Local miniature dog, Remington Buckshot, amazed onlookers by placing third place in a geography bee held at W.T. Kelly Middle School last week. He outlasted most other contestants with his surprising geographic prowess.
LOVELY DAY FOR A STANDARDIZED TEST
March 12, 2009
It’s time once again for the Maine Educational Assessment. Kids are sitting in my classroom filling in circles completely and not marking in the space marked “Do Not Mark in This Space” longing for an end in sight.
Given that the test is ultimately irrelevant to the students for all practical purposes (unlike the SAT scores on which colleges often dwell) the teachers mantra for the week is a paltry ‘try your hardest.’ Sometimes it’s a “This could affect our funding and programs could be cut if we don’t do well”, which still does little to motivate the students. In the sports minded school that Dirigo is, I opt to appeal to emotion by bringing our rival school into it: “It’s pretty sad if you guys can’t even beat Mt. Valley on this test. We need to show them who’s better at standardized testing. Let’s Go!”
Motivated or not students fill in the bubbles, insert their answer booklets into their test booklets, hand them to me, I put them into a box, that box is joined with other boxes to form a big box that goes to the State. And magically, the State grades them using bubble-sensitive equipment and determines how effective or ineffectives we are as teachers. Sounds reasonable. If little Jimmy wants to fill in bubbles using a check mark or x’s instead of filling them in completely the State will deem the boy ‘dumb’ and his teachers ‘incompetent’. I hope the little Jimmies in my class fill the bubbles in completely.
COLORADO IN FEBRUARY: A Photographic Journey
March 11, 2009
Boulder sits nestled by the mountains. This is the point where the first ’settlers’ heading west to California saw the prairies end and the mountains begin. It was a collective “Holy (expletive), we’re supposed to get the wagons and oxen and everything over those mountains? Hmmm, this looks like a great place to build a town down here. We’ll begin construction of whole food stores and yoga studios and we’ll call it…Boulder!”
This is my baby nephew Quinn at the “Tony Soprano Look Alike Contest for Babies.” Unfortunately, Quinn lost a close one to a baby that wore a little Italian suit and smoke cigars.
The Royal Arch. Rocks, trees, and blueberry skies= Colorado.
Still life with tree, rock, and more trees and rocks farther away.
I chose to shoot the pictures of Rocky National Park in black and white since there were no other colors in existence that day in the park.
The Mighty Elk. Looking at this massive beast one word that doesn’t immediately come to mind is the word ‘intelligent.’
BOULDER: The Progressive Capital Of Colobama
March 8, 2009
Colorado has always been an interesting state politically. The first thought of the state usually conjures up thoughts of ski mountains, hiking in the Rockies, with perhaps some white water rafting thrown in. It’s got Boulder, the liberal college town known for it’s green progressivism, and a slew of other outdoors/ski/youthful places seated in the mountains.
Looking closer, but without the need to squit the other side of Colorado is evident. Colorado Springs, for example, owes its existence to the military. The eastern part of Colorado, or West Kansas as it seems is conservative through and through. Colorado is historically a red state–only three elections since World War II have gone to Democrats. They even voted for Bob Dole, if that is an indication.
Outdoor enthusiasts were excited by Obama’s promise of no fewer than 25 new rock climbing faces introduced by 2012. His proposal also called for creating five new whitewater rafting rivers in the next four years.
But it would seem in Boulder that Colorado could be witnessing a changing of the guard. It could be just that people there were sick of the previous conservative grip of the last eight years. It also could be Obama’s progressive rock star status that had the state ovewrwhelmingly vote Democrat this past year. Numerous stores on the Mall in Boulder sold t-shirts and posters and all sorts of Obama laden objects. I saw one store where people stood next to a life-size Obama cardboard cut out posing for pictures. Imagine a store selling George Dub gear like that?
“Cardboard cutouts? Yeah, we got’em–in the effigy section. Lighters and gasoline sold separately.”
It is not a bold statement to speak wondrously at how Obama is so popular in one of the greenest and healthiest city in the country. It’s like observing with amazement how Sarah Palin was so popular in Jefferson Davis County, Texas. But it makes me wonder if the number of transplants and progressive folks are starting to outnumber the conservative bloc in Colorado. As stock of things like soy and organic snow shoes and eucanacia-fueled cars rise, the conservative hopefuls seem to fade from prominence.
