Monday, October 1, 2007

I was just stating facts........




This is a picture of the new Toyota Tundra plant. We drive by it on our way to San Antonio. It is pretty big. It is a couple of miles from this road. I like that there are still open fields around it.


Okay this isn't about Toyota, but I liked the picture. Today I spent 3 hours at our local elementary. I have to complete 20 hours of observation for my Intro to Education class. I spent 2 hours in the bilingual kinder room. The kids are so cute.


They were going to recess, so I went to find my sister. She helps with the Special Ed kids. She told me to do lunch duty with her to see what the kids were really like. Before that she took me to the "craft" room. They have this area where they do all laminating, printing, punch cutouts. whatever. It is pretty neat.


The lady was laminating the new Texas pledge. We got on the subject of the Pledge of Allegiance. I guess there was some controversy about the word "God" in the Texas pledge. I told them that the words "under God" were not added to the PofA until the 1950s. They asked why? I told them because of something called "separation of church and state". They thought it was ridiculous. That started a conversation about Madilyn Murry O'Hare. I stayed out of it because the laminating lady was looking at me like she wanted to scratch my eyes out.



I don't think there is anything wrong with being religious. I go to church, but I don't think those two words are going to control your kids. I guess we just grasp at whatever when we feel we are sinking. Even the laminating lady has issues. While I was there, she said she gave her whole paycheck to her daughter to buy whatever she wanted. Her husband paid for everything else. Her paycheck was for her. I thought this was weird. Who is going to tell the kid that you can't always have what you want? What kind of attitude is this?


The lunchroom was not that bad. I only stayed for the kinder and 1st grade classes. They say it gets really noisy in there. Everyone is geared up for battle. Before the kids even came in, you could already feel the tension. I guess they expect the worst. I saw a lot of stressed out people. Man, will I be like that?


There was one teacher assigned to herd the classes. I guess they take turns. She was up there with a microphone, but I could barely hear her. They call each class at a time to go and dump their plates. Everything is disposable. They had hamburgers. I saw one kid finish his meal, most were thrown away. The burgers were way too big for the little kids. I felt like using my loud mouth to help that lady direct traffic. I would not need a mike!


I'm going back tomorrow because I really enjoyed it.