The first week of summer vacation is over and I haven't accomplished one thing...at least not the kind of thing that I would like to accomplish. I would like to be able to say that I have put words down on paper (or more accurately on computer) for my novel. With the exception of some plotting, I haven't done that. I would like to be able to say I have worked on updating my websites. Except for changing the pool on room210.com, which I did just a few moments ago, I haven't done that either. Most of the week was spent suffering while I wait for my air conditioning to be worked on. The temperature in my apartment has been about 90 degrees and though my fan and a couple of open windows have helped, it's still not conducive to getting anything accomplished.
I also spent a couple of days getting my financial situation squared. I took out a consolidation loan with USBank for $5,000, which has enabled me to pay off my medical bill at St. John's (more than $1,100), the remainder that I owed on my car (a little over $1,700) and what I owed for dental work I had done a couple of years back (about $850) I still have a few small medical bills that weren't covered by my insurance, but if memory serves me correctly, the largest one is about $170, so I am not that concerned.
I have also begun looking for a place in Joplin. My options are limited, since I want to find a place that is furnished, has enough room for all of my papers, books, and records, and doesn't have an astronomical rent.
It has been so long since I have written that it is hard to know what to talk about next. The last days of school were great, but sad at the same time. I was surprised by how emotional the kids were about leaving at South, even the ones who said they couldn't wait to get away. The tears were flowing the last day. The kids wrote some very sweet things in my yearbook. And to think, I almost didn't buy a yearbook because I was pinching every penny at the time.
The second half of the year was great. After my health problems were eliminated in December, everything went smoothly the remainder of the year. I began to feel like I fit in instead of feeling like a visitor from another planet. I could see a remarkable change in the writing of some of my students from the beginning of the year to the final paper. The writing contest went well and some of the experiments I tried, such as the extra credit project, in which students were allowed to choose a creative way to earn extra credit such as writing a novel, or a book of poetry, or short stories; and the novel-reading project, in which we went to the computer lab each day and read from classics by authors such as Mark Twain, H. G. Wells, and Charlotte Bronte, worked far better than I had expected.
I really liked the rest of the faculty. I didn't find any of the petty politicking and backstabbing that took place among some of the faculty at Diamond. I would say the prinicipal, Ron Mitchell, probably rid the school of that kind of poisonous character pretty quickly. I don't know that you could say that I made really good friends among the faculty members, I'm not the kind of person who makes friends easily, but I got along well with everyone and I don't think I got on anyone's bad side.
***
The only bad part of the last few months at South came when my former superintendent, Mark Mayo, did his best to have me fired. Mayo apparently told the Joplin R-8 superintendent that I had been using Joplin computers and time to work on my Diamond school website, www.wildcatcentral.com , which has featured much material has been critical of Mayo's operation of the Diamond R-4 School District. Mayo also tried to make the case that I was devoting far too much time to the Diamond website and not enough time to teaching the students at South.
Ron Mitchell let me know what had been said. He felt I had a right to know that I was under attack from Mayo. He told me not to let it worry me because he (Mitchell) had told the assistant superintedent, Dr. Steve Doerr, that I was doing my job and I was not working on the Diamond website while I was at school. He didn't tell me to shut down Wildcat Central. He didn't even suggest that I do that.
First, I doubt that I have to tell anyone who reads this blog that I never updated Wildcat Central while I was at work at South. My number one priority were those kids who were in my classes every day.
Second, the incredible amount of time I allegedly was spending on Wildcat Central amounted to about one or two hours per week and sometimes not even that much. As Ron pointed out to Dr. Doerr, I worked in the newspaper business for more than 20 years and I was able to turn out a large amount of copy in a very brief amount of time.
I decided to leave Wildcat Central open (I promised that to my Diamond students a long time ago and I do my best to keep my promises.) Most of the new material on it will be innocous items such as birthdays or items about my former students. Unless, of course, the investigative reporter in me manages to turn up something startling about the Diamond R-4 administration. But I am not going to be adding new items about Mark Mayo on a regular business. Ron Mitchell backed me up and there is no way I am going to let him have to suffer because of my writing.
Still, the nerve of Mayo to fire me (twice, but more about that in a few seconds) and then try to get me to lose my new job, is unbelievable. He appears to be the one who is spending his district's time and money involving himself in things that do not concern him. If he had been successful in his effort to put me on the unemployment line, I would have filed the biggest lawsuit against him and the Diamond R-4 School District that you can imagine. Though Mayo's dealings with me were totally unethical as far as my firing (both of them) from Diamond, he can't make the same statement about his actions with the Joplin R-8 School District. Those acts would make his earlier actions and statements appear to be the lies that I (and everyone who has ever had dealings with Mark the Knife) know them to be.
As for the double firing...After I signed a contract to teach the 2003-2004 school year at Diamond, Mayo and the board waited until the last minute (just a few weeks before the school year was ready to start, to let me know they were reneging on the contract due to budget reasons and that I was out of a job. State law required the school district to offer me any job that came up that I was qualified for. In December, I was offered a high school social studies position. Of course, I was making considerably more money, working in a considerably more professional atmosphere, and besides, I signed a contract and unlike Mark Mayo, Dr. Webb and the rest of the R-4 Board of Education, I honor my contracts. I didn't respond to the Diamond job offer. Just as well. I later found out the letter was sent to me days after someone had already been hired for the job.
My second firing took place in April when I received two letters, one from Mayo and one from Dr. Webb, letting me know the board had decided not to renew my contract for the 2004-2005 school year. Since there was never any doubt that I was not returning to Diamond, it was highly unnecessary and wasn't legally required either. Of course, if Mayo had been successful in getting me fired at Joplin (and maybe he thought he would be) their gesture might have meant more. As it was, it was just plain pathetic.
***
Keep watching this website. I promise to be much more consistent with my updating. Thank you for your patience.
Sunday, May 30, 2004
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Tom O'Sullivan died Friday morning.
I don't know if anyone from Lamar reads this blog. If so, they know who Tom O'Sullivan was and the impact he had on that city. He founded O'Sullivan Industries 40 years ago and made it into one of the biggest employers in southwest Missouri and the lifeblood of Lamar.
On a more personal note, he was always a big supporter of mine while I was at the Lamar Democrat and The Carthage Press. He also owned several apartments and rental houses in Lamar. For six years, I lived above the Lamar Library in one of his apartments. I found out later that I was the only one of his tenants who did not have a lease and that I was paying a lower amount of rent than his other tenants. I guess he knew how Doug Davis paid his employees.
He will be missed, but at least he will have the opportunity to be reunited with two of his daughters, both of whom left this world far too soon.
***
It has been a couple of weeks since my 12th birthday, but I can't let it go without writing about it. It was a wonderful experience and apparently, the celebration is continuing.
On Sunday, Feb. 29, I was pretty much overwhelmed with birthday greetings. I received e-mails from my first girlfriend (from ages six to eight) Jacki Williams, plus two of my eighth graders from last year, Shane Gallagher and Lydia O'Donnell, and a College Heights junior who was one of my students the first two years I taught, Samantha Young. After a small celebration at my parents' house, I returned to my apartment in Carthage and found 12 cupcakes and a stuffed tiger (to add to my collection of 21 stuffed animals given to me by my students) courtesy of two more of last year's eighth grade class, Leanne Ross and LeAnn Dardenne. I had birthday messages on my answering machine from Leanne and LeAnn, Alyssa Simpson, and Alyssa's mother, Alison Simpson.
As I surfed the Internet that night, I was honored to find that my birthday was prominently mentioned in blogs written by two of my eighth graders from last year, Alicia Bradley and Michelle Nickolaisen. And I received an e-mail from a woman from Lamar, Yvonne Haile, who also has a Leap Day birthday and became a teenager this year (multiplied by four, of course).
The next day at South, I received a card signed by all of the students in my advanced communication arts class. It didn't stop there. On Tuesday, as I was taking my morning block class through the book fair, I received a bouquet of balloons and some candy kisses, a really sweet present from two of my seventh graders from last year, Stephanie Taylor and Kaci Scribner.
And this week, two weeks after my birthday, the attention continued, much to my astonishment. I received an e-card from a former co-worker at The Democrat, Mary Lou Teel. (She had sent me a birthday e-mail earlier, but she came across a Leap Day card she couldn't resist.) And my advanced CA class, led by Jessica Johnson and Kristin Haddad, gave me another card, and the present which Kristin, who kept forgetting to bring it, had kept safe for me at her home since before my birthday.
I really don't know what I did to deserve all of this, but it really makes me feel blessed.
***
Spring break came at a good time. Students and teachers alike needed to recharge their batteries. Since I'm out of money and payday isn't until tomorrow, I will probably spend today working on Room210.com. I am putting a picture page on, updating the birthdays, maybe adding some links and putting some assignments for next week on. I will also be adding the first of the news stories written by my advanced communication arts class. They have been working hard. I have some great students.
***
My first writing contest at South is underway. I don't know how many classes will be participating besides mine, but I know Mrs. Chew has her eighth graders doing the work. I am hoping we have a ton of entries from sixth and seventh graders.
I will need to line up some judges next week. The prizes are the same as I had during my four years running the contest at Diamond. The school is footing the bill, which will come to $100.
I don't know if anyone from Lamar reads this blog. If so, they know who Tom O'Sullivan was and the impact he had on that city. He founded O'Sullivan Industries 40 years ago and made it into one of the biggest employers in southwest Missouri and the lifeblood of Lamar.
