Wisconsin 16 - Penn State 3

While the game on saturday looked like a solid defeat from the score, the numbers were surprising balanced (apart from Penn State's turnover numbers..) Jane, Beth, Julie, and I sat in the crowd of over 82,000 spectators to watch a great game on a beautiful Madison evening.

The most awesome thing was watching the Camp Randall wave spin around the stadium. First, it circles at normal speed, then it circles at half-speed, then double-time, then reverses direction (with all the students pointing "that way!"), and finally splits into two and cascades back to the student section and an eruption of enormous volume from the fans! It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen from a collection of people. It was worth the ticket alone.

Good Mascotting, Steve! Thanks for a great b-day shindig, Mom, Curt and Alex. It was nice to see the family for the golden birthday. Jane, keep studying for your big test. Oh, and we're only days away from my first girlfriend getting married...wow.

Poor Honda

My honda has been ill for the last three days and yesterday, I thought it was going to start ralphing on the road. It sounded awful. As the mechanic informed me this morning, my front left caliper had locked onto my wheel and was causing the painfully loud screeching sounds that was causing the bunnies that live in my backyard to move to Niles (and who would want that?). $550 later, my Honda is medicated and greatly improved. I'm keeping antacid in the car from now on to help it feel better when it gets sick.

Rise and Shine!

I have a half-day of school today due to a teacher's inservice this afternoon and I'm moving rather slowly. I went to the gym this morning after a dynamite night of sleep, but I've not quite woken yet.

News of note:
* Jane's got a new job with CDW as their techEd, stateEd, and govEd editor. Awesome!
* Happy Birthday, Grandma Pedretti! (9/14)
* Open house tonight at the school, and the election of the new PTA board.

Late, ugh...

It was another late night as I worked furiously to finish two to three weeks worth of lesson planning. Why stay up so late to be ahead? Quite simply, there are so many duties a teacher must perform. With all of my planning done until the end of september, I can focus on spending some time with Jane, continuing my graduate school research project, reading L.E.T., putting web design projects back on the front burner, and taking some good long practice sessions at the driving range.

Good luck Jolene, making your big decisions. Hey Katie, finalized all the plans for the big day? Bryce, you settled in your new Ann Arbor apartment? Matthew, rock out with the family for the high holidays. Joe, you going to be ok after that multiple day football session? Chris, are you officially unemployed? If so, good!

Research in Education

As part of my LEAD 429 class: Research in Education, I'm beginning to develop my master's thesis proposal. For the first time in my life, I have actually located a wealth of interesting articles towards a topic. I'm interested in studying large-scale arts assessment methodologies. While that's pretty vague, its also about the twentieth wording of my problem. In short, I still don't have a clear picture of my goal, but I know it will deal with large-scale arts assessment and I've found lots of articles about that.

On a side note, in my research I also located an article by Jean Sinor, former Music Education Professor and my mentor at Indiana University. Her article reminded me that she was years ahead of her time. In 1992, she was already predicting many of the changes in the profession that would occur years later. We're still here working hard for you, Dr. Sinor.

As I think and rethink more about my area of interest, I'll keep my blog readers filled in.

NAEP Arts -- Arts Background Questionnaires

NAEP Arts -- Arts Background Questionnaires - Stunned. That's the only way to describe my feelings when I read the following sentence:

"Because the results of the 1995 field tests in music and visual arts showed high percentages of missing data for the music and visual arts teachers' questionnaires, teacher questionnaires were not administered in the 1997 music and visual arts assessments."

So, laymens terms...the teachers didn't provide enough responses in 1995, so we didn't ask about the programs in 1997. Bull-larky! Just because people don't respond, doesn't mean we don't need the information.

Consider It Blogged.

Consider It Blogged. - And, need we forget our father of the online blog, Joe. His blog is the most active blog I read on a daily basis. Well written, funny and intelligent. Cheer for the brewers, just for Joe.

Random Ruminations of my Mind

Random Ruminations of my Mind - Welcome Matthew to the online blog community. His blog is topic driven. He picks his next topic the night before to make us wait in anticipation. Rock on, Mr. Stein!

Stream of consciousness

stream of consciousness - FYI to all blog readers, Chris Fridd has a new blog up on the blog spot. Happy 25th Birthday, Chris!

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

Did you know that the arts are assessed on the NAEP once every 9 years during 4th, 8, and 12 grade in dance, music, art, and theater? Did you also know that that over 80% of sample do not have dance or theater programs in their school?

