"who are the people in your cell block"

Somebody beat that before me.

http://t.nbcnews.com/health/sesame-street-creates-first-muppet-have-parent-jail-6C10345061

Sesame Street has a muppet whose father is in jail.

on one hand they say that 1 in 28 children have a parent in jail.

let's see I have about 100 students, would be about 4 students...the are 2...plus one whose father got arrested
for shoplifting so my students are close.

Children are not at fault for their parents, but if I have sympathy, it is for victims.

" we'll Alex it's sad your dad is in jail. What did he do?"

"oh he tried to cap a guy who stole his stash and shot the guy's daughter."

Maybe we are confusing normal with "acceptable."

computers and poverty

The community I live in is building a new library.  Best news is, it is right down the street from me.  Huzzah!  The millage increase is only the second tax increase I have voted for.  One reason for the new library is the need for internet.  In my small community, half the population does not have internet and uses public services.

The school I work at has a technology center for parents and students to use in the evening...awesome idea.

Then there is this...
http://edtechtimes.com/2013/05/28/buzz-nber-study-finds-computers-for-low-income-kids-does-not-change-educational-outcome/

Which says giving computers to low income families did not raise grades. 
I am curious...did the families receive any training?  What programs were on it?  How was the study and control chosen? How long was the study?  Was there monitoring of the situation?

Computer use _can_ just break down to games and looking up things and copying stuff from the web.  But also can open up a lot of things.  And it takes time.  As I told my students "read"...news online of any silly type is reading.

Let me plug for this...http://www.reglue.org/

It is out of Austin Texas  (Taylor).  They give new and rebuilt computers along with internet access to poor kids.  The computers run Linux, which is free and you can easily search for and install new programs, also for free.. (takes me less than 5 minutes to get a new program on counting a reboot)

How do I know it is summer.  It time for the 2 a day shower.  Yesterday after riding the bike and gardening, I had to shower before the doctor appointment (Lab work).  Then after the range had to shower before doing anything else.  This morning had to shower (long story) and after a day at an auction and out beating the training dummy, definitely must shower.

reading in the bathroom

I was cleaning out the dresser holding craft stuff in the laundry room.  Afterward I was drinking water per doctor's orders and realized I was tasting soap.  After wondering if the dishwasher was acting up I realized it was the soap in one of the drawers I was experiencing.  I went and took a bath (hot baths in this household are the first treatment we have for being sick.) and going through the shelves I found a copy of _Grumbles_From_the_Grave, an editing of Heinlein's by his widow.  I do not remember where we purchased it but it looks water logged.  I sat down in the tub and read copies of his correspondence with his editors.

There was a girl fight in my class last week.  Something that had been boiling up for a while.

Then there was this.   During a kindergarten graduation two teenage girls got into a fight at which point the adults instead of breaking it up got into the fight too.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57587076/fight-erupts-between-parents-at-kindergarten-graduation/


Well what do you expect when those who are supposed to protect us do this.