2136 Let's go to a carnival

I don't participate in any of the carnivals, but I do occasionally take a peek, because you can find all of a kind at one site and click and read. Carol, the Median Sib (her whole family blogs) mentioned the Carnival of Education. I'm pretty much out of that loop, but still like to check in on the teacher blogs. When my children were in school, I was a holy terror. Not only did I expect my kids to do their job, I thought the school should too!

Yesterday I had coffee with a friend who retired from teaching last year. Now she teaches every day as a substitute, because she says it's fun. She doesn't have to do the paper work, and can even be choosy about what classes she'll teach. But she still does have to look at them--studs in their noses, lips, eyebrows, tongues and died pink hair. All the research is in--students learn better in schools that require uniforms, and even same sex classrooms, but school administrations don't seem to have a backbone when it comes to improvements in education that by-pass learning theory to get there.

For some reason, yesterday was a school holiday so my friend didn't teach and was free to have coffee like a real retired person. We have a number of friends who are retired, but stay regularly employed in warmer climates as subs while living on their pensions in vacation communities. They've had no education courses, weren't teachers by profession and one probably only had one year of college.