·         Robin N

o   Taught 28 years (Van Buren for 20+ years)

o   Believes that meetings are social activities (examples included but are not limited to board meeting, charity events, and charity preparation meetings)

·         Idaho has 16,000 teachers and of that body 12,000 are members of the IEA (Idaho Education Association)

·         Referred to as “the organization”

·         The Organization: bargains for you, acts as your agent, negotiate your contracts

·         IEA is part of the NEA (National Education Association) and the number of delegates to represent each state is based on the quantity each state’s members (for example. Idaho has 12,000 members and therefore has 50 delegates to represent them compared to California has over 300,000 members and therefore has 1,200 delegates to represent them.

·         Because this could lead to the states with the most quantity (examples California and New York) making all the decisions, Idaho joined forces with other smaller states to ensure that their vote counts

·         The IEA was formed in 1892 (two years after the state of Idaho was formed)

·         “Every decision you makes as a teacher or don’t make , it based on a political decision” – Sherri

·         Always document what you do – Date/Situation/What you did OR How you handled the situation

·         “Make decisions based on data”

·         1^st and only time the IEA protested, they received more money than they asked for (1992)

·         The IEA has three lobbyists. Positions required a lot of work and time…which do not pay well

Reflection:

                The speakers, Sherri and Robin, were great to listen and talk to…I wish I had more information about the IEA or the NEA to ask more questions about, but they did a great job filling me in how what goes the NEA/IEA is all about. Though I agree with what they had to say I am skeptical about the personal politics that overshadow the best interests of the teachers.  Both ladies are amazing leaders in their own right. Sherri appears to be a leader with individual students and the political side of teaching, while I got the sense Robin is a great leader in small group discussions.  I really enjoyed the exercise that Robin has us do. When looking at the possible options I thought I would be more evenly distributed than I was but with a higher amount of points in the “thinker’ and “feeler” category. Those were the two that I was dominant in.

Even though I didn’t cry, it was not to say that Sherri’s story need not touch my heart. That was an amazing story, about her student Jesus, to verify that the little things matter. I really appreciate that someone could walk into a room of strangers and feel comfortable enough to talk about something so dear to their heart…that is courage and it shows significant signs of being a leader. I also enjoyed how Robin ran into one of her old students twenty years later and three thousand miles away in Washington DC. Shows you that students remember the great teachers they had!

 I am glad that the ladies were honest with our class and told us about how they do not like the bureaucracy of the classroom and if it were straight teaching that they would never have left the classroom. I think after a while it would be hard for anyone to handle the politics that invade the your workplace, which could be a reason we see so many people switching jobs more often than before. I hope that I am able to make as significant of impact/footprint that these two great leaders have been able to in their time in the teaching community. 

Since this was our last speaker, I just want to say thank you for taking the time and energy to make sure that our class was able to hear and discuss with a lot of different type of people in the teaching profession. I appreciate learning about people’s experiences and believe that it  will help immensely when it comes time for me to teach. 

Most Likely to stay in the MAT program because of this video

Categories go as such:

Best Editing

Best Lead Actor

Best Supporting Actor

Best Cinematography

Most Educational

Most Likely to quit the MAT to pursue a career in acting

Funniest Movie

Funniest Actor

Also found out that Sony might make a Spider-Man 4 (Tobey Maguire is not signed on yet and director Sam Raimi will only sign on if Tobey does and he feels the script has a high enough quality).  Do you think they should invest in another movie?

1) go to McCall and camp Friday morning and returning Saturday morning with two friends

2) go to Richland, Oregon (population 170) with two friends to meet up with our good buddy who had a belated grad party/4th of July BBQ 

3) Spend Friday afternoon going to Payette to hang out with my buddy and his family

4) Stay around here and veg out

Well before I decided that – I thought it would be a good idea to have a water balloon fight Thursday…so immediately after JP, Aimee, and I finished shooting our video I came back to my apt and started making water balloons. My friends Ben & Morgan came over and assisted in the process – we had somewhere around 60 or so…but they only last about 5 minutes. It was a fun five minutes but it took us like 30 minutes just to make the water balloons. Oh well – needless to say I got drenched which felt amazing because of the ridiculous heat.

