For Excellence In Education

For God’s choice for the Secretary of Education to be discerned so that our nation’s schools and teachers may be strengthened

Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.
—James 3:1

O Lord Jesus Christ, You are the great teacher of all persons. You taught with wisdom and truth words that bring meaning to all lives—today and in the past. I praise and thank You for being our Great Teacher and the one in whom all truth holds together.

For the sake of our nation’s students, schools and teachers, Lord, I ask You to identify and bring forth the person best suited to be Secretary of Education in the new administration. Because of Your love and passion for children, O God, help newly-elected Barack Obama as he chooses this vital cabinet member. In Jesus’ name, amen.

This is the latest in the series of prayers led by the Presidential Prayer Team for the new President and for our nation. If you are interested in receiving the email with each day's prayer assignment you can click here and sign up.

Ignorance Isn't Bliss

My favorite columnist, Cal Thomas has written an article reporting on the national results of the latest Intercollegiate Studies Institute civics test:

For the third straight year, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) has found that a large number of Americans cannot pass a basic 33-question civic literacy test on their country's history and institutions. The multiple-choice questions ask about the inalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), the name of Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1933 series of government programs (The New Deal) and the three branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial). No, I didn't peek at the answers. I received a good education.

The random sample of 2,508 American adults, ranging from those without high school diplomas, to people with advanced degrees, revealed a minimal difference in civic literacy between the uneducated and the highly educated. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed could identify Paula Abdul as one of the judges on "American Idol," but only 21 percent were able to recognize a phrase from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. I had to memorize that speech in high school. What are they memorizing now?

This article is a must read. And you should also take the time to go to the ICI website and take the test for yourself. I scored 87.88, missing 4 out of the 33 questions, but learned something that I didn't know in the process of taking the test. I was hoping for an A, and if I'd gone with my instincts on two of the questions I would have gotten it. The scary thing is just how bad Americans do on this test across the board. What is even scarier is that the elected officials who took the test did WORSE than the national average.

It's no wonder that we're in the state that we are. God help us.

Another Great Outing

Well, tonight I was treated to another South Rowan High School Jazz Band concert. Once again they did a fabulous job. Tonight we got to preview their version of Sing, Sing, Sing! and It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing. Not bad at all. Both are very tough songs and they did a pretty decent job with them considering that they just started working on them recently. I can't wait to hear them at the final concert of the semester.

One of their Senior trumpet players wailed on his solo. I think his name is Nader. (Sounds like 'Mater, like TUH-Mater without the TUH!) Everyone was cheering for him.

The band leaves on a trip to Myrtle Beach, SC tomorrow after school for a big jazz festival/competition that they are having down there. They won't be competing, but they will be playing. I'd love to go down there and hear them. Unfortunately, I think they have to play pretty early in the morning on both Friday and Saturday - I think. I look forward to hearing what the competition is like. I don't know if this is all high school jazz bands or if it is an open competition.

My hat is off to Justin Dickson, second year band teacher, who blew the doors off of my high school band teacher. I dare say that he is the best band director in Rowan County. If any of the others happen to read this and want to prove me wrong, then let them provide soloists from each section of their band that can improv over jazz and swing tunes and sound good. If they can do that then they may enter the discussion. Otherwise they need not apply.

If you live in the area and want to see what a high school band should be like, come out to the year end concert. I'll be posting the dates here as soon as I know about them. You WON'T be disappointed, but you WILL probably be shocked. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I wish I'd had a band teacher like that.

I Wish I Had Had A Band Director Like That...

Tonight I went to the South Rowan High School band concert. I really didn't go with terribly high expectations - after all it was a high school band concert. I expected a good bit of out of tune playing and a few weak sections, but an overall tolerable evening.

I was blown away.

The first part of the concert consisted of a mixed band of freshmen and upperclassmen. I was absolutely surprised by how well they played. Given another month they would be ready for competition. They played March of the Irish Guard arr. by James Ployhar, Norwegian Folk Song Suite by Frank Erickson, and Dorian Rhapsody by Eliot Del Borgo.

