Blue Cereal's blog

My pacing was off today.

It’s funny that that’s what I’m taking home with me and into the weekend. Tomorrow – Friday, Day Three – is  a logistics day. It’s all orientation, pictures, and other “have to” stuff. That’s fine, and I don’t have to prepare much. Maybe I can get to know some of my kids a bit better along the way.

But right now I’m mostly just frustrated with myself – somewhat unfairly, I might add.

It's been a long time since I've been new at something related to school.

I've taught different subjects, moved to different rooms, met and collaborated with different co-workers, and of course each fall I've met and gotten to know whole new groups of students - but that's not the same as being new.

The Big News in History this week was, of course, the discovery of a photo possibly suggesting that Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan survived their (presumed) 1937 crash and may have been alive for months or even years, likely as prisoners of the Japanese. Earhart and Noonan are thought to have run out of gas over the Pacific ocean, but no meaningful remains or wreckage have ever been found – well, until now… sort of. Maybe. Depending on what you make of it.

Oh, darlings – how quickly things get away from us and tumble into perdition as we scramble to hold our own up the rockslide. I apologize if I’ve left you in despair while I’ve been regrouping and refocusing and preparing to physically relocate. It’s been a journey, hasn’t it?

Let's look at some recent education news...

Let’s talk about choices, shall we?

Teachers love framing everything in terms of “making good choices” and “that’s your choice.” Why do you have a ‘D’? Well, you chose not to turn in work. Why are you in lunch detention? You made some poor choices about your behavior in class.

I’ve been trying to follow up on a previous post about the “divorce industry” in Oklahoma Territory (1889 – 1907), but I keep getting sidetracked by odd search results and unexpectedly engaging-but-off-topic tangents. I’m finally admitting that my ADHD (Abstemiously Distracted History Dysfunction) has won, and figure I might as well share some of the results.

I’ve been looking into the “divorce industry” in Oklahoma Territory (1889 – 1907), and I spend more time than seems reasonable searching online newspaper archives for terms like “divorce” or “Oklahoma.” I’m not sure this makes me a crack researcher, but it has certainly led me down some weird paths.

Pick any topic – ANY topic – and start scratching at it. Something fascinating will almost always unfold… and yet leave you with a congress of unknowns, smirking and smug like Alice’s cat.

For those of you who've been letting your real lives get in the way of following Blue Cereal as faithfully as you know deep down inside you should, I've been rebuilding and reforming the world of Blue Cereal on a new site: BlueCerealEducation.NET. 

It's a bit more legit, less ranting, better editing, more focus on history and pedagogy - in other words, a complete change of style for yours truly.

So another year is concluded, and I'm once again doing my best to focus on things I might control, might impact, might get right from time to time. Clearly my game-changing influence on state politics didn't turn out to be very impressive. 

I thought by way of purging myself, though, I might look back and see how much carrying on I actually did on the topic of the Oklahoma Legislature this past year - and, um... well, it was a lot. 

My wife and I live in a non-descript middle class suburban neighborhood. It’s more white than not, but there are a half-dozen families of color up and down the block, including a Hispanic couple and their kids two doors down and across the street. We haven’t socialized, but we wave from time to time.