20 October 2011
Useful educational websites
I am indebted for reasons public and private to the Save Seattle Schools blog for cluing this Seattle Public Schools parent into resources and portals for building on my child's skills and education.
This post from Seattle Schools' Information Technology in the Classroom blog shares some online links for math facts practice:
http://it.seattleschools.org/blog/2008/04/learning-math-facts/
http://www.aaamath.com/index.html
The child also likes Subtangent and IXL
I am digging Khan Academy for its wide range of subjects and their levels of mastery.
Also, in a selection of most-commonly understood languages among the Seattle Schools community, grade-appropriate toolkits for families to use in their responsible participation of helping their children achieve core common standards and passable proficiency in Reading and other subjects.
31 August 2011
Loading up on education for the next school year
Testing the new blogger.com interface. I borrowed three education-related books: Math Coach, Winning the Math Wars and School Reform. Math adoption is important to me. Although my son has done fine in math, he is in a minority of third-graders who met the Measurement of Student Progress standards. I don't blame the teachers, nor the students: I blame the curriculum. It is Everyday Math and it did not serve my son's class. Out of 31 third-graders, fifteen passed (how many of these were in the Advanced Learning Opportunities group), sixteen did not meet standards, and of the failing sixteen, ten performed miserably. How many of those ten are English Language Learners, or economically disadvantaged?
School Reform is an Opposing Viewpoints® Series book. It's meant for a young adult audience but it was the simplest and most straight-forward pros & cons offering about school reform.
Winning the Math Wars I don't know much about yet, except the back jacket states "The authors focus on four principles for improving math teaching and learning: fidelity to reform efforts by all involved; an emphasis on instruction and instructional tools; the critical nature of mathematical knowledge; and the need for transformational change." So maybe it is pro-reform. I will read it anyway to learn.
I don't yet know why "fuzzy math" is needed. I don't like the term "fuzzy" applied to academics, and particularly not to mathematics. It makes me think of derivatives, collateralized mortgage obligation securities, credit default swaps and other fuzzy financial math crapstunts that Enron and mortgage bankers liked to pull.
In America, entrepreneurs push to have an education reform that results in bigger profits for them. Their ideas of reform are not about improving education to make American students globally competitive.
07 August 2011
it never rains but it pours
T's new glasses, fresh problems with the car, $100 to tide us until Friday.
what happened in the interim: soccer for C, chess for C, radio station donations, donation to RWF's Attorney General run, Visa payment, HELOC, library restitution, silver purchase. It goes fast.
I have some meat in the freezer, so that's good. And lots of vegetables, with some lentils and buckwheat. I can get some eggs, sardine and flank steak and voila! Kasha!
I'll probably have a lot of vegetable soups between now and Friday. I'm not so freaked out.
Listening to Heaven 17 podcast. Two members, Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware, have excellent taste in 1980s and 2010s music. Just heard Lykke Li, and now Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines" is playing.
Sunburned after a bus trip down to Terminal 25 in South-of-the-Dome-That-No-Longer-Exists, to see the naval ships as part of our town's annual Seafair. The Canadian Forces craft "Whitehorse" was not giving tours when we were available, but the US Marine Corps took us onto the USS Bonhomme Richard, where we saw some Zulu, Osprey and CH-53 aircraft. We explored them, walked onto the flight deck, got a great deal of sun. We walked for miles, literally, so our feet are beat. C was looking forward to asking the "Whitehorse" crew to take him up to CFB Esquimalt on Vancouver Island.
Gold is up at $1690 USD, not bad. I should just use my account for everyday expenses and stock up on precious metals.
When I post my moments of financial weakness, understand that I have an emergency fund, bonds, Certificates of Deposit, money market account, stocks and precious metals. But my short-term $$ is leaking out fast. When I borrow from my emergency fund for things like roofs, escrow accounts, car repairs, it takes me a long time to replenish it. I'll probably just live on my credit card.
I am still doing the Temporal Tap, and the Three Thumps. I need to select just one affirmation for the right side of the brain. The left one is easy: "I am no longer broke." Right one: a set salary? Infinite riches flow freely into my life? I joyfully receive abundance? I would like to earn more money than my spouse.
what happened in the interim: soccer for C, chess for C, radio station donations, donation to RWF's Attorney General run, Visa payment, HELOC, library restitution, silver purchase. It goes fast.
I have some meat in the freezer, so that's good. And lots of vegetables, with some lentils and buckwheat. I can get some eggs, sardine and flank steak and voila! Kasha!