For the next movement of the concert, the freshmen left the stage to a skeleton crew of upperclassmen. This crew tackled some really tough pieces. First on the docket was Habanera by E. Chabrier arr. by Albert Davis. It was a very intricate and tricky piece. They followed that with "Sleepers, Wake" from Cantata 140 by Johann Sebastian Bach, arr. by Philip Sparke. "Ah, Bach..." Need I say more? And they closed this set with the Disney show tune Under the Sea by Alan Menken, arr. by Jerry Nowak. I don't remember ever hearing a band number whose melody was carried for the majority of the song by the baritone horn. I'm not sure the name of the young man who was playing, but he did a fantastic job and had a wonderful tone.

This was all well and good. These bands did a fine job, but the real treat was still to come.

The final set of the evening was performed by the South Rowan Jazz Ensemble. They set the house on fire right out of the gate with William Chase and Richard Marinan's Get It On (arr. by Paul Jennings). They followed that with Sammy Nestico's Orange Sherbet. I just cannot do justice to the job these guys were doing. They totally rocked the house.

That was followed by Jimmy Forrest's Night Train (arr. by John Higgins). The band tore it up. There were extended jazz improv solos!!! My band director never taught ME how to improv! And these kids were GOOD. They were relaxed and having a good time. It was amazing!

The next song in the set was Embraceable You, the George Gershwin tune arr. by Roy Phillippe. That was the only laid back number in the entire set. They were right out of the gate again on the next song - Vehicle (written by James Peterik and arr by Paul Jennings). I'm not sure where I heard that one before, but it had that 70's groove to it.

Then the band turned to swing with the old Glenn Miller standard American Patrol arr. by Paul Lavender. They had a false start with this one, but the band director wisely pulled the plug and started over. Once they got things together they did a fine job with it.

The last song in the set was Sermon by Erik Morales. They hit it out of the park. When the concert was done they received a well-earned standing ovation... and the audience was treated to an encore! They finished up with the Glenn Miller signature In The Mood. It was a great show.

I say all of this to say that this was all brought about by the vision and skill of a 2nd year band director. Never ever ever never have I ever heard of a band program that actually taught the students about music. At least not around here. Justin Dickson has done a STELLAR job with this band.

Many of his students came to him hardly knowing which end of the horn to blow into. Many literally didn't know what a whole note or a quarter rest were. These are the very building blocks of music, and they had managed to get to his band without knowing these things. And he had them playing Bach for crying out loud!

Back in the day I was a pretty good trombone player, but if I had had a band director like Justin Dickson, I might still be playing today. He is teaching these kids how to make music and not just memorize how to play songs. There is a HUGE difference. There is nothing more frustrating than having music inside of you and having an instrument and having absolutely NO IDEA how to get that music out of you through that instrument. Justin has bridged that gap for many of his students.

The sad thing is how long will it last? Every year he has to battle against people who convince his best musicians that they can't afford to "waste" a credit on band. He has to deal with ill-prepared students coming from middle schools in the area. He has to watch as other students are turned off to band because of poor programs in the schools that they have come from. And on top of all of that he has to battle block scheduling which keeps him from being able to have a cohesive band throughout the school year.

Oh my goodness what he could achieve if he had these kids for an entire year. His bands would become LEGENDARY.

Justin, my hat's off to you, buddy. Keep up the excellent work!

Update On The Web Page

Well, I am nearly done with my internet education - at least the "bachelor's degree!" I have about 5 more modules to finish on CSS and hopefully I will be able to figure out what I am doing enough to actually build MY web page.

I must say that I have been learning a lot. Perhaps you have noticed some of the formatting changes that I have been making to the blog here. Well, you probably didn't notice them. Most are pretty subtle, but I am finding the blog a good place to practice both my HTML and CSS.

