And with day two goes 28% of my training

28% of my training is done today as is 10% of my classroom teaching, which is required to receive an intern credential to teach in San Francisco in the Fall. It's actually a pretty sweet deal for LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District) -- they receive free, inexperienced teachers for four weeks. But hey, free is free.

Today was my first day of real instruction -- ever. We stressed our classroom behavior management plan to the students over and over and it seems to be working, as I only had to give one verbal warning today. Even when we did group work (aka "guided practice" in TFA lingo) the students were pretty respectful.

All was going well with my first lesson --the area of a triangle-- until I decided to up the ante a bit. Instead of just asking the kids more easy examples of calculating area that they all seemed to understand, I threw them a word problem that contained some Algebra. Gasp! You should have seen the looks on those young adults faces (I say young adults because I have 14 year olds who will be sophomores in the Fall and 18 year olds who need this to graduate -- all in one class) when I asked them: "If you only have 48 ounces of paint and you need to paint a triangle whose base is three times its altitude, what is the height of the triangle?".

~ empty stares ~

We worked through it, but it ended up taking 15 minutes that I really didn't have. And, as a result, the students now had three homework sheets, not two, that may take them a bit over an hour. But hey, they're in summer school, so they need the help.

What made today really interesting though was the addition of eight new students to our class. We went from 33 yesterday to 40 today, with one already dropping out. Nothing screams challenging like trying to teach a class while a brand new student walks in half-way through your first-ever lesson and having to find a seat for the kid (did I mention we only have 37 desks?!? , which meant he had to sit on a filing cabinet) and get them caught up on what geometry is.

All in all though it went pretty smoothly. It's 5:30 now and I just got back. I have to finalize a 45 minute lesson plan for tomorrow (already have a solid draft), prepare a 15 minute tutoring package, create some homework of varying degrees of difficulty for the students who don't know their multiplication tables, create rough drafts of lesson plans for Friday and Monday, and attend a 90 minute session for math teachers on the various standards and curriculum. So yesterday when I said that I I usually pull a 5 am to midnight day, you see why.

Time to go to work ...

This whole teaching thing ...

Today I completed my first day as a teacher. It was glorious. I only have 19 more of them left this summer. I had 33 kids all of my own (more or less) at Hamilton High School in Culver City, LA.

The first day of class was the usual, rules and process-driven type of day that you remember from your first days. I co-teach a 30 minute academic intervention session (aka tutoring) from 10:20-10:50 am. Then I teach a 45 minute lesson all by myself. One of me, 33 of them (it was supposed to be 46!! but a bunch didn't show up, which is in some ways a blessing since I only had 37 desks). While it doesn't sound like much, let me run through my typical day:

5 AM: wake-up
5:30 : prepare for school day
6:20: breakfast
7:00: arrive at school and prepare classroom
8:00: attend 2 hours of training
10:00 prepare my classroom after morning teachers
10:20 tutoring
10:50 I observe other teachers
11:35 I teach for 45 mins
12:20 escort kids out, submit attendance, do teacher-y things like collect papers
12:40 lunch
1:00: attend 3 1/2 hours of training and lesson planning clinics
5:00: arrive back at school
6:00 eat dinner, catch up on e-mail, go for a run
7:00 nighttime training sessions, 1:1 feedback
9:00 lesson plan, grade papers, write letters/call student parents, make copies
12:00 go to bed

And that's just a typical day. Some days are worse (thankfully though not many) and many days they (and by they I mean Teach For America, but specifically my training Institute's coordinator, my school's coordinator, and my advisor) will let us work during the day on lesson planning, like today, so that I actually did two hours of work before I even got home.

The main feature of today was a diagnostic pre-assessment that, even by my standards, was a pretty difficult test. For a little background, you generally have two types of summer school students: those seeking enrichment in a given subject and those seeking remediation from having failed. Because of the extreme budget cuts in the Los Angeles Unified School District, summer school is only reserved for those students who failed. Special priority is given to those who have failed more than once.