I'll probably have a lot of vegetable soups between now and Friday. I'm not so freaked out.
Listening to Heaven 17 podcast. Two members, Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware, have excellent taste in 1980s and 2010s music. Just heard Lykke Li, and now Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines" is playing.
Sunburned after a bus trip down to Terminal 25 in South-of-the-Dome-That-No-Longer-Exists, to see the naval ships as part of our town's annual Seafair. The Canadian Forces craft "Whitehorse" was not giving tours when we were available, but the US Marine Corps took us onto the USS Bonhomme Richard, where we saw some Zulu, Osprey and CH-53 aircraft. We explored them, walked onto the flight deck, got a great deal of sun. We walked for miles, literally, so our feet are beat. C was looking forward to asking the "Whitehorse" crew to take him up to CFB Esquimalt on Vancouver Island.
Gold is up at $1690 USD, not bad. I should just use my account for everyday expenses and stock up on precious metals.
When I post my moments of financial weakness, understand that I have an emergency fund, bonds, Certificates of Deposit, money market account, stocks and precious metals. But my short-term $$ is leaking out fast. When I borrow from my emergency fund for things like roofs, escrow accounts, car repairs, it takes me a long time to replenish it. I'll probably just live on my credit card.
I am still doing the Temporal Tap, and the Three Thumps. I need to select just one affirmation for the right side of the brain. The left one is easy: "I am no longer broke." Right one: a set salary? Infinite riches flow freely into my life? I joyfully receive abundance? I would like to earn more money than my spouse.
04 August 2011
I feel a breakthrough
I read through most of don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements book this weekend. Almost immediately I felt a shift in consciousness, a marked improvement in attitude and dare I type it, a return to joy.
I hope I can keep it. Spiritual renewal is a gift of grace, and it's been a long time coming for me. I had been praying almost every night, but someone else prayed on Saturday, and the good orderly direction found me.
Tuesday I went to our neighbourhood Block Watch Night Out, made a fine chicken salad that was perhaps too much for people (there is always a lot of food at potlucks, yet the food banks have low number of rations). Several families in our community need food: my neighbour's on crutches and is living on TV dinners, so I'll make some food now that we have funds.
Yesterday was book club summer social, and I made some Capilano Chocolate Bars. I drove up on the scooter. Other women brought fruit and booze, and I had only the fruit and bars as I do not drink at all when I ride the scooter. I brought kombucha which only one person tried. I choose not to take this personally.
I had a terrific time at the coffee house, as I met a woman who was eager to discuss her breakthroughs and spiritual path/renewal from reading The Four Agreements. I also did some Energy Medicine: in addition to tracing meridians, I have been performing the Temporal Tap and Three Thumps throughout the day. How is it that I was unaware tapping the K-27 points would bring energy to the eyes?
I hope I can keep it. Spiritual renewal is a gift of grace, and it's been a long time coming for me. I had been praying almost every night, but someone else prayed on Saturday, and the good orderly direction found me.
Tuesday I went to our neighbourhood Block Watch Night Out, made a fine chicken salad that was perhaps too much for people (there is always a lot of food at potlucks, yet the food banks have low number of rations). Several families in our community need food: my neighbour's on crutches and is living on TV dinners, so I'll make some food now that we have funds.
Yesterday was book club summer social, and I made some Capilano Chocolate Bars. I drove up on the scooter. Other women brought fruit and booze, and I had only the fruit and bars as I do not drink at all when I ride the scooter. I brought kombucha which only one person tried. I choose not to take this personally.
I had a terrific time at the coffee house, as I met a woman who was eager to discuss her breakthroughs and spiritual path/renewal from reading The Four Agreements. I also did some Energy Medicine: in addition to tracing meridians, I have been performing the Temporal Tap and Three Thumps throughout the day. How is it that I was unaware tapping the K-27 points would bring energy to the eyes?
22 July 2011
escape from despair is always legitimate.
I am horrified at the death and cruelty one man delivered in Oslo, Norway. If you can't persuade with logic and reason people to understand and adopt your political views then open fire.
We are on very limited means right now, until the 29th of July. I blame myself of course, having initiated a refinance that required a cashier's cheque of the amount equal to three weeks' living expenses. I liquidated two silver coins and did some creative rearrangement of funds, shopped at a very low-cost grocery for vegetables, and started pulling food from our garden. We're also using two-for-one coupons and searching for money in the house. Again, this is only for another week, but it's $20/day. It'd be a lot worse if we didn't have a full freezer, and had to take the car out everyday.
