Well after finishing Bride, I found myself in Half-priced books and there is a book called Love and Hate in Jamestown. Bride takes place in the Jamestown colony and I hadn’t ever read a history book about the colony so I decided it was time. This was an excellent book. It gives the history of the colony in a very readable way. I never felt like I was reading a text book. I found it a quick, fun, and enlightening read. You hear so many things about John Smith and Pocahontas, it is difficult, as with most history, to peal away the myth and see things from a fresh perspective. David A. Price does a great job of removing the Disney without heaping on the guilt. Of course, people are guilty of all sorts of betrayels and wrongs throughout history and the history of Jamestown is no exception. Price presents facts even-handedly, and backs up his opinions with solid research and scholarship.
Confession
I hava confession to make, apparently I enjoy reading romance novels. I recently finished reading a great book A Bride most Begrudging by Deeanne Gist (a friend of the family). Let’s see how much damage I can do to my reputation by pointing out that not only is this a romance novel but it isn’t the first one I have ever read. This IS the first one I set out to read. George MacDonald is one of my favorite authors, apparently he wrote several romance novels some of which I read and didn’t even realize they were romance novels until after I heard he wrote romances. One that I didn’t expect was Phantastes. Now let me get back to Bride. I thouroughly enjoyed the book, especially the history that it tells. Dee does an excellent job of putting you in the time period with her prose and her attention to historical detail and accuracy. Bethany house has just released her second historical romance The Measure of a Lady. I guess I’ll be reading another romance soon.
Great Weekend!
Parents came into town for lunch Saturday.
We went to Cafe Eccel and it was a very enjoyable time.
Afterwards, Lisa and my Mom shopped at World Market, Pier 1, and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. They didn't buy anything!
My Dad and I went to Half-priced books (I picked up Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell) and Barnes and Nobles (where my dad picked up a book on poker). The male members of my family have recently gotten into the Texas Hold'em craze. Nathan is the
only one that has a group he regularly gets together with and plays. The rest of us have been playing online (no money).
We get back to our condo and my parents leave shortly. We had a nice time. No plans for the evening until a few minutes later Gabe calls and suggests we get some peproni rolls (yes that is how it is spelled) from Double Dave's. So after a short discussion we decide the best course of action is to get the rolls and a few beers, the two most recent episodes of 24 and make an evening of it. No sense in Gabe going home so he stays the night. The next morning two pots of coffee, a run to the donut-a-torium, a relaxing time reading the paper and we head off to church. All in all a wonderful weekend.
Last Friday!
Today is the last Friday of the school year (with students). Next week the kids go to school Mon.-Thu. Then I will have 5 days before I start summer school.
I am excited about the summer. Man oh man last summer I didn't teach summer school and I had 2 months off. It was awesome. This summer I plan on reading, reading, and more reading. I will sit in the backyard with a good biography, a cool beverage, and a pipe. I can't wait. As a matter of fact I got a head start on it this week. I also plan on spending a fair amount of time at Barnes N Nobles and half-priced books.
Once summer school starts I will only have 3 weeks off. Think about it most people only get 3 weeks off all year. I will have nearly 4 weeks this summer. Of course most people are paid for that time off. It's not that teachers should be paid for all the time off they get. It is just interesting that, at least my perception, of other peoples perception is that they think teachers get paid for all of the time off we get. The reality is that teachers are employed to work for 187 days of the year. If the average professional works 50 weeks a year X 5 days a week minus a couple of days for Christmas, a day for Thanksgiving, New Years, Memorial Day, Labor Day that leaves 244 work days. Meaning teachers are employed for 57 less days a year right? Wrong, because most salaried professionals get all of those days paid as well so they are paid for 52 weeks X 5 = 260 days a year. So your average professional works 244 days and gets paid for 14 extra days. A teacher works 187 days and gets paid for 187 days.
All of this sounds like I am complaining, but I am not. I think that too many people, when teacher pay is discussed, don't look at what teachers are being paid for (teachers included). The reason this isn't a complaint is because when you look at a teachers average salary and divide it by the number of days that we are paid to work our salary is not bad when we start out. Let's take College Station ISD (considered a property rich school). A first year teacher makes $32,500 giving you a $174/day. For an 8 hour day that is $21.75/hr. After 20 years of teaching a teacher now makes $46,350 giving you $248/day and $31/hr. Not that good in my opinion. Not horrible but not great. Especially when you consider after you top out in 20 years you don't get any raises. Of course the big difference is that in most other fields you don't keep the same job for 20-30 years you move up. In education you become a teacher and you have done all of your moving up, except for a very few administrators. I say few because of the teacher/administrator ratio. Most teachers simply can't become administrators. Besides we should want teachers to stay and refine their craft become better teachers and inspire more young people.
(This is where I start complaining)
So how do we keep teachers learning and growing and refining their craft? Well if your the state of Texas you create a system where teachers must get so many "Continue Education Hours" in order to renew your teaching credentials. So you pay a $20 fee every five years and they verify that you have completed 150 hours or however many it is they want you to have accumulated. How do they verify it. Well you fill out a form online that says you completed the hours. No! They don't even ask. They ask if you have been arrested, if your certificate has been revoked (shouldn't they know they issue them), default on a student loan, and owe child support. Oh one more question, they want your credit card number and exp. date. What a racket. Of course 20 bucks every five years isn't too bad. But what is the point? The point is so they can say they have highly qualified teachers who are continuing to refine their craft. They really don't care if you are they just want the appearance of quality without the substance.
Immigration revisited
So the President has given his plan for the immigration solution. I agree with Neal Boortz’s assesment. You can check it out here. Boortz’s analogy is a pretty good one and is just the order in which Krauthammer suggested things be done.
Moved
Well we moved into a new condo. Earlier, I asked, "do we buy a house or build a steel home?" Apparently neither, yet. Maybe we will pursue buying/building a house in 6 months maybe in a year or two. We really like the new place, even thought it is smaller than our old condo. It seems bigger and it is only one story which is really nice. I don't know why anyone would prefer a two story house to a one story. Not for me.