So, when the average score for my class was 4/27, I wasn't too surprised. I mean, this test was hard. Even I didn't get a perfect score and I'm qualified by the state to teach Geometry (the highest out of the three classes of Geometry was an 11). With this information in hand, and paired with the homework assignments I'll give out this week (with my fabulous teaching partners), I'll build a roadmap to success for each student. Ok ok, I promise I won't go into any TFA core values or other propaganda here. Done.

Specifically, I'm teaching Geometry B (check out www.geometryb.com for my lesson plans and soon pictures of my kids, if/when I get their approval). Geometry B is all of the fun computations of area and volume, as well as the Pythagorean Theorem and everyone's favorite, Trigonometry My counterparts in Geometry A teach about angles, proofs, and word problems.

So back to my kids for a minute. They were, all things considered, pretty well-behaved. My teaching partner (another amazing TFA corps member named Tabitha) and I had to give out four verbal warnings today -- one for a cell phone, two for talking, and one for a PG-rated obscenity. Given that these kids range from 14 - 18 years old and being sophomores to seniors, that wasn't too bad. We finished our diagnostic early so we played "two truths and a lie" for about 30 minutes, during most of which the kids were pretty well behaved.

I'm not allowed to name any child specifically (for their safety mind you, since you know the school I'm at), so I'll use nicknames in future posts. That being said, don't expect too many summer school updates since I only have 20 days of it, and even at that, 4 are dedicated to tests.

Time is short and these kids need a lot of help. With that in mind, I have to prepare what I'm going to say ...

If these are Satanists, they're Satanists with exquisite taste

The last sentence of a story is usually the best, and one of my top 5 fav blogs Ars Technica doesn't fail to deliver.

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/05/how-googles-cute-doodles-became-satans-pawns.ars

Those Google "doodles" that sometimes adorn the search giant's homepage with clever variations on the company logo might be cute, but take a closer look. Critics charge that it's possible to see in the sketches Google's disdain for (take your pick) America, Muslims, Christians, Christmas, and creationism.

Take this week's unveiling of the darwinius masillae fossil called Ida. Our own science editor, John Timmer, calls the fossil's big reveal a tremendous bit of hype not fully justified by the science, but some press accounts have talked Ida up as a key missing link in human evolution.

So when Google turned Ida into a doodle, it was only a matter of hours before backers of creationism charged the Big G with "going ape over the supposed discovery of a 'missing link' in the evolution theory."

And posters on message boards like Rapture Ready went much further. "I am really tired of this stupid AC [antichrist?] world... MY FATHER IS YHWH [Yahweh]... MY GOD AND MY SAVIOUR YESHUA [Jesus] and THE KADOSH RUACH [the Holy Spirit]....they [Google, not the Trinity] worship satan... Sick stuff."

Another poster said that "I almost threw my laptop it made me soooooooooo mad! Made me wonder what the logo would look like after we're taken outta here!"

But the Satan worshippers over at Mountain View don't just irritate creationists waiting to be raptured. No, it turns out the doodles have a long history of angering people.

Back in 2006, the National Review noted, "They [Google] change their homepage logo for all sorts of holidays and occasions. Just last week they paid tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday. But Memorial Day doesn't seem to rate anything at all."

When Google doodled the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik satellite launch in 2007, the LA Timescovered the Sputnik-sized controversy that followed. "Not only did Google honor an achievement by a totalitarian regime that was our Cold War enemy, [critics] griped, but it did so without having ever altered its logo to commemorate US military personnel on Memorial Day or Veterans Day."

If it's not quite clear that Google doesn't love America enough, a later quote from WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah made it plain. "When they ignore Veterans Day and Memorial Day, I think they're telling us something about the way they view America," he told the paper.

And in 2008, "America's most controversial radio talk show host" took Google to task for "hating Christmas."