On a more personal note, he was always a big supporter of mine while I was at the Lamar Democrat and The Carthage Press. He also owned several apartments and rental houses in Lamar. For six years, I lived above the Lamar Library in one of his apartments. I found out later that I was the only one of his tenants who did not have a lease and that I was paying a lower amount of rent than his other tenants. I guess he knew how Doug Davis paid his employees.
He will be missed, but at least he will have the opportunity to be reunited with two of his daughters, both of whom left this world far too soon.
***
It has been a couple of weeks since my 12th birthday, but I can't let it go without writing about it. It was a wonderful experience and apparently, the celebration is continuing.
On Sunday, Feb. 29, I was pretty much overwhelmed with birthday greetings. I received e-mails from my first girlfriend (from ages six to eight) Jacki Williams, plus two of my eighth graders from last year, Shane Gallagher and Lydia O'Donnell, and a College Heights junior who was one of my students the first two years I taught, Samantha Young. After a small celebration at my parents' house, I returned to my apartment in Carthage and found 12 cupcakes and a stuffed tiger (to add to my collection of 21 stuffed animals given to me by my students) courtesy of two more of last year's eighth grade class, Leanne Ross and LeAnn Dardenne. I had birthday messages on my answering machine from Leanne and LeAnn, Alyssa Simpson, and Alyssa's mother, Alison Simpson.
As I surfed the Internet that night, I was honored to find that my birthday was prominently mentioned in blogs written by two of my eighth graders from last year, Alicia Bradley and Michelle Nickolaisen. And I received an e-mail from a woman from Lamar, Yvonne Haile, who also has a Leap Day birthday and became a teenager this year (multiplied by four, of course).
The next day at South, I received a card signed by all of the students in my advanced communication arts class. It didn't stop there. On Tuesday, as I was taking my morning block class through the book fair, I received a bouquet of balloons and some candy kisses, a really sweet present from two of my seventh graders from last year, Stephanie Taylor and Kaci Scribner.
And this week, two weeks after my birthday, the attention continued, much to my astonishment. I received an e-card from a former co-worker at The Democrat, Mary Lou Teel. (She had sent me a birthday e-mail earlier, but she came across a Leap Day card she couldn't resist.) And my advanced CA class, led by Jessica Johnson and Kristin Haddad, gave me another card, and the present which Kristin, who kept forgetting to bring it, had kept safe for me at her home since before my birthday.
I really don't know what I did to deserve all of this, but it really makes me feel blessed.
***
Spring break came at a good time. Students and teachers alike needed to recharge their batteries. Since I'm out of money and payday isn't until tomorrow, I will probably spend today working on Room210.com. I am putting a picture page on, updating the birthdays, maybe adding some links and putting some assignments for next week on. I will also be adding the first of the news stories written by my advanced communication arts class. They have been working hard. I have some great students.
***
My first writing contest at South is underway. I don't know how many classes will be participating besides mine, but I know Mrs. Chew has her eighth graders doing the work. I am hoping we have a ton of entries from sixth and seventh graders.
I will need to line up some judges next week. The prizes are the same as I had during my four years running the contest at Diamond. The school is footing the bill, which will come to $100.
Friday, February 27, 2004
Another week of school is finished and it was a pretty good one, except for this nagging toothache I have had.
All of the Holocaust research project has been completed except for the final draft. I spent the last two days listening to my communication arts students giving oral reports and making multi-media presentations over the Holocaust. I can almost tell you the complete Anne Frank story word for word from memory.
***
The writing contest begins next week with a total of $100 worth of cash prizes available to sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students. I have to get the guidelines typed and have copies made over the weekend.
***
Next week, in addition to the writing contest, the communication arts students will finish the final drafts of their research papers. The advanced class will also begin writing news stories for room210.com The students, under the direction of Sarah McDonough, were given their assignments today. They seem to be excited about it. I'm eager to see what they come up with.
***
Wildcat Central seems to have taken off again. I have been getting about double the traffic on the website lately, primarily due to the levy issue and the shenanigans the Diamond R-4 superintendent has been pulling almost on a daily basis. We are preparing for the annual Scholastic Book Fair next week at South. When I think about that, I am reminded that Diamond's forward thinking superintendent tried to close the new middle school library before it even opened three years ago, even though the Middle School Student Council had collected more than 1,000 books in a book drive. Thank God they gave those kids a library...though I wouldn't guarantee how long they will have one.
All of the Holocaust research project has been completed except for the final draft. I spent the last two days listening to my communication arts students giving oral reports and making multi-media presentations over the Holocaust. I can almost tell you the complete Anne Frank story word for word from memory.
***
The writing contest begins next week with a total of $100 worth of cash prizes available to sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students. I have to get the guidelines typed and have copies made over the weekend.
***
Next week, in addition to the writing contest, the communication arts students will finish the final drafts of their research papers. The advanced class will also begin writing news stories for room210.com The students, under the direction of Sarah McDonough, were given their assignments today. They seem to be excited about it. I'm eager to see what they come up with.
***
Wildcat Central seems to have taken off again. I have been getting about double the traffic on the website lately, primarily due to the levy issue and the shenanigans the Diamond R-4 superintendent has been pulling almost on a daily basis. We are preparing for the annual Scholastic Book Fair next week at South. When I think about that, I am reminded that Diamond's forward thinking superintendent tried to close the new middle school library before it even opened three years ago, even though the Middle School Student Council had collected more than 1,000 books in a book drive. Thank God they gave those kids a library...though I wouldn't guarantee how long they will have one.
Sunday, February 15, 2004
Some good. Some bad.
That's about the best way to describe this past week, but overall, I would say it turned out well. My surprise evaluation took place Friday morning in the communication arts block and it went well. That has always been my best-behaved class and the students were on their best behavior. The principal, Ron Mitchell, went over the evaluation shortly after school Friday. My grades were all high, nearly all 4s on a scale of 1 to 5. I received two five scores, in the categories that I really wanted to score high in: knowledge of subject matter and willing to go out of the way to help the students. I didn't even notice until this morning that Mr. Mitchell had checked the area that said, "Recommended for rehiring." So barring some scandal or a drastic worsening of the R-8 School District's financial situation, it looks as if I can look forward to a second year at South Middle School.
***
Now for the bad news. I had to leave school a little earlier than usual Friday so I could get back to the Carthage Post Office before 4:30 p.m. to pick up a package. I was expecting it to be "The Hidden Life of Otto Frank," which I had ordered from Half.com so my students would have it to help them with their research on the Holocaust. It turned out I had two packages. One was the Otto Frank book, but the other was a copy of "Small Town News." My novel has been rejected by another publisher. Oh, well. I'll just send it to the next one on the list. I am nowhere near to ready to give up on this book.
***
Still, if that's the worst news I have this week, I can't complain. My energy continues to be at a high level. I have kept working on room210.com and have completed the links page and the links for teachers page. I plan to add some more student papers in the next day or two. In a week or two, I will start having the advanced communication arts class write news stories for the Top News page.
***
I had the honor of being one the judges for Project Citizen, which has been worked on the past few weeks in social studies teacher Rocky Biggers' classes. The kids did pretty well, especially considering that this is the first time South has tried Project Citizen.
***
I have had some really good entries in the poetry contest for Eighth Grade Poetry Anthology. I am accepting the last entries tomorrow. After that, I have to narrow the list down to one. Judging from the quality of the entries I have seen so far, this is not going to be easy.
***
Story time.
It has been nearly 14 years since I started covering what turned out to be one of the biggest stories of my reporting career. Ironically (you will say why I use that word in a little while), the story began in The Joplin Globe. A Carterville man named Vince McCarty was arrested on a traffic violation in Webb City and claimed he had been beaten by three Webb City police officers as they were taking him to his cell. That complaint and the city's response to it were featured in reporter Andy Ostmeyer's story. I had just started covering Webb City news for The Carthage Press, so I wasn't too concerned about losing out on that story, but I wanted to get in on it somehow. My opportunity came the next week.
I was covering a Webb City Council meeting at the old city hall when the council went into a closed session to discuss a personnel situation. It was warm outside, so several of the spectators went outside to talk. I went outside to listen A man and a woman were talking and I heard the man say, "They say that guy got beat up pretty bad."
The woman nodded and said, "You should hear the tape."
Naturally, bells started ringing for this reporter. "Tape?" I thought. I continued listening and the woman described what she had heard on the tape.
When she finished talking, I approached her and said, "I sure would like to hear that tape."
My already fragile ego was further deflated when she asked, "And who are you?"
I told her who I was and she told me she would make a copy of the tape for me and give it to me at three o'clock the next afternoon if I stopped by the convenience store she owned. I picked up the copy the next day and was shocked at what I heard. The beating had been captured on audiotape. You could hear Vince McCarty screaming as the officers used a stun gun on him and told him that this is what happens "if you mess around in Webb City." I could distinctly make out the voices of the man who was being beaten and three other people, but since I had never heard these voices before, I had no way of knowing if the tape was authentic. I always took pride in being thorough, so I went to two sources in Webb City and had it confirmed that the voices belonged to the three officers who had been accused. Now I had to convince my publisher, Jim Farley, that we should run an article on the tape. The problem was we still had no way of authenticating the tape, we didn't know who had recorded it, or if anything had been cut out of it. Having been told that the tape had been sent to the FBI for authentication, I called an FBI source and got the confirmation that the FBI was looking into this mysterious tape. After that, Farley and my editor, Neil Campbell, gave me the go-ahead on the story.
