June 22nd was the last day of the school year for me. I have to say that I’m really glad that I’ve gone into teaching. I had a great time this last year. Yes there were the occasional days that were more stressful than others, but then again there were also some excellent days. I’m going to miss my students from this year.

Things got busy for a bit and the massive amounts of spam on the blog haven’t helped either.

That said, I’m planning on posting more and trying to update some of the events that have happened since April.

I really hate spam. I can deal with it in email, but the comment spam that I get on the blog is amazingly annoying. You, the visitor, don’t have to see it as it all is moderated out, but I get more than 150 comment spam entries a day. As such if I don’t visit the moderation queue daily they add up. There are currently over 9,000 comments sitting in the moderation queue.

I’m trying to convert to the most recent version of WordPress (the blog software that the site runs on) to fix this, but there are errors and my hosting company is having problems figuring out why.

So…. if in future you don’t have the option to post comments on an entry that might be what it takes until I can get the migration to work.

Sounds almost too good to be true. The folks over at Citizen RE are working to make this happen. Their business model is that they will install a solar array on your house and you then pay them a contracted rate for the electricity it generates. You can also lock in the pricing rate so that as standard electrical rates increase, your monthly rate doesn’t. Now I just need to cut down a couple of trees blocking the sunlight…

This has been a little long in coming, but a couple of weeks ago Duncan lost his first tooth! It was quite wiggly for a week or so and then one day he came home from school and it had fallen out. We can already see the new “adult” tooth that is coming up to replace it. In fact, because it has been a couple of weeks, the new tooth is almost all the way in already. The picture here was from the day that it happened

After almost five years of being out of the mainstream workforce, this Friday I received a wonderful thing… a paycheck! Not only that, it was my first teaching paycheck!

This week is the Judicial branch and Parent/Teacher conferences.

Well now that winter break is over, I’m back at the Hartford Magnet Middle School. My cooperating teacher is out on leave and I was asked to return and serve as a long term substitute. As such, I’ve been back a week and it has been great. Overall I’ve received a fantastic welcome back from the students. We’re just finishing the first article of the Constitution and next week we’ll be moving on to the second article and the Executive branch.

This weekend I’m grading homework assignments which required the students to use their knowledge of the election process and the Senate to write a persuasive paragraph. “Convince Mr. C why he should or should not run for the Senate.”

Hey who doesn’t? MIT has decided to do a wonderfully philanthropic thing, they are providing access to all of their courses, online and free. Anyone can view the lecture notes, audio files, video lessons, homework assignments, syllabi, etc. This is just such a great thing. There are more than 70 courses on History available on their site.

Granted, you won’t get credit for these classes, but having the ability to learn from MIT professors is a wonderful thing.

MIT Open Course Directory

We went to the Ewing family Christmas party this weekend and had a great time. Over the years I had let myself grow distant from that side of the family and this year we’ve gotten closer again. It was great to see everyone and it’s also pretty wild to see cousins who I remember as being kids now with kids of their own. One of them, my cousin Kate was born on the same day Fiona was.

We exchanged gifts in a Yankee Swap and that was just a lot of fun.

I also received a very nice gift from everyone, a leather briefcase/messenger bag which is an excellent replacement for the one I had been using. I’ve already moved everything into the new bag.

Along with the graduation it was an excellent way to spend the weekend.

This Saturday, I had my graduation from Central Connecticut State University. Two and a half years ago was my Associates graduation from Tunxis Community College. I’m still amazed at how fast the time has gone by.

In the picture here, I’m wearing my kilt and a hawaiian shirt. Sure it is a fashion faux pas, but it is very me. The colored cords on represent: graduating with honors, Phi Theta Kappa (two year college honor society), Phi Alpha Theta (history honor society), Kappa Delta Pi (education honor society) and Golden Key (honor society).

There were approximately 1200 students graduating with me in the winter 2006 commencement. I was one of only 15 who graduated Summa Cum Laude. I should finish with a 3.97 GPA.

I’d like to thank everyone who has offered their support during this process. Now… on to the Masters in Special Education!

I know that I haven’t been posting much here recently. It has been pretty busy at the Coonce-Ewing household. Since the last post, I’ve turned 37, enjoyed an excellent Thanksgiving and FryDay, and we have crossed into December. Graduation is a mere 13 days away and student teaching ends in 20 days.

I have an interview with the Hartford Public Schools on Thursday to enter the substitute teaching pool.

I’m not sure about other student teachers, but I try to make my mark on our cluster. I helped to put together our monthly student calendars. The one above is entirely my creation for November. We have a rotating block schedule which means that each day we have 3 classes from our 5 (A-E). We also have rotating “encore” days which are the extra classes that the kids have like graphic arts, swimming, orchestra, etc. Those use a color code (white, gold, blue). So I put together this rather visually loud calendar so that the kids would always know what classes they’d have on any particular day.

If you want to see a better picture you can click on the image above for a larger version.

Degrees that is. I received my Associates degree from Tunxis in May of 2004. In another 33 days I will receive my Bachelors degree in Secondary History Education. As part of the education certification in CT you need to work on getting a Masters degree. There is also a pay increase once you complete the Masters. So… I figure why wait to start. As such, I applied to the CCSU Graduate Studies program and today received my acceptance letter.

As of January, I start on my Masters of Science in Special Education.

What can I really say about this that hasn’t already been said in other places? The Democrats retake controll of both the House and Senate and the very next day Rumsfeld steps down. Whooohoooo!

Welcome to Halloween 2006! I’ll start off with a picture of Duncan and Fiona in their costumes. Duncan and Fi are shown here sitting on the couch, enjoying their costumes. Duncan shows his love of dalmations while Fiona shows her love of Care Bears.

Read the rest of this entry »

No not a Pabst Blue Ribbon, a No Child Left Behind Outstanding School Blue Ribbon! The school that I’m student teaching at (Hartford Magnet Middle School) HMMS was just awarded a Blue Ribbon for their academic accomplishments. This is a big deal as it is a rather prestigious award and really looks good for the school.

I even got a cool t-shirt for the award ceremony.

In other school related news, things continue to go well in my student teaching.

This weekend Noel and I attended the wedding of Paul and Melissa White (formerly Wishinski).

Read the rest of this entry »

This week I’ve been teaching lessons about natural resources. My students are working on a Geography unit in which they have to create their own island. Once they have decided on where to place it on the map (latitude, longitude and what the climate zone is for that location) they then designed their island with land and water forms. Then we started in on resources. The book talks about chicken farmers and how chicken is a renewable resource.

One student asked me, “Mister, how do we get more chickens?” I looked at her and said, “Excuse me?” To which I got the answer I was looking for, “Mr. C, how do we get more chickens?”

“Well, you have a mommy chicken and a daddy chicken and they do their chicken thing,” was my response, which was met with much laughter.

Scientists in Europe are freaked out. In recent photos from their satellites, they’ve discovered that not only is ice around the north pole melting, but a ship would be able to sail to the location of the north pole.

They say that there is far less ice at the north pole than in any other recorded low-ice season.

This my friends, is not good news. If you’d like to read the full article instead of just my summary, you can follow this link.

I got an email the other day asking for a more detailed update on student teaching. So…. here it goes.

This is now my fourth week at the school and I’m loving it. I teach one class every cycle and I help teach the other four. This Friday I pick up my second full class and then another the week after, etc until I have all five of them on my plate. I’ve been officially observed by my co-operating teacher and by my college supervisor and both of them have had really good things to say about my teaching style and how I’m doing as a student teacher.

The students themselves are great as well. Sure I’ve got a couple out of the 103 or so that we have that are a little harder to deal with, but overall I’ve been able to make a good connection with the students and I’m really enjoying things.

The challenge for me now is to try to get myself into the mind of a seventh grader. I’ve asked a couple of students to answer the following questions for me: If I had time to listen to one CD, what would you suggest? If I had time to watch one TV show, what would you suggest? and if I had time to watch one movie, what would you suggest? My goal is to get a better understanding of what is important to 11/12 year olds these days.

I’ll post the results once I have them.

Well the kids started on Tuesday and here it is Friday. I’m still glad that I entered the teaching profession and I’m enjoying it. The only downside is that my feet are tired. Really tired and I’ve got good shoes! I just went out and bought some of those “gel” inserts for my shoes to see if that helps.

Things are going well with the students and classes.

We ended up celebrating our anniversary with more than 32,000 of our closest friends! Noel found out about a bus trip to a Red Sox / Blue Jays game, that was going to happen on our anniversary, and that was that! Read the rest of this entry »

Here is Duncan in the traditional first day of school picture. For more pictures and Noel’s writeup of the day, Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve spent the first three days of this week at the Hartford Magnet Middle School where I will be student teaching. So far it has been teacher orientation, team meetings (each grade is broken into two teams which contain an English teacher, Math teacher, Science teacher, Social Studies teacher and a Spanish teacher), assorted training and room preparation. I didn’t realize just how much was involved with setting up a room for the new school year!

Our kids start on Tuesday so that is when the real fun begins!

As if Duncan turning 5 and going into Kindergarten wasn’t enough, here is a picture of him looking so grown up. Noel and I aren’t
sure where the last five years have gone.

Additionally I wouldn’t want to leave Fiona out so here is a picture of her in her overalls with her dueling pigtails. So cute!

Duncan turned five earlier this month and a party was held, a pirate party! Here be the sign showing the bucaneers and bucanettes where to dock their ships. Read the rest of this entry »

Sure, I’m still behind on my postings. As an example, I’ve been without my trusty 1989 Dodge Grand Caravan for almost two months now, but only now am I mentioning it.

As you can see from the picture earlier this year I had an “issue” with my side-door. I went to open it one morning and it jumped the track. I had a similar issue about six years ago with that door, but that was an indicator of things to come.

Before I sent it off to the great junkyard in the sky, it had the following issues: the driver’s side window wouldn’t go down, the power steering was shot, the exhaust was gone, the car overheated constantly - requiring me to dump heat into the car - however the window wouldn’t go down, and the real nail in the coffin was that one day it decided that it no longer wanted to shift out of first gear when it was in drive.

With 204 thousand miles on it, I can’t complain. It served us well, but I’m still a little sad to see it go.

It has been replaced with a 1996 Toyota Corolla which gets 32 MPG which is a HUGE improvement.

Okay so this post has nothing to do with unemployment, but any time you can throw in a quote from “The Princess Bride” you just have to. Okay so how does the title relate to this post? The Nunatsiaq News, a news source in Nunavut Canada has an interesting article about the melting of the Greeland icesheet. Apparently not only is it melting, but it is melting at a faster rate than was expected.

According to their article (which you can find here) if the Greenland icesheet does indeed completely melt, we’re looking at an ocean rise in meters.

As some of you already know Noel has started her own business making jewelry, under the name Cricket Creations. She has attended a number of craft shows as a vendor and recently hosted a Jewelry Party. If you are interested in seeing some of her pieces you can click on the Cricket Creations logo above.

Here is another recent picture of the kids, this time they are just sooooo cool, both wearing their sunglasses. Of course given how sun sensitive we are as a family, maybe they can just wear them outside in the evening if the moon is too bright.

I know that people like to see recent pictures of the kids, especially those of you who aren’t local to us, so here is a fairly recent picture of the two of them. Duncan loves his little sister and Fiona just adores her brother. I know that it will change in a couple of years, but for now I’m just glad to see the two of them so happy with each other.

No, it isn’t me graduating (that isn’t until December, I’ll walk in May). This is a picture from Duncan’s Preschool Graduation back in June. Yes I know that this should have been up here sooner, but well better late than never.

Here is a picture of our proud scholar holding his diploma.

He starts kindergarten in a little over a week!

A new Zogby poll shows that more Americans can name the Three Stooges than can name the three branches of our government. Sure there were actually a total of five Stooges, but lets face it, Shemp and Curly Joe don’t really count. I could even see where some people would get confused with the government as well, as these days it seems like Lobbyist should be the fourth branch.

In case you are curious it was 73.8% for the names of the Three Stooges and 42.3% for the three branches of Government.

More people also knew the name of Superman’s home planet than the planet in our solar system that was closest to the sun.

since I wrote anything here. This is really just a placeholder post. I’ll be putting up some pictures and information about things that have gone on over the last month or so. Just know that we’re all still here, happy and healthy.

It started with a 102 degree fever early Saturday evening. This along with chills made for quite an interesting evening. Sunday morning I woke up saw an unfriendly looking rash on my upper right thigh. It looked rather like a bullseye. For those who are curious, you can see a picture of the rash (and my pasty white leg) here. I didn’t want to put the image right on the page for anyone who didn’t want to see it (my pasty white leg that is). I had planned on waiting until Monday morning to see my doctor, but once I hit 103.8 around 3pm, we decided it was time to visit the Bristol Hospital ER. They confirmed that yes, it looks like a tick bite and Lyme Disease. However as we caught it early everything should be fine. I’m on 3 doses of antibiotics a day for the next 3 weeks. For anyone who is curious about Lyme Disease you can follow that link for information.

Al Gore (remember him?), stars in this film which is essentially short film clips of Al doing his environmental presentation across the nation. The environment has always been Al’s passion and even in the trailer for the film, you can see that he is concerned. Visit the site for the film and find out when it is playing in your area.

I earned a 4.0 average this semester bringing my cumulative gpa to a 3.95. Along with that I had my interview at HMMS (Hartford Magnet Middle School) on Monday and then spent Thursday there with my cooperating teacher. It looks like I’m going to have a really good time there. The culture of the school is fantastic, the students seem really energized and the teachers were great as well. On Tuesday I had an interview at The Intensive Education Academy in West Hartford and once I get my fingerprints done and the background check run, I’ll be working there as a Teacher Assistant for their summer school session. So overall, things are looking great.

This Sunday we had the help of family and friends to do one heck of a lot of work. Roughly 600 square feet of grass had to be torn up, the dirt removed and leveled, edging put in, mulch put down, not to mention the construction of the playscape itself. The weather forecast had been good, but rain and some thunderstorms slowed us down. By the evening on Sunday great progress had been made and we even brewed a batch of beer!

So, in no particular order Noel and I would like to thank the following people: Mom, Dad, Mum, David G., Heather, David L. (is there any tool he doesn’t have in the back of his truck?), Andrew, Kelli, Nate, Zeke, Janette, Michael, Jayme, Mike, and The Dude.

Read the rest of this entry »

I received an email today from the OFE (Office of Field Experience) with my information. I’ve been set up for an interview to student teach at the Hartford Magnet Middle School, shown in the picture here. I’ll be teaching social studies to seventh graders. As I get more details (and actually have the interview) I’ll put more information up.

We decided that the kids needed something to play on in the backyard and so after quite a bit of searching online we found this “playscape” for the kids. It arrived two days ago and now sits in boxes in the driveway. So far I’ve put some pieces together and with a little luck the weather will hold out for us and next weekend we’ll get it finished and set up in the yard. Duncan is very excited.

Sure to spread faster than the Macarena or the Texas Two Step, we would like to bring you the Undie Boogie as done by our very own Duncan! It’s a little funkier than the dance Fiona did last April..

For those who don’t know, I work part time at a liquor store. (Shameless plug - Conti’s Wine & Spirits on Spring Street in Southington). I’m there on Friday and Saturday nights. One of the perks is that I get to try wines and beers that I haven’t had before. Last Friday I was hanging out with a co-worker and a friend of an owner when a customer came in and asked us for some beer suggestions. All 3 of us made suggestions and we started talking about beer. We were already drinking some so we poured this customer some and kept on talking. It turns out this guy was a stunt performer. No not smashing through windows or driving cars over ramps, he is a fire eating, sword swallowing type of guy. He said he also does the laying on a bed of nails thing. After a little bit more conversation…. he brought the bed of nails into the store and all of us took a turn on it.

I can say that I’ve had some interesting nights at work, but laying on a bed of nails while at work takes the cake!

I saw this on the web and thought it was really a fitting description. So, giving credit to “Irkthesmirk” who wrote it, here it is:

“Here is how NCLB would apply to High School Football teams if it was implemented:

1. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. no exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities.

3. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.

4. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. This is because they coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don’t like football.

5. Game will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th and 11th games.

6. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.

If no child gets ahead, then no child will be left behind…..”

Two months ago today I applied for student teaching. As of now, I’ve still heard nothing and most likely it will be another month. So… more waiting.

The other part of this that drives me a little crazy is that student teaching counts as 9 credits. We also take a 1 credit seminar during the semester. First the fact that we pay full tuition to teach irks me a bit. But then, because it’s only nine credits we have to get a special form filled out, signed by the Dean of Education and bring it to the Registrar that tells them to accept the total of 10 credits as full time. Given that I earn 3 credits for spending 2 hours and 40 minutes a week on campus for 15 weeks, would it really kill them to change student teaching to 11 credits for the 40 or so hours a week I’ll be in the school for 13 weeks? This is just another example of the hoops that we need to jump through. There are times when I think I should graduate with a BS Ed Secondary History and a minor in Red Tape Navigation.

Fiona’s birthday happened last month (yeah, I’m a little behind on the postings). As you can see from the picture, she had a great time eating some of her birthday cake.

For a couple more pictures.. Read the rest of this entry »

Now while I myself believe that we (humans) are altering our environment, I also accept that yes, it is possible that the planet is going through on of its many shifts. During the middle ages it was warmer and grapes were grown in Britain. Of course then things changed and the plague ravaged Europe as it became cold and damp.

The current issue of Time magazine has a very compelling article on global warming/climate change. It is both interesting and frightening at the same time.

Then today I saw a link to this article at CNN. The coral in the Caribbean is dying off in large quantities due to the rise in water temperature.

I’m no biologist, but that can’t be good for the under water ecosystem.

I recently received my invitation to join Kappa Delta Pi, the International Education Honor Society. This will make a nice addition to the others on my resume. Plus I’ll get some funky green and purple cords to wear for graduation

I thought it was time for a new picture of the kids, so here we go. First off is a picture of Duncan wearing his “old man” glasses.

The second picture is of Fiona, pretty in her pink outfit and very happy.

Hmm was that a sneeze? No, that lovely string of letters is the stellar luminosity scale used by astronomers to categorize stars. Our sun is a “G” star.

I had to memorize this for a test in my Stellar Astronomy class. The letters L & T were added recently. Prior to that point the most popular mnemonic was “Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me” (you can replace girl with guy if that’s more your thing). One of the women in my class added to that for the L & T resulting in: Oh Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me Lovely Thang.

Why is that important to know? It’s not. I just thought I’d help spread some relatively useless information around.

Noel surprised me yesterday with tickets to the “One Man Star Wars Trilogy”. Charles “One Man” Ross puts on one hell of a show. I don’t think Noel and I have laughed that much in a long time.

Can one man truly do all of the characters in all 3 movies? Yes, including droids, spaceships, and even the Death Star. Yes, the Death Star.

I know that it probably sounds pretty geeky, but it was a show well worth seeing.

Well as of 9:45 this morning, my application for Student Teaching has been submitted. This included the actual application, copies of transcripts from 4 different colleges, two essays (one autobiographical and the other what I hope to accomplish while I’m teaching).

Now I wait. And wait. I probably won’t hear anything for at least 2 months, possibly longer.

I’ve been thinking recently that I should pick up a copy of this book and reread it as it seems to be the manual by which the current administration is making it’s plans from. I looked at Gutenberg but they didn’t have it. Then I stumbled across a link to George Orwell.org which has not only 1984 but other works by the author.

Time to go get my dose of newspeak.

So have you been wondering what Noels been up to recently? Starting late last year she got really interested in making beaded jewelry. Earlier this month she took the big step and registered a business name with the state. So we’re now going to start getting mailings at the house for Cricket Creations. She already has some of her items for sale at a local quilt store in Plainville, The Quilting Bee

Click on the image to see a larger version.

Now I’m a big fan of holding a book in my hand, being able to flip back a page or two easily, make notes if need be, dogear a page of value, but the idea of an eBook intrigues me. With a good “reader” you’d be able to do all of those things, while carrying many books with you in the size of say an average paperback.

What really intrigues me about the idea is all the work being done at Project Gutenberg. They are taking books that are no longer under copyright and posting them online. This makes it easy to go grab a “classic” to read.

I love the start of the new semester. Going to the campus bookstore and dragging stacks of books to the counter, only to find out that I’m going to need another student loan just to pay for them. This semester I have four classes. I bought every used book that I could, and I still ended up with a $419.65 total.

At least 8 of the books are on African American history and are something I’ll keep for future reference material.