Yes, It Is A Big Deal

From: yahoosports.com

...for an NFL QB to wear another team's gear out in public.

Colin Kaepernick, QB of the San Francisco 49ers, wore a Miami Dolphins hat to a July 4th party last week.  I've seen various columnists and pundits say this is no big deal, but it is.

I used to bite my tongue when my students would claim to root for one team and then show up for class with another team's gear on.  I'm as big a sports fan as anybody, and only the teams I root for have a place in my closet. I don't even wear swag from my former employer anymore.  What if a member of the Bloods decided to wear blue one day because it went with his jeans?

How to Prepare Students For The Workplace

From: youngupstarts.com

By the time students have spent 18 weeks with me, I want them to pick up employable skills above anything else.  So I read this article with interest about how schools are not preparing students for the workplace.

The employers in the article made some interesting points about how important soft skills are in their fields, and I would agree.  In fact, it seems like most of the problems I encounter with student behavior is their stunning lack of the aforementioned soft skills, like being on time, keeping promises and making eye contact; you know, the little stuff.

The article did disappoint me when it mentioned the "21st century" skills our students need to have.  None of the skills listed struck me as ones a worker didn't need to have in the 20th century.  Collaboration, for example, is not a new concept.  Oh, well: at least others are thinking about soft skills having the same importance that I attach to them.

The Ultimate Bootstrap

There's pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, and then there's what these two guys did (with the help of an ESPN producer).  No words for this...

Entertain Us

I had to read a national news web site to find out what happened 30 minutes down the road this weekend: over 400 youths turned into an unruly mob on Saturday night and started fighting.  Only 11 kids were arrested, and the report was that no one over 20 was there.

Again, where are the parents?  I understand that not all parents have absolute control over their kids, but are there 400 parents in one town that can't be bothered to keep an eye on their kids?  Because it's their job, maybe?

Good luck on that curfew!

I'm Fat

Recently, my local paper ran a story about the obesity rate in our school system.  The interesting aspect of the article was its breakdown of the obesity rate by school.  The author grouped all Title I schools together and all non-Title I schools together.  I think the point was that poor kids are fatter than rich kids, and there must be some kind of program to help balance the rising obesity inequality in our schools...

More than a decade ago, someone remarked to me that America is the only place in the world where poor people are fat.  From what I've read, we've got some company in those regards now.  I wonder when it was where we went from girth denoting a person's wealth to it now revealing the lack thereof.  Why should poor people be fatter than rich people?  Aren't the rich the ones with money to spend on food?

Not only did that part of the article bother me, but it seemed like yet another education article written with the "parents-as-bystanders" perspective.  If we can't get parents involved in their own children's education, then how effective are teachers and administrators expected to be?