The Steampunk Detective by Darrell Pitt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Library Closed Because We Must Test

This sign has been on our library door since last Monday, Jan. 17

Our students have not had access to the library since January 14th. That is 8 days and counting so far due to the high stakes testing that the district, along with the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) and the federal Department of Education (DoE), deem necessary for our children.  The students who are taking these tests are the ones who have not passed the End of Instruction (EOI) tests that some of them need in order to graduate from high school.  

In addition to taking make-up exams, students take 3 mandated "Benchmark"  exams on their core subjects that are designed to measure the progress they are making throughout the school year. Like the EOIs, these tests must be taken on-line.  Our school has a limited number of available computers with internet access.  In addition to the 35 or so we have in the library, some of which break down at the most inopportune moments, we have two sets of "Computers on Wheels" (COWs) that have 30 or so laptops each and the computers in our Career Technology classrooms, whose students must be displaced whenever we are testing in those classrooms.  This is all we have to test the over 600 students who attend Centennial Middle/High School.

And we do a lot of testing. There are 7 EOI exams covering Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, English II, ACE English III, Biology I, and U.S. History. In addition to the high school tests, of which students are required to pass English II, Algebra I and two others in order to graduate, our school also gives tests to our 7th and 8th grade middle school students known as the Criterion Reference Tests (CRT), which include Grade 7 Reading, Mathematics, and Geography and Grade 8 Reading and Mathematics. The main EOI exams for high school students and CRTs for middle school students begin April 10th and go through May 10th, 4 weeks during which the library is "off limits" for any other use other than testing.

This means that when we give all these tests, the library is off limits to students who want to check out books or use technology for assignments. They are off limits to teachers who want their students to do research assignments.  The library, the heart of any educational institution, is off limits to students and teachers for about 7-9 weeks during the school year due to all the tests that students must take, during which, of course, they are out of their classrooms and in the testing room.

In our zeal to hold public education accountable for real, measurable results in teaching, we have created a seemingly unstoppable force that is strangling what we used to see as the primary purpose of the school library: to encourage literacy, to foster research, and to explore the world of knowledge. 

It is time we demand better for our children.

An Interesting Book Marred by Very Bad Editing

NY Chess Since 1972: A Guide Book Of Places To Go And People You Will See Around NY Chess by Peter Aravena Sloan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Interesting guide to the places and people of the New York City chess scene from the time of Bobby Fischer's victory over Boris Spassky in 1972 to the present day. The book suffers from being very poorly edited. One has to wade through a lot of garbled syntax to get at its meaning. Sloan must have written this without the help of even SpellCheck. Here is one of many examples.

The Manhattan [Chess Club] was officially closed down and out of business with even a debt to keep new club owners from opening the place. The American Chess Foundation refused to comment why they where paying there CEO Marley Kaplan an annual salary of over 250K out of a publically funded payroll while the Manhattan Chess Club was kicked out of the street only being short a small amount of money on their rent.

Aravena Sloan, Peter (2012-02-14). NY Chess Since 1972 (Kindle Locations 1516-1523). Sloans Book Press. Kindle Edition.

The simple editing device on my Dell computer notes two mistakes. There are at least 5 others ("where" for "were", "kicked out of the street and so on)in this small passage.

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Magnificent Devices review

Magnificent Devices by Shelley Adina
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Shelly Adina just keeps getting better and better. This was my favorite of her series of the adventures of Steampunk heroine Lady Claire Trevelyan and her band of London street urchins. In this edition, Claire and most of her crew travel to America, called the "territories" in this alternative world, where she battles sky pirates, "Texican" Rangers, and her constant nemesis, Lord James Selwyn, who still, like the melodramatic villain he is, wants to force Lady Clair to marry him. (The law of the land denies a woman under 18 the right to marry anyone other than the man her parent(s) have chosen for her.)
What I really enjoyed about this book was Adina's description of the desert Southwest with its red hues, jagged rock formations, and stark landscapes. New characters are added to the cast including a new female engineer named Alice who, like Claire, idolizes Andrew Malvern, whose invention to improve coal efficiency, (to power all the steam engines, of course)has been stolen by Lord Selwyn.
It's a very fast, exciting read. Can't wait for the next addition in February.

