Top ten facts you may not know about teachers...

My place of work

 DID YOU KNOW???

10. Teachers are legally bound to administer an Epipen in an emergency situation.

9. Supply teachers  do not come from the supply closet.

8. Teachers have no expense account. They cannot claim gas mileage, lunches, friend's lunches, friends of friends' expensive dinners, hotel rooms etc.

7.  Teachers are expected to attend costly professional development conferences and workshops, usually held on nights and weekends. The teachers unions offer limited funding for PD -- which comes from our union dues -- not from our employer.

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#Topten facts you may not know about #teachers... nblo.gs/CPMyJ #ontarioteachers #Bill115 #Rant
— Holly Massie (@HollyWroteit) September 30, 2012

6. Teachers source, research and create MOST of their course content; from designing lesson plans for each class, creating assignments and tests from scratch, choosing textbooks and media resources to designing their own assessment and evaluation plan.

5. Teachers are obligated to make an offense declaration each year.

4.Teachers pay for their own Christmas party, TGIFs and retirement parties.

3. Teachers  do all their own photocopying, word processing, phone calls and emails. The school office staff have enough work to do with their own near excessive administrative duties -- they are not teachers' personal secretaries and never have been.

2. Teachers are expected to be involved in extracurricular activities. They do so unpaid and on their own time. Again -- no expense account, hence many more hours spent organizing fundraisers. Fundraisers where many of the customers are fellow teachers.

And ... Number One ... wait for it...

Luckily, my niece invited us -- her own hand-raised bird

1. Teachers don't get a Christmas bonus -- not even a turkey.

How Social Media is ruining Our Minds -- turn off the computer and go out to play for once!

Holly and Family having real fun in the real world

Oh My.  School will be up and the kids running again in less than two weeks.

I, myself have only the one semester left before I retire. As if I would never stop teaching -- self-proclaimed know-it-all here...

With this in mind, I came across this info-graphic (in itself a statement of how information has to be presented in a flashier, multimedia fashion to garner attention)

From Visually.

Avoiding the Inversion Ritual: Why I Won't be Doing Halloween This Year

Haloween at the Massie's 2008

Article first published as Avoiding the Inversion Ritual: Why I Won't be Doing Halloween This Year on Technorati.

I always loved Halloween. From childhood, my mom would dress me up in crazy outfits, usually spooky ones, and I had a great time. I'd drag my pillowcase around our neighborhood filling it and going back three times till I had enough candy to make me sick for a week.  When I became a drama teacher, I created haunted houses with the kids. Every Halloween, hundreds students would experience the "haunted mansion" or "high school from hell".  At home, three strobe lights, a graveyard and a smoke machine was standard. Me, dressed to the vampire teeth as some witchy creature with her pet tarantula, Charlotte — and my Mom, glow stick shining through her teeth, scared the kids for hours. 

I spent bags of money on Halloween and boxes of paraphernalia are buried in our basement.  I bought only the best candy — lots of chocolate — none of that cheap kiss candy ( I always hated it). I wanted to re-create the great experiences I had when I was a kid.  That one lady on our block whose house had no lights on and when she opened her door, she was standing there holding a knife and cackling .  She was great.

Forty years ago there was no spider webbing or decorations (except for the odd jack o' lantern), and Mom made our costumes.  No one was trying to upstage anyone with decorations because the night was all about us — about the kids.

Nina, posing for her photographer :)

My mom died last October 23.  She lived a good long life — she was 93 — but she had Alzheimer's.  The last three years were very difficult.  Last year I did not celebrate Halloween, and no one seemed to mind — despite the fact that we usually get over one hundred kids at our door.  I thought this year would be different, but the anniversary of her death hit me hard and I just didn't feel like it. 

I watched my mom die.  I think it changed me. I believe people should be able to opt out of Halloween without having to explain themselves. I'm even feeling a bit resentful of the fact that I'm expected to buy candy for kids I don't know.  I'm feeling some need to put up a sign of some kind explaining myself.  Do people post signs explaining why they don't celebrate Christmas, or why they don't celebrate Valentine's day, or why they don't celebrate any other holiday?  But Halloween... if we don't have candy for the kids at the door, we have to worry about them egging our house or... something worse.  It's a kind of societal peer pressure I'm feeling, a kind of obligation. 

Yeah, I resent it.

RANT or not to Rant? That is the passion...

I talk too much -- I do. I've often said to my kids -- or anyone who may be listening -- as a teacher I know students can tune out easily. They are trained early to have selective hearing and focus, and teens are naturally self-directed.

As Charlie, I never talked -- some thought this was my best form of self-expression. 

Or they were just sick of hearing me rant about something or other.

So.. I SAY to them, "I throw a lot out there and hopefully some of it sticks to the wall"  Most look at me with knowing expressions and nod -- what they are knowing, I never know...y"know?

Occasionally, I RANT.. Of course, I never called these pearls Rants at the beginning. I would just start expounding on a topic I CARED about and.. it would get slightly out of control.  Now, ever since one of my favourite ascerbic Canadians, Rick Mercer, coined the phrase "RANT" by serving up some of the best political and hilarioius rants ever on This Hour has 20 Minutes and then later on his own show, The Rick Mercer Report, have I realized what my passionate "lectures" were.

Rants.

So, I rant.

On most anything to anyone -- but to my students, I try to keep it pedagogically sound, but you must realize that I have talent for making wild lateral connections.

I loved that show, "Connections" -- wonder what happened to it? The fact that the computer evolved from the printing press is one of my favourites.

OOps, lateral me -- where was I?

Oh, Yes -- ranting.  I am passionate in my opinions. My students would say I'm nuts, but what do they know? And I'm not arrogant at all. Well, a bit. But, I have a lot to prove, since I know better than anyone on which I speak. Sort of. At the moment.

Was this a rant? Naah -- just a long-winded intro. Specific rants to come...