Yesterday I downloaded some weather extensions to use on my Joomla site. Hopefully they won't be too hard to figure out or configure. I am really starting to chomp at the bit as I see the end of the tunnel on the "classroom" phase of this endeavor. Soon the real learning will begin.

Overall, I have found the tutorials at the World Wide Web Consortium to be very helpful, but I must say that not all of the creators of the tutorials are equally skilled. It has been more evident in the tutorials for CSS. Most of them give you the syntax fine, but not all of the creators do a good job of explaining all of the details or the rationale behind some of the things that they are showing you. (Tip: if you decide to check out the tutorials, make sure that you click through to the examples. Some of them contain information that you don't get anywhere else on the website.)

I have found Elizabeth Castro's book HTML, XHTML, & CSS: Sixth Edition helpful in understanding rationale in using some of the different elements and techniques. It hasn't proven the most helpful to me to learn the languages (it isn't hands on enough for that) but it has been invaluable in helping me to understand what is in the world of website design versus what should be (at least according to the w3 group) in the world of website design. I am confident that it will also prove (along with my notes from the tutorials) to be a very useful reference.

Hopefully, the next time I update you on my progress, I will be finished with the tutorials and looking for extensions to make my webzine a reality.

State Of The Union

I watched the President's State of the Union Address this evening. I thought that he did a pretty good job. I wish that he had addressed the Congress with such fire every year that he spoke there. I think that we would have been much better off had he vetoed a few more bills along the way. We'll see if he vetoes any more in the coming 12 months. At least he looked like he was having fun.

The only things that I really disagreed with him on was the whole "global warming" hoax and his conviction that it is possible to have a peacefully co-existent "Palestine" and Israel. I was watching the speech with an educator who is not happy with the "No child left behind" mandate too.

Most of the teachers that I have talked to are not happy with No Child Left Behind. I would like to know what their problems are with the program and know what they think that it would take to fix it. My personal feeling is that public education is so radically broken that it can't be fixed without starting over from scratch - but that isn't likely to happen. There are too many commies bureaucrats involved in the schools and in government, and bureaucracies are good at one thing and one thing only - providing life support to failed bureaucracies.

The thing that always gets me about the State Of The Union address is the hypocrisy of the assembled law makers. Half of these people rail against the President as if he were the devil incarnate, and yet there they are giving him two five-minute-long standing ovations before he had even said a word. Fox News reported before the President entered the chamber that Nancy Pelosi said that she wouldn't be sad to see the President go at all, and there the two-faced thing was smiling and greeting the President as if he were a long-lost friend. I hope all of the left-wing voters were watching to see which of the Democrats were clapping about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I detest that kind of duplicity.

I didn't watch the Democratic rebuttal. I never do that any more because it just pisses me off. I am so sick of people whose only response is to gainsay anything that the President says. I am sick of the self-serving attitudes of so many people in politics. I am sick of the willingness to serve the party at all costs to the destruction of our country. So many of the people in Washington - both Democrats and Republicans - are nothing but greedy, power-hungry, selfish slugs who think about nothing but what it will take to get re-elected and gain control of the Congress and the White House and maybe how to score with the cute intern that works in their office. I'd love to see the slate wiped clean of every politician that operates this way. They are destroying this country that I have always loved so dearly.

I am still extremely annoyed with the Congress. They continue to waste time on stupid things like global warming and performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports, and cannot seem to manage to deal with the things that the American people have put them there to do.

They are not willing to make the hard decisions about immigration, social security, tax reform, border security, and health care that must be made, but they'll try to throw Barry Bonds in jail for using steroids. This is why their approval rating is the lowest in history. It is why the Republicans lost control of the House and the Senate - not angst over the war. The Republican's base was so disgusted and disillusioned with their inability to get the job done when they had been handed the White House, the House Of Representatives, and the Senate that they stayed away in droves during the last elections. If something doesn't change, it is likely to happen this November too, but that is a rant for another post.