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"I Have a Dream", a Call for National Repentance

Next Monday is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday.  We will have a parade downtown, in which I plan to participate.

My junior class will be doing an analysis of King's speech. Today we watched the complete speech in class. For some of my students, more than I expected, this was the first time they had heard the speech in its entirety.

We will proceed to look at the key words, the vocabulary, the figures of speech, and the language and tone of the speech.  I hope by the time my students get through with this unit, they will have a new appreciation for how King communicated his sermon of hope and call to action.

I see the speech as a sermon in the evangelical tradition that calls for repentance, in this case a national repentance for the sin of prejudice and injustice that grows out of America's Original Sin of slavery.

The sermon first gives the bad news of the wrongs of the past and present.

But one hundred years later [after the Emancipation Proclamation], we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

But then the nation is offered the hope of repentance and salvation.

 We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

This is followed by the urgency of action. Now is the time of salvation.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.

Then there is the vision of the future if action is taken now, the hope of glory.

 I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. 

So just as individuals are called to repent of their personal sins, King calls for all of America to repent its social sin of injustice and embrace the new kingdom of justice and righteousness.

The Car and Gun Analogy

We ban race cars from our highways.

In the debate over sensible gun legislation, the "keep guns going no matter what" crowd frequently trot out a rather trite and false analogy.  They state, "Cars cause death; therefore, if we should ban cars if we feel that a "gun ban" is needed to protect the public."

First, this is  a false analogy, on that goes beyond comparing apples to oranges (both, after all are fruit). This is more like trying to compare apples to fabric softener. The purpose of a car is not to kill. If a car is used for its purpose, no one, no thing is killed. A gun is used for one purpose: to kill something or someone (that after all is its purpose even when used for protection.) Assault rifles are used to kill a lot of people very quickly.

Why not ban the sale of assault rifles?

But let us go ahead and use the car analogy. We DO regulate cars as we should regulate access to certain weapons. We don't, for example, allow NASCAR vehicles on the road to be driven by ordinary drivers. That would be a threat to public safety. We also don't allow tanks to be driven on the road (not only a vehicle, but a weapon that is banned from public use). We further regulate cars in many ways for safety sake. We require good brakes, seat belts, air bags, safety glass, and brake lights. AND we regulate and license the drivers who drive them.

In a sense then, the "car analogy" so beloved by the gun loving crowd argues more for gun regulation than against it.

DOMGDT

I've invented a new acronym: DOMGDT. (I pronounce it "domgadat".)  It means "do one more g*d d*mn thing.  Each time one more new report, action plan, class room procedure gets heaped on me, I am going to respond DOMGDT!

The new God of Public Education!

Today, I found out that I need to update my data wall with the latest in fresh, hot data from the latest round of test scores.  This is about the 2nd task I have had to do in the first 4 days we have been back in the classroom.  Our district seems to have a perpetual wood for new techniques and procedures that are supposed to lead us to educational Nirvana.  It finally becomes a forest where we lose sight to the landscape.

Back to school for the few there

About half our students were out of class on Friday.  I started them on vocabulary because it will be easy for those not there to make up the work. I don't know who thought that having school for one day following a major holiday was a good idea, but I hope this shows them that it was not.

Back to School on Friday

School  begins tomorrow in the Oklahoma City Public School District for the Spring Term.  Many of my fellow teachers have griped about coming back on Friday for week day before the weekend.  I think that this would be a good time to go over the class norms, rituals, and routines.  My problem is in being consistent in applying them, so that is what I will concentrate on during this semester.

