A 21-year-old poses as middle school football player - Prep Rally - Highschool  - Yahoo! Sports.

According to the Associated Press, Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times, a 21-year-old man named Julious Threatts registered to play for the 13-14-year-old Town N' Country Packers of the Tampa Bay Youth Football League on Aug. 21, and played in a game with the team the same day. Threatts, who had a past burglary conviction on his record, reportedly signed up for a spot on the team under the name "Chad Jordan" with a forged birth certificate. After further investigation, it now appears that Threatts -- an avowed Danielle Steele fan who recorded poetry readings on a personal YouTube channel -

As I watch Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Michael Doyle and Solidad O'Brien play Celebrity Jeopardy (oh, and yes I am kicking their collective ass,)  I happened upon the above article on Yahoo.com.  It's particular well written article but the entire story is a goddamn shame.

Personally, I am completely ambivalent about my high school years, so it really makes me wonder how amazing this guy's years were.  I mean, he's been trying to relive them since he graduated.  Yes, the years afterward suck (bills, feeding yourself, laundry, bills, working, taxes, college, late fees from the public library, and Time Warner) but generally the freedom and ability to shape our own lives supposedly become realized for most of us, and we are giving the chance to rise and face the constraints of our situations.

But what does it take to want to feel like a 14 yr old boy in a 20 something year old man's body.  Even Peter Pan had magic to blame.  It's just a damn criminal shame.  I hope that he gets help.  The kicker  of the article is that it seems to keep happening over and over again lately.  I mean, really, serial pedophiles that don't just stalk and pretend to be kids online, but in actual real life.

[Chester Kent

www.GetintheRye.com]

Original Yahoo article link:  http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/blog/prep_rally/post/21-year-old-poses-as-middle-school-football-play?urn=highschool-266086

The Beijing-Tibet expressway slowed to a crawl on August 14 due to a spike in traffic by cargo-bearing heavy trucks heading to the capital, and compounded by road maintenance work that began five days later, the Global Times said.

I’m sorry, I realize that this has nothing to do with teaching, but I can’t stop laughing at the ridiculous idea of people sitting in their car for 9 days trying to get somewhere.  Really?

Seriously….Shenanighans.

[Chester Kent]

This is the kind of story that breaks my heart.   She was just a day before her teenage years began and was out trying to live life like BET, and the movies tell her she should.

Makes me wonder, how long ago did she actually start playing in the drug game? Furthermore, how did her mother not NOTICE a damn thing?  I really wish I could see a picture of this girl, maybe try to look into her eyes and see if they are hardened or sad.

This is just a fucking shame.

-Chester Kent

A Brooklyn high-school principal — on the rocks for allowing booze at a boat-cruise prom where a tipsy staffer was caught kissing a student — put in overtime pay for 15 teachers to attend the bash on the taxpayers’ tab, a probe found.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/teachers_party_pay_b0VnRDVvpI4h58OsGAnvkJ?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=#ixzz0wfEbNSSi

I honestly don’t even know what to say about this.  So I’m just going to mumble this which I’m not sure I don’t not mean. I dig it.  Suppose you had this dude as a principal, seems like it would just be free alcohol, entertainment, and teen-aged antics all with overtime pay.  I mean, would you really want to be the teacher that reported these “abuses” to the Board of Ed?  Might as well legally change your name to “Pariah.”

Check it out.

[Chester Kent.]

Really?

So does that mean we can kick kids out of school for 8 months if they curse at us?

Well, I wonder if this school is hiring for his position now.

After listening to this, and reading the subsequent commentary, I found it was as how they describe the “Morning Edition.” I truly did find it a “perfect morning companion: gentle, but straightforward.”

Thinga in my life are changing.  Not necessarilly for the better but change is change I suppose.   In this regard, I plan on making this end of the blog (www.GetintheRye.com) more of an testomony without the emotiuonal gruff.  Just something of antedotoes about days subbing and lesson plans that worked or didn’t work.

In comparison, www.getintherye.wordpress.com will be my own personal blog in terms about me.  There you will be able to find the poems, and I suppose working notes, or real grit of what happened.  Whereas here, the only time I plan on using curse words or slang is when a kid hits me with such.

-Chester Kent

So this is summer vacay btw (by the way) and I’m allowed to live my life not as a versatile-fits-any-class-or-meeting substitute but as me. Feels kind of off since the NYC DOE forgot to pay me for a month (and I’m still dealing with such a resolution) but it is July and hot as hell or rather the inner circles of Dantes’ Inverno (Inferno.) In fact, the heatwave outside has felt like the inside of a teenagers mouth after they have those Lemonheads that are really hot/nuclear.

