Let’s celebrate!

I fashioned myself a DJ at one point. I even had my own show in college (The Thursday Morning Hangover Show and The Wasteland). I recall one mix I made for some of my buddies. Steve commented that it was the best tape for romancing a woman. Yeah, that was the point.

It’s been a long time since I had the pleasure of sitting down and culling through music to make a mix. Last year at Beetle’s pre-school graduation, her teacher gave her a fabulous scrapbook of the year’s events. This was far more than a couple photographs glued to a page. It made such an impression that both Gert and I decided we were going to address our own classes in some sort of memory book.

Those who know me know I am not much of an artsy guy. So instead I made a movie. Our entire academic year is crammed into a half hour. It’s pretty good. I’d love to share it, but I don’t put my students’ images online. The movie is a healthy dose of stills and video. I began it day one.

The track list is rather eclectic, but it does work amazingly enough.

Randy Newman You Got a Friend in Me
C+C Music Factory Everybody Dance Now
Disney Whistle While You Work
Cat Stevens Oh Very Young
Warren Zevon Werewolves of London
Paul Simon Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard
Students Happy Holiday
Students Santa Claus Rock
Thomas Dolby She Blinded Me with Science
Frank Sinatra My Funny Valentine
Lynyrd Skynyrd Free Bird
Dean Martin Let It Snow
Rex Fowler If I Had a Hammer
Sam Cooke Cupid
Louis Armstrong Wonderful World
Andrew Gold Thank You for Being a Friend
Tom Lehrer New Math
Pink Floyd Another Brick in the Wall
Todd Rundgren Bang on the Drum All Day
Merle Haggard Mama Tried
Students You Got a Friend in Me
Students I Want to Feel Good
Kool and the Gang Celebration
Green Day Time of Your Life

Scalia took on the typical platitudes that commencement speeches address and turned them on their head as only this mental giant can. Most of the speech can be heard here. The transcription of the speech is here.

The reality is that government is needlessly complicated. Everything is so entwined it is difficult to unravel what has already been done. It has been going on for so long, it is difficult to even imagine government not providing some services that it does. Reading some of the comments recently about perhaps scuttling the school lunch program seems to support this.

One New Jersey politician that seems to be involved in legislation just to give the appearance of doing something is state senator Jeff Van Drew. Earning the moniker “I Sponsor Every Bill”, Van Drew sponsors more legislation than any other.

At present, Van Drew has introduced legislation that prevents school districts from using any money saved from freezing teacher salaries on anything other than teacher salaries. Yes, that is exactly what his bill would do. Not one penny of the savings could be used for classroom supplies for the students. Remember, education is about the students. Freeze the teacher salaries to gain control of the budget, but Van Drew would not permit the district to use that budget to address academic needs.

Talk to me again how a lie of politicians¹ is best to address the educational needs of students.

Legislation like this is needlessly complicated.

¹ I love collective nouns. I once read somewhere a suggestion that a group of politicians should be called a lie. I think it is extremely clever and have adopted it.

I like much of what Governor Christie is doing. The Executive Director of NJEA is earning $11,000 weekly from my dues. Slice it any way you want, there isn’t one person in this union who is that valuable.

As I shared with a colleague the other day, NJEA should consist of only those who have worked in a classroom. Leaving to do the union’s work should not improve one’s financial state whatsoever.