That started an interesting period in my life. I had already established a reputation as an investigative reporter while I was at the Lamar newspaper, but this one would end up putting me on the map, at least on a small scale. When the tape story hit the streets in Webb City, we received a report that Webb City police officers were stealing the newspapers and destroying them. I wrote that story also after I had it confirmed and that stopped that, even though to this day I do not go even one mile over the speed limit when I am in Webb City.
The Webb City story continued to develop. I managed to find sources in the police department who were upset with what the police chief and a few officers were doing to the city. I found people who had been on the police department who were willing to talk and I cultivated sources on the City Council and who worked for the city. For the next two years, I turned out story after story uncovering things that the mayor and the police chief wanted to keep hidden.
I published one story detailing how the city attorney had warned the council that the police chief was illegally buying machine guns for the private use of his officers. I uncovered a city document with the help of three brave council members which outlined nearly every violation of the law that had been made by the police department.
Throughout this time, the Joplin Globe reporter, a female reporter who had worked for the Globe for nearly two decades, continued to deride my reporting, saying time after time that she would not be allowed to get away with "that kind of tabloid reporting" at the Globe. And despite my efforts to carefully source my stories (and I almost always had to have at least three sources before I would print anything), I began wondering when no one picked up on my stories either at the Globe or at the three local television stations.
A battle had developed between the mayor and the police chief, which ended up in the firing of seven officers, including the three who had been involved in the beating. The other four officers, who had been fired for insubordination. Those four officers filed suit against Mayor Richardson and the council and I covered the trial at the federal courts building in Joplin. By this time nearly two years had passed since my initial Webb City story. During that trial, every controversial story I had written was confirmed in sworn testimony. The Globe reporter told me, "You were lucky," and left it at that. Nevertheless, I knew how hard I had worked and I felt vindicated.
The Webb City story was the first one to land me the number one spot among daily newspapers for investigative reporting at the annual Missouri Press Association contest in 1991. I defended that title successfully for the next three years, with investigations into teen drinking, soft sentences for sex offenders in Barton County, and a hospital administrator with a long record of sexual harassment. In 1992, my Webb City investigation landed me a finalist position in the National Associated Press Managing Editors Contest. (I lost to the reporting team which investigated the Branch Davidian shootout in Waco, Texas.)
After I became managing editor of The Press in December 1993, I didn't have as much time to devote to investigative reporting, though I still finished second in the 1995 and 1998 competitions, then went out on top with another first place in 1999. Ironically, that was awarded three months after I no longer worked for The Press.
Now to get back to that irony comment I made earlier, my job at The Carthage Press ended in May 1999, thanks to a $750 million lawsuit filed against me by a right-winger who was trying to establish a survivalist compound near Carthage. I had written on The Press' opinion page about an event he had held near Carthage, which included the phrases, "A blanket of white descended upon Carthage," and "they were here on Friday, they were here on Saturday, and those nuts were sprinkled on our Sunday.' The guy sued everyone in site, including me for $750 million and The Press for an additional $750 million. It was the first time I had ever been sued in 22 years as an investigative reporter. The Press and its owners, Liberty Group Publishing, didn't bother to hire an attorney. I received a letter saying that I needed to return the service from the guy who was suing me. If it had to be served on me in person, I would be charged $200. When the deadline to return the papers came, I asked my publisher, Ralph Bush, who had replaced Jim Farley, what I should do. He said, "You'd better to go ahead and send them in," so I signed them and returned them. Thirty days passed and I discovered that since The Press had never hired a lawyer, we had not responded to the lawsuit and I was subject to a $750 million judgment. Because of that, Liberty had to bring in a libel lawyer and since out libel insurance didn't kick in until after a $10,000 deductible, returning the service had cost the company $10,000. It took three years for me to find out that was why I was fired. Liberty's CEO had demanded my dismissal after his lawyers had jumped all over him for not getting in touch with a lawyer. He blamed me for putting him in that position. Ralph never bothered to tell him that he was the one who told me to send in the papers. Oh, well. Eventually, the judge dismissed the lawsuit, noting that I had the first amendment right to my print my opinion.
Two days after I was fired by The Press, I received a call from Edgar Simpson, the Globe's editor. He asked me to come over and talk with him and we set up an appointment for the following day. When we finished with the interview, he told me that the first job that came up with The Globe would be mine and that he was working with the higher-ups to get to hire more reporters. I never heard from him after that. To this day, I don't believe that he was just leading me on. Something happened after our meeting that kept me from getting a job with the Globe.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I believe I have finally figured out what happened. On Friday, I was at the Wal-Mart Superrcenter in Carthage when I ran into the reporter who was the victim of my Webb City scoops and other scoops during my time at The Press. She was several feet away when I caught her eye. She immediately looked the other way and quickly turned down an aisle to get away from me.
Since she has been an editor with The Globe for some time now, I began to wonder if she hadn't been the one who poisoned Simpson's mind against me. It always seemed strange to me that the Globe never came looking in my direction, considering that they recently hired a major investigative reporter with a penchant for twisting the truth, hired a religion editor and then fired him for plagiarism, and have hired a number of reporters who have trouble getting quotes right and keeping their facts straight. Things worked out better for me. I had always wanted to be a teacher and this gave me an opportunity to get back into the classroom after 18 years (though it was really hard to turn down a $32,000 a year offer to become managing editor of the Miami, Okla. newspaper). I haven't regretted getting out of journalism, but I had always wondered why The Glove had suddenly soured on me.
I could be wrong about the reason, but I don't believe I am. Now that I have that solved, I would like to find out who was taping the cell at the Webb City Jail nearly 14 years ago and send that person a thank-you letter.
That's about the best way to describe this past week, but overall, I would say it turned out well. My surprise evaluation took place Friday morning in the communication arts block and it went well. That has always been my best-behaved class and the students were on their best behavior. The principal, Ron Mitchell, went over the evaluation shortly after school Friday. My grades were all high, nearly all 4s on a scale of 1 to 5. I received two five scores, in the categories that I really wanted to score high in: knowledge of subject matter and willing to go out of the way to help the students. I didn't even notice until this morning that Mr. Mitchell had checked the area that said, "Recommended for rehiring." So barring some scandal or a drastic worsening of the R-8 School District's financial situation, it looks as if I can look forward to a second year at South Middle School.
***
Now for the bad news. I had to leave school a little earlier than usual Friday so I could get back to the Carthage Post Office before 4:30 p.m. to pick up a package. I was expecting it to be "The Hidden Life of Otto Frank," which I had ordered from Half.com so my students would have it to help them with their research on the Holocaust. It turned out I had two packages. One was the Otto Frank book, but the other was a copy of "Small Town News." My novel has been rejected by another publisher. Oh, well. I'll just send it to the next one on the list. I am nowhere near to ready to give up on this book.
***
Still, if that's the worst news I have this week, I can't complain. My energy continues to be at a high level. I have kept working on room210.com and have completed the links page and the links for teachers page. I plan to add some more student papers in the next day or two. In a week or two, I will start having the advanced communication arts class write news stories for the Top News page.
***
I had the honor of being one the judges for Project Citizen, which has been worked on the past few weeks in social studies teacher Rocky Biggers' classes. The kids did pretty well, especially considering that this is the first time South has tried Project Citizen.
***
I have had some really good entries in the poetry contest for Eighth Grade Poetry Anthology. I am accepting the last entries tomorrow. After that, I have to narrow the list down to one. Judging from the quality of the entries I have seen so far, this is not going to be easy.
***
Story time.
It has been nearly 14 years since I started covering what turned out to be one of the biggest stories of my reporting career. Ironically (you will say why I use that word in a little while), the story began in The Joplin Globe. A Carterville man named Vince McCarty was arrested on a traffic violation in Webb City and claimed he had been beaten by three Webb City police officers as they were taking him to his cell. That complaint and the city's response to it were featured in reporter Andy Ostmeyer's story. I had just started covering Webb City news for The Carthage Press, so I wasn't too concerned about losing out on that story, but I wanted to get in on it somehow. My opportunity came the next week.
I was covering a Webb City Council meeting at the old city hall when the council went into a closed session to discuss a personnel situation. It was warm outside, so several of the spectators went outside to talk. I went outside to listen A man and a woman were talking and I heard the man say, "They say that guy got beat up pretty bad."
The woman nodded and said, "You should hear the tape."
Naturally, bells started ringing for this reporter. "Tape?" I thought. I continued listening and the woman described what she had heard on the tape.
When she finished talking, I approached her and said, "I sure would like to hear that tape."
My already fragile ego was further deflated when she asked, "And who are you?"
I told her who I was and she told me she would make a copy of the tape for me and give it to me at three o'clock the next afternoon if I stopped by the convenience store she owned. I picked up the copy the next day and was shocked at what I heard. The beating had been captured on audiotape. You could hear Vince McCarty screaming as the officers used a stun gun on him and told him that this is what happens "if you mess around in Webb City." I could distinctly make out the voices of the man who was being beaten and three other people, but since I had never heard these voices before, I had no way of knowing if the tape was authentic. I always took pride in being thorough, so I went to two sources in Webb City and had it confirmed that the voices belonged to the three officers who had been accused. Now I had to convince my publisher, Jim Farley, that we should run an article on the tape. The problem was we still had no way of authenticating the tape, we didn't know who had recorded it, or if anything had been cut out of it. Having been told that the tape had been sent to the FBI for authentication, I called an FBI source and got the confirmation that the FBI was looking into this mysterious tape. After that, Farley and my editor, Neil Campbell, gave me the go-ahead on the story.
