Bloomington Bound

Mom and I met Doug at Bethany Christian at 3:30 today so that we could head straight to Bloomington after school let out.  Cameron and Jackie were ready to leave as soon as we arrived which we really appreciated.  Mom drove the van home for us and we made it to B-Town by 7:15 as traffic was relatively light.  Cam and Jackie spent their time comparing notes on tomorrow's showdown between IU and Michigan.

Meg was more than ready for us to arrive.  She only had a paper to finish this morning and most of her friends left this afternoon.  That did give her plenty of time to pack for Thanksgiving break.  We picked her up at the dorm and the five of us went to Grazie's for dinner.  Meg had been wanting to try it for several months, but it just hadn't worked out until tonight.  Although she had a great time visiting with Jackie, the food wasn't quite as good as she expected.  We agreed that it was nice to try once during her time at IU.  

We dropped Meg and Jackie off at Sample Gates and then we drove to Brett's apartment.  They wanted to walk through campus before going back to Meg's room.  Brett had to work so we did not see him until close to 11 p.m.  Cal had friends down from Purdue so he was busy as well.  We talked about playing Ticket to Ride when he got home, but it was too late for all of us.  Doug needed to get up early anyway, so instead we just enjoyed some downtime.  

Sick Day

Cam and I both slept in this morning which was very nice.  Although he felt a lot better by lunchtime, I had him stay home for the afternoon as well.  He was pretty run down yesterday and I thought that resting would be the best.  We took advantage of our free time to watch Gotham and play Buck Euchre with Grandma and Grandpa.  Winning "money" off of Grandpa definitely lifted his spirits.

Tonight I went out to dinner with Mary and Paula.  It was very nice to catch up with both of them.  They have already been enjoying the Christmas movies on Hallmark Channel and filled me in on several party ideas for our holiday gathering on December 6th.  When I got home I joined Cam and Doug in a round of Sink Your Neighbor before we called my parents back up for a game of Oh Hell.  Cam was definitely on the mend by the time we finished.  Then again winning always seems to make one feel a whole lot better.

Trying to Make it Through the Day

Cameron texted me this morning to let me know that he really didn't feel well.  I wasn't surprised as he sounded awful before we left for school.  I had given him Ibuprofen for a sore throat, but he said that it didn't help much.  He didn't ask to come home, but instead wanted to try medication.  Of course today was one of the few days that I did not have a car as the brakes were being fixed on the van.  Thankfully, my mom was able to run him over Mucinex and Tylenol.  He texted me back at lunchtime and said that he did feel better. 

When I picked him up after school Cameron stated that he was back to feeling "meh."  As he had tennis tonight, I encouraged him to rest up for it.  I hoped that going to it would help and he reported when he got home that it worked at least for the hour he was on the court.  With that said, he thought the best course of action was to stay home.  I agreed immediately as Cam hadn't missed a day of school all year.  He was happy to hear that and planned to sleep in tomorrow morning

Wear Red for Ed

Today several thousand teachers rallied on the Indianapolis Capitol Building in what was termed as “Wear Red for Ed” day.  I had talked to a few of my teacher friends from Milford and knew that one or two of them would be in attendance today.  Their intent was to let legislators know that funds for education needed to be increased as Indiana was listed at 51st for increases in teacher pay since 2002.  No other specific demands were made, but ways to improve education were plentiful.  In the end teachers felt that they had made progress in their plight to made public education better.

I do believe that the teachers and school systems that participated today felt as though they made a difference.  I, however, was more skeptical that any real change would happen.  My experiences with public education had made me a cynic both as a teacher and a parent.  Even so, I did spend some time thinking today about what change I would ask for it I was at the statehouse today.  It wasn’t about a pay raise, although I totally agreed that teaching as a profession was grossly underpaid.  Although there were multiple issues that I had during my tenure in the school system, the one that I thought would solve most problems was class size.  If the state would mandate that classes would be capped at eighteen students, a teacher’s ability to teach curriculum, handle discipline and be a mentor to the students would greatly increase.

