Circling the drain - it's getting crowded around there

[Scout26]

Oh, joy.  Looks like I get to be a royal ahole tonight.

First we had the School Supply list which included this gem: 

#12.  1.5in x 1.5in Post-It notes.  (No 3in x 3in Please!)

After trips to Wal-mart and three different office supply stores, turns out that 1.5x.15in Post-it notes are a "Special Order" item.  You can order them via the interwebtubez, but stores don't carry them.   

Or you can make them yourself but hacking 3inx3in ones with a paper cutter.   

Yes, the Language Arts Teacher is going to get a piece of my mind over that.  \

Second, this little gem arrived in my E-mail.  I already knew about Curriculum night, however,

Hello, Edison families!

We hope to see you at Curriuclum Night tonight!

At 6:30 PM in the auditorium, Faith Dahlquist, Assistant Superintendent for Educational Services, will present an optional session on the Common Core Math Standards.

Then at 7 PM, parents/guardians are asked to be in their student's first period class to begin our Curriculum Night. Students should have brought home a copy of their schedule on Friday afternoon. If you do not have a copy of your child's schedule, you can print one out from ParentVUE. Please remember, parking is extremely limited so please plan accordingly.

Either Faith or I will be leaving in tears.  Or she might soil herself.   Have bail money ready. This isn't going to go well.

[Scout26]

RE:

the BIL

One of the most hilarious conversation I got to overhear at work many moons ago, was listening to one of our fresh out of college buyers assistants on the phone with her finance company arguing about how she sold the car for less then she owed on it, so how does she still owe them money?  

I felt really, really sorry for the person on the other end of the phone trying to explain that 1) She needed to send the money she got from selling the car and 2) Then she need to send them more money to make up the difference of what she still owed.   It was a long, long phone call and the nearby cubicles became packed with more and more people, and even though several of us were about to pee ourselves each time she circled around back to the beginning.  "I don't own the car, how can I owe money on it?"  We felt nothing but pain for the poor, poor finance company person trying to explain the basics of credit to her.  

Yes, I weep for the future.    

Oh, there's a potential for home schooling in the future here at Festung Scout.  That'll make the STBX howl with rage.

[Scout26]

Good news:  The school district (according to the Assistant Superintendent) is not using the InBloom Database.

More Good News:  His math/pre-algebra teacher has been there 25 years.  He didn't seem to hip to the "New Curriculum".  He repeated several times tonight "There's more then one way to skin a cat and there's more then one way to solve a problem."  He seems willing to show them several methods and told the kids NOT say "That's not how Mr. Houke showed us!" when they ask for help at home.

More Good News:  Social Studies is US History from the colonies to the Civil War.  Robert may be doing a little extra work and getting some additional background information/enrichment.  Like about the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, and Brig. Gen George Greene and Col. David Ireland of the 137th New York.  Both men should be as famous at Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine.

Meh News:  Science seems pretty straight forward (Geology, Chemistry, Biology, including dissecting a frog, and some other basic science stuff, like usign a microscope, not to sure about the teacher, but Robert knows that Golbular Woerming is a hoax and we always talk about scientificy stuff.)

Bad News:  They are using the hippy-dippy, touchie-feelie R.O.L.E method of teaching "Language Arts".   There's a video, but my google-fu is weak tonight.  I'll post it once I find it.  On the plus side, I almost feel out my (still too short) chair when she said one of the books they have to read is "The Killer Angels", by Michael Shaara.  Since we've been to Gettysburg twice and I have the movie, I think he'll get at four, if not five, Kum-By-Yah's on that assignment.  (However I prefer to focus on the first Day

[Scout26]

Here's the hippy-dippy, touchie-feelie, Kum-By-Yah video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM7qEyRIG3w

[TechMan]

What about the PostIt notes?

[Scout26]

Never got a chance to ask.  I was not the only parent concerned about R.O.L.E.  Lots of questions about "Will my son or daughter be able to properly construct sentences and then string them together into a paragraph that makes sense?"  "With words properly spelled?"  "Will they be able to read and understand various books and short stories?"  "Is this mumbo-jumbo really going work"  I never got a chance to ask about Post-it notes as Many of the parents had the 'You've got to be shittin' me!!!'  look on their face when the video was over.


I've pulled up some of the old Schoolhouse Rock videos about Adverbs and Adjectives.  I think I learned more from them, then I did diagramming sentences in English class.   I think I'll buy the DVD.  We might watch that quite a bit.  Hopefully it has the history ones as well.
 

[TechMan]

Scout,
Here is the 30th anniversary DVD, it has all of them.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00005JKTY

[Hawkmoon]

This can be the year your child GROWS more than ever.

So Robert's school is dispensing HGH now?