Monday, March 31, 2008

A New Opportunity!

It became official today. I will not be returning to Manor Hill next year. I have accepted a position at South Valley Middle School. While I am sad to be leaving Manor Hill, I am excited to be starting a new position. I have been at Manor Hill for the last 9 years. Actually, I have been there for the past 9 ½ years, since I student taught there as well. It will be really hard to leave that last day of school this year. At South Valley, I will be starting a broadcast program. I will actually have a studio and we will be producing live daily broadcast. I will also be teaching seventh grade science. I think both of these will be a lot of work, very challenging and a lot of fun. I told the class today and at first I don’t think they quite knew what to think but when I told them that I could be there teacher again in two years, they actually cheered. That meant so much to me.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Playing for the KC Royals . . . I wish!

Okay, this really doesn’t have a lot to do with school but I thought it was really cool so I wanted to post it. I have a new summer job. I will be helping run the scoreboard at Kauffman Stadium this year. It is nothing major, and at this point I don’t even know exactly what I’m doing or how many games I will get to work. I'm sure that my job will be very minor, however, just going to the first meeting last night was really cool. The scoreboard is PHENOMINAL! Imagine the size of the old scoreboard only this time it is all (no border) high definition. They had it on last night when I drove up and I couldn’t believe how awesome it was. Literally peoples jaws will drop when they walk into the stadium next year. A couple of cool things that I got to see last night were the control room (multi-million dollar). Wall to wall computers and video equipment, my KMH brain was spinning. They also use a program called Final Cut Pro that I have looked at using for KMH. Just the scope of what they do and the equipment that they use was amazing. Next week I have another meeting where I think I will find out more of what I will be doing and they will be doing a detailed run through of what a game will be like. I will post updates when I know more.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

MAP Prep

This week we are going to work really hard on getting ready for the MAP test. To do this we are taking some practice tests and we will be going over them in class. I think it is really important for the kids to not only know what questions they got right or wrong but also to see why they got questions wrong. This week we will also be hitting our normal math lessons hard in order to get to the beginning of unit 9 which involves coordinate planes. I have a feeling that this might be a skill that is tested on the MAP test.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Spring Break

Wow, this whole blogging thing really seems foreign to me after having basically not blogged for the last three weeks. I had the flu which knocked me out for a week. I have never had anything hit me like that. I was so sick that when I was home, I did nothing other than eat a little soup and sleep. This week has been spring break and I did a lot of little random things. My wife and I went to the zoo one day, and saw the movie Vantage Point. I worked on a grant for next year and did some work around my house. I even got a new barbeque grill put together. I even got a chance to get some reading done. I’m currently reading Honeymoon with My Brother, a book that was recommended to me last summer. I can’t put it down. It is really good. I’m also reading a biography of Chris Kraft, a member of mission control for much of the Apollo space program. I also had an opportunity to hit several book stores and picked up a few books. I hate finishing a book and not having something new to read. I got a book by Bob Woodward, who was a part of the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration. I got a book written by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins about the trip to the moon. I also got a book called 102 minutes about the World Trade Center. Those should keep me busy for a while.

We have one week at school before the MAP tests start. This week we will be working on several different projects that we need to get done so that when we have limited time because of the MAP test, we will be able to get some things done. The biggest thing about the MAP test is to make sure that the kids are at school every day and at school on time. We will start right after school starts and go basically until lunch. Anyone that comes in late will have to sit in office until we get to a break, then will miss the afternoon to take makeup tests.