We'll see how far $27 takes me. I imagine there'll be many lentil and bean, soba and udon dishes this week. On the plus side, we won't have a mortgage payment until September 1 at the earliest, and an escrow refund cheque by September 15.
I've read The Pope's War by Matthew Fox, and recognized several names on the "Wall" appendix, theologians, clerics and women religious who have been silenced or deemed dissident. Contrarian/perverse that I am, I am interested to read the works of the dissenters. All I need is a stamp and the will to walk to the post office to send a postcard to an eighty-three-year-old professor emeritus telling him how lately I came across his writings: he is one of the dissidents. I am always a dissident of counter-reformation and corrupt hierarchy. How out and proud I am about being a dissident, well, obviously not much. I can't say that the current antics of the Vatican, nor learning that while Jesus was interested only in reforming the spirituality and rules of his Jewish faith and appointed twelve MARRIED JEWISH MEN, to represent the twelve tribes of Israel, the Catholic Church decided two of those three qualifications had to go a thousand years after Jesus abandoned preaching exclusively to Judea and started traveling and introducing Gentiles to the Word of God. But not all three of them. As the original Gospels get translated and reinterpreted to suit church powers, a New Testament reader can't be at all certain what was originally meant. And if the qualifications for preachers and Eucharistic ministers changed, who's to say that no books now apocrypha were included in earlier versions of the New Testament?
Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear by Srinivasan S. Pillay
The Tao of Abundance: Eight Ancient Principles for Living Abundantly in the 21st Century (Compass) by Laurence G. Boldt
I am reading Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut. Fascinating. Vonnegut and Murakami are almost always out of the libraries I frequent.
Five minutes later edit OH YEAH I am now on Google+.
We are on very limited means right now, until the 29th of July. I blame myself of course, having initiated a refinance that required a cashier's cheque of the amount equal to three weeks' living expenses. I liquidated two silver coins and did some creative rearrangement of funds, shopped at a very low-cost grocery for vegetables, and started pulling food from our garden. We're also using two-for-one coupons and searching for money in the house. Again, this is only for another week, but it's $20/day. It'd be a lot worse if we didn't have a full freezer, and had to take the car out everyday.
We'll see how far $27 takes me. I imagine there'll be many lentil and bean, soba and udon dishes this week. On the plus side, we won't have a mortgage payment until September 1 at the earliest, and an escrow refund cheque by September 15.
I've read The Pope's War by Matthew Fox, and recognized several names on the "Wall" appendix, theologians, clerics and women religious who have been silenced or deemed dissident. Contrarian/perverse that I am, I am interested to read the works of the dissenters. All I need is a stamp and the will to walk to the post office to send a postcard to an eighty-three-year-old professor emeritus telling him how lately I came across his writings: he is one of the dissidents. I am always a dissident of counter-reformation and corrupt hierarchy. How out and proud I am about being a dissident, well, obviously not much. I can't say that the current antics of the Vatican, nor learning that while Jesus was interested only in reforming the spirituality and rules of his Jewish faith and appointed twelve MARRIED JEWISH MEN, to represent the twelve tribes of Israel, the Catholic Church decided two of those three qualifications had to go a thousand years after Jesus abandoned preaching exclusively to Judea and started traveling and introducing Gentiles to the Word of God. But not all three of them. As the original Gospels get translated and reinterpreted to suit church powers, a New Testament reader can't be at all certain what was originally meant. And if the qualifications for preachers and Eucharistic ministers changed, who's to say that no books now apocrypha were included in earlier versions of the New Testament?
Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear by Srinivasan S. Pillay
The Tao of Abundance: Eight Ancient Principles for Living Abundantly in the 21st Century (Compass) by Laurence G. Boldt
I am reading Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut. Fascinating. Vonnegut and Murakami are almost always out of the libraries I frequent.
Five minutes later edit OH YEAH I am now on Google+.
20 July 2011
why read the classics
Why Read the Classics
Italo Calvino
The classics are the books of which we usually hear people say, "I am rereading . . . " and never "I am reading . . . "
We use the words "classics" for books that are treasured by those who have read and loved them; but they are treasured no less by those who have the luck to read them for the first time in the best conditions to enjoy them
The classics are books that exert a peculiar influence, both when they refuse to be eradicated from the mind and when they conceal themselves in the folds of memory, camouflaging themselves as the collective or individual unconscious.
Every rereading of a classic is as much a voyage of discovery as the first reading.