That started an interesting period in my life. I had already established a reputation as an investigative reporter while I was at the Lamar newspaper, but this one would end up putting me on the map, at least on a small scale. When the tape story hit the streets in Webb City, we received a report that Webb City police officers were stealing the newspapers and destroying them. I wrote that story also after I had it confirmed and that stopped that, even though to this day I do not go even one mile over the speed limit when I am in Webb City.
The Webb City story continued to develop. I managed to find sources in the police department who were upset with what the police chief and a few officers were doing to the city. I found people who had been on the police department who were willing to talk and I cultivated sources on the City Council and who worked for the city. For the next two years, I turned out story after story uncovering things that the mayor and the police chief wanted to keep hidden.
I published one story detailing how the city attorney had warned the council that the police chief was illegally buying machine guns for the private use of his officers. I uncovered a city document with the help of three brave council members which outlined nearly every violation of the law that had been made by the police department.
Throughout this time, the Joplin Globe reporter, a female reporter who had worked for the Globe for nearly two decades, continued to deride my reporting, saying time after time that she would not be allowed to get away with "that kind of tabloid reporting" at the Globe. And despite my efforts to carefully source my stories (and I almost always had to have at least three sources before I would print anything), I began wondering when no one picked up on my stories either at the Globe or at the three local television stations.
A battle had developed between the mayor and the police chief, which ended up in the firing of seven officers, including the three who had been involved in the beating. The other four officers, who had been fired for insubordination. Those four officers filed suit against Mayor Richardson and the council and I covered the trial at the federal courts building in Joplin. By this time nearly two years had passed since my initial Webb City story. During that trial, every controversial story I had written was confirmed in sworn testimony. The Globe reporter told me, "You were lucky," and left it at that. Nevertheless, I knew how hard I had worked and I felt vindicated.
The Webb City story was the first one to land me the number one spot among daily newspapers for investigative reporting at the annual Missouri Press Association contest in 1991. I defended that title successfully for the next three years, with investigations into teen drinking, soft sentences for sex offenders in Barton County, and a hospital administrator with a long record of sexual harassment. In 1992, my Webb City investigation landed me a finalist position in the National Associated Press Managing Editors Contest. (I lost to the reporting team which investigated the Branch Davidian shootout in Waco, Texas.)
After I became managing editor of The Press in December 1993, I didn't have as much time to devote to investigative reporting, though I still finished second in the 1995 and 1998 competitions, then went out on top with another first place in 1999. Ironically, that was awarded three months after I no longer worked for The Press.
Now to get back to that irony comment I made earlier, my job at The Carthage Press ended in May 1999, thanks to a $750 million lawsuit filed against me by a right-winger who was trying to establish a survivalist compound near Carthage. I had written on The Press' opinion page about an event he had held near Carthage, which included the phrases, "A blanket of white descended upon Carthage," and "they were here on Friday, they were here on Saturday, and those nuts were sprinkled on our Sunday.' The guy sued everyone in site, including me for $750 million and The Press for an additional $750 million. It was the first time I had ever been sued in 22 years as an investigative reporter. The Press and its owners, Liberty Group Publishing, didn't bother to hire an attorney. I received a letter saying that I needed to return the service from the guy who was suing me. If it had to be served on me in person, I would be charged $200. When the deadline to return the papers came, I asked my publisher, Ralph Bush, who had replaced Jim Farley, what I should do. He said, "You'd better to go ahead and send them in," so I signed them and returned them. Thirty days passed and I discovered that since The Press had never hired a lawyer, we had not responded to the lawsuit and I was subject to a $750 million judgment. Because of that, Liberty had to bring in a libel lawyer and since out libel insurance didn't kick in until after a $10,000 deductible, returning the service had cost the company $10,000. It took three years for me to find out that was why I was fired. Liberty's CEO had demanded my dismissal after his lawyers had jumped all over him for not getting in touch with a lawyer. He blamed me for putting him in that position. Ralph never bothered to tell him that he was the one who told me to send in the papers. Oh, well. Eventually, the judge dismissed the lawsuit, noting that I had the first amendment right to my print my opinion.
Two days after I was fired by The Press, I received a call from Edgar Simpson, the Globe's editor. He asked me to come over and talk with him and we set up an appointment for the following day. When we finished with the interview, he told me that the first job that came up with The Globe would be mine and that he was working with the higher-ups to get to hire more reporters. I never heard from him after that. To this day, I don't believe that he was just leading me on. Something happened after our meeting that kept me from getting a job with the Globe.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I believe I have finally figured out what happened. On Friday, I was at the Wal-Mart Superrcenter in Carthage when I ran into the reporter who was the victim of my Webb City scoops and other scoops during my time at The Press. She was several feet away when I caught her eye. She immediately looked the other way and quickly turned down an aisle to get away from me.
Since she has been an editor with The Globe for some time now, I began to wonder if she hadn't been the one who poisoned Simpson's mind against me. It always seemed strange to me that the Globe never came looking in my direction, considering that they recently hired a major investigative reporter with a penchant for twisting the truth, hired a religion editor and then fired him for plagiarism, and have hired a number of reporters who have trouble getting quotes right and keeping their facts straight. Things worked out better for me. I had always wanted to be a teacher and this gave me an opportunity to get back into the classroom after 18 years (though it was really hard to turn down a $32,000 a year offer to become managing editor of the Miami, Okla. newspaper). I haven't regretted getting out of journalism, but I had always wondered why The Glove had suddenly soured on me.
I could be wrong about the reason, but I don't believe I am. Now that I have that solved, I would like to find out who was taping the cell at the Webb City Jail nearly 14 years ago and send that person a thank-you letter.
Sunday, February 08, 2004
"Devil's Messenger"
The plot and title for my next book came to me as I was driving back to Carthage tonight after visiting my parents.
I had been thinking over another idea, but I wasn't too thrilled about it. This one will be a lot of fun to write (and hopefully, a lot of fun to read, as well).
***
I plan to finish up the links page on room210.com tomorrow, as well as updating the About Communication Arts page to include this week's assignments. I will begin working on the Links for Teachers page sometime this week.
***
Students in the CA classes will continue working on their research papers on the Holocaust this week, as well as testing over "The Diary of Anne Frank," and watching an A&E Biography video over her short life.
***
I have tried, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to sstop dwelling on what was done to me by the superintendent and school board at Diamond, but things keep happening that bring those bad memories back to light.
One of the biggest problems I have had has been with the new high school drama teacher there who seemingly is obsessed with me, though I only met him for about two minutes last year.
He has tried to make students feel like they are being disloyal to him if they keep in touch with me. This probably comes from the fact that he is responsible for the content on the school's official website, while I have continued to make my site, Wildcat Central, available.
He has also criticized my reporting abilities to the students, which is not proper. I will admit that I do not have a master's degree in journalism from the University of Maryland. All I have is 22 years of actual experience, more than 100 awards, including national, regional and state awards for investigative reporting, feature writing, and sports writing, and more than 15 years as a managing editor at daily and weekly newspapers. My critic, as far as I can tell, has not worked for a real newspaper since he was in college and worked nights at The Joplin Globe about 30 years ago.
This man has sent a number of e-mails to me this school year, maintaining an air of politeness, but carrying a veiled threat. His last one, which came a couple of weeks ago, was to correct some faulty information that is printed about him on my website.
I have written, accurately, that he is being paid $37,000, considerably more than nearly all of the veteran teachers at Diamond. That has been a big thorn in the side of the teachers, and understandably so. He has not questioned anything I have printed about the amount of money he makes.
I have also pointed out, again accurately, that he has only two years of teaching experience. He counters by noting that he taught for eight years while he was in the Navy and that his students were just out of high school. I was aware of this, but even though apparently the superintendent took this into consideration when he gave him his outlandish contract, it doesn't change anything. Eight years of teaching adults who have volunteered to be in the service is nowhere near the same thing as teaching kids who are forced to come to school day after day.
I spent 14 years teaching high school and college students journalism through a program I ran at both The Lamar Democrat and The Carthage Press, but those years do not count toward my public school teaching experience. This is my fifth year as a public school teacher. It is Mr. Burnett's third year. He is a great salesman, that no one can deny. He talked the Diamond school district into paying him considerably above the salary schedule.I don't hold that against him.
What I do hold against him is this unreasonable vendetta against me that he has carried into the classroom and the harm he has done to the journalism program at the school.
Students who were greatly interested in journalism when they were in middle school no longer have that desire. Journalism is a noble calling, even though it is hard defending it against the excesses of the national (and sometimes the local) media. A journalist has the ability to shine light into the darkness and make sense of things that are incomprehensible. One of the biggest thrills of my journalism career is that 12 of the high school and college students who worked for me under the training program received national, state and regional journalism awards, with eight of them earning those awards while they were still in their teens. The only thing I did was make the assignments, give them encouragement and make sure they had the tools to succeed. The awards were due to their skill and hard work.
I have been worried about the high school journalism program at Diamond ever since the teacher e-mailed me last year and told me he wasn't much into the writing aspects of his job. (And I do still have that e-mail if that statement should ever be denied.) He said he was more into working with the students on doing television and making videos.
I probably wouldn't even have mentioned any of this, but I know at least one very talented young lady, a freshman who reads this blog, who has written in her own blog about how she has lost her enthusiasm for journalism. Alicia Bradley is someone who can make her mark as a writer whether it be as a journalist or as a novelist. I hope she doesn't let one bad experience sway her from what could be a very fulfilling school activity (if not eventually a career) for her. The kind of depth and perception that she shows in her writings is the kind that should be encouraged by faculty, family, and friends. How much value would the Diamond R-4 school system have if it could claim it produced a Pulitzer Prize winner or a best-selling novelist?
Give her a computer and get out of her way!