Do the Right Thing Because it is the Right Thing

Immanuel Kant

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."--Immanuel Kant

The above statement is Kant's famous "Categorical Imperative", a more philosophy rendering of the "Golden Rule" that Kant felt should guide all human moral decisions.  To me it basically means that whatever it is that I do in my with regard to fellow humans, I would want everyone to do to each other including myself.

Nearly always, human believe whatever they do is right, even when it hurts someone else.  The corporate executive who outsources his manufacturing to a cheaper labor market justifies his decision by saying that it is good for those who buy his product or good for those who have invested money in the company or good for the people who will now manufacture his product (even if he pays them subsistence wages). The fact that he would not wish someone to do this to him likely registers, if at all, barely in his consideration.

My challenge will be to guide my own actions this year by this imperative and to use this blog as a measure of how well I am able to do it.

We will see if I can (or Kant).

Welcome 2013

It's a new year and one of my resolutions is to try to keep up with my blogging.  One thing I need to decide is how I want to use my blog.  I have posted personal events, political rants, pictures, book reviews and so on.  Should I try to start another blog for politics and keep this one personal or just simplify and post whatever I want to write or show at the time. Right now, I am staying with the latter.

Anyway, 2012 was a pretty good year.  Teaching is very demanding, but I think I am learning a thing or two about the new methods they want us to incorporate in our instruction.  Next year, I understand, we switch to Common Core State Standards, and that will present a host of new problems. But I have always been able to roll with the punches, so I have no reason to believe I won't be able to go with the new standards. I am already using them along side the old state standards (PASS).  

I am very happy with the re-election of Pres. Obama.  America has shown that it is NOT listening to the right-wing extremists who have taken over the Republican Party.  The nation will survive because we Americans know how to roll with the punches.

I hope everyone has a safe, prosperous, productive, and happy new year.

Let's get on with it.

Her Own Devices by Shelley Adina
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think that part of the reason so many writers and their readers are drawn to 19th Century settings for their stories is the fact that roles in that society seem very definitive compared with our "post-modern" time. We like the feeling of having boundaries if only for the chance to go beyond them.

This is apparent to me in the Magnificent Devices> series created by Shelley Adina. I have had the pleasure of reading the first two books in the series: Lady of Devices and Her Own Devices. The protagonist of the series, Lady Claire Trevelyan, is a brilliant, resourceful, and highly focused 17 year old woman who lives in an alternative Britain divided between the titled Bloods, represented in the novel by Lord James Selwyn, and the Wits, represent by the engineer Andrew Malvern. In Claire, James sees a bride who can compliment his house and bear him children while Andrew, who employs Claire as his assistant, sees a equal partner who can help his technological discoveries.

In addition to sorting out affairs of the heart, Claire must try to keep a promise she had made to a group of orphans and, reformed, cut purses who she fell in with in the course of her adventures in the first book in the series. Steam cars, carriages, steam locomotive trains, and dirigibles are the main mode of transportation. (The internal combustion engine was a failure.)

Steampunk fans will find all the devices and props that make that they enjoy in the genre. Science fiction fans will enjoy the alternative history aspects of the book. (America is referred to as "The Territories.)

Romance lovers will enjoy how Claire works through the problem of having two men love her when she is uncertain that she wants to fall in love with anyone.

In sort, this is a good, quick read and a great introduction to Steampunk writing if one has not yet been introduced to its joys.

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The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed Neil deGrasse Tyson's account of how Pluto went from being the 8th planet in our solar system to being designated a "dwarf planet" in the Krupier Belt that exists beyond the orbit of Neptune. I admire people like Tyson who can take complicated scientific concepts and explain them in laymen's terms without sounding condescending. (Another book I have read which does this well is Nigel Calder's Einstein's Universe.) Tyson talks about the controversy around Pluto's demotion, if it can be called that) treating those who disagreed with or even attacked the decision fairly and without rancor. He finally states that rather than trying to define what something is or it not, we should be more concerned with the property of astronomical bodies and what these bodies have in common or in contrast with other bodies. For example, we should be more concerned with planets that have or lack atmospheres, have water or ice (along with the possibility of life), or experience weather patterns. I agree.

