The human cost of war, in song; Components of perfect literacy centers; Teachers on a picket line; Campaign to opt out of high stakes tests; Google docs; Using trigonometry to plot a river crossing
James Blunt served in the British army in Kosovo. Although some lines in this song make it refer to Americans, it reflects his own experience as a combat officer, trying to comfort the families of men under his command who died serving their country.
Please click on the link below and listen to this song. It is not pro- or anti-war; it is about the costs of all wars, good and bad. It could have been written in World War I or II, or Korea, or Vietnam, or now.
Please do not forget the families of the brave people who fight in our armed services. Whatever you may think of those who commanded them, they were brave, they did their duties, and their losses to their families will last far beyond a few ceremonies or cliché expressions of sympathy. (3:53)
I thought you might be interested to see this YouTube video of the Quincy Massachusetts Teacher Picket that took place a few years ago. I had originally planned and was talking to Quincy Mass about doing an inservice presentation there. I supported them 100%. Tt was a long strike but they ended up with a good contract.
I think you will be touched to see the amount of public support in this video… there are signs on lawns and houses and the constant sound of horns honking in support of them. I found it quite moving actually. My guess is that the reason more of the public seem to side with the teachers in the area is due to the long labour history it has had. (2:10)
Description: We were able to hand out fliers to parents and post them in the neighborhoods to attend an informational meeting about the demands being made by the administration to do well on the state exams. We told the parents, in order to meet these demands, we had to cut out many subjects. They were furious. Now we have some very angry parents willing to spread the news about the high stakes exams cheating their students from a proper education. (2:11)
Google Docs is Google's (free) Beta version of an online document creation, storage and editing application. Users can create and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations online and edit those documents in real-time in collaboration with in other users. (2:50)
Discussion For This Article:
James Blunt sings Carry You Home, Perfect Literacy Centers for Elementary Classroom, Quincy, Massachusetts Teachers Demonstrate, Operation Opt Out State Exams - Parent Info Campaign, Google Docs, Applying Trigonometric Functions
Video Bytes (June 2008 Gazette)
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