***
On a related note, I read an article today that was published in the Tuesday Neosho Daily News, talking about the new middle school newspaper at Diamond. The article had comments about how the students didn't think a newspaper could be put out again without Randy Turner, who sponsored it last year. That article was lifted from the school website, where it has been since long before Christmas break. Only one issue of the paper was ever put out, after the students kept badgering the teacher to do it (because they had put out the newspaper in the same class last year when I was teaching it.) No editing went into the stories beyond the student level and they received no guidance from the teacher, from what other teachers and the students tell me. Indications are the new middle school newspaper may be an orphan, with no followups to come. That's a shame. Those kids worked hard last year. Again, the interest probably will no longer be there.
***
Thank God I'm at South. These kids also deserve encouragement and support and they have some wonderful people, both at the faculty and administrative level, who are going to make sure they get it. It's a good feeling to be part of a system like that.
***
Speaking of newspapers, I could have done without the item in The Newton County News Wednesday in which one of its columnists told everyone that the only person she knew who had a birthday on Leap Day was Randy Turner. Thank God she didn't say I was going to turn 12.
I still remember when I turned 11 while I was in my first year teaching at Diamond. Karen Loewe, one of the English teachers at the school, called KSYN and said I was celebrating my 12th birthday. No, Karen. This is number 12, three weeks from today.
***
Natural Disaster may make a comeback in the near future. I received a call from H. J. Johnson last week, asking us to sing at a festival sscheduled for the first Saturday in June on the square in Carthage. We also have a standing invitation to perform at Burney Johnson's monthly show at the community building in Tipton Ford. I am eager to get back to performing, especially now that I have the energy that I didn't have the last several times Natural Disaster performed.
The plot and title for my next book came to me as I was driving back to Carthage tonight after visiting my parents.
I had been thinking over another idea, but I wasn't too thrilled about it. This one will be a lot of fun to write (and hopefully, a lot of fun to read, as well).
***
I plan to finish up the links page on room210.com tomorrow, as well as updating the About Communication Arts page to include this week's assignments. I will begin working on the Links for Teachers page sometime this week.
***
Students in the CA classes will continue working on their research papers on the Holocaust this week, as well as testing over "The Diary of Anne Frank," and watching an A&E Biography video over her short life.
***
I have tried, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to sstop dwelling on what was done to me by the superintendent and school board at Diamond, but things keep happening that bring those bad memories back to light.
One of the biggest problems I have had has been with the new high school drama teacher there who seemingly is obsessed with me, though I only met him for about two minutes last year.
He has tried to make students feel like they are being disloyal to him if they keep in touch with me. This probably comes from the fact that he is responsible for the content on the school's official website, while I have continued to make my site, Wildcat Central, available.
He has also criticized my reporting abilities to the students, which is not proper. I will admit that I do not have a master's degree in journalism from the University of Maryland. All I have is 22 years of actual experience, more than 100 awards, including national, regional and state awards for investigative reporting, feature writing, and sports writing, and more than 15 years as a managing editor at daily and weekly newspapers. My critic, as far as I can tell, has not worked for a real newspaper since he was in college and worked nights at The Joplin Globe about 30 years ago.
This man has sent a number of e-mails to me this school year, maintaining an air of politeness, but carrying a veiled threat. His last one, which came a couple of weeks ago, was to correct some faulty information that is printed about him on my website.
I have written, accurately, that he is being paid $37,000, considerably more than nearly all of the veteran teachers at Diamond. That has been a big thorn in the side of the teachers, and understandably so. He has not questioned anything I have printed about the amount of money he makes.
I have also pointed out, again accurately, that he has only two years of teaching experience. He counters by noting that he taught for eight years while he was in the Navy and that his students were just out of high school. I was aware of this, but even though apparently the superintendent took this into consideration when he gave him his outlandish contract, it doesn't change anything. Eight years of teaching adults who have volunteered to be in the service is nowhere near the same thing as teaching kids who are forced to come to school day after day.
I spent 14 years teaching high school and college students journalism through a program I ran at both The Lamar Democrat and The Carthage Press, but those years do not count toward my public school teaching experience. This is my fifth year as a public school teacher. It is Mr. Burnett's third year. He is a great salesman, that no one can deny. He talked the Diamond school district into paying him considerably above the salary schedule.I don't hold that against him.
What I do hold against him is this unreasonable vendetta against me that he has carried into the classroom and the harm he has done to the journalism program at the school.
Students who were greatly interested in journalism when they were in middle school no longer have that desire. Journalism is a noble calling, even though it is hard defending it against the excesses of the national (and sometimes the local) media. A journalist has the ability to shine light into the darkness and make sense of things that are incomprehensible. One of the biggest thrills of my journalism career is that 12 of the high school and college students who worked for me under the training program received national, state and regional journalism awards, with eight of them earning those awards while they were still in their teens. The only thing I did was make the assignments, give them encouragement and make sure they had the tools to succeed. The awards were due to their skill and hard work.
I have been worried about the high school journalism program at Diamond ever since the teacher e-mailed me last year and told me he wasn't much into the writing aspects of his job. (And I do still have that e-mail if that statement should ever be denied.) He said he was more into working with the students on doing television and making videos.
I probably wouldn't even have mentioned any of this, but I know at least one very talented young lady, a freshman who reads this blog, who has written in her own blog about how she has lost her enthusiasm for journalism. Alicia Bradley is someone who can make her mark as a writer whether it be as a journalist or as a novelist. I hope she doesn't let one bad experience sway her from what could be a very fulfilling school activity (if not eventually a career) for her. The kind of depth and perception that she shows in her writings is the kind that should be encouraged by faculty, family, and friends. How much value would the Diamond R-4 school system have if it could claim it produced a Pulitzer Prize winner or a best-selling novelist?
Give her a computer and get out of her way!
***
On a related note, I read an article today that was published in the Tuesday Neosho Daily News, talking about the new middle school newspaper at Diamond. The article had comments about how the students didn't think a newspaper could be put out again without Randy Turner, who sponsored it last year. That article was lifted from the school website, where it has been since long before Christmas break. Only one issue of the paper was ever put out, after the students kept badgering the teacher to do it (because they had put out the newspaper in the same class last year when I was teaching it.) No editing went into the stories beyond the student level and they received no guidance from the teacher, from what other teachers and the students tell me. Indications are the new middle school newspaper may be an orphan, with no followups to come. That's a shame. Those kids worked hard last year. Again, the interest probably will no longer be there.
***
Thank God I'm at South. These kids also deserve encouragement and support and they have some wonderful people, both at the faculty and administrative level, who are going to make sure they get it. It's a good feeling to be part of a system like that.
***
Speaking of newspapers, I could have done without the item in The Newton County News Wednesday in which one of its columnists told everyone that the only person she knew who had a birthday on Leap Day was Randy Turner. Thank God she didn't say I was going to turn 12.
I still remember when I turned 11 while I was in my first year teaching at Diamond. Karen Loewe, one of the English teachers at the school, called KSYN and said I was celebrating my 12th birthday. No, Karen. This is number 12, three weeks from today.
***
Natural Disaster may make a comeback in the near future. I received a call from H. J. Johnson last week, asking us to sing at a festival sscheduled for the first Saturday in June on the square in Carthage. We also have a standing invitation to perform at Burney Johnson's monthly show at the community building in Tipton Ford. I am eager to get back to performing, especially now that I have the energy that I didn't have the last several times Natural Disaster performed.
Monday, February 02, 2004
So much for my new year's resolution to blog everyday. Most of my spare time the past few weeks has been used to set up my new class website. I used the name one of my students, Autumn Mauller, came up with, room210.com, and employed a design chosen by another student, Sarah McDonough, and Autumn.
The web site has been on line for about 10 days now and it appears to be going over well. I have finished with the home page, though there will be changes on it from time to time. I am about two-thirds of the way through the student links page, which is designed for research and enjoyment. I have just started on the About Communication Arts page, which will let students and parents know about the class, find out what homework has been assigned, keep up with the writing prompts, and detail the research project and the extra credit project.
The extra credit project has been one of the most rewarding experiences I have had in my five years of teaching. It began in November. I modified an idea used by Renee Jones, an English teacher at Diamond Middle School. Last year, she assigned each of her eighth grade students to write a novel. It was part of the regular grade in her classes, but I decided to make it an extra-credit project. Students who wanted to earn extra credit had several options. They could write a novel, write a book of short stories, write a book of poetry, write a two or three-act play, or double their Accelerated Reader goal.
I have had about 80 to 85 percent participation in the project and the kids were enjoying it so much that we decided to continue it into the third quarter.
If the students show progress during the weekly checks, 25 points is added to their cumulative point total. Most of the students in my morning block opted to do read for extra credit, which is fine, and they have kept reading each week. One or two are writing novels and a few others are writing poetry.
In the afternoon block, the extra credit project has taken on a life of its own. A few are doing the reading, but several are well into their novels.
It was difficult for me to keep up with their work last quarter, because of my poor health, but I have been able to read over their work since the Christmas break and offer some hopefully helpful suggestions.
***
Last Thursday was a wonderful day for me, as a teacher and as a human being.
The extra-credit project, mentioned above, was part of it. I picked up the students' work to take it home and read it. Previously, I had just made sure they were working on it via a cursory glance, then returned the material to them. I was surprised when Lindsey Hamm, one of the best writers, in my class, had indicated to me a few days earlier that she did not want me to take her novel home with me. It had nothing to do with a lack of confidence in the novel. She simply wanted to keep on working on it at home. Finally, we reached a compromise. I would read it during my planning period and return it to her by the end of the day.
