Paul's Infrequently Updated Blog

On Wednesday, there was a meeting for Probationary Teachers that was organized by our Union, the Gering Educators Association. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the rights of non-tenured teachers. The meeting was held at a local pizza place so I got the opportunity to eat free pizza and learn more about my rights and responsibilities as a teacher.

When I got there, I found there I found that the turn out was pretty low. We had another snowstorm on the day of the meeting  and the roads are still pretty bad. In the end, only three other teachers turned up. I was still a little  surprised because, despite the conditions, I thought more people would show. I found the meeting very informative and I got the business card of the regional union rep for the Nebraska Education Association or NEA, the state union to which our local union is affiliated. So if I have any serious problems in the future I know who I can contact.

Also, we had another faculty meeting on Wednesday. Not surprisingly, the ESU #13 Winter Conference workshops came up. I could hardly believe it when one of my fellow teachers said how great the “Energizer” was with his presentation. When she started talk about the great things she had learned that she would use in the classroom, I was started to wonder if I had even been in the same workshop. I still say that workshop was dreadful and that the presenter only wanted to sell us his products.

Today was the annual ESU #13 Winter Conference. ESU stands for Educational Services Unit and the one that covers the Panhandle of Nebraska was the 13th to be established in the state.

Every February, they hold numerous workshops for teachers and other educational professionals in the Gering/Scottsbluff area to support our “professional development.” Every December, we get asked which of these workshops would we like to attend and, unfortunately, this year I forgot to tell my Principal my preference, so he put me in what he thought would be the best workshop for  me.

Until this year, all we had to do was fill out a sheet telling the administration what workshop we wanted to go on, but, this year, we had to go see the Principal and “request” the workshop of our choice. I say request because several teachers told me that when they went to the office with their requested workshop the Principal insisted on them attending something else instead.

So I go to the workshop at the Gering Civic Center to see what the presenter, Carl “Energizer” Olsen, has to say. Anyone who decides to use the term “Energizer” as a nickname immediately raises a red flag for me. Sure enough this guy did not fail to disappoint.

Almost from the beginning, I got the feeling he was trying to sell me something from the collection of products he had set out on tables in the room. He also spent much of his presentation demonstrating his products claiming they could be used in the classroom to attract and maintain students’ attention.

I had several issues with the “Energizer.” First off, I found his presentation to be dull. I find most workshops to be dull so, to be honest, it may well be just me and I will try not to hold that against him. The next issue concerned where he spent most of his career in public education. For most of his time in education, he was a Middle School Guidance Councilor and, while that means he would have had regular contact with students, it also means that he had little to no experience of actually teaching and managing a classroom. I do not like people who have had no real experience of teaching in a high school setting telling me the best ways of how to teach.

The other issue I had with the “Energizer” is that a lot of his products would not be used safely in a classroom. Some of his products create magic tricks and one involved the use of fire. I can just imagine the trouble a teacher would get into if they used such things at our school.

The final issue involved the afternoon break. The main reason for taking this break was not so we could stretch our legs and maybe grab some coffee, but so that the “Enerqizer” could try and sell some of his products to the people present.

At the end of the day, I asked one of my Social Studies colleagues what he thought of the presentation and he said that it had been one of the worst in his 25 years of teaching. I think that pretty much says it all.

This afternoon we got a knock on our door. Once again, a person was at our door trying to sell Kirby Vacuum cleaners. If you don’t know about Kirby Vacuums that is because they are not sold in stores, instead they are sold by sales people going “door to door.”

I do not like people coming to my door at the best of times trying to sell me stuff, but it does seem that the Kirby sales people seem to turn up in this area every six months trying to sell their ridiculously expensive vacuum cleaners. The first time it happened was about eighteen months ago when someone came to my door asking me if I wanted an “opinion” on a consumer product. He was pretty pushy and I ended up letting him in. He then spent the next TWO HOURS demonstrating a Kirby Vacuum cleaner to us. By the end, I had to almost push him out the door as I had an appointment at the Orthodontist that I did not want to miss.

After this experience, I googled Kirby Vacuums and their sales techniques and discovered a ton of complaints about Kirby both from people who had to put up with the demonstration and also from former salespeople. I actually felt sorry for some of the former salespeople. Many of them were just regular people who needed a job to pay the bills and support their families and were/are getting duped by Kirby. If you want to find out more about how Kirby scams customers and salespeople you can do a google search for yourself and find out.

So, this afternoon a young guy comes to the door with the exact sales pitch I heard eighteen months ago and also six months ago and I immediately asked him if he was selling Kirby Vacuums. His response was “so you’ve heard of us” to which I responded that there was no way that I was going to spend $2000 on a vacuum cleaner and that he might want to consider getting another job. He tried to tell me that his job  was the best job in the world and, as he did so, I closed the door.

If you ever have someone at your door and they ask you if you want an “opinion” on a consumer product or if they ask you if you would like a free carpet shampoo and cleaning, then do not let them in the door. Kirby Vacuums start at about $1200 and, if you buy on their installment plan, this can double with interest. Better to close the door to these people and go to the store and buy a perfectly good vacuum cleaner for $200.

Today, we discovered that on Sunday night (17th), there was a robbery at the townhouse two doors away from where we live. From what we have found out, at least two individuals smashed down the screen door at the front of the house and burst in on the students who live there. One of these people had a sawed off shotgun, while the second person had a sword.

The students were forced to give up at least $4000 worth of cash and property, but were left unharmed. The scary thing about all this is that, during the nigh,t Irene often ends up sleeping downstairs because D’Argo wants to go out. We leave the back door open for D’Argo for when he wants to come back inside. It would have been very easy for these robbers to have noticed that our back door was open and come in and robbed us. What Irene and I suspect is that the robbers knew about these students since they have had several big parties at their place in the last few months and people may have shown up who were not invited and who wanted to “case the joint.”

From what I understand, the police are pretty certain they know who is responsible and I suspect that, once they have enough evidence, they can make some arrests.

Today was the first day back at school after the Christmas break. There were no students today, just teachers and staff getting ready for the new semester. I did not really have all that much to do today. I made sure I had all my work done before I went on Christmas break. I did have to check and verify my grades with the school’s registrar, but after that I pretty much had the day to myself.

This semester things should be a little easier. Because the I.R. class is only a semester long, I have already taught one semester which means at least for the first two units I already have the material ready to teach the class. As I get into the second half, I will have to spend more time planning and creating materials because I did not get to teach that stuff the first semester. I still think everything will be okay and, by next school year, I will be all set.

When I got home today, I got greeted by D’Argo. He was outside and came to the front to come see me. We ended up going in the house together. On Saturday, he will be going to the Vets again for his rabies booster shot. He does need this because I have seen him recently playing with some of the other local kitties. I want to make sure he is protected from any diseases they might be carrying.