Tag: education

Schools Need to Vaccinate Everyone

You can do all of this and create the safest “system and physical plan,” but you cannot instill the self discipline in younger children that will make those plans and protocols work.

For years, the people writing the regulations for schools have been so disconnected from the reality of education that they have created the dismal failure that exists in our schools. This only really hurts the students…and what do they know? They have to do what they are told…right? Right? Right!!!! Every teacher knows the answer to this question and now so do some parents who have been observant. The answer to that question is NO.

The pandemic and distance learning have shown clearly that we have a large number of students being left out because of lack of technology but also the lack of supervision. Sending your child to school means that you can put the teacher in charge of “keeping your child in line” in addition to teaching the child the academics mandated by the State. If you have observed a ZOOM class online you can see that many students are misbehaving during their classes in front of their computers or checking out completely. There is no intervention by the adult physically in the room.

You can quote the CDC all you want. You can have the President say it is so. You can have the doctors agree on protocols. You can do all of this and create the safest “system and physical plan,” but you cannot instill the self discipline in younger children that will make those plans and protocols work. Every teacher knows this and now many parents do as well. Those parents are demanding to remain online until there is a vaccine . Which parents do you think will demand to have their children in school? Yes, the ones with very little self discipline or any discipline at home.

Teachers are in the high risk group. The age of a teacher could be 22 or 62 or somewhere in between and comorbidities increase with age. How do you know? The truth is…you don’t. There are immunization requirements before a person starts school for diseases that have all but been eradicated. We have a killer disease in our midst and vaccines that are becoming available more and more. Why the rush? Yes, it has been tough. Yes, you are tired but the idea that one year of this type of education will “do irreparable damage” to kids is ludicrous.

If you wanted to go to school to teach or to learn you would have to get a TB test. In 2019, 1.4 million people died of TB. In 2020, over 2.4 million people died of COVID 19. Both diseases are respiratory in that they are transmitted through the air on water droplets. TB is bacterial, has an ineffective vaccine, and is monitored by employment testing all over. COVID is a virus that has many promising vaccines but is behind the intervention curve in both diagnosis and immunizations. Why the rush? Putting people back into school even part time will not do anything to improve academics and will slow the real progress of getting a normal opening for the next academic year.

The rhetoric coming from Washington even in this new administration is very Trumpesque. It is not unusual for any administration to legislate schools into institutional obsolescence whether Republican or Democrat. It is unconscionable to politicize the profession to risk the very people we need to overcome the administrative stupidity that emanates from government at all levels for the sake of votes or feeling good. Lawmakers…it’s time for you to put on your Big Boy Pants and defend common sense.

Tony Robbins-Live

The National Achievers Congress, a group that has been promoting these celebrity speakers followed by trainers selling courses and secrets, appeared on my newsfeed in Facebook. Alas, as a retiree, I decided that I wanted to experience a Tony Robbins live event.

The National Achievers Congress, a group that has been promoting these celebrity speakers followed by trainers selling courses and secrets, appeared on my newsfeed in Facebook. Alas, as a retiree, I decided that I wanted to experience a Tony Robbins live event. So I went. I went because I saw that Eric Worre, who is a guru in the network marketing world was supposed to be one of the speakers. He wasn’t. I was disappointed…well…a little.

Me at The Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Me at The Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The trip took me over four hours to get to The Orleans Hotel. The event was held in the Orleans Arena and the temperature in this arena was about 49 degrees because there was apparently ice under the floor. My fingers were numb as I listened to a speaker from Shark Tank talk about investment, and then a person with a $895 course to sell took over and showed how to trade stocks…sort of…but you need his course. Prior to that Dean Graziossi led to a person doing the same thing for real estate at $995. Later, a person came on with a course on mapping out your success and that was free if you took the other two courses, otherwise it was $197, a significant amount off of list price. They all say that the value of the course is a lot more. It’s really hard to say what value is.

Tony Robbins started to speak after lunch at 2:20pm. He didn’t disappoint. In an arena with 3,000 people, he worked his magic on everyone. If you sat on the floor, you had to pay money in the thousands…but then you got lunch with Tony. The lower ring was gold and cost $400 and the higher center was silver and cost $123. I almost paid $123 until I found it was also on a website at a bronze level and cost a little over $40. This was all for the same stuff.

