Messages By: profmaryann

Still struggling with Scott and his homework...he said all last week that he had no homework in health class...now his grade has slipped to an F, but the web site doesn't show any missing assignments.  The health teacher was gone yesterday...I don't know about today, but she hasn't replied to my email asking what assignments need to be finished and turned in.  I will go see her tomorrow morning before school to see what's going on.

Matthew is completely opposite.  He is doing a report on a person in history who made significant advances in the practice of medicine.  He is only required to do one person, but he wants to do two.  He doesn't like to practice his multiplication, and he is still having to do the timings at school.  With the manditory practice, he has improved.  Three perfect scores in a row will excuse him from any more timings.  He's almost there.  Nobody in the class has achieved the goal yet.  I downloaded practice sheets from the internet.  He is NOT enthusiastic about the "boring" practice.  BUT the basic multiplication is the gateway to the more complicated and challenging multiplication.  He is looking forward to that, and his reward for doing the basics this week will be to move ahead next week (at home) to the more complicated math...he will still have to continue the basics practice though.

John has lost another roommate in his apartment (away at culinary school),and he doesn't have enough hours at work to pay the full rent.  So my brother has offered to have him live at their house in exchange for housework and being "executive chef" on weekends.  It's a really good deal, and that will relieve the pressure to get enough hours to make the rent and groceries.  I hope he will do a good job with the housework and keep his room clean.  Living there will allow him to concentrate more on his studies because of being able to work fewer hours at his job.  He will be coming home for Christmas break, and he will move to my brother's house at the end of December.  (The roommate's son got sick and needs to be at Shriner's hospital, so the roommate had to move.)

Well, that's the update for now....Becky

I don't know, to me that sort of stifles free speech.  I mean if a preacher wants to stand there and tell people who he wants to vote for and why, I don't see the problem.

Are college professers allowed to do the same thing in front of their class?  It would seem sort of the same thing to me.

JMHO

Congrats to Anne for making the honor roll.  She must be beaming with pride...as she should be.

I was up with Scott until 1:45 AM last night, while he did his last-minute 500 word report.  He hadn't started the writing part until yesterday because "he didn't know where to start".  I told him just to write the opening sentences of each paragraph, based on the outline that the teacher had them fill out from their research.  Then, I made him fill in the details.  He did the report completely on his own, with encouragement and pushing from me for him to keep going.  He did a pretty good job, but I did make him remove the "how much wood could a wood chuck chuck" line...he put that in there as a joke, and to make the report longer...I said that the teacher would probably not find that very funny.  He had to do the bibliography from a format online, so I had to supervise the internet use while he did that...so late at night (or so early in the morning, depending on how you look at it.)  Today is the end of the trimester.  I talked with the school counselor, and he said that he will look at the assignments, and reduce the amount of work post hoc and use the 504 plan appropriately to adjust his grade according to the ADHD guidelines laid out in his 504 plan.  So he may get by with passing grades, but I really want him to learn to get organized and get all of his work done...John, the older brother, finally caught on by his junior year in high school, so there is still hope.

Here is our Winter Wonderland:

Driving is positively treacherous...only drove the kids to school...now home for the day!!

Becky

Scott is banned from extracurricular activities for this week because his GPA is below 2.0.  Funny thing though, when I tabulated it according to the current grades posted, I came up with exactly 2.0.  I wonder if a C- gets less than 2 when tabulating the GPA.  There are some assignments still not posted, and they haven't made the adjustments for the 504 plan yet.  He has a lot of work that was turned in incomplete.  That would be the work that he said that he "finished in class"...I think I'll start making him bringing it home instead of turning it in right away...or getting a signature from the teacher in his planner that his work is complete for the day...he wants good grades, but he doesn't make the connection between finishing the daily work and the end result in his grades.  So, because of low grades, the pep band will have NO trumpets this week, as all three of them are banned.  I don't know how long the ban goes on, but in order to avoid being banned, the kids have to attend the after school tutoring...I've been over and over it with  the teachers and school counselor...unless Scott has DIRECT supervision in the afternoon session, it is a total waste of time...it is not that he doesn't know how to do the work...it's that he's not getting it done...I can do a much better job of supervising him...that many kids and only one teacher...ther is no way to have adequate supervision.  I don't know how much education on ADHD a general teaching degree involves, but the teachers at our school seem to have forgotten what it's all about.

And, last week, I emailed the social studies teacher regarding the big essay assignment...the instructions on the hand-out were unclear, and Scott didn't understand exactly what he was supposed to do.  The teacher emailed me back to clarify...BUT I heard yesterday from a parent of another student in the class that Scott was singled out in front of the whole class for having his mom asking what to do...it is in his 504 plan to have direct communication between me and the teachers.  Apparently, this is a common occurance for this particular teacher, and as a result, the kids are afraid to ask questions.  The other parent that I talked with had also contacted the teacher for clarification, so it wasn't just Scott or me.

We had a blizzard in '96 too...an accumulation of 7 feet of snow on the ground for '96-'97...there were a lot of roof-collapses that year around here.  The pediatric clinic had to close down and work out of the local hospital ER for a couple of weeks, while their roof was repaired.

Have a nice holiday season...hope to hear from you once in awhile...Becky

I am glad that we can agree on something.

If women do not want to get pregnant and accidently forgets to use protection there is always the morning after pill. Plus there are a lot of people who want to adopt a baby why not give it away instead of killing it?

That is a good question.  One I have pondered.  I was always under the impression that the "morning after pill" was basically equivalent to an abortion.  In fact, I work in a hospital pharmacy and I have refused to take the "morning after pill" down to the ER.  I said I couldn't do it because I did not want to in any way shape or form be involved in the death of a baby. 

There is actually 2 different "after" pills.  There is the "morning after pill" (not available in this country legally) and "emergency contraception."  My pharmacist explained it this way:

The morning after pill will expell an embryo, will abort the baby.

The emergency contraception will prevent the fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall.  And it may be taken up to 3 days later.  They are actually birth control pills, just taken in a larger dose.

Don't know if this helps, but man it has raised some questions for me.  I have been on B.C.P. for 19 years.  And I am now in a serious dilemma.  To me it would seem that stopping a fertilized egg from implanting may be the same as killing it.  Oh God. Oh God.  Oh boy, I need to do some more research on this, if I have to live with the thought that I may have unknowingly  killed and unborn baby of mine...OH GOD

Hey Prof....or anyone that can answer my Q...

Does one have to *register* under a particular party in the US?

Just curious is all...

<3

Fredi

This is a statement from another person. I am curious to find out what others think of it.

"Another thing the U.S. paid reparations to Jews that were but in concentraton camps by Germany and not them, but we have a problem with payng reparations for slavery"