"There’s one holiday they steadfastly refuse to acknowledge—Christmas," wrote James Edwards. "Go through all [the past logos] and you’ll see that Google has never once acknowledged Christmas, even though it’s by far the most popular and important holiday to the people who made Google the overwhelmingly dominant search engine it is today."

It's not just Christians who have had problems with the doodles. A Pakistani blogger complained last year that "Google never celebrated Happy Ramadan to the Muslim community around the world. ... If Christmas, St. Patrick’s day, St. George day and other days are so much important then I think Google should also celebrate Happy Ramadan or Eids, etc. ... But Google never ever made a dedicated logo."

No offense

The company has made it clear in the past that it chooses not to make doodles for religious holidays. That's why the "Christmas" doodles that the Pakistani blogger noted really aren't about "Christmas"; they feature snowmen and icicles and "season's greetings" messages.

A desire not to offend also appears to be behind the lack of "patriotic" doodles like those for Memorial Day and Veterans Day—though Google did start doing Veterans Day doodles in 2007.

For a multinational, it's always worth keeping in mind that martial holidays in victorious countries always mean that soldiers in some other state where you do business suffered and died—though that hasn't stopped the company from doodling about Independence Day in the US.

Looking back though the doodles, we're most impressed not with how controversial they are but with how far they've come (see two designs on the right). Early drawings from 1999 look like something quite possibly thrown together by Larry or Sergey during a coffee break; 2009's images, by contrast, are real works of art.

They are also surprisingly eclectic. What other company would celebrate René Magritte's birthday, Dr. Seuss, and the Large Hadron Collider? If these are Satanists, they're Satanists with exquisite taste

Manny tests positive, suspended 50 games/$8M

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4148907

Wow. The biggest name to ever fail a drug test (A-Rod, Clemens, nor Bonds never failed one). Manny Ramirez waived his right to appeal a 50 game suspension that will cost him $8M of salary.

Oh Tennessee, you make it too easy

ESPN.com headline right now: "Vols sign football player who had role in rape". Horrible, horrible story from the Rocky Top. Oh Lane Kiffin, what great decision-making you bring to the Volunteers. Who didn't know this would be a headline?

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4148579

Why Slate is wrong

I usually agree with Slate's commentary. Maybe you'll find me biased here, but I disagree with this afternoon's piece that Google is treating unfairly the authors and publishers in its "tangled quest for an online library".

Of course there is still a lot I can't talk about, but now that TechCrunch has made public earlier this week that "... Google even has a competitive advantage in scanning books", I think it adds to why this deal makes sense.

The best evidence to support my point comes from Democracy Now! interviewing the founder of the Internet Archive (disclosure: an organization I donate to regularly) Brewster Kahle last week. In the interview, which all-in-all is an excellent read, the merits of the on-going anti-trust investigation into the Google-Authors Guild deal are discussed (no comment) and whether or not libraries giving Google the access to digitize it's collection of books grants Google a monopoly.

Kahle makes some great points, but ignores the economics of scanning *every book every written*. A few excerpts from the transcript below.

Amy Goodman, the interviewer with Democracy Now!, just asked Kahle about the Internet Archive's similar plan to digitize the world's books:

AMY GOODMAN: And what happens when you approach, say, the Harvard Library, when you approach, say, the Oxford Library? Do they say they cannot, you cannot digitize the books, because Google is?


BREWSTER KAHLE: Actually, there’s no restriction in the Google settlement or Google contracts that say they can’t deal with the open world, but in practice they won’t. So, the University of California, which we were working with in scanning their books, once they signed this agreement with Google—and we found out that they had been negotiating in, but they couldn’t tell us about it—but once that happened, within days, they said any books that they’re ever going to give to Google, they will not give to the Internet Archive to scan.


New York Public Library also has one of the fantastic library collections in the world, and they committed to Google to go and give access to that research collection.


AMY GOODMAN: Sole access?


BREWSTER KAHLE: And what turns out is sole access. It’s not legally required that they not give it to anybody else, but in practice, they said they will not. Columbia University, as well.


AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean when you say it’s not legally required. You mean in the contract, what they have with Google? And so, if Google was here, they’d say, “We didn’t say they couldn’t give it to Internet Archive. That’s their prerogative.”


BREWSTER KAHLE: Correct, that basically Google didn’t put it in their contract. Yet from a library’s perspective, why have a book scanned twice? It’s wear and tear on the books. If they think that—and they wouldn’t have signed it if they didn’t think that the Google thing was a good idea. But now that they’ve signed this with Google, they don’t want it scanned again. And this is a problem, because the books, even the out-of-copyright books, are locked up perpetually.

Personally, I don't see how this grants Google a monopoly. But, for the sake of argument, suppose it does grant Google a natural monopoly. There are a few economic reasons for it being so, but mainly:

AMY GOODMAN: How much does it cost to digitize a book?


BREWSTER KAHLE: It costs ten cents a page to basically photograph a book—a page and then run it through all of these steps. So, a book, which is about 300 pages on average, a book then costs $30 to go and digitize. So if you wanted to make a million-book library—it’s a million books times $30—thirty million dollars would be the cost of building a digital library of a million books that anybody could have access to, copyright willing.

Now back to Slate's main point and concluding paragraph:

Slate: I've long called on the publishing industry to negotiate with Google. Now I'm calling on the publishing industry to negotiate with Google's competitors. Authors and publishers should be forced—either by the court, or through legislation—to grant rival companies like Amazon and Microsoft the same rights that they're giving Google. Not only would this likely satisfy the government's antitrust concerns, it would create a truly vibrant market for books.

If we all agree that physical libraries were a 20th century concept and the future is in the cloud, then we should all support the digitizing project. The question then is whom would carry out the project? The thing is, I don't see Yahoo and Microsoft clamoring for the opportunity to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to digitize the world's books.

In fact, I haven't seen anyone besides Google patent a technology to do so (see the TechCrunch article at the top). I find if somewhat ironic now that, after years of legal wrangling to reach an agreement between Google and the Author's Guild (who are supposed to represent the authors, right?), there seems to be such opposition.

Has Google turned into Microsoft where all actions are questioned? Is the belief cited by Slate and the Internet Archive that Google wants to "own the world's information", not simply organize it, taking a hold elsewhere on the internet? Again, call me biased, but I haven't seen any convincing evidence to suggest that there is a secret plan to control the world's information.

BREWSTER KAHLE: Well, if they want those books to be available to people, they can have it in their search engine and rank it high. If books are things they don’t want to have available, I don’t know, for any reason that corporations might want to do that, they can take it effectively out of the library. If they get to be the library that the next generation grows up with, then they get to decide who has access to works, and if you happen to be reading a book, they’ll know about it.

Really? I don't think anyone would ever let it get to that. Is it just me or does that seem very conspiracy-theorist above? Maybe it's the capitalist in me shining through, but I see a problem (lack of worldwide access to those who would benefit from information) and a company addressing that problem. And it is a problem:

Slate: But we can all agree that the end goal of digitalizing all books and making them available would be good for readers. Beginning in 2006, I spent a year and a half researching my book; Google Books and Google Scholar, the company's academic research engine, were my saviors. Even though I could see only small sections of the books and papers I found through Google, the search engines helped me get a broad look at best titles in the fields I was researching. Google brought books to life—instead of reading through survey texts, I could search for footnotes, which led me to more precise titles, which led to still others and others, in much the same way that we navigate the Web using hyperlinks.

So why would any company do anything that it didn't think would make them some money along the way? Maybe it's me, but I think Slate should have ended the article after the first page:

To summarize, then: The plan would give Web searchers far greater access to books, and Google and authors will be able to make money from it. What's the big problem?

[Author's note: Again, these are just my thoughts and are not endorsed, reviewed, or shared by Google (or probably anyone else for that matter)].

Apparently I was wrong, Urban was on Twitter

www.twitter.com/coachurbanmeyer

Apparently I was wrong with my last post. Welcome to Twitter, coach!