I learned this firsthand as the last year I taught I had thirty-two in my math class.  Discipline was ever a problem and it was challenging to help students individually.  This class had so many students that needed my full attention, but it was virtually impossible to spend enough time with each one of them.  My ability to education and support them waned as the year progress.  This didn't surprise me as there are numerous studies that support the idea of smaller class sizes as a mean to improve education.  For some reason, however, our local public education system hadn’t quite bought into the theory.  With all of the curriculum ideas, changes to testing and professional development sessions that I sat in on during my six+ years at Wawasee I never once heard mention of trying to implement change in class size.  I had even brought it up in an administration meeting as Meg’s Pre-Calculus class her sophomore year had thirty-three students without enough seats for each of them.  I was told that the students were smart enough and that they would be fine no matter the size of the high ability classes.  Meg sure appreciated that Bethany did not follow the same philosophy and demonstrated perfectly my suggestion with the majority of her class sizes under fifteen.  Cam also noticed a huge difference.  He felt that in public school that he was "sent to a corner to work quietly on an iPad while other students received more attention." That has never been a complaint since he started at Bethany.  In fact he felt he actually received more interaction with his instructors due to his knowledge of the subject matter and created even stronger bonds with his teachers due to their attentiveness.  I realize that my suggestion would increase a need for more teachers which would in turn call for additional funds.  Even so, I truly believe that that would be money well spent.

One More Month

Cam let me know last night that one of his bracket came off of a front tooth.  It had been quite some time since he had had any problems with his braces, so I was a little surprised.  I asked him what happened and he said that it had been loose, but when he bit into an orange, it popped off.  I thought that was extremely strange as every time he had broken a bracket it had been from a piece of fruit.  I had even said to myself recently that I would be glad when I now longer had to cut up his fruit for his lunches.

I called the orthodontist this morning as soon as I dropped Cam and Jacob off at school.  I almost expected them to say, "Don't worry about it.  He's getting them off in a month and it will be fine until then."  The response was the exact opposite and they set up an appointment for today at 12:10.  Fortunately, I had nothing on my agenda today and it worked out for me to get him to Warsaw and back this afternoon.  I also needed to pick up more rubber bands for Meg, so the trip was well worth it.  They were able to replace the bracket easily.  Cameron did say that it felt weird when it was off and the wire was out.  The reality hit both of us then that soon his braceless smile would return.  He was happy about that.  The first thing that he planned to was grab a pack of gun.

A Busy Sunday

I picked up Mom and Dad at noon for a trip to Auburn as today was Oliver's first birthday.  The party was held at the clubhouse in their apartment complex.  The festivities started a little later than planned, but my Mom didn't mind.  It gave her a lot of time to hang out with Jess' children and Maddux.  She had brought them each a flashlight that roared like the animal it was designed to be.  They were definitely loud, but the young children sure enjoyed playing with them while the food was being prepared.  I also had plenty of time to visit with Aunt Jan, Jennifer and Jeannette.  I hadn't talked to them since the summer.  We were only able to stay until 2:30 or so as I had to get back home.  We missed the gift opening and cake, but from pictures that were posted later, it looked as though Oliver had a lot of fun.

Tonight Doug, Cam and I went to Warsaw.  We thought that it was going to snow on our way, but due to higher than predicted temperatures the rain never changed over.  Our first mission was Kohl's.  Cameron wanted to buy Bailee a birthday gift.  It took him awhile, but he did pick out something that he really liked and I found a few pair of earrings before he was finished shopping.  Cam also needed a new pair of boots and I wanted a new pair of shoes, so we went to Shoe Carnival next.  We each bought something before Doug finished checking out at Kohl's.

We ate dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.  We did not realize that they had remodeled the inside.  It was a lot nicer and we had a better server than in the past.  Both of these made our meal a lot more enjoyable than we thought that it would be.  We called Grandma and Grandpa on the way home to talk them into playing Oh Hell.  It didn't take much convincing and even Cam joined the fun.  As a bonus we finished in plenty of time for Doug to watch the Bears game.

Bethany Chess Tournament

Cam participated in the Bethany chess tournament today.  Even though it was his first one of the year, he was put in the top open session with the highest rated players since his own rank increased last year.  Thus, his first match was a challenging one as he was pitted against the chess coach from Penn who topped Cam’s rating of 1236 with a 1900.  Cam and the coach had the second longest match of the round, and although Cameron lost, he was proud of his play.  The second one did not go as well and Cameron texted that he felt he played terribly.  He was disappointed, but we knew it would hard for him to focus after the challenging round he had at the beginning of the day.  The last two matches went in Cam’s favor and he ended up in tenth place overall.  Even though he was frustrated with his second loss, Cameron was very happy to have participated in the tournament.  He had played in every one since he was a first grader at Milford.  As always Cam and Doug stayed to help clean up afterward.

Doug and I left for Kelly Jae’s tonight at 6:00 for my official birthday dinner.  We hadn’t been in quite some time and we really enjoyed it.  They had a new flatbread and potato dish to try along with one of favorites - Angus meatballs.  We opted out of dessert since there was still cake in our refrigerator.  While we were eating Cam hung out his grandparents increasing his buck Euchre “winnings.”  They met us at our house once we got back for a round of Oh Hell.  It definitely has become the game of choice lately and we all enjoyed it.