So to wrap up, good job, Mr. President, and thank you.

Moving Forward

Well, I have been making some great progress this week. I discovered a website that is chocked full of tutorials that will help me to fill in the gaps in the knowledge that I have. These gaps it turns out were big enough to drive a C-5 through! However, I am glad that I am learning this material and even more glad to have discovered this web resource.

Right now I am working my way through the html tutorials. So far, I have learned how to do the things that Blogger has automated, but I have also learned how to tell you that the temperature is a brisk 36° and I can tell you that 3² = 9.

I have learned some other fun tricks too. For instance, I have learned how to justify a paragraph. I will endeavor to type long enough for this to be evident by the way that this paragraph displays. I sure hope this is long enough.

I Can Also Now Do Headers

And I have also learned how to use anchors to do lots of fun things. For instance, I can give you the link to the website I have been using to learn this stuff by clicking HERE. Yes, I am sure that you are all thoroughly bored impressed. Well it is a very good site where I can learn html, xhtml, xml, css, javascript, sql and lots of other useful stuff.

It is astonishing how many people publish stuff to the internet without any editing whatsoever. I am amazed at some of the things that I have read that were written by obviously intelligent people who didn't know the difference between there, their, and they're. I used to be a big advocate of supporting the validity of usage in language, but if things continue at the pace they are going now, in 50 years what passes for written English will be unintelligible to people born before 1980. It is darn close now. I consider it a failing of the modern educational system. In trying to keep from hurting Johnny or Betty's feelings by forcing them to learn how to write, we simply let them go with the flow. This dumbing down has to stop.

I just read Dickens' A Christmas Carol for the first time and I dare say that there are very few 12th graders who would have been able to understand it - yet in Dickens' day his writings were very widely read even by children. How far we have fallen! Granted, I would have liked to have a copy of Cliff's Notes to have understood the references to cultural things that I didn't understand.

It has been an interesting week. My 88-year-old Grandfather has had a very rough time of it. He fell repeatedly last week and managed to crack his skull. On top of that he had a heart attack. On top of that he lost a lot of blood from bruising from his falls. On top of that he has dementia. When I saw him on Saturday he looked like he had been in a bar fight. He has been in the hospital since Friday. He is one tough customer. Still kicking. I doubt that I'd still be hanging on if I'd been through all that. But he has always been tough. When he was 13 his appendix ruptured and he survived that somehow. (When he was 13 it was 1932. No antibiotics - especially for a sharecropper's son in po-dunk Salisbury, NC.) I was in the midst of a Church Christmas party when I got the news.

So that is what is going on in my world at the moment. Most everything is revolving around getting the education (Thank God it is free!) that I need to build the website. Now to persevere on... Your prayers are appreciated.

Sorry I've Been Away

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of days. I'm sure that you are all glad to know that they didn't keep me in the jail on Friday. Things have been a little nutty around here. Alot has been going on since Friday.

I guess I'll start with my trip to the Alexander County Correctional Facility. The prison is new. I think that they just opened it within the past couple of years. It was my first time to go into a prison. It was a pretty strange experience at first. Fortunately we didn't have to go too far to get to the prison's furniture plant.

It was an amazing operation. There within the prison was a fully operational furniture plant. It had new high quality equipment and everyone was busily working at their assigned tasks. We got a full tour of the facility. I was very impressed with the quality of the workmanship and the materials that they were using. The vast majority of the pieces that they were making were solid wood. They even use dovetail joints in the construction of the drawers. The spray booths were awesome. It was a very well appointed facility. Next door was an upholstery plant. The inmates working there were assembling and upholstering office chairs.

In my discussions with the administrators there I learned that the prisoners that work in the unit are extremely conscientious - many working harder and with a better attitude than people on the outside working in the same jobs. I asked Randy (one of the administrators) what he attributed that to and after some thought he told me that for most of the guys working in the plant this was the first job that they had ever held and the first thing that they could point to with any pride at all. I also learned that the inmates have to go through a hiring process to get into the program. They have to apply and be interviewed just like they would for a "real" job.