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The End of the Line: Romney vs. Obama: the 34 days that decided the election: Playbook 2012 by Glenn Thrush, Jonathan Martin


I was a bit disappointed.

This account was workmanlike, but less than insightful than others I have read. It provides the bare details of the 2012 campaign, but view reasons for think like Romney's enormous hubris or Obama's ability to win back his base despite having so disappointed them during his term in office.

As a Democrat, I can say that the book has a good ending.

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Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I got a view of baseball that I've never had before: the general manager's perspective. This book analyzes the success of the Oakland Athletics and their iconoclastic general manager, Billy Beane who is attempting to bring science and sense into baseball strategy and player development. Beane defied the received wisdom of the baseball world using the art of sabermetrics which purports to find the best players according to their ability to get on base and produce runs.

I enjoyed reading about Beane's live as a player and general manager. I'll follow Oakland more closely in the future

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John Adams

John Quincy Adams by Harlow Giles Unger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I did not know much about John Quincy Adams except for the fact that he was president of the United States, and that he argued the Amistad case before the Supreme Court, winning the kidnapped African's their freedom. What I discovered was that he was a true genius, a man who saw far beyond his time and paid the price for it. Adams was fluent in several European languages including Dutch, French, and Russian. Due to this fact and other aspects of his intelligence, he first served his country in diplomacy securing international recognition for the new American nations and favorable trade relations for its industries.

His presidency was unsuccessful due to the fact that he was a true minority president, receiving fewer popular and electoral votes than his main rival and successor Andrew Jackson. However, due to the fact that no candidate for the presidency got a majority of the electoral votes, the election was thrown into the House of Representatives, where a deal was reached with Henry Clay to give Adams the office. However, while president, he was never respected. Jackson used the accusation that Adams had made a dishonorable deal to gain the White House to discredit and thwart Adams.

After losing to Jackson in 1828, Adams was elected to the House of Representatives from Massachusetts practically without opposition where he immediately threw himself into the growing slave controversy much to the outrage of the Southern congressmen who tried, unsuccessfully to censure and dismiss him from the House.

Adams' success in the Amistad trial was in many ways the first battle of the Civil War and the precursor to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. (Lincoln in his only term in the House served with Adams in his final term.) Adams literally died on the House floor fighting the Amistad case when he opposed the claims Spain made against the United States in regards to their lost "property" (the freed Africans).

Harlow Unger's book is very accessible. He acquainted me not only with the man but the times in which he lived. I now have a respect for John Quincy Adams that I did not have before.

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Poe, a Graphic Novel

Poe by J. Barton Mitchell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the benefits of becoming interested in the "Steampunk" genre is the discovery of new types of literature. I have not been that interested in "graphic novels", not since I was a teenager reading comic books.

Poe is a graphic novel with text by J. Barton Mitchell and art by Dean Kotz with assistance from others. The story is shows Poe and his brother William, a constable with the Baltimore police department, attempting to solve a series of murders that seem to revolve around some Roman coins that date back to the time of Jesus. The adventure that Poe and his brother go through create allusions to Poe's most famous writings.

I have not read enough graphic novels to be a proper judge of them. But the art work and graphics impressed me with their dark hues and active imagery. The story line was engaging. Given the supernatural premise of the plot, the characters seemed plausible and well motivated.

I would recommend this story for middle school students as a way to introduce them to Edgar Allen Poe, as well as for those interested in the graphic novel genre.

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Review of "Year Zero"

Year Zero by Rob Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was quite a ride, but a bit of a let down at the end.

The premise of the novel is that humans have a particular talent in music that other beings in the universe do not possess, and when pop music radio and television was discovered by the billions of beings in other galaxies, they began to, illegally by our standards, download our music. Thus the conflict, all of those downloads created an enormous debt that some in the far off ether want to cancel by destroying Earth and all its inhabitants.

