FLYING HOME

I have to give it to Southwest Airlines - convenient, inexpensive, friendly, and on-time. Behind great organizations are always great leaders...Herb Kelleher - now retired. If you don't know the story of SW here is a highly recommended book: Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. They also have a robust blog - catch them at:
http://www.blogsouthwest.com/

Flying home I noticed something interesting... can you notice from the pictures?

Controversial? Maybe...but is it reality? Look around you... and remember the alphabet soup: ELL, ESL, LEP, BICS, CALP, LTELs...

TRAVEL SURPRISES & RHODE ISLAND

Our travel from Virginia to Rhode Island was a tough but rewarding trip. We left at 6:00 PM from the Fredericksburg area to Sterling in Northern Virginia arriving around 8:10PM to see a concert at the Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church. Mi niece Valeria Frege had come up with an international orchestra and was performing there. Her sister Telma joined us later towards the end of the program – she had just flown in from Tampa. It was a wonderful short reunion. We left the place for Providence around 10:00PM – ready for an all night driving…wow that was tough – but we made it without any major incident. Thank you James and Shanese and the prayers that sustained us.

Concert pics:


R. I. pics:

Family

Miriam and the girls

James and Shanese

All the family together was a time of renewal for everyone. Tia Miriam cooked and cooked and cooked....wow. It was such a treat - we are greatful for a wonderful time and a time of renewal. May God reward your gentle love and generosity Jaime and Miriam and the tribe! :) We love you all.

ISTE NECC June 29th - July1 - Washington DC

The conference was an intellectual and emotional treat. My participation was limited to a few key presentations focused on social structures, values of social connectivity, technologies associated with the topic and also available approaches for ELLs and struggling readers – I was interested in the technology and the strategies being developed to reach students. The exhibition hall was an incredible experience.

The zenith for me was the presentation that Dr. Katherine Hayden gave at the Library of Congress on Tuesday evening – I was invited to help. The iQuest & CyberTEAM Projects representing California was a very rewarding experience – wow! From the reception to VIP visits as well as peer state presentations it was like I said a treat.

WASHINGTON DC

We met our son Daniel at the The National Museum of Natural History to see the new Dig it! The Secrets of Soils exhibit. After working in his lab last week - this was very relevant and interesting. I am getting a deeper appreciation of soils and their role in geobiological cycle.

After a business meeting in Maryland my son James joined us for lunch - very nice gathering: friends and family. The restaurant: "El Guapo"

Science and family - doesn't get much better. :)

VIRGINIA

Well within the northern Virginia wilderness surrounded by beautiful country and memorial battle fields there are places of repose. Nested in the country side my son and his family hosted us to a wonderful welcome. Here is my daughter Shanese with her golden retrievers: Sir Lancelot and Romeo!

The view:

The wonders of nature:

NATIVE PRAIRIE - K U PEDOLOGY LAB

After a couple of hard working days in the lab - Daniel and I took off this Sunday...Father's day. It was a day full of surprises - surprised at the place of worship and the message, surprised at a student's text message wishing me a Happy Father's day, and a great field day collecting Pennsylvanian fossils, and visiting the Native Prairie site where Daniel is doing a project. Dayenu!

I thought of Miss Marapoti our AP Environmental teacher as I snapped the picture above. :)

Lab snaps - working with saturated soil preparations for pH extracts + measuring pHs...plus a variety of lab experiences from soils sieving to sample prep, to carbon determination, etc, etc. etc... overall a great experience in the lab!

TRAVEL TO KANSAS

My travel plans this summer started by going to Kansas to help my son work in his new pedology lab at KU. It started innocent enough and ended well - but in the meantime traveling on a stand-by basis was a nightmare :(

All started on Wednesday at LAX around 7:30 PM - after three missed flights that evening including the two red-eyes. The early Thursday LAX flights looked bad and sure enough they were bad. After four rollovers - around 9:30 am I was ready to go home and forget the travel. I was tired, no sleep...etc. Well my son would not hear of it - so here I am in Kansas working with him... and the picture above is where I have an assigned seat on a different airline.

A good ending to a tough beginning!

DOES IT MATTER?

Is what I do in the classroom important? To whom is it important and why? How does a teacher gauge his/her impact on his/her students? By a glee from them as the last bell rings? Or is it by the sad look at you as they leave or say good bye or the hug spontaneously given you by the student that gave you ulcers through out the year and he says, "thank you." Or is it at graduation as you see their joy and they say "hi" to you as they remember your class three years ago. Or is seeing that shy special young man now confident in his graduation garb. All I can say is that I am blessed to have seen these kids grow and if a small measure of our interactions has touched them - I have my reward. Thank you Lord for all my students.

AWESOME LANGUAGE TEACHERS

Here I am in the company of some awesome teachers... Have a great summer - and the best to you Jose!

2008-2009 ACADEMIC EARTH SCIENCE

1. Was the overall content covered properly?
2. Were the concepts clearly taught?
3. Was the Teacher/Student Interaction Effective?
4. Would you take class from this teacher?
5. Were tools/techniques taught useful to you?
6. Was the use of visuals Effective?
7. Has class increased your understanding of Earth Science?
8. Was the technology used helpful to you?

RECOMMENDED

I just finished this classic bio - excellent source of inspiration and strategies used in business and easily transferable to the classroom - honestly. Bravo Jack! What a ride!

THANK YOU VUSD BTSA TEAM

FANIMECON 2009 San Jose

What an interesting conference - this was aking to stepping into a cartoon movie. Kids are funny, awesome, awestruck, manipulated, smart, the conference was almost cultic in character... It is very interesting to watch and see... Here are a few of the pictures from this past w/e. This also gives me a better understanding of teenagers.

BTSA is now COMPLETE!

Thank you Lorie!

16 Innings!

The Padres were awesome this past Saturday - my children took me to ballpark - Petco Park in San Diego for my birthday... It was quite a treat - thank you guys!

CST PREPARATION - TEACHING TEAMWORK!

A team of teachers at our school delivered a special review session for preparing our Academic Earth Science students for their CST. It has held on a Saturday for three hours on a volunteer basis (yes plus extra credit) and we had over 100 students show up ready to work. The sessions were conducted alternating teaching and review testing, teaching, review testing, etc. until we covered all the essential standards. At the end prizes were awarded to the highest scores. It was a Saturday to remember -

YOURTUBE

Very interesting... Thank you EdTechGeek :) Click below to get to the site:

CIVICS IN ACTION - APRIL 15, 2009 - OCEANSIDE

RULES FOR TEACHERS 1872

1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, trim the wicks and clean chimneys.


2. Each morning teachers will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for each days session.


3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.


4. Men teachers may take an evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they attend Church regularly.


5. After ten hours in school, the teacher may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or any other good books.


6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.


7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a good sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.


8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool halls or public halls or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.


9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

Courtesy of

Heritage Hill Historical Park

Lake Forest, California

LINK

The Jewelbox Cluster is on-line! Check it out: Jewels