitch about things is this......the public schools of jefferson county are fulling living up to John Taylor Gatto's view on the american education system: [let me sum it up]"Is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would 'leave no child behind'? Coult it be that our schools are designed to make sure not one of them ever really grows up?"

of course it is! our country's education system is designed to make us easy to control pieces of shit, i mean it was modelled after a prusssian form that exactly states the purpose of stopping revolutionary impulses. here is a quite quote from H.L. Mencken, "The aim (of public education) is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality." Many thanks to LEO for finding that for me. Anyway, i add this little bit about public education because i'm noticing something.....the schools are getting BETTER at this mindless control...or perhaps not better, but certainly trying to get bettercheck this out

middleschoolers [supposedly in all of this county] are in a dress code, have halls in the school they can only walk down in a single direction, are given assigned seats in the lunchroom, aren't allowed in the halls before or after school, they must sit in the cafeteria, where an assistant principle with a megaphone yells at them for switching tables or "standing up without the intent to buy food"...they are told they can't talk in the hallways, and what i witnessed was one lady yelling, or at least speaking quite loudly "you know there is no talking in this hall, why am i hearing your voice!" when a student says excitedly, "Hi Mr White!" to a teacher down the hall.......they get yelled at if they walk on the lefthand side of the hallway, (note: i heard this while i kid was walking to the drinking fountain).

I even found out that teachers are losing more and more ability to teach their own subjects, the classes have become all standardized so that kids fit better into some stupid test scores, [btw, this school district has changed "teaching modes" 3 times in the past decade because each one is supposed to raise test scores....any surprise none of them are that successful???] the fucking whole district even has the same friggin HAND SIGNALS to signal silence in their classrooms

ironically, its the black power fist......i mean, c'mon, hurt one of the few revolutionary gestures left out there why don't ya! ugh

so, as i was saying, my first day went alright, poor lil kids.........

-joel

p.s. emily, i know blog is short for weblog, still doens't make it a word, blog is still, just as silly as saying "wog" or "weg" or "eblo" or a W.L.