Basically, the book is a satire of our culture. The books protagonist, the man who holds in his hands the fate of all humanity is; the horror, the horror; a lawyer whose firm specializes in music copy write law. The book's spoofing only begins with lawyers and their trade. Reid sets his sights on pop music, reality television, video gaming, stereo equipment, unions (both the good and the bad), cab drivers (both the good and the bad), record executives, and, did I mention lawyers?

The writing style reminded me of Douglas Adams "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy", filled with fast paced changes in characters, settings, and situations along with nonsensical conflicts and even more nonsensical resolutions.

I felt that the novel's resolution was a bit of a let down taking place as it does in a courtroom located in a galaxy far, far away. However, this is in keeping with a novel that is centered mainly on the absurdities the law creates mainly for the profit of lawyers.

By the way, did you know that Paul McCartney is going to live to be 164?

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OCTOPODICON 2012

I attended Octopodicon 2012 at the Magnuson Hotel in Oklahoma City. I met many great people, got some ideas for my school's Steampunk Reading Club, and enjoyed myself.

Here are pictures of some of those attending.

I asked him if he knew any songs from "The Mikado." He didn't.

From the Metropolitan Public Library. She is displaying a book my  school's Steampunk Reading Club will be reading next, "The Steampunk Anthology."

Two young Steampunkers

Captured but uncowed!

I warned her not to fly to close to the sun.

Trying to navigate a course with a flying machine.

A fencing demonstration

This is "Copper Claw," a Steampunk performance group. Her name is Ay-Leen the Peacemaker.  I didn't get his.

Leanna Renee Heiber I plan to get her book as a possible Steampunk reading. Very intelligent person.

The Old West is a popular Steampunk theme.

Kind of a spooky outfit.

Toymaker

I believe they have a shop named "Otherwhen Oddities" www.otherwhen.net
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

His name is Montague Jacques Fromage, the entrepreneur of the SteampunFunk Bizarre. www.steampunkfunkbizarre.com

Pirate in jail awaiting bail

Another jail bird. This was to raise money for a charity.

I told those whose pictures I took about my blog. I should have gotten more names, so if anyone wants to give me a name for the pictures, I would be grateful.

Had a GREAT time!

(Recently the members of the AFT-OKC voted to reject the contract that the union leadership negotiated with the district administration.  The union went back to the administration and asked to reopen negotiations, which the administration rejected.  There will be a second vote by the membership. This will be on whether or not we choose to go to impasse, which is a long process and will delay ratification until next year sometime.
The union sent out a flyer urging members to reject impasses and to accept the negotiated agreement as it was first presented.  
I recently resigned as Executive VP of the union because I felt the union leadership has been very neglectful of our membership. This was my response to their flyer calling for us to accept the agreement.

We really only have ourselves to blame for having lost the vote on the contract. 

I include myself in this because until recently, I was a part of this whole mess.
We have approved worse contracts than this, but the perception among the members is that we have not been on their side during the changes going on in the district.
We have not spoken out against those who have blamed the teachers for the perceived failures in the schools. In fact, several statements Ed has made have given the impression that we agree with those who believe that by firing teachers, we will somehow transform the culture in our schools, much of which is beyond our control.
These are forces involved with poverty, racism, neglect of the problems brought on by these forces and a host of other ills.
We have neglected this because we did not want to be perceived as giving excuses rather than solutions.
We could have been working for reforms while we were pointing out that simply firing teachers will not bring the sort of systemic change that is needed to truly and permanently turn our schools around.
This sort of change seems to be happening in places like Harlem, but we have never brought this up to my knowledge, and certainly not to the knowledge of those who voted down the contract.
Now, we are on the verge of losing this union.  Even if those showing up vote to reject impasse, as you urge, those hundreds of members who feel abandoned by their union will be tempted to "vote with their feet" out of the union.
This could have been avoided had we played it smarter, had we talked about the need for real change in our community.
We brought this on ourselves. I want no further part of it.  I will vote to go to impasse and urge others to do the same.