There is a point in your life where “what you do” doesn’t matter as much as
“who you are”. This is where Tony Robbins has arrived. Through his years of infomercials, he has become a household name and as a performance coach, he makes no apologies for the seemingly endless list of famous clients that he has worked with over the years. Yet, so much of his stuff hasn’t changed over the years. I still wanted to see him live, but I was not as impressed as I thought I would be. I left early because I had a four hour ride home.

I spent just under nine hours in the car. Part of the ride included a cd I got from Tony Robbins table…where he was selling his three day events. While I was somewhat disappointed that I didn’t get to see Eric Worre, I believe that I can get whatever I want from him without seeing him live. Still, events like this do get you thinking. I began researching some of the investment topics and I will be pursuing that as well.

In relation to this website and blog, I have been attending meetup groups. These groups are part of the beauty of working with WordPress as a blogging and web development platform. It takes over an hour for me to get to Riverside, California from the desert, but that is a far cry from over 8 hours to Las Vegas. Still, I cannot say how much help I have gotten for free from attending these meetups. The presenters have been awesome. They have helped me immensely and definitely support my idea of people taking control of their own creative destiny. They can because there is help out there. More about that on a subsequent post, but…I am more motivated than ever to become far more than I have been up to this point.

My Pie Graph and Television

My Pie Graph and Television

I was looking at my retirement life and I think that when I was working, I really enjoyed coming home to a relaxing reclining chair and the television remote control. Yes, that was just what I wanted, and maybe a glass of wine. I also wanted cheese. I love cheese. Wine and cheese…and a remote control. What could be better…or worse?

It was ok when I was working to participate in this activity. I should say, when I was employed. Now that I am not employed, I get to spend much more time at the reclining chair and the remote control and all my meals are taken in a comfy chair. Well, I wanted to see what this was doing to my life.

The yellow is my TV watching time…not a goal but clearly my distraction.

In my Google Drive, I found an app called the task timer. I spent some time mapping out activities that are important to me, or so I thought. Some of the more difficult things for this introvert are making phone calls. This activity always gets put off. I tried to create workable 30 minute blocks of activity so that I can get some daily activity on all of my important tasks. At the end, I tried to get real with my life, so I included watching TV as an activity. The first day had a hideous amount of time with the television. The reason for this is that I take my lunch in my recliner with my remote. Then comes sleep.

My takeaways are this from the data that I have seen. If I eat in front of the TV, I am going to go to sleep. I am also going to fill my head with crap from other people’s priorities. So, over the past few days, I have tried to eat in the kitchen or the dining room. This means eating away from my family. I hope that this translates into more productivity. That should be the goal. It’s only January 2. I should take advantage of this early revelation and develop a new habit.

Technology

Today, I am guest teaching at Palm Desert High School.  Palm Desert High School has some unique programs, not unlike Palm Desert Charter Middle School.  The Middle School, which is geographically located in reasonable proximity to the high school, has, in my opinion, some of the most unique programs.  While I was guest teaching a math class in Palm Desert Middle School, a number of students brought in flags that are used in Marching Band.  When I asked about the club, they told me that it was a class.  Where I taught before, you can’t find a high school with such a class.

While at Palm Desert High School yesterday, I ran into a student who shouldn’t be here based on geography.  He said he came for baseball.  He makes the trip for baseball.  I had noticed the baseball field outside of my classroom yesterday.  I remarked to myself that it was amazingly manicured.  At the end of the day, when I left, there was a baseball practice underway.  This practice had to be underway before the end of the day as the students were already in uniform.

A November baseball practice.

It dawned on me how different this school and it’s middle school are from the average school and yet how much of it is the same.  The students are still required to do the work of the curriculum, yet there are these extras.  I am inside a class of computer science students.  It has been said that this field is dominated by men in the workplace.  Out of a class of 24 students, there are 2 girls.  The previous class had 21 students and only 2 girls.  In truth, if a tech company was looking for the best candidate for a job without regard to race, gender, or anything other than the qualifications of the individual that might make them a “rock star” in their industry, the numbers are skewed in favor of the males.

The entire class quickly finishes their assignment of what they are required to do and moves on to what they want to do. I should probably be a little scared about this, but, they are using school machines through wired into the school network, so they are precluded from doing any damage as a result of juvenile mischief…I hope.

I really wish that their work that they did everyday had a relevance to their interests or their lives.  Some of their conversations about the “gaming” that they are involved in certainly lend themselves to the creativity necessary to come up with the next big thing.  I guess it is hard to gauge this when you are a guest teacher and a little out of your field.  Still the energy is palpable and you want to catch the energy.  This should be the true art of teaching.

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