Living in a Sad State

For as long as I can remember, I idolized teachers and people who worked in schools. My dad was a teacher. My Mom was a "Vending Machine Lady" in the lunchroom at our High School. As a matter of fact, most of my family worked in education. I thought trying to educate people and help them reach their goals was an honorable, respectable profession. Being a teacher is all I ever remember wanting to be. I tutored classmates, volunteered with the rec department, basically did everything I could to help people learn. I did all of this even though I was constantly being told that a person with my disability couldn't be a teacher! I never let that stop me because I knew in my heart it was what I was meant to do.

After College I continued to fight the good fight. I applied for over 200 jobs before I was hired by Milwaukee Area Technical College 2 1/2 years later. I have been here for 25 years and I love what I do. I love the people I work with and I love our students. I also freely admit that I am paid very well for what I do. I am not ashamed of that. I was brought up to believe that you should find a career that you love, that you are good at and also pays well. I have succeeded at all three of those. I am proud of that!

With the current political climate in Wisconsin, that is probably a dangerous statement to make. Our Governor, Scott Walker, has decided to single out educators and other public service workers as the cause of our great states current (debatable) budget crisis. Even though the vast majority of workers in these groups fall into the middle class, Walker and the Propaganda Machine that is the Republican Party has convinced people that we are greedy, selfish money grubbing slobs.

The funny thing is that there really are very few money saving items in this legislation. Most of it centers around limiting workers rights, ending collective bargaining and basically killing Unions. If collective bargaining is ended, the only negotiable item would be salary and even that would have a cap. If Administrations no longer need to offer insurance how long before they stop offering the option altogether?

Even though the Unions have agreed to the monetary parts of the legislation, Walker and his cronies refuse to have any type of dialogue on this topic. This is nothing more than a vindictive attack on his opponents. The people who this hurts come almost exclusively from groups who voted against him. Walker justifies this behavior by using the tired old Republican standard red herring argument of a mandate from the people. In reality, he won with 52% of the vote. I hardly think 2% qualifies as a mandate.

Wisconsin's State Motto is perfectly concise and positive: Forward! My fear is that with Walker, The Republican Party and their Millionaire Donor's Club in charge, our new Motto will be: Backward!

Skype!

I Skyped for the first time this weekend! I made a video call to Rita, the teacher of my EdTech class. I actually was quite impressed with the quality of the call. The only problem was that my voice would drop every so often. this probably due the quality of the built in microphone on my laptop and not Skype itself.

Next week I take Skyping to a new level when I attempt to Skype with my class from Las Vegas! I guess what happens in Vegas won't stay in Vegas!

Google, Google, Google

I am not sure why but I have always had a little prejudice against Google. i feel the same way about Microsoft. It might be the conspiracy theorist in me, but I just don't trust them! That being said, I must admit that this class has opened my eyes at least a little to the value of the applications that Google offers. I think that GoogleDocs is a very effective tool for collaborating on a project. GoogleEarth is just cool (and a little creepy).

A Vision of Students Today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=dGCJ46vyR9o

I watched this clip and was struck by a few things. the interesting thing to me is that most of the items that caught my eye had more to do with the educational process and the atmosphere in the classroom than the uses of technology or social media. The first statement that shocked me was that only 18% of teachers know their students names. If this is true, it is a real shame. Another statement was that only 26% of classroom material is relevant to students lives. I believe that this is probably more a case of the students not seeing the relevancy when it is really there. It is our job as educators to help students make the connection between the material and their lives.

I'm Baaaack!

After a long time away I am returning to the Blogosphere! I am enrolled in a class with fellow educators at MATC where we will be learning about Social Media and ways to incorporate them into the classroom. Enjoy the ride with me!