The other surprise came from Jordan Harmon, one of the quieter students in my afternoon block. She handed me 115 handwritten pages. That would have been enough of an accomplishment, but that was just the beginning. Those 115 pages began with Chapter 34 on page 559 and ended with page 673. I counted the words on three pages and estimated that so far she was written approximately 67,000 words, or about two thousand words more than I wrote in my novel...and she is nowhere near done. The novel read well. Jordan is talented, as well as being an extremely hard worker.
Other students also showed excellent writing promise. This project has been a success. It shows that if you challenge students, they will usually respond, and there are many teachers at South who do that every day.
***
The positive feeling I had after looking over my students' extra credit project was only the beginning of the good feelings I had last Thursday. I had finally decided that I was going to make my long-delayed return to Diamond Thursday night. It was the next-to-last home game for the seventh and eighth grade basketball teams and I wanted to let those kids know that I hadn't forgotten them.
At the same time, I was somewhat concerned about what the response would be to my return, especially considering some of the anonymous comments left on my website, some of which allegedly came from students, but which I believe were actually written by adults.
I walked in the door, paid my $3, which I probably shouldn't have since I am technically still on the faculty there (I was placed on an unpaid leave of absence about three weeks before school started.)
When I went to the concession stand, Mr. Towers already had my Diet Dr. Pepper and bag of popcorn ready for me. (I am so predictable.)
Then I walked into the gym, I saw a look of recognition on the face of little Sheena Chung, a seventh-grade cheerleader. She immediately began sprinting across the gymnasium and didn't slow down until she almost knocked me over, jumping at me and hugging me. She was almost crying, and to be honest with you, so was I.
She was followed quickly, by three other cheerleaders, Eris Baker, Kelsey Henson, and Hannah Carr. Then the basketball guys started coming up to me. I had high schoolers talking to me, parents, and one time when I went into the commons area, I was greeted like a long-lost relative by three janitors, who proceeded to talk to me for more than 15 minutes. About the only people who did not come up to me during the two hours I was there were the three board members in attendance.
Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You definitely can go home again, but only for a visit. From what the kids and the teachers tell me, the Diamond R-4 School District, is not a place in which you would want to live, at least not if you have an interest in quality education.
The web site has been on line for about 10 days now and it appears to be going over well. I have finished with the home page, though there will be changes on it from time to time. I am about two-thirds of the way through the student links page, which is designed for research and enjoyment. I have just started on the About Communication Arts page, which will let students and parents know about the class, find out what homework has been assigned, keep up with the writing prompts, and detail the research project and the extra credit project.
The extra credit project has been one of the most rewarding experiences I have had in my five years of teaching. It began in November. I modified an idea used by Renee Jones, an English teacher at Diamond Middle School. Last year, she assigned each of her eighth grade students to write a novel. It was part of the regular grade in her classes, but I decided to make it an extra-credit project. Students who wanted to earn extra credit had several options. They could write a novel, write a book of short stories, write a book of poetry, write a two or three-act play, or double their Accelerated Reader goal.
I have had about 80 to 85 percent participation in the project and the kids were enjoying it so much that we decided to continue it into the third quarter.
If the students show progress during the weekly checks, 25 points is added to their cumulative point total. Most of the students in my morning block opted to do read for extra credit, which is fine, and they have kept reading each week. One or two are writing novels and a few others are writing poetry.
In the afternoon block, the extra credit project has taken on a life of its own. A few are doing the reading, but several are well into their novels.
It was difficult for me to keep up with their work last quarter, because of my poor health, but I have been able to read over their work since the Christmas break and offer some hopefully helpful suggestions.
***
Last Thursday was a wonderful day for me, as a teacher and as a human being.
The extra-credit project, mentioned above, was part of it. I picked up the students' work to take it home and read it. Previously, I had just made sure they were working on it via a cursory glance, then returned the material to them. I was surprised when Lindsey Hamm, one of the best writers, in my class, had indicated to me a few days earlier that she did not want me to take her novel home with me. It had nothing to do with a lack of confidence in the novel. She simply wanted to keep on working on it at home. Finally, we reached a compromise. I would read it during my planning period and return it to her by the end of the day.
The other surprise came from Jordan Harmon, one of the quieter students in my afternoon block. She handed me 115 handwritten pages. That would have been enough of an accomplishment, but that was just the beginning. Those 115 pages began with Chapter 34 on page 559 and ended with page 673. I counted the words on three pages and estimated that so far she was written approximately 67,000 words, or about two thousand words more than I wrote in my novel...and she is nowhere near done. The novel read well. Jordan is talented, as well as being an extremely hard worker.
Other students also showed excellent writing promise. This project has been a success. It shows that if you challenge students, they will usually respond, and there are many teachers at South who do that every day.
***
The positive feeling I had after looking over my students' extra credit project was only the beginning of the good feelings I had last Thursday. I had finally decided that I was going to make my long-delayed return to Diamond Thursday night. It was the next-to-last home game for the seventh and eighth grade basketball teams and I wanted to let those kids know that I hadn't forgotten them.
At the same time, I was somewhat concerned about what the response would be to my return, especially considering some of the anonymous comments left on my website, some of which allegedly came from students, but which I believe were actually written by adults.
I walked in the door, paid my $3, which I probably shouldn't have since I am technically still on the faculty there (I was placed on an unpaid leave of absence about three weeks before school started.)
When I went to the concession stand, Mr. Towers already had my Diet Dr. Pepper and bag of popcorn ready for me. (I am so predictable.)
Then I walked into the gym, I saw a look of recognition on the face of little Sheena Chung, a seventh-grade cheerleader. She immediately began sprinting across the gymnasium and didn't slow down until she almost knocked me over, jumping at me and hugging me. She was almost crying, and to be honest with you, so was I.
She was followed quickly, by three other cheerleaders, Eris Baker, Kelsey Henson, and Hannah Carr. Then the basketball guys started coming up to me. I had high schoolers talking to me, parents, and one time when I went into the commons area, I was greeted like a long-lost relative by three janitors, who proceeded to talk to me for more than 15 minutes. About the only people who did not come up to me during the two hours I was there were the three board members in attendance.
Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You definitely can go home again, but only for a visit. From what the kids and the teachers tell me, the Diamond R-4 School District, is not a place in which you would want to live, at least not if you have an interest in quality education.
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Another great day today. I feel better than I have in months. I haven't even had that overwhelming need for a nap when I get home that I have had since the beginning of school. I had just thought it was middle age running me over like a steamroller.
***
I talked over some changes in the multi-media class with Mr. Mitchell this afternoon and I am looking forward to implementing them during the second semester.
The students will all be writing daily blogs. It won't be total freedom for them, even though that would be nice. I will have their passwords in case anything needs to be edited to meet school standards. Plus, the students and their parents will have to sign a contract, agreeing to abide by the rules In addition to adding a writing component to that class, I also intend to add a reading component. The students will be required to read either two or three news stories per day, one of my choosing, the others of theirs, similar to the setup I had in the computer lab at Diamond Middle School for my reading skills class. Non-fiction reading is overlooked far too much by reading teachers. I also talked with Mr. Mitchell about ways we could eliminate the mechanical obstacles that have kept the South Middle School website from being operational. We did come up with some ideas. Hopefully, we can put them into action sometime near the beginning of the second semester.
***
I am also excited about teaching speech during the second semester. The best part about it is no textbooks. I will have to come up with my own material and I have always enjoyed doing that.
***
I have also been planning some changes for the communication arts classes. I plan to hit flea markets, used book shops, the internet, whatever it takes to get enough copies of "Portrait of Jennie" for my classes to read it for their novel. The book is short enough, yet it has that fantasy element that attracts young readers, plus I love it and there's a great movie to go with it (you know how much the kids love those black-and-white movies).
I also plan to work with the kids to try to get some of their writing published in some of the teen magazines and teen Internet sites.
Plus, I have been working on some methods of teaching grammar, sentence construction, etc., that won't bore the students stiff and will actually get them interested in those things. That may be one task I don't come close to pulling off, but I am looking forward to trying.
***
The assemblies will be coming fast and furious the remaining days this week at South. On Thursday, the choir will perform seventh hour, while on Friday, the Student Council will present toys to the Joplin Fire Department, which, in turn, will present them to needy children.
***
Tomorrow is the day of my checkup to see if there has been any slippage in my condition since my release from the hospital Saturday morning. I am scheduled to see Dr. Buchele at 10:45 a.m. I will be at South until about 10:20 or so, then I will return hopefully in about an hour and a half, in time for fifth hour. Other teachers are filling in for me during their free hours, which I greatly appreciate. Hopefully, I will be able to return the favor for them someday.
***
I received more good news over the weekend. Cait Purinton, who worked for me at The Carthage Press, right after she graduated from Lamar High School, became Mrs. Travis Day during a ceremony recently in Las Vegas. Cait was the youngest person to ever receive investigative reporting awards from the Kansas City Press Club and the Missouri Press Association while she worked at The Press. At the age of 18, she wrote a series of articles exposing wrongdoing at a Lamar nursing home. The series ended up in the closing of that nursing home, the criminal prosecution by the federal government of its owners, and changes in the the way the Missouri Division of Aging operates its inspections. I was so proud of Cait. After her graduation from the Kansas State University School of Journalism, she worked two years for The Kansas City Star, but the position she had there was one at one of their regional outposts and offered no benefits. She now works as a reporter for The Topeka Capitol-Journal, an excellent newspaper.
***
I talked over some changes in the multi-media class with Mr. Mitchell this afternoon and I am looking forward to implementing them during the second semester.