Also, there is little difference between the test scores of students with arts in their schools and those without arts programs. So, my question then is, how do we judge the effectivness of the arts instruction? Right now, it looks like arts could be cut and there would be no impact on arts knowledge. Common sense tells us that this cannot be correct.

(rub your chin here as you ponder this dilemma)

Late Night with LEAD 429

Yeah, it's almost midnight and I'm still up working on my LEAD 428, Educational Research homework. Normally, I'd have this all done by now, but since I didn't get my book until tuesday of this weekend, and I've been very busy during my daytime hours, I haven't had a chance to finish the reading, yet.

I must say, though, this research material is facinating. Who knew there were so many different research designs, experiment designs, and methods for both qualitative and quantitative. It just makes you want to t-square something into a standard deviation (and I mean that as a good thing). As far as I currently know, that last sentence doesn't actually mean anything, BTW.

A Strengthened Resolve

Many of you know I've applied to the Northeastern Illinois University Educational Leadership program, but did you know, I've still not been officially accepted. All of my papers have been turned in, but about two weeks ago, I recieved a notice that my letters of recommendation were not from my supervisors, and therefore, needed to be resubmitted.

I resolved tonight, to not only finish this process, but use this opportunity to set myself up for greater success in the future. I will solicit a letter of recommendation from my principal at the same time, I look for a year of mentoring as well. I am going to need all of the help I can get to move from a classroom teacher to an administrator. These jobs are not similar, and it is time to be proactive in making this move.

The morning after...

Whoa, I'm tired today. I stayed up late last night pulling the house back together. Cleaning, practicing trumpet, laundry, getting ready for Northshore Band on Wednesday, etc.

Jane arrived home this morning, too, and I was glad to hear that she made it home (it took 2 hours for her to get from Midway back to the house, yuck!) Welcome back, my dear!

Is anyone else worried about the president set by the attack on the K-12 school? This is a new low and we need to prepare for a situation like this.

Empty House

All my friends have left for their respective homes and now, the house is quiet again. We had a great time exploring the city this weekend. Some quotes: "Blue!," "I'm all in!," "Cuba, Cuba, Cuba," "This weekend we're taking a trip to Home Depot to pick out flooring, and maybe, if we have time, we'll stop at Bed, Bath, and Beyond," "You sell copy machines door-to-door?," "You got cheese stuck in your braces?," "Those were darn good burgers," "You must have an invisibility cloak around you"

Hey, bonus points go out to Joe and Chris for whacking a golf ball like a real pro. They sure do sail pretty when you're loose and free with your swing.

The first annual boys weekend was a big hit. Can't wait to see you all next year. Hey guys, send me pictures.

Games at Home.

We all played a great evening of Poker, with a number of us going "all in" a number of different times. I took most of Matthew's money, then to make it move faster, we just put all of our money in the center and did a straight draw. Unfortunately, I was not the victor, but I conceeded a great game to Matthew.

Last night was the best game of Monopoly ever played by three guys. Chris and Matthew: you guys played a great game. My new monopoly strategy is to get into an auction with your opponent, ratchet up the price, then stop bidding so they lose all of their money.

Milwaukee 1, Cinnicati 9

After another active night of dreaming, I awoke with a new plan for the day: Skip Comisky, and head to milwaukee for a Brewers Game with the Boys. On the way up, we hit The Original Pancake House in Wilmette, eating ourselves nearly ill with dynamite omelettes and pancakes. Joe even ordered a side of sausage with his Continental Breakfast. Ugh!

At the stadium, we caught a nearly perfect day of baseball, if you ignored the slaugter occuring on the field. The reds were up by 8 after the first three innings. As always, the Brats were top-notch and the stadium one of the gems of the league.

Saturday with the Boys

We were up pretty late last night, but we all still woke up before 8 am. Nuts. Since it was a great morning, we sat outside, ate some Kauffman Bagels, and played some poker. After Matthew cleaned us out, we left for Kayaking down the Chicago river.

I wish I would have kayaked on the Chicago river before this weekend. It was so nice to cruise down through the Forest Preserve. Yes, the river was a bit smelly, but it was easy to overlook the aromas and instead, focus on the mixture of industrial/forest views to the east and west.

Lunch was awesome at Lucky Platter. Go pizza cooks. Excellent as always.

Joe and Chris wacked golf balls like pros at the Skokie Driving Range. The guys enjoyed it so much that we'll probably head back tomorrow.