But on a more personal note, I think I may have finally met someone who gets me. The real me. The “I’m a real person and says things that I amazingly shouldn’t have but I did because I’m me” me. This person kind of makes me glow in a non-sexual kind of way and restores to me something I think I might have lost a few years by teaching.

Who knows if it will pan out into being something listed on my retirement plan or something that I fight over a tip at a restaurant for. I just kind of like smiling as I type this.

Chester Kent. 07-26-10
[www.getintherye.com]

After reading this article, I think that society really may be too easy on our kids.   This is a blatant case of a kid being an idiot and needing to get his ass beat by an adult.   It’s basic consequences for ringing the doorbell and then bouncing into the night like that.

The kid and his other friends should have to do community service and pay some sort of restitution for Mr. Van Plew who did what any reasonable person would have done.

[Chester Kent.}

“In the fight between you and the world, back the world.”
-Frank Zappa

During the course of a school trip that occurred in the final weeks of school, an elementary student Nicole Suriel lost her life by drowning.   As more and more news coverage was generated, the city of New York hired an investigator to determine what went wrong.

However, as more “in-depth” news coverage continued, I began to notice that the news coverage  and subsequent  reports from the official “Investigation” seemingly became fairly pointed towards finding a scapegoat to blame instead of finding ways to avoid this accident.

Ultimately, the findings followed the typical outcome that one would expect- the teacher (Erin Bailey) was fired. Other fallout included demotion of an assistant principal and probation for school principal Jose Maldonaldo.

This was a situation that was going to be resolved in a bloody sort of way for all the educational professionals involved, especially Ms. Bailey.   Any field trip is a potential risk for disaster.  Hell, it doesn’t even have to be a field trip; any time that you take children out of the classroom and into the view of the outside world such as during recess, or gym class in the park (for example) you expose yourself to scrutiny.  There have been many of times when I’ve lined up my students to go to lunch or to an assembly and we’ve sat there in the doorway while other classes drifted passed or the event has started because well….well I don’t think that their conduct would reflect well on them or on my standards of discipline.

As I read through the news stories, I find it curious that Ms. Bailey has never been quoted nor does she have an official statement.  I think it’s unfair the way she has been (mis)characterized in the media.  Does it really matter that she was a first year teacher?  No.  Perhaps that means to some a lack of competence due to the lack of years experience except the things that I have read shows that she tried to cover her bases.   Case in point, though it appears that Nicole did not have a signed permission slip, Mr. Suriel  (her father) was obviously contacted by the school and gave express verbal consent.  Which in itself might have been a little bit of an ordeal, considering that in each interview Nicole’s parents spoke through an interpreter.

Secondly,  Ms. Bailey had the appropriate teacher to student ratio for a field trip.  On the same  official level is that the AP Mr. Stillman stayed behind to pitch in on some end of year administrative duties which could have resulted in the school missing out on $30,000 for school supplies.

Next, blah blah blah.  There are a lot of excuses.  My opinion of what went wrong is probably kind of harsh to. Simplistic, but harsh.  Water + Students who can’t swim = Simplest Equation for an Accident. In the building or out the build. I also have an opinion about elementary/middle school kids that is even worse.  They really should be seen/not heard unless during times when they expressly permitted.  During the portion of class when I’m tossing information out, and reaching out to students of different levels of comprehension in one class, off-handed comments or even unsolicited questions can really throw off all the pacing.  I’ve become quite found of telling the kids – “Raise your hand if you’re going to talk to me.”  Think it might be teaching at a Catholic school that set me up in that way.

I think that the outcome of this field trip was quite sad but not necessarily equal to the level of tragedy.  I suppose Ms. Bailey made errors, but I can’t place myself in her shoes.  I don’t want to feel anything that she felt.  Too many times I’ve jokingly said to myself, “Thank God…None of my kids died today.”  Which really isn’t funny in light of this situation, but I’m still lucky enough to joke about it.  Honestly, I just feel that it’s not fair to lob all the fault on the school.  Several days later, other incidents occurred with adults on the same beach.  Nicole’s parents allowed her to go to the beach, any beach, even though they knew she couldn’t swim.  Ms. Bailey probably should have looked at the percentage of people (adults and children) with aquatic skills on the trip and maybe had gone to the park or something.  Everyone bit off more than they thought they could chew, and what happened next was sadly logical.

Chester Kent
7-18-10
Originally posted on [www.GetintheRye.com]