Tales from the Classroom

According to the US National Education Association, 50% of teachers drop out of the profession within five years. That's a particular shame, since more and more of them have advanced education degrees that are, of course, suitable to education and to nothing else except resume-stuffing. From Sploid.

No matter how much tax money is thrown at U.S. public schools, teachers have been dropping out at the same rate for decades.

And while only half of America's public-school students are still white kids, teachers are still dominated by the same middle-aged women who have always been teachers – and 90% of them are white.

"The average public school teacher is a 43-year-old white, married, religious female," the Detroit Free Press reported today. "About 75% of public school teachers are female."

One thing that has changed for teachers is that they've got more university degrees than ever before: a full 50% of them now hold Master's Degrees.

And the kids they're turning loose on the world are real idiots. Few can read, write, do basic math or even find Iraq on a map, while their simpleton parents are increasingly afraid of science.

Teacher

And on that note, perhaps it's time for a few little tidbits picked up by one of raincoaster's operatives over the Pond in the UK school system. It's as convoluted and politicized as the Knights Templar, and about as open and accessible, so I don't really know the correct terminology for the school in which she works, except that it's paid for by the taxpayers, rather than by rich parents or corporations seeking to mold consumers when their brains are still young, and children go there to give them something to do while their parents are at work and to give the parents a sense of complacency about the way that they turn out.

Or is that too bleak?

In any case, as the raincoaster offshore operative was handing out papers in class one day, she overheard a 16-year-old girl saying to her friends, "but why would anyone want a butt plug with a tail on it???" to which one can, of course, only reply: why would one want one without?

And later that term, walking down the hallway, the r.o.o. passed a cluster of boys discussing something of obvious nefarity, for they clammed up as she passed. Once they thought she was safely out of hearing one turned to the other and picked up where they'd presumably left off.

"So should I shave my balls then?"

R.o.o. cried "Too much information, lads!" and they scattered as if pursued by the hounds of hell.

Hmmmmm. Perhaps we've discovered the source of those "married, religious" women's discomfort with the teaching profession.

The Sultan’s Elephant: the Grand Finale

Peter Pan vs the Knight Rider

 

Yes, we've all seen it a billion times, but it's still funny.

Those have to be his own fat, crossbred dachsunds; if you were hiring dachsunds and you walked into a showbiz dog rental agency and you said, "I'm making a ridonkulous music video called 'Hooked on a Feeling' and I need a coupla weiner dogs schnell!" and they handed you these, wouldn't you hand them right back and tell them to get with the bulimia, this is Hollywood, baby!

Damn right you would.

Anyway, from the Backbencher column in the Politics section of the Guardian (where else, I ask you) comes news that The Hoff, in possibly the penultimate move of late-career-downward-out-of-control-spiralling, will appear later this year in a suburban Christmas Pantomime.

"He was keen to work in theatre over here to entertain his legions of Baywatch fans," gushes a press officer, who is sadly unable to confirm or deny speculation that Pamela Anderson will play Tinkerbell.

Streaming Eagle Cam 3.0: Swartz Bay

Well, the original eagle cam is done for the year; no hatching eggs means a lot of disappointed readers (and not a few conspiracy theorists, I might add) so the Hornby Island team has found a new nest, with chicks, near the Swartz Bay ferry terminal on Vancouver Island. FYI This is the ferry that takes people to Vancouver from Victoria…only it's not really very close to Victoria…it's complicated.

Anyway, the link is the same: Streaming Eagle Cam Swartz Bay this time.

And here's a pair of Peregrine Falcons in Harrisburg, with chicks.

And my previous posts on eagles:

Streaming Eagle Cam RIP

Streaming Eagle Cam 2.0 Baby Eagles in Colorado

Eagle Chick on Santa Cruz Island, California

and

My Original article on the Eagle Cam; perhaps these new eagles are the ones Christi and I spotted in the story here.

The T Factor: Brits Abroad

Twot or not? 

Although, according to research, not quite as broad as Americans. But that's neither here nor there.

The Brits are travel-happy. In fact, one of the biggest issues in the recent election there was "Damn and blast, how is a simple working man supposed to fly the family to Marbella for some sun once a year, Verbier for a little exercise, Paris for some shopping, and Florence for a nice little walking tour every now and again, and still feel that he's doing his part to keep the planet free from excess pollutants???"

Well, quite.

With a culture like that, you'd expect that most Brits would know, oh, I dunno, like the first thing about travelling? I've only ever been to the US and one trip to the tropics, so I cannot lay claim to any great sophistication here, but even I know that there are, ferinstance, fishy-type things in the sea. I mean, in England you can just walk to it; surely there's no excuse for this if you come from Blighty. Hell, if you come from Saskatchewan you still know there are fish in that big outdoor watery thing, whether it's a lake or an ocean.

Anyhoo, without further ado, we present some of the complaints lodged with UK travel companies by greviously aggreived tourists.

A company insider said: 'People are much more aware of their rights nowadays and much more tempted to blame someone if something goes wrong. We have noticed a surge in weird complaints over the last few years.

'Their instinct is to lash out and blame someone, and because it's such a litigious culture, people always think the travel company must be to blame.'

The Association of British Travel Agents said recently that a couple cancelled a two-week break in Majorca and demanded a refund because of the risk of contracting the SARS virus.

It was pointed out to them that Majorca was not affected by SARS, but they insisted on cancelling anyway.

Then they sued to get their cancellation fee back. And here is a small roundup from the article:

No one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled…

My fiance and I booked a twin-bedded room and we were placed in a double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the rooms that we booked…

The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers, will we be OK staying here..?

It took us nine hours to fly to Jamaica from England – it only took the Americans three hours…

It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel… I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends' three-bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller…

I was bitten by a mosquito – no one said they could bite…Shirley Valentine, they know not what the hell they do

We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow but it was white…

We had to queue outside with no air conditioning…

…And finally, from a holidaymaker in Spain:

There were too many Spanish people. The receptionist spoke Spanish. The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners.