The Polacco SRA Scandal

There is this whole Patricia Polacco / SRA McGraw Hill thing going on that has been occupying my brain as of late.

Basically, Patricia Polacco (noted children’s author) signed a contract to be a speaker at the IRA conference. She admittedly did not read the contract and was unaware that it was with the arch nemesis of all educators - SRA/McGraw Hill. The contract (as shown here) did include guidelines about her speeches, but they were somewhat vague, limiting her to two speeches on her “heroes” and two speeches on “tales and talk.” Apparently, shortly before the conference, SRA/MCGraw Hill required copies of Ms. Polacco’s speeches and required her to eliminate references to No Child Left Behind. They insisted that the speeches must be "upbeat, non-political, and non-controversial."

When Ms. Polacco refused to comply, SRA/McGraw Hill cancelled her contract. I don’t think they have much of a legal leg to stand on. There is no reason that the guidelines of the contract couldn't be followed while still discussing NCLB. It is possible (and even likely) to discuss one's hereos within the context of the present NCLB classroom environment. In fact it could be positively motivational. Also, I did not read anything in the contract allowing SRA/McGraw Hill the right of pre-approval of the speeches.

But I do think that the next speaker’s contract from SRA/McGraw Hill will most definitely include a clause limiting mention to the horrific piece of legislation otherwise known as NCLB. Beware future speakers!! You can contract your rights away. I just don't think Ms. Polacco did.

It is noteworthy that the only people that like this legislation are the people getting rich off of it. Perhaps it should be called: Leaving the same children behind, but making the textbook companies a hell of a lot richer in the process.

The Possum

Ode to the possum:

You used to sit and eat at our back door
Content to laugh while Molly slammed
Against the glass and begged for war
Now you’re squished and in the street
We felt your absence this last week

The Mess

My kitchen counter is piled with empty wrappers, paper plates, and plastic bags.  The floor of my living area is scattered with piles of papers and binders related to each subject area that I have finished an examination in.  My table is filled with lawyering materials:  outlines, class notes, flow charts to prepare me for the six hour take home exam on Friday.  I think time is going to be a real issue during the take home exam.  If there are four questions, and I spend an hour on each question, that only leaves two hours to review, revise, edit and travel to the law school to turn the exam in.  Now, you might think that an hour per question seems like a long time, but to be honest, we’ve never had an essay exam with a question that takes less than an hour (and sometimes they take two hours).  Additionally, we have the added constraint of a page limit (I think), which means that review and revision are going to be pivotal to fitting everything in.  I’m not trying to complain, I just want to honestly assess what the six hours will be like, rather than having the mentality that I have “all day” to work on it.  At any rate, I am very nearly officially done with my first year of law school and two full weeks of finals hell.    

The Game

Please. . . take my advice. . . do not spend hours playing this game. Seriously, it’s not that much fun. Besides, it is beyond your capabilities to beat my high score of 972M. Since you won’t go play, you don’t need to know that you click and hold down the left mouse button to shoot a rope and let go to go flying; click again to attach again, before falling to the depths below. But, you won’t be playing anyway. . .well back to studying. . .

Elijah

Tomorrow I have a Civil Procedure exam and Elijah will be in surgery. Once again, Elijah has helped me to have a little perspective on life. Elijah is a big part of the reason that I am in Columbia. Seeing everything Shane and Heather went through and all their family support helped me to realize that I wanted to be closer to my own family. If you have even a little extra money, please donate it to Elijah’s March of Dimes Walk America Team. They are only a little bit away from raising 2000 dollars. And whether you have any money or not, please take a moment to think positive thoughts for Elijah tomorrow. I know I will be thinking of him!

The Extra Stuff

Today I got to be the comic relief for some fellow law students. The reason? The things that I bring into the four hour exam. It’s funny, I suppose, but I never even thought twice about it. It is clearly a leftover from years of field trips and step-parenting. It’s funny how you can never get rid of that “be prepared for everything” mentality. You never know misery until you have been on a walking field trip with twenty-five kids and no band-aids. Or until you find yourself on an afternoon hike with four year old FRD and no snack. So now I present, for you laughing pleasure, what I’m thinking when I decide what to set out on my table space during a four hour exam:

• First there’s the notes. If it’s an open note exam, I bring them all. I print out every case brief, every note, every outline that I’ve done. I organize them all in a binder with tabs and colored highlighting. I’ve only opened that binder once during an exam, but boy was I glad I had it then. I knew that I had read something in a case that applied to the problem, so I checked my handy dandy case list, turned to the appropriate page in my binder and ripped the page out for a quick perusal. Truthfully, just going through the organization process of printing everything, reading everything, making outlines and graphs and charts, and lists and table of contents for outlines is pretty much the only thing I do to study. Once I’ve made all that crap, I rarely look at it again. But just in case I want to, it’s all there with me, sitting next to my laptop while I furiously try to type something coherent during the exam. (Admittedly, the notes aren’t the funny part. . . but they are part of the overall picture).


• Highlighters: I like to have a lot of them, because I like to use different colors to highlight different things, so I pretty much just bring a big pile of them in.


• Several pens. . . I mean come on. . . what if one of them ran out of ink during my exam. . .keep reading. . .I’ll get to the funny stuff


• I also keep a few different shapes and sizes of post-it notes out. Okay, I’ve never actually used a post-it note during an exam, but you never know when you might need a post it note.


• Okay. . . . I also like to have a bottle of water. . . and a bottle of diet coke. The water is in case I get thirsty. The diet coke is in case I need a caffeine buzz. I don’t actually drink caffeine (for many years now) so when I do it’s like a drug. A totally legal, pick-me-up during four hours of essay writing? Who wouldn’t want that?


• Now of course, I also like to have a snack. I mean can you imagine taking an exam and suddenly finding yourself ravishingly hungry and then having to sit there for three and a half more hours? I’d die! So I keep a pile of chocolate (in case it’s near the end and I just need the sugar/caffeine buzz to push me on through) and a more substantial snack (like pretzels, in case the hunger hits early on and I need something to fill me up). I can’t say that I ever used the pretzels, but I often eat the chocolate during the exam. During the torts exam last semester I believe that I ate 10 Hershey kisses. It was our last exam and my body just didn’t feel like it would make it.


• Yes, I also keep chap stick and hand lotion out. Stop laughing and read my reason. I mean can you imagine realizing half way through an exam that your lips are chapped or hands are cracked? I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else. I would just sit there, licking my lips forgetting everything I know about the subject, just aching for some chap stick. Hasn’t happened to me yet. . . but it could. And I’d be prepared. I’d be ready with my cherry chap stick.

Ok, that’s pretty much it. See it doesn’t sound quite as funny as it looks piled up next to my lap top. Of course, this time I also brought socks in. Wait! It can get cold in the law school! What if my feet got cold? I would never be able to concentrate with cold feet.

So there you have it. Me and my crazy, over-prepared pile of stuff to get me through four hours that pass faster than a sit com. I never did bring in band-aids. . . maybe I should do that next time.