Every reading of a classic is in fact a rereading.
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
The classics are the books that come down to us bearing the traces of readings previous to ours, and bringing in their wake the traces they themselves have left on the culture or cultures they have passed through (or, more simply, on language and customs).
A classic does not necessarily teach us anything we did not know before. In a classic we sometimes discover something we have always known (or thought we knew), but without knowing that this author said it first, or at least is associated with it in a special way. And this, too, is a surprise that gives much pleasure, such as we always gain from the discovery of an origin, a relationship, an affinity.
The classics are books which, upon reading, we find even fresher, more unexpected, and more marvelous than we had thought from hearing about them.
We use the word "classic" of a book that takes the form of an equivalent to the universe, on a level with the ancient talismans. With this definition we are approaching the idea of the "total book," as Mallarmé conceived of it.
Your classic author is the one you cannot feel indifferent to, who helps you to define yourself in relation to him, even in dispute with him.
A classic is a book that comes before other classics; but anyone who has read the others first, and then reads this one, instantly recognizes its place in the family tree.
A classic is something that tends to relegate the concerns of the moment to the status of background noise, but at the same time this background noise is something we cannot do without.
A classic is something that persists as a background noise even when the most incompatible momentary concerns are in control of the situation.
Italo Calvino
The classics are the books of which we usually hear people say, "I am rereading . . . " and never "I am reading . . . "
We use the words "classics" for books that are treasured by those who have read and loved them; but they are treasured no less by those who have the luck to read them for the first time in the best conditions to enjoy them
The classics are books that exert a peculiar influence, both when they refuse to be eradicated from the mind and when they conceal themselves in the folds of memory, camouflaging themselves as the collective or individual unconscious.
Every rereading of a classic is as much a voyage of discovery as the first reading.
Every reading of a classic is in fact a rereading.
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
The classics are the books that come down to us bearing the traces of readings previous to ours, and bringing in their wake the traces they themselves have left on the culture or cultures they have passed through (or, more simply, on language and customs).
A classic does not necessarily teach us anything we did not know before. In a classic we sometimes discover something we have always known (or thought we knew), but without knowing that this author said it first, or at least is associated with it in a special way. And this, too, is a surprise that gives much pleasure, such as we always gain from the discovery of an origin, a relationship, an affinity.
The classics are books which, upon reading, we find even fresher, more unexpected, and more marvelous than we had thought from hearing about them.
We use the word "classic" of a book that takes the form of an equivalent to the universe, on a level with the ancient talismans. With this definition we are approaching the idea of the "total book," as Mallarmé conceived of it.
Your classic author is the one you cannot feel indifferent to, who helps you to define yourself in relation to him, even in dispute with him.
A classic is a book that comes before other classics; but anyone who has read the others first, and then reads this one, instantly recognizes its place in the family tree.
A classic is something that tends to relegate the concerns of the moment to the status of background noise, but at the same time this background noise is something we cannot do without.
A classic is something that persists as a background noise even when the most incompatible momentary concerns are in control of the situation.
09 June 2011
Nonsense: Style definition
I had an interesting dream: I was told that FEAR was my biggest enemy and drawback.
The dream ended with me in some cold, clammy rocky beach area, by a weather-beaten cottage on an elevated wooden platform, above the tide. I arrived with a huge armload of books, smiling and saying "don't worry about me, I'll be dead in a week."
Then again, maybe I should call the Cenacle Sisters and see if their retreat in Bowen Island still has some openings.
What I am now:
Bittersweet
Complex
Cerebralxx
intimate
refined/mannered
reflective
sensual---
sophisticated---
stylishxx
earnest
gentle
literate
organic
What I would like to be:
Boisterous
Exuberant
Freewheeling
Literate
Playful
Quirky
Reflective
Trippy
Whimsical
Witty
Confident
Energetic
The dream ended with me in some cold, clammy rocky beach area, by a weather-beaten cottage on an elevated wooden platform, above the tide. I arrived with a huge armload of books, smiling and saying "don't worry about me, I'll be dead in a week."
Then again, maybe I should call the Cenacle Sisters and see if their retreat in Bowen Island still has some openings.
What I am now:
Bittersweet
Complex
Cerebralxx
intimate
refined/mannered
reflective
sensual---
sophisticated---
stylishxx
earnest
gentle
literate
organic
What I would like to be:
Boisterous
Exuberant
Freewheeling
Literate
Playful
Quirky
Reflective
Trippy
Whimsical
Witty
Confident
Energetic
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