I’m considering changing my major (again). I don’t enjoy the classes required for a psych major. When I don’t like something, I tend not to do it and therefore end up with crap grades at the end of the semester or dropping the class several weeks in. I’m considering changing to history with a goal of eventually teaching it. I’d prefer the collegiate level, but a better option is on the secondary level.

Most people hate history. To them, it was just years of rote memorization of names, places, and dates from a long time ago. Read the chapters and answer the questions at the end, then do a worksheet. Memorize all the dates and events on this timeline. Memorize and recite this famous document, but receive no explanation of why it’s still relevant a thousand years later.

For current students, it’s even worse. Today Social Studies (and most other classes) are all about test preparation. You know, the state tests where if you fail, you don’t move on to the next grade (or graduate, depending on year), your teachers’ jobs are in danger, and the school just might be taken over by the government (if enough of you do poorly). So the curriculum is altered to only cover things found on the test and students get buried in work by teachers trying to get it all in.

In many districts, for a person to coach a sports team, they must teach a class. Many of these people are not teachers (although they may get certified later) and are often assigned, you guessed it, history and other social studies courses. These “teachers” are only teaching because they need to be in a classroom for an hour and thus do not teach at all. They give out worksheets and other busy work and may have students read the chapters out loud to fill the time, but that is it. They don’t want to be there, and neither do the students.

It is not until college that most students begin to become engaged by history. There are of course those who draw a boring professor or are just not interested and never learn to enjoy it. It takes a professor who can turn the past into more than just facts. One who can tell compelling stories of all these things that happened so long ago. One that can lead discussions and evoke thoughtful dialogue among students. People emerge from these classes with a newly found enjoyment for the subject and some even make it their primary field of study.

Why can’t this happen on the lower levels? Eliminate No Child Left Behind. Reform education. Hire qualified teachers who are passionate about the subjects they teach and let them inspire that same passion in their students.

This is something that can and should be done and not just for history and other social science classes. How many people are turned off of math or science due to similar policies? When we don’t educate those that are our future well, the future starts looking a lot like this.

I completely and totally failed the NaBloPoMo challenge. I lasted maybe four or five days. It’s not that I didn’t have things to write about, I just didn’t write. *sigh*

Yet another example of today’s best and brightest and the completely brilliant questions they ask occurred yesterday. A student comes to the desk and asks while staring blankly at the sign that lists our hours: “What time do you close tonight?”

Why is it so hard to understand that a library does not sell textbooks? We have a limited amount of textbooks that can be checked out for use in-house, but we do not sell them. At all. The only books we ever sell are ancient ones that have been weeded from the collection. Even after telling a student this, she still insisted on knowing how much she could buy it from us for.

What’s worse is that she called a few minutes before coming in, and was told by my co-worker that we do not sell them. I finally convinced her that the book she wanted was not for sale and pointed her in the direction of the bookstore.

This is not the first time such a thing has happened unfortunately. Usually it’s much earlier in the semester and they are not quite as persistent (read: oblivious). And these people are all college students…. *sigh*

I recently purchased my textbooks for the fall semester that starts next week. Total cost was $300 or nearly 25% of tuition. Had I bought them all new from the bookstore as many do, they would have cost me over $600 or nearly half of tuition for this semester. Below are some of my methods to cut down the price gouging, feel free to leave yours in the comments. If you use any of these, let me know. I’d like to know how they work for other people.
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I’ve done a bit of an overhaul on the theme. The header is much smaller (and hopefully less seizure-inducing ) and the overall layout is wider. What do you think? Is it better or worse than the previous?

I think I’ve finally set my fall schedule after adding and dropping classes for the past four months. Here it is, combined with my work schedule. I don’t know that I’ll survive it…
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