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Comments: Great video, John, and he's right. Tour any new subdivision that has new home construction and you can see tons of waste. Perfectly good material with just some slight blemish that dooms it to the dumpster.
Comments: Over the years my wife has developed connections with many local artists. One of these is Dan Phillips who creates his magic in nearby Huntsville. His focus for the past decade has been to create affordable homes for low-income folks like other artists, single moms and so on. He does this by using discarded material for 70 to 80% of the construction and by using low-cost and sometimes volunteer labor. He is quirky and innovative and entertaining and his philosophy on utilizing items headed for the dump is pretty thought provoking. Here is a link to a 17 minute "TED" presentation he made in 2010. It is well worth viewing when you get the time. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_phillips_creative_houses_from_reclaimed_stuff.html?source=facebook#.T15VN_trE14.facebook
Comments: No, I didn't. It is just that they had missed a lot of experiences that other children have due to having to live in extreme poverty. I always noticed the difference between athletes from Carter and Kimball compared to Madison. Carter and Kimball are middle class high schools. Their athletes had much better diets and looked so much healthier. Thus, they were more likely to be chosen for professional sports teams. Also, they were more ambitious and their parents encouraged them to excel. Lynell, I got on a teacher who was a classmate of ours because she called her Anglo students "trailor trash". I remember telling her that the students weren't responsible for where their parents lived. She finally dropped the derogative remarks. Bill, you have to excuse that remark I have had a terrible day. I was sorry I posted that comment immediately after I posted it.
Comments: Kathleen, did you expect the poor black children from South Dallas to be dumb?
Comments: Having lived in west Texas for a number of years, Kathleen, I can assure you that there are a number of "Leftist Dippers" as well.
Comments: I'm not going there... Gibbs'll come after you , Kathleen. 
Comments: Lynell, You mean I was teaching future Tea Party members. I never though of that before.
Comments: The scary part is that the snuff-dipping kids are probably voting now.
Comments:  Asian and Jewish students..
Comments: Sharon, you would be surprised how many students don't have books or newspapers in their homes. I taught at a rural Anglo school once where the students lived in trailers and dipped snuff for entertainment. I thought because I was getting to teach Anglo children I would be getting a smart group. Was I surprised because those were the most ignorant students I ever taught. Black children in poorest South Dallas were more alert as to what is going on in the world. The best students I taught overall were Asian students who come from backgrounds that value education.
Comments: My older sister (7 years) and brother (5 years) taught me to read when I was five. So when I started the first grade, I was bored to death. But that only lasted a couple of months. Thank goodness for great teachers. My sister retired 15 years ago from DISD after 30 years. My brother, even though he hasn't been in the classroom in 30 years, is still with Garland ISD after 45 years. We are all still voracious readers. I can't imagine not having a newspaper to read every day, too, but I know that time is coming.
Comments: There is much to be said for no TV encouraging children to learn to read, Lynell. We got our 1st TV when I was 11, the last family on the block. By then, our neighbors were moving up to color, while we were just getting B&W. We did listen to the radio, and READ, like maniacs. We had the Book of Knowledge and the Junior Classics, plus the newspaper and the public library. Many of our childhood snapshots show everyone just sitting around reading. Of course, being "TV starved" as kids resulted in our now all keeping the TV on constantly, at least as background noise.
Comments: My parents were avid readers. My father was a Dallas Fireman and when at home, he was always reading. They were members of a Book Club and books were always coming. We had library cards and went on a regular basis. My GM worked PT for Scott, Foresman and was always giving us books. My mother read the whole Hiawatha poem to me, when I was about 4. I would definitely say that parents reading to children and around children... was very important.
Comments: Good points, Kathleen. Your grandchild has a good family. I don't remember learning to read. It's more like I always knew how. Maybe having no TV or other electronics around, and being an only child, I had to do something to entertain myself.
Comments: Lynell, There are many ways parents can help their children learn to read. My three year old granddaughter is amazingly smart. Her mother has continually worked with her. My granddaughter has always had books around her since she was born. Her other grandmother has spoken to her in Spanish since she was a baby . She loves to sing and dance. I guess I am trying to say environment and having books around can make a big difference. Since her great, grand mother is deaf, we always have the closed captions on the TV. This seems to help them learn to read faster. So a lot of research shows that one of the most important ways is to have a lot of books in the home and for the parents to read out loud to them. Much of this research is discussed at the Stephen Krashen website,
Comments: I'm not an educator, but it seems like it might help if parents read children's books to them and pointed at words. That's probably asking too much of a lot of parents. I ran across a couple of witnesses in depositions who couldn't read despite their college degrees.