At this stage in the inmates' incarceration most of them aren't given the job hunting training that they will need later, but as they get closer to their release dates this training will be given. I learned a couple of other things about the program that I wish could be addressed. One involves the procurement practices. At present NC is a low bid state which means that the materials that they are purchasing could come from anywhere. I wish they had it set up to be more favorable to NC businesses. I also wish that the operations could expand so that the products made by the inmates could be sold to a wider market. At present these goods can only be sold to the government and not-for-profit organizations like churches, etc. I realize that with the loss of manufacturing jobs in the state this could be some unwelcome competition, but with a little thought I believe that it is a problem that could be overcome.

When you realize that North Carolina's entire Correction Enterprises is totally self-sufficient due to the revenue generated by these products, and when you realize that the recidivism of the inmates involved in the program is 35% lower than the state average, it is hard to understand why anyone would not want to expand the scope of this operation and its market to gainfully employ every inmate whose behavior would allow them to participate. I can envision a scenario that would be profitable to domestic industry and provide enough revenue to make the prisons themselves self-sufficient. It would also generate enough revenue to fund restitution for the inmates and generate a nest-egg that would allow them to get off to a good start when they re-enter society. I'm guessing recidivism numbers would plummet.

You really wouldn't believe all of the products made through Correction enterprises. They make everything from stainless steel serving lines to full color outdoor banners. And if their rules were a little different they could make even more products. So that was my trip to jail.

Saturday I spent the day going through my blog archives and trying to get the labels updated on the posts that I made before such things existed. I got about halfway through the old blogs. I'll wait for another rainy day before I do the last 83.

I also had to do some cooking for two community-based Christmas parties thrown by families in my church. You can check out Conspiracy of Kindness to find out more about this. I made date balls and sausage balls for he parties. They turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Saturday night was band practice for church. That is always a 2 or 2 and 1/2 hour deal. We usually go ahead and set up for the service on Saturday night, which takes 30-45 minutes depending on how many people we have to help. I had thought Saturday night would be a good time to have the practice because we could set up and actually practice with the instruments that we use on Sunday, but it really hasn't turned out that way. By the time that the week is over and we have set up all the equipment, everyone is tired and no one feels like practicing! Oh well, I was trying to save us a night. OK. I say save US a night, but it just ends up saving ME a night. I still end up going over to set up on Saturday night anyway.

Oh yes, I almost forgot, I also wrote an Advent post for the church blog over at Conspiracy of Kindness on Saturday. I can see that trying to keep up with writing an in depth devotion every day between now and Christmas isn't going to be an easy task. If you find that I'm not posting enough over here to keep you satisfied this month, go and check out the other blog. It should have new material every day.

Sunday was church, of course. We had a really good worship time I thought. I really sensed the Lord's presence on the song Consuming Fire. I believe He answered the prayer contained in that song for us Sunday morning.

There must be more than this -
O breath of God come breathe within.
There must be more than this -
Spirit of God, we wait for You.
Fill us anew we pray.
Fill us anew we pray.

Consuming Fire, fan into flame
A passion for Your name!
Spirit of God, fall in this place.
Lord, have Your way,
Lord, have Your way with us.

Come like a rushing wind;
Clothe us with power from on high.
Now set the captives free -
Leave us abandoned to Your praise.
Lord let Your glory fall!
Lord let Your glory fall!

Consuming Fire, fan into flame
A passion for Your name!
Spirit of God, fall in this place.
Lord, have Your way,
Lord, have Your way with us.

Tim Hughes © 2002 Thankyou Music CCLI # 3818569
License # 2647180

Anyway, it was a great service.