So my two friends (Jason and Eric) came over around 10:30pm because they were on their way to Richland and they wanted to hang out (convince me to come with them) with me before they took off towards Richland. Well, we hung out for about 30minutes and then they left to go visit another friend staying here over the summer. When they came back at 11:30pm—I told them no…and walked them to their car…and then I changed my mind ( I wanted to go, because I thought it would be a great experience and allow me to recharge my batteries from the stresses of classes, but was worried about the lack of sleep I would get). 11:45pm we were on the road and on our way. Got into Richland (about 30 minutes outside of Baker, Oregon) around 2:30am and crashed on Ben’s floor…woke up to the smell of Huckleberry Pancakes and hung out with his family. We had to do some prep stuff for the party – so we got our work shoes on and got to work, then Ben took us around his town – showing us the different sites…I swear at each place everyone knew Ben and was asking about his party. It was a refreshing to experience (if even for a day) how it is to be in a town where everyone cares about you and is so nice to everyone

The party was way fun! There were about 50 people that showed up which is just under a third of the town, all coming to celebrate Ben and his brother’s accomplishments. After we left the town’s community center, we went back to Ben’s house where we continued the party talking with his childhood friends and family members. When it got dark we (Jason, Eric, Ben, and Ben’s brother) headed to the hillside to watch the firework show – which was awesome, especially because there was a thunder/lightning storm just to the left  of the fireworks so we got to see lightning clashing with the fireworks (way cool), then we headed to a water hole – where we had the worst bartender in recorded history so we left shortly after and proceeded to the lake where we brought some chairs and sat on the dock…looking up at the sky and shooting the breeze. The night sky was a blanket of stars and clarity – I had never seen a shooting star, but on that night I was fortunate enough to see two shooting stars…talk about amazing.

Woke up the next morning and listened to what I can only describe as story time…about four members got up and either recited poetry or told a story (or two) about a person or event.

Ben’s mom made us homemade biscuits…delicious- it would have been worth the drive if just for the biscuits ;^) After we said our goodbyes and headed on back to Idaho.

That was my first 4th of July outside of SoCal and it was one of the most memorable experiences. Definitely refreshing to visit Ben’s town!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXrWRM0E6YA

–Big M Cal

I hope you all enjoyed the “HUMP-DAY” BBQ and the guest speaker yesterday, and I am very excited about watching the video.

Hope you had all have great weekends—you get work done then have a little fun, though we are in school…this is also summer time and we should all be enjoying it (even if it is just for a little bit).

New Jersy Nets: get Melo and in return the Nets get Vince Carter plus their second 1st round pick (from Dallas). The money makes since and could be equal value if Vince can play for another year and the Nuggets draft right

Sacramento Kings: this seems like a good move for both teams. The Nuggets need to improve their defense what better way than bringing in the former Defensive Player of the Year Ron Artest (small forward). Pair Artest with Kenny Thomas and their 1st Round Draft pick to Denver for Melo.  Melo teamed with K. Martin will take care of the scoring while Spencer Hawes, Brad Miller, and Sheldon Williams will take care of the rebounds and blocks with B. Udrich to facilitate the ball to everyone at the point guard position

Washington Wizards: send Melo to our nation’s cpaital for G. Arenas straight up. The only problem is that G. Arenas is a free agent – the Wizards would have to do a “sign & trade” which wouldn’t be out of the question. The Nuggets need a big point guard and Arenas would be just that – both around the same age. With this trade the Wizards could focus on getting a facilitator (point guard) to pass the rock with that ”fully loaded” line up.

LA Clippers: please please as a SoCal sports fan – make this trade. Send Melo to sunny Cali for Cutino Mobley and Corey Maggette. The money works out well and both parties would be getting good value on the return. Plus with the addition of Melo, it might persuade Elton Brand to stay in LA instead of testing the free-market

But what do I know – because I JUST heard that Detroit Pistons offered C.Billups and T.Price for Melo and Denver turned that down…so that tells me that this deal would have to be HUGE for the Nuggets to make a move because that would have been a very SWEET deal for the Nuggets if they wanted to pursue that possible trade