Comments: Ginger, I didn't leave phonics out, I just mentioned that some people use the Whole Language Method together with phonics.
Comments: I taught with sight words too, as well as 'whole language'. We were quite strong on 'whole language' in teaching kindergarten, but we also had a strong phonics program. We concentrated on a letter a week and incorporated that letter into all subjects. You don't leave phonics out...Kathleen. I don't agree with you.. We had several sources in our curriculum for phonics, including the Peabody Phonics System which has probably been updated since I used it. This system went through consonants and consonant blends and vowels.
Comments: Ginger, There are many ways to teach reading. When I was in first grade I was taught to read by memorizing sight words on flash cards. What little phonics I learned came from my mother helping me with my homework. Many reading specialists recommend a balanced approach, including the whole language method and phonics rather than phonics alone.
Comments: You remind me of my years in Connecticut. My good friend and fellow teacher there asked me if I learned to read and spell phonetically haaaaaaaaaa!! Because of my accent she was astounded that we were taught phonetics in Texas.... Her son even ask me if wall was like y'all. I said, What do you mean? He said, "well, you just asked , Are w'all goin in one car?" haaaaa!!
Comments: I was taught to read, listen, and write phonetically. I've always understood this. I guess it was those elementary teachers that did that. Also, in music, and other languages, we had an understanding of phonics.. It's very important in Kindergarten. Kids should have an understanding of phonetics, syllables, etc.,etc, by the 3rd grade. It is ingrained in them by the 3rd Grade or should be...high school is too late.
Comments: Thank goodness for my good teachers at SOC back in the day, because I knew the difference.
Comments: Court reporters write phonetically. Worst sentence I encountered involved a fast-talking woman who was a frequent visitor to the boats in Shreeseport. "I'll go up and down the aisle at the Isle, till I'll find a machine I'll do good at. That's just at the Isle. At the others, I'll know which aisle my favorite's on." She was talking about the Isle of Capri Casino.
Comments: Homonyms are the reason English is such a hard language for the non English speaking to learn.....uh, however, OUR educators are supposed to know the language of the U S and the difference...what a shame our education system has sunk soooooo low on the food chain. On a lighter note...the rain down our way is so wonderful. Everywhere I look I see the evidence. Our little ranchette is so green, ponds filling and the animals are smiling...yes, really...smiling. Unfortunately the down pour destroyed the the beautiful azaleas in Houston.
Comments: Thanks, Larry for the comments and I figured there would be several over on the Adamson site that would remember Mary and offer a prayer in her name. Every prayer helps us all. All the UNT comments were interesting, weren't they? I might add a note to the 3 Penny Opera. I know that MMM sang and played his guitar on "Mac the Knife". I don't know if he did anything else in that opera or not.. I read that he will be in Austin on March 17th at a club. That's during the SXSW thing that's grown to thousands of people now. It's either the Broken Spoke or The Saxon Pub...Can't remember which..?
Comments: Ginger, thank you for posting the information about Mary McCord on the Adamson Web Sight. My wife an I will certainly keep Mary in our prayers. I do remember a while back seeing on this Guestbook that you, Wesley Methodist friend Bob Clifton and others were writing about Mary and her health problems and saying a prayer for her then. I enjoy your Guestbook; you are a good bunch of caring people. Of course I do remember some of you from Harrell Budd and Boude Storey. Also, being a North Texas grad some of the recent comments have brought back some good memories.
Comments: The story about the sign was on Channel 8 news. I would hope that someone was embarrassed by it, if it's the real deal -- and it appears to be.
Comments: John, English teachers would call "brake" and "break" homonyms, words that are pronounced the same but are spelled differently. I didn't notice what the sign said because when you mentioned "photo shop " I kept trying to figure out what was in the two little pictures.
Comments: There's only one picture Kathleen and it's of the SOC sign..That has been up on Oak Cliff Boomers for 2 days.. All kinds of outrageous comments..over that sign.
Comments: Oh my! But really, I am not surprised. Indicative! |
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