The students will all be writing daily blogs. It won't be total freedom for them, even though that would be nice. I will have their passwords in case anything needs to be edited to meet school standards. Plus, the students and their parents will have to sign a contract, agreeing to abide by the rules In addition to adding a writing component to that class, I also intend to add a reading component. The students will be required to read either two or three news stories per day, one of my choosing, the others of theirs, similar to the setup I had in the computer lab at Diamond Middle School for my reading skills class. Non-fiction reading is overlooked far too much by reading teachers. I also talked with Mr. Mitchell about ways we could eliminate the mechanical obstacles that have kept the South Middle School website from being operational. We did come up with some ideas. Hopefully, we can put them into action sometime near the beginning of the second semester.
***
I am also excited about teaching speech during the second semester. The best part about it is no textbooks. I will have to come up with my own material and I have always enjoyed doing that.
***
I have also been planning some changes for the communication arts classes. I plan to hit flea markets, used book shops, the internet, whatever it takes to get enough copies of "Portrait of Jennie" for my classes to read it for their novel. The book is short enough, yet it has that fantasy element that attracts young readers, plus I love it and there's a great movie to go with it (you know how much the kids love those black-and-white movies).
I also plan to work with the kids to try to get some of their writing published in some of the teen magazines and teen Internet sites.
Plus, I have been working on some methods of teaching grammar, sentence construction, etc., that won't bore the students stiff and will actually get them interested in those things. That may be one task I don't come close to pulling off, but I am looking forward to trying.
***
The assemblies will be coming fast and furious the remaining days this week at South. On Thursday, the choir will perform seventh hour, while on Friday, the Student Council will present toys to the Joplin Fire Department, which, in turn, will present them to needy children.
***
Tomorrow is the day of my checkup to see if there has been any slippage in my condition since my release from the hospital Saturday morning. I am scheduled to see Dr. Buchele at 10:45 a.m. I will be at South until about 10:20 or so, then I will return hopefully in about an hour and a half, in time for fifth hour. Other teachers are filling in for me during their free hours, which I greatly appreciate. Hopefully, I will be able to return the favor for them someday.
***
I received more good news over the weekend. Cait Purinton, who worked for me at The Carthage Press, right after she graduated from Lamar High School, became Mrs. Travis Day during a ceremony recently in Las Vegas. Cait was the youngest person to ever receive investigative reporting awards from the Kansas City Press Club and the Missouri Press Association while she worked at The Press. At the age of 18, she wrote a series of articles exposing wrongdoing at a Lamar nursing home. The series ended up in the closing of that nursing home, the criminal prosecution by the federal government of its owners, and changes in the the way the Missouri Division of Aging operates its inspections. I was so proud of Cait. After her graduation from the Kansas State University School of Journalism, she worked two years for The Kansas City Star, but the position she had there was one at one of their regional outposts and offered no benefits. She now works as a reporter for The Topeka Capitol-Journal, an excellent newspaper.
Monday, December 15, 2003
The near-death experience that caused me to miss my first day of work in 26 years
The streak is over.
After nearly 26 1/2 years of never missing a day of work, I took a sick day Friday. As it turns out, if I hadn't, my streak probably would not have lasted much longer any way...I would have been dead in a few more days.
It's a scary thing to be in a hospital room, hear a nurse answer her cell phone and tell the caller that someone else will have to take care of the problem. "This patient has priority."
As those of you read this blog (both of you, three of you?) are aware, I have been under the weather recently. Several weeks ago, I began having problems climbing the steps to my apartment. When I reached the top, I was totally out of breath. I had to nearly crawl to my bed and just lie down for 15 to 20 minutes until I had the strength to get back up again.
This didn't bode well for South Middle School, since I teach upstairs first and second hours, downstairs third and fourth hours, then upstairs again fifth and sixth hours. When school resumed after the holiday, I found myself having to stop every two or three steps to rest up before I could keep going. I also had other symptoms which I associated with the flu, even though I had taken my flu shot last month.
My principal, Ron Mitchell, told me a number of times I needed to call a doctor. At first, I foolishly resisted, but I called the St. John's Clinic and made an appointment two weeks ago. The soonest they could fit me in was 10 days later. Meanwhile, I continued to get worse.
Nevertheless I kept getting up every morning a little after 5, brushing my teeth, taking a shower and shaving, then lying back down for about 20 minutes because I was totally worn out from those innocuous activities. Then I would drive to school and somehow make it through the day.
As soon as I could when school was over, I would drive home and then crash until the next morning, then begin the cycle all over again.
Finally, last Wednesday night, I began to feel a little better. I felt almost normal Thursday. I left school early for my appointment. I arrived 20 minutes early, filled out the paperwork, then waited for more than an hour. Finally, I was called in.
It turned out the doctor I had made the appointment with was Dr. Dailey, the father of my former Diamond student, Bryce Dailey. The first thing he and the nurse did was to take blood, then I had to go through some other routine tests.
When my blood tests returned, Dr. Dailey said he had some bad news. I never would have guessed how bad that news was going to be.
A normal hemiglobin (red blood cell) count is 12. The test showed my count was 3. In other words, somehow I was walking around with 75 percent of my blood missing. (No wonder so many people kept telling me how pale I looked.)
Dr. Dailey said there could be no delay. I would have to be admitted to the hospital...and there was no way he was going to let me drive myself over there in my condition. So a few moments later, the doctor himself drove me to St. John's, where I was immediately admitted and given a room in the oncology unit.
Within a couple of hours, the blood transfusions began (thank God for all of those people who donate blood). By the time the transfusions were finished in the wee hours Saturday morning, I had received 10 units of fresh O negative blood.
Of course, replacing the blood was only part of the problem. The major concern was the cause of this massive loss of blood. On Friday, I underwent all kinds of tests. The one thing they all seemed to agree on, was that there was no way I should have been functioning, much less driving to Joplin and back and putting in a full day of teaching every day. There was some wonder that I was even still with the living (though apparently not by much).
After undergoing two probes Friday, the doctors did find a small polyp in my colon and another in the upper regions of my body, biopsied them, but did not seem to think that either of them posed a problem.
I did not have colon cancer, which they had feared (even though I do plan on keeping my fingers crossed about those polyps). I did not have any kind of silent ulcer.
The only source they could find for the bleeding...and Lord knows I absolutely hate to admit this...was hemorrhoids. So once I had all my new blood and was released from the hospital late Saturday morning, I picked up a number of prescriptions at the Wal-Mart Supercenter Pharmacy and I am planning to follow the doctors' instructions to the letter. I have a checkup set for 10:45 a.m. Wednesday.
Fortunately, my friends and family will never have to say, "He'd still be showing up for work every day, but those darned hemorrhoids put him in his grave."
***
Thanks also to everyone at South who wished me well and sent a nice balloon bouquet to my hospital room. Those people, especially Mr. Mitchell, probably saved my life by continuing to encourage me to call a doctor. And by the way, I feel great now, probably for the first time this semester.
After nearly 26 1/2 years of never missing a day of work, I took a sick day Friday. As it turns out, if I hadn't, my streak probably would not have lasted much longer any way...I would have been dead in a few more days.
It's a scary thing to be in a hospital room, hear a nurse answer her cell phone and tell the caller that someone else will have to take care of the problem. "This patient has priority."
As those of you read this blog (both of you, three of you?) are aware, I have been under the weather recently. Several weeks ago, I began having problems climbing the steps to my apartment. When I reached the top, I was totally out of breath. I had to nearly crawl to my bed and just lie down for 15 to 20 minutes until I had the strength to get back up again.
This didn't bode well for South Middle School, since I teach upstairs first and second hours, downstairs third and fourth hours, then upstairs again fifth and sixth hours. When school resumed after the holiday, I found myself having to stop every two or three steps to rest up before I could keep going. I also had other symptoms which I associated with the flu, even though I had taken my flu shot last month.
My principal, Ron Mitchell, told me a number of times I needed to call a doctor. At first, I foolishly resisted, but I called the St. John's Clinic and made an appointment two weeks ago. The soonest they could fit me in was 10 days later. Meanwhile, I continued to get worse.
Nevertheless I kept getting up every morning a little after 5, brushing my teeth, taking a shower and shaving, then lying back down for about 20 minutes because I was totally worn out from those innocuous activities. Then I would drive to school and somehow make it through the day.
As soon as I could when school was over, I would drive home and then crash until the next morning, then begin the cycle all over again.
Finally, last Wednesday night, I began to feel a little better. I felt almost normal Thursday. I left school early for my appointment. I arrived 20 minutes early, filled out the paperwork, then waited for more than an hour. Finally, I was called in.
It turned out the doctor I had made the appointment with was Dr. Dailey, the father of my former Diamond student, Bryce Dailey. The first thing he and the nurse did was to take blood, then I had to go through some other routine tests.
When my blood tests returned, Dr. Dailey said he had some bad news. I never would have guessed how bad that news was going to be.
A normal hemiglobin (red blood cell) count is 12. The test showed my count was 3. In other words, somehow I was walking around with 75 percent of my blood missing. (No wonder so many people kept telling me how pale I looked.)
Dr. Dailey said there could be no delay. I would have to be admitted to the hospital...and there was no way he was going to let me drive myself over there in my condition. So a few moments later, the doctor himself drove me to St. John's, where I was immediately admitted and given a room in the oncology unit.
Within a couple of hours, the blood transfusions began (thank God for all of those people who donate blood). By the time the transfusions were finished in the wee hours Saturday morning, I had received 10 units of fresh O negative blood.
