Ma and Pa Kettle Prepare for Math Portion of Teacher Certification Exam

Enjoy!

Scholarships for the ‘Credit Challenged’

Oh, what a charming way to put it. It’s an unfortunate reality for too many students - and now there’s a program to help out those with pocks, blemishes, and downright disasters on their credit reports.

SpendOnLife.com describes their scholarship program for the ‘credit challenged‘ as follows:

“It’s our desire that every young adult has access to higher education. Unfortunately in today’s society, students are finding it tougher to secure financing because of the credit crunch and past credit issues.

In an effort to assist students affected by the stricter lending practices for student loans, SPENDonLIFE is proud to offer our college scholarship program to those denied a student loan due to the recent credit crunch or their personal credit history.

We will award up to 10 college scholarships a year ranging from $500 to $5000. We hope this program will help to educate young adults about both the benefits and pitfalls that using credit can pose.”

They’ve got the usual information - FAQ, Guidelines and the Application - at the links below.

• Credit Challenged Scholarship FAQ
• Credit Challenged Scholarship Guidelines
• Credit Challenged Scholarship Application

Pass it along if you know someone who can use it. In this climate, we can all think of a few.

And don’t forget - there’s always someone out there willing to give money. The blue-eyed, the kid with that unique Eskimo/Botswanian heritage, the 7th best cornhole player in Western/Southwestern Iowa, etc. All you’ve really got to do is find’em and ask nicely.

Language Help: CorrectMyText.com

I’ve written several times that foreign languages aren’t my strong point. I try to keep active a network of people I can go to when I need some sort of translation into English - or when I’m attempting to write something brief in a language other than English and I need to ensure that I’m not completely embarrassing myself.

I still manage to do that too often, though I wouldn’t be so bad if the rest of the world spoke and read Latin.

Bothering those Italian or French or Russian experts takes up valuable currency, so I use online resources - forums, translators, etc. - when I can. I came across CorrectMyText.com and bookmarked it for those non-emergency foreign language needs.

The format is quite simple. You submit your text and someone fluent in that language corrects your mistakes or affirms what you’ve written. You can do the same thing for others. Here’s an example, a passage written in English about learning at school:

“People are learning at any time when they are awake. From they are born to when they are death, people never stop learning, maybe they do not realize it. A infant learns the world by touching things he can reach or biting everything he can get. When we read book we see a world describe by the writer and it is the world that we never know.”

Not too far from accurate, and I’m sure that some of you teachers out there wish you got paragraphs that solid.

So, we’d sign up to CorrectMyText, log in and post the following correction:

“People are learning any time they are awake. From the time they are born to the time they die, people never stop learning. Maybe they don’t even realize it. An infant learns about the world by touching things he can reach or biting everything he can get. When we read a book we see a world described by the writer, and that is a world we otherwise would never know.”

There ya go, folks. Correct some text or be corrected - it’s handy either way. Very neat site.

University of Gloucestershire

The University of Gloucestershire has been in its current organization since 2001, though its history stretches back about 200 years. The University has three campuses in Cheltenham, one in Gloucester - and what a beautiful place that is - with another in London.

Check out the video below to get a sense of the people and setting.

NEA’s Teacher Thank You Card

I rarely speak or write of the NEA in a way that would warm the cockles of that organization’s heart. Their lobbying efforts don’t warrant it.

Individual teachers, however, shouldn’t be punished for their union’s misgivings. That’s why the NEA-sponsored Thank a Teacher website is worth a moment:

On May 4th, NEA unveiled the [teacher thanks] mural at The Cannon House, the oldest congressional office building in Washington, DC. NEA and national leaders joined hundreds of local public school students, their teachers and teachers of the year for the event.

It’s a simple thing - a mural of thank you notes and cards to our teachers, specific and general. Leave one for a teacher you know or for teachers in general.

Praise is a funny thing. I don’t think much of effusive praise for the simplest, most mundane achievements. Teachers shouldn’t be patted on the back for pulling in $60,000 + full benefits, as many middle-of-the-road teachers in my local district do, for showing up to work [summers not included, obviously] and fulfilling the obligations of their contract. As professionals, they shouldn’t want praise for doing the bare minimum. Teachers aren’t heroes for choosing the profession; they’re heroes when they do their job well.

But everyone needs a ‘thank you’ or show of appreciation now and again, no matter the profession. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a parent who thanks his kid’s teacher for communicating well or for your kid having an all-around good day, or you’re just a taxpayer who appreciates that your school taxes are paying the salary of an asset to your community. It doesn’t need to be much - just thank a teacher now and again.

And you can start ye olde thank teacher project by hopping over to the NEA’s site.