Then, just a couple of hours later, the party began. As guitar player for the StillWaters Jazz Band, I had my first gig. It was pretty fun. We were set up on the balcony of my pastor's house playing for the party goers in the living room below. We play a Dixieland New Orleans old school jazz style. It is a lot of fun and my first experience with the style. I have already begun to learn alot and I think that my playing has kicked up a notch or two since we started practicing. I'm still not BB King (a long way from it), but my horizons have definitely broadened. I actually soloed in front of people. What was funny was the solos that I felt the best about when I was practicing were the ones that I totally messed up live, and then I nailed several attempts that I made soloing on songs that I hadn't worked anything up for. Go figure. We have another gig next week.

So, that was my weekend.

Today I got back to work on the old Joomla tutorials. I finished them up and then went looking about to see what else I could find. I did find another tutorial site, but just wasn't in the mood to deal with it right now. So instead I went and looked at template sites. Well, actually site. I found a site that has some professionally designed templates that already look very similar to what I am trying to create. Why re-invent the wheel using my head as the hammer? $50 sounds pretty reasonable right about now to get something that I won't have to fiddle with very much to make it work. Of course, I am not such a great fool as to believe that this will solve all of my problems, but I do hope that it will shorten my development cycle by at least 2 weeks (more likely 2 months.) I would really like to have something marketable by the new year. More and more I realize that is probably an ambitious goal, but you have to have a target or nothing gets done. There is also a 2 hour Joomla seminar going on at the local community college on Thursday that I might check out. Based on what I've seen I can't imagine someone being able to teach me much in 2 hours, but if it is free (or at least cheap) it may be worth the time investment. Every day I'm learning something new!

So that is what's happening in my neck of the woods. Hope everything is going great in yours!

Did You Hear About This?

Weather Channel Founder: Global Warming ‘Greatest Scam in History’

Here is the lion's share of John Coleman's (John Coleman was the founder of The Weather Channel) article. If you want to see the whole thing you can read it HERE.

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM....(What a great way to start an article! JDE)

Environmental extremists, notable politicians among them, then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild “scientific” scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda. Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmentally conscientious citizens....

This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won’t believe a me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.... (This guy is hilarious! JDE)

I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril....

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped. The sky is not falling. And, natural cycles and drifts in climate are as much if not more responsible for any climate changes underway. I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.

Even without a Ph.D. in meteorology, man-made climate change simply doesn't make sense. There are far too many naturally occurring greenhouse gas producers that exceed our own ability to produce these gases. I just can't believe how many people have fallen for this bold-faced lie. I guess we are back to the philosophies of the leaders of the Third Reich again:

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.
- Adolph Hitler

The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.
- Joseph Goebbels

The great problem is that there are too few in the world who use the stuff between their ears for anything but padding to keep their heads from imploding.

This Kind Of Stupidity Is Why Public Schools Are Failing

If I had children I doubt that I would allow them to go to public school. Stories of THIS kind of stupidity abound.

A 13-year-old junior high school student was given two days of detention after school officials spotted her hugging friends after school last Friday.

Megan Coulter, an eighth-grade student at Mascoutah Middle School, was hugging her friends goodbye after school Friday when vice principal, Randy Blakely, saw her and told her she would receive two after-school detentions.

Blakely had previously warned Coulter that she was in violation of the school's policy on public displays of affection after she was seen hugging a student at a football game.

The school's policy says that “displays of affection should not occur on the campus at any time.”

If the child were tonsil-tickling another student in some passionate embrace it would be one thing, but this is stupid. God help us if this vice principal were ever deputized and allowed to carry a gun! He'd make Barney Fife look like a model of levelheadedness.

How do boobs like this get in these positions? Perhaps it has something to do with the idea that a baseball player can make $8 million a year (or more) but we are straining to pay starting teachers even $30k a year. Our priorities are in the wrong place, and there is little to attract our most qualified people to these jobs. That is not to say that there aren't some wonderful administrators and teachers out there, but sadly, they are becoming fewer and fewer.