Of course, replacing the blood was only part of the problem. The major concern was the cause of this massive loss of blood. On Friday, I underwent all kinds of tests. The one thing they all seemed to agree on, was that there was no way I should have been functioning, much less driving to Joplin and back and putting in a full day of teaching every day. There was some wonder that I was even still with the living (though apparently not by much).
After undergoing two probes Friday, the doctors did find a small polyp in my colon and another in the upper regions of my body, biopsied them, but did not seem to think that either of them posed a problem.
I did not have colon cancer, which they had feared (even though I do plan on keeping my fingers crossed about those polyps). I did not have any kind of silent ulcer.
The only source they could find for the bleeding...and Lord knows I absolutely hate to admit this...was hemorrhoids. So once I had all my new blood and was released from the hospital late Saturday morning, I picked up a number of prescriptions at the Wal-Mart Supercenter Pharmacy and I am planning to follow the doctors' instructions to the letter. I have a checkup set for 10:45 a.m. Wednesday.
Fortunately, my friends and family will never have to say, "He'd still be showing up for work every day, but those darned hemorrhoids put him in his grave."
***
Thanks also to everyone at South who wished me well and sent a nice balloon bouquet to my hospital room. Those people, especially Mr. Mitchell, probably saved my life by continuing to encourage me to call a doctor. And by the way, I feel great now, probably for the first time this semester.
Saturday, November 29, 2003
Human frailties have gotten the best of me again this weekend. I had so many things I needed to do, starting with preparing my manuscript to go to a couple of publishers. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. I have been in terrible physical condition for the past week or so and it doesn't appear to be getting any better.
I have spent the last two days in bed. When I stand up, I feel like my head is swimming, but I am just fine when I lay down, so naturally, I have been laying down quite a bit.
I was starting to feel a little more under the weather when I went to my parents' home in Newtonia in Thanksgiving, but I just acted like everything was fine. Since I am not particularly good in crowds, it wasn't a great experience, but it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.
Of course, it could be psychosomatic. I occasionally exchange e-mails with the mother of one of my former Diamond students. She said I sounded depressed in my last e-mail and, who knows, maybe I did. I have a tendency to dwell on things and when you have had two jobs taken away from you that you loved in the space of four years...while everyone talks about how great you are at both of them...well, it does have a tendency to get to you. And now I am being told that the new journalism teacher at Diamond has made numerous comments about my shortcomings at journalism (I spent 22 years as a journalist, he has a master's degree in journalism and spent most of his adult life writing publicity releases for the Navy) I know I shouldn't take his comments seriously, but these are my former students who are listening to his criticisms. I doubt that they will be swayed by his comments, but it has to place a little bit of doubt in their minds, especially when the comments are made over and over and over. I suppose I should be flattered that the journalism teacher and the superintendent see me as being such a threat, but it all seems so childish.
***
I was told Monday or Tuesday, I don't remember which, that the block scheduling for communication arts is being dropped for next year and that I will be teaching writing and not reading. (That is, of course, if the school district doesn't have to cut jobs or something of that nature) I don't mind the change, but I really enjoyed the two-hour communication arts blocks. I have the opportunity to know my students better and I enjoyed getting reacquainted with good literature after spending the last several years reading almost nothing but non-fiction. (I suppose that just because I am only teaching writing doesn't mean that I can't continue reading.)
***
My old habits have resurfaced during the holiday break. I'm not reading any great works of fiction. I finished the biography of former Supreme Court Justice Byron White earlier today and now I am about 70 pages into David Halberstam's study of the military decisions made by former presidents Bush and Clinton during the 1990s. Military books have never been among my favorites, but I'll read almost anything written by Halberstam. I donated several of my Halberstam books to the Diamond school library. I would be surprised if any of them have been put on the shelves. I would love for students to be able to read "The Children," his book describing the Freedom Riders of the early 1960s and what happened to them in later years. It's long, but it is so engrossing that it seems like the pages just fly by. My guess is "The Children" is still in a cardboard box in the storage room at the middle school, along with the other approximately 500 books I donated last summer. About 500 of the books I donated earlier are on the shelves at the middle school library, but among the ones that didn't fit into the librarians' concept of what belongs in a school library were works by Shakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, and John Steinbeck. I guess those writers are out of fashion.
***
I am hoping to get enough energy to drive into Joplin either later tonight or tomorrow, most likely tomorrow, and check to see whether Edna Buchanan's latest novel is out in paperback at Books-A-Million. For those of you who aren't familiar with her work, Ms. Buchanan has written a series of mystery novels about a Miami Herald investigative reporter named Britt Montero. I have read all of them except her latest "The Ice Maiden," which supposedly came out in paperback last week. Ms. Buchanan herself is an award-winning investigative reporter for The Miami Herald. If I still don't feel well enough to go tonight or tomorrow, I'll drop by after school on Monday. (And yes, barring a disaster, I will be at work on Monday. Since the day I took my first full-time job at The Newton County News in May 1977, I have never missed a day of work. There probably have been numerous times when I should have stayed at home, but I was always brought up that if you have a job, you show up ready to work every day. If you don't there are other people who would just love to have your job. I know my streak is going to end some day (and obviously, not being married and having kids has something to do with it since I guarantee you, I would stay at home with a sick kid), but I don't want to ever get in the habit of taking a day off just to recharge my batteries, especially as a schoolteacher. Think about it, our jobs probably do expose us to all kinds of psychological stress and teachers deserve every cent they receive (and more), but we do have at least 185 days each year when we are not teaching or attending in-service. We have time to recharge our batteries. My God, I must sound like someone from a bygone age.
I have spent the last two days in bed. When I stand up, I feel like my head is swimming, but I am just fine when I lay down, so naturally, I have been laying down quite a bit.
I was starting to feel a little more under the weather when I went to my parents' home in Newtonia in Thanksgiving, but I just acted like everything was fine. Since I am not particularly good in crowds, it wasn't a great experience, but it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated.
Of course, it could be psychosomatic. I occasionally exchange e-mails with the mother of one of my former Diamond students. She said I sounded depressed in my last e-mail and, who knows, maybe I did. I have a tendency to dwell on things and when you have had two jobs taken away from you that you loved in the space of four years...while everyone talks about how great you are at both of them...well, it does have a tendency to get to you. And now I am being told that the new journalism teacher at Diamond has made numerous comments about my shortcomings at journalism (I spent 22 years as a journalist, he has a master's degree in journalism and spent most of his adult life writing publicity releases for the Navy) I know I shouldn't take his comments seriously, but these are my former students who are listening to his criticisms. I doubt that they will be swayed by his comments, but it has to place a little bit of doubt in their minds, especially when the comments are made over and over and over. I suppose I should be flattered that the journalism teacher and the superintendent see me as being such a threat, but it all seems so childish.
***
I was told Monday or Tuesday, I don't remember which, that the block scheduling for communication arts is being dropped for next year and that I will be teaching writing and not reading. (That is, of course, if the school district doesn't have to cut jobs or something of that nature) I don't mind the change, but I really enjoyed the two-hour communication arts blocks. I have the opportunity to know my students better and I enjoyed getting reacquainted with good literature after spending the last several years reading almost nothing but non-fiction. (I suppose that just because I am only teaching writing doesn't mean that I can't continue reading.)
***
My old habits have resurfaced during the holiday break. I'm not reading any great works of fiction. I finished the biography of former Supreme Court Justice Byron White earlier today and now I am about 70 pages into David Halberstam's study of the military decisions made by former presidents Bush and Clinton during the 1990s. Military books have never been among my favorites, but I'll read almost anything written by Halberstam. I donated several of my Halberstam books to the Diamond school library. I would be surprised if any of them have been put on the shelves. I would love for students to be able to read "The Children," his book describing the Freedom Riders of the early 1960s and what happened to them in later years. It's long, but it is so engrossing that it seems like the pages just fly by. My guess is "The Children" is still in a cardboard box in the storage room at the middle school, along with the other approximately 500 books I donated last summer. About 500 of the books I donated earlier are on the shelves at the middle school library, but among the ones that didn't fit into the librarians' concept of what belongs in a school library were works by Shakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, and John Steinbeck. I guess those writers are out of fashion.
***
I am hoping to get enough energy to drive into Joplin either later tonight or tomorrow, most likely tomorrow, and check to see whether Edna Buchanan's latest novel is out in paperback at Books-A-Million. For those of you who aren't familiar with her work, Ms. Buchanan has written a series of mystery novels about a Miami Herald investigative reporter named Britt Montero. I have read all of them except her latest "The Ice Maiden," which supposedly came out in paperback last week. Ms. Buchanan herself is an award-winning investigative reporter for The Miami Herald. If I still don't feel well enough to go tonight or tomorrow, I'll drop by after school on Monday. (And yes, barring a disaster, I will be at work on Monday. Since the day I took my first full-time job at The Newton County News in May 1977, I have never missed a day of work. There probably have been numerous times when I should have stayed at home, but I was always brought up that if you have a job, you show up ready to work every day. If you don't there are other people who would just love to have your job. I know my streak is going to end some day (and obviously, not being married and having kids has something to do with it since I guarantee you, I would stay at home with a sick kid), but I don't want to ever get in the habit of taking a day off just to recharge my batteries, especially as a schoolteacher. Think about it, our jobs probably do expose us to all kinds of psychological stress and teachers deserve every cent they receive (and more), but we do have at least 185 days each year when we are not teaching or attending in-service. We have time to recharge our batteries. My God, I must sound like someone from a bygone age.
Monday, November 24, 2003
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