Controlled Chaos

Apparently Fortune approves of my job… =)

20 Great Employers for New Grads – Teach for America (7) – FORTUNE

Teach for America
Headquarters: New York, NY
2006 Revenues: N.A.
Full-time employees: 600 full-time staff; nearly 4,400 corp members
Website: www.teachforamerica.org
Type of company: Education nonprofit
What makes it so great? This nonprofit trains new graduates who don’t have any previous teaching experience and places them in troubled and low-income school districts around the country. Salaries are paid by the local school district. This year, the corps will be working in 25 school districts. Since its inception in 1990, Teach for America has had a huge impact on American education, with more than 14,000 college graduates completing the program; a study conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, a Princeton, N.J.-based social policy research firm, showed that TFA instructors are found to be more effective than the average teacher in their district. The program has been likened to a domestic Peace Corps, with long work hours and much emotional demand, so it’s not for the faint of heart.

<a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/business/worldbusiness/29lunch.html?ex=1183262400&amp;en=7023c659b710f4ac&amp;ei=5070″>In India, grandma cooks, they deliver</a>

This article is absolutely intriguing, and I wish I would have read it earlier.  I was especially stricken by the fact that they also return the dishes, which is a wonderful way to conserve resources.  At $123/month, which is enough to raise a wife and two children on, I’m wondering how this compares to other “walla” jobs.  I know the dabiwalla cleaned clothes when I was there.

Also, how many spellings can there possibly be for the city of Gurgaon?

Lindbergh School District – Freshman Places 8th in National French Contest

My friend Sarah Lavely rocks entirely as a teacher.  I’m so proud of her (and her student, I suppose)!

A bunch of students from my school registered for AIDS walk this past weekend. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend, though I had intended to. Still, they saved part of the experience for me on youtube. Sweeeet.

BCSM SCHOLARS AWNY 2007

this part of teaching makes the others manageable,
Jonthon

Dear All:
I recently came across the prompt below.  Further below, see my entry.  Just thought you’d care to read.

bests,
Jonthon

Win $200,000 in Technology for Your School
Students, parents, teachers, and administrators can enter the Hope for Education contest by submitting a 100-word essay answering the question, “What is the single most significant benefit that technology can provide in the classroom?” Winning schools will receive either the grand prize of $200,000 in Samsung technology and Microsoft software or one of 30 first prizes of $60,000. Deadline July 22.

My response:
An interesting divide exists between students and their teachers today. Teachers witnessed the computer’s advent, whereas students don’t know a world without them. Today’s student, with respect to computers and electronics, is just as likely to be the teacher as the learner. As a first year teacher and technophile myself, I suggest that the most significant benefit of technology in the classroom is to provide ample opportunity for the student to be the teacher. It is in this collaborative and empowering enviornment that shy students express themselves silently, kinesthetic learners engage actively, and the digital divide is bridged.

I lead an odd life…

At CVS this evening, as I was searching for epsom salts and bubble bath, an older muslim woman came over and asked “help?”  She pointed at her list, to dental adhesive (fixodent was noted parenthetically below).  I helped her find the fixodent.  Then she asked me what to put them in.  I was thinking a cup, but I figured that if she was asking, she wanted something a little more substantial.  The only thing I could find was a mouthpiece you could wear at night, which came with a case.  I even inquired on her behalf, since what I’d found was thirty bucks (and she was convinced she needed two, which took the inquiry farther than I was going to be able to come back from.  I asked the teller, “This is probably the oddest question you’ll ever hear from someone my age:  where can I find something to keep dentures in overnight?”  A bunch of people around me kind of chuckled politely, and the guy had no idea.  One woman said you just put them in a cup.  The attendant agreed.  So I had to go and try again to convince the woman.  By the end, I had at least convinced her she could use two cups… =)

In other news of the weird, my roommate bought a crawdad this weekend.  When she put it in with her fish, it attacked them, even though the fish were bigger.  So tonight, she intends to take it back.  But she forgets the crawdad on her way out, and instead comes home with another 10-gallon tank (but it was only $10!).  So we put it in, THEN the rocks (I did that on purpose), then 9 gallons of water.  Then, when Felicia was out of the room, I threw in a piece of ham, and it immediately started devouring it.  In fact, I think it’s still eating it.  When Felicia came back, she wasn’t too happy, but she was on the phone with her mom, so she couldn’t say much.  Then, after a pause, she explained t her mom “I have a crawdad in a 10-gallon tank eating ham in my living room.”

Priceless.  (That just became a commercial.)

Cause for concern