Show us a picture that's worth a thousand words.
Submitted by sami711.
The teacher explains this highly improved writing sample:
1) To see what a teacher's blog can be like, see hers. Much of what she writes has to do with day-to-day realities, which she relates in a candid style, and which are important for seeing inside the school, particularly for those who have no children currently in the schools, or whose educational milieu is vastly different within a large district. This helps the community at large develop some understanding of the complexities, and see where things have changed since they last formed an impression. The camera-photos are a huge help in literally bringing people inside the classroom. A great example of her range was last May http://bronwynann.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html
And I've got to include this one as being one of the more culture-shocky (yet not heartwrenching, like this one is).
(2)
Her Feb 6 post ends with a plea to contact legislators about No Child
Left Behind and a request to forward to everyone EXCEPT journalists.
She's concerned about the district being retaliatory and is only slowly
able to feel comfortable reaching out beyond those she knows for
certain won't abuse her trust.
She's a 3rd grade teacher in East Oakland. She is going on sabbatical next year as, at 30, she's completely exhausted....after 8 years in the school, no two with the same Principal, and she's been the seniormost teacher I believe for the past two years.
Personally, I can't imagine they'd *allow* her to go under any circumstances, let alone force her out, but the fact that she's terrified they'd do so just shows how much she loves her job and her kids.
(3) Her most recent DonorsChoose request
was for Kleenex and mopping supplies since janitorial doesn't regularly
do floors evidently, and the kids were sick and germ-swapping.
I really try not to just be "The Blog that Re-Posts Ted Rall Columns." But then I succumb again.
As a single head of household with a school age child, every few weeks I panic over healthcare (my most recent hyperventilation was over Thanksgiving when I fell and dropped so hard on my lower spine that I ripped through my clothes, tore my skin, and gave myself a very nasty bruise just from the force of impact... nothing broken, but the first thing I did was wiggle my toes. The second thing I did was think about my perpetual state of underinsurance.). I have Blue Cross / Blue Shield, and I have a decent policy through an alumni group. They used to be one of the best providers in the country. Now, they deny every claim; that's their opening gambit.
I should add that of my male relatives going back two generations, 4/6 were (one still is) an MD. (MD's are also bearing crazy insurance costs in the form of their malpractice premium, which rise and fall with insurance companies' investment returns (and not, actually, runaway jury awards).)
250,000,000, INSURED BUT STILL IN TROUBLE
It's obviously outrageous that tens of millions of citizens of the wealthiest country to have ever existed in human history are one cluster of metastasizing cells away from bankruptcy. Did you know that 25 percent of mortgage foreclosures result from high medical bills?
But you really should read it for Ted Rall's wart story, at the end of the article.
We know you never slack off at work, but if you did, what would you do?
I'd co-opt QotD to post a youtube challenge on Vox!
So I'm challenging all men (and some particularly domain-knowledgeable women):
Banana Health.
Background
I'm a single mom of a teenage son. It has come to my attention that the Kaiser Permanent play on AIDS prevention that's presented to high school students has a modular instructional component involving unrolling a condom onto a banana. Astoundingly, many locations' parent groups require them to drop this component out of the play. (Although what can you really learn from 100 feet away, anyway?)
This is one of those things I just don't dare teach my child because, although I think of condom use as a factual health issue, good god, who wants their mother to teach them that?! So I'm left hoping he runs across this important information on the interweb! So, here I am, doing my best to improve the likelihood of that happening. On behalf of single mothers everywhere, I pose this challenge:
Challenge
Make a clinical video on how to select and use a condom, and post it to youtube.
Details
It can use any number and types of fruits or other non-sexual props, but no actual manufactured dildos or other sex toys no matter how abstract. You may use any number of condoms of any color, size, etc., from any manufacturer. I hope it will convey things like how to choose a condom that fits you, and it can certainly include any other kind of health related information such as where to buy condoms anonymously and/or cheaply, info on condom quality, etc.
Then post it on Youtube with the search terms "banana health"
Thanks!
Highly recommended: Brotherhood, a increasingly fab show which evidently recently signed for its second season on Showtime in 2007, does a dance on this riddle: what's the different between organized government and organized crime?
It ties in strongly to issues about social capital as well
(particularly the subset of political or social capital, and how those
lines cross). Another relevant issue: how does "military might," a type
of capital rarely mentioned get convoluted into social capital?
