Thoughs of the Day

I am feeling very uncreative blog-wise but thought I's write something. No doubt you all know the dems have taken back the senate and the house of reps. Though I am relieved the evil republicans have been ousted, I look back and can't get too excited. It is a cycle and I don't understand why people don't realize it and want a better change. For his first two years, Clinton and the dems had complete power and stuff got down, then reps took the Senate and stuff got harder to get done. Then the republican won complete control and stuff got done again (not good stuff mind you) now the dems took back half control and nothing will get done. In two years a democrate will win the presidency and stuff will get down again...hopefully good stuff. Same ol' Same ol' How can one get excited over this. Now is a great time for change, nothing could be as bad as what we've been through with Bush maybe it is finally time for a new party shake things up...hey how about Hillary C.

Other thoughts,
Schools and teaching. So you all know how I feel about my job and the policies that have come into play. The schoold system is in a sorry state of affairs. As anEnglish teacher I see the substance of English being filtered out as complete focus on standardized testing takes over. Among the countless days of testing and testing for testing, I am being told by higher ups I need to be teaching students daily and year round how to pass their state standardized test. I should be using mostly non fiction text as that is what most people use in the "real world" (new term for citizens who have no culture). I should be teaching the "tricks" to passing FCAT writes and reading. And when not doing that I should be using Kaplan lesson plans to strengthen the skills they need help in to again pass FCAT. Plus now, there is talk of killing Junior and Senior honors English (more literature based) infavor of regular (basic) or AP (grammar and analytical writing skills). Schools are killing the culture in our society. We have students who have no imagination, can't think and create things for themselves. I see it in the students who take drama and newspaper, these kids can't think outside boxes, can't create or develop individual art.

Our society won't die because of terrorists, it will die due to lack of creativity, change, challenges, and culture. We may be alive, but we won't be living like it.