AP Workshop

Today i drove down to Waltham for an AP Environmental Science workshop (where they show you the hoops you need to jump through to have your environmental science course approved as AP). What an event this was. i was hoping that my school system would send me to the one in Florida, but unfortunately they were only willing to spring the funds for a trip to Waltham Massachusetts (not including gas).

First i had to wake up earlier than punk monks are built to wake up so i could make it there on time which still didn't give me enough time. i failed to plan for the fact that it took an hour to get from the far side of Burlington to Waltham on 95/128. Thankfully i had "Get In The Van", Henry Rollins' account of his time in Black Flag on my iPod to get me through.

After playing in a soccer game which started at 10pm monday night and scaring trick or treaters last night i haven't had a full night sleep yet this week so being stopped in traffic i struggled to stay awake, although i'm sure the kind folks behind me would have been more than happy to wake me up if traffic started moving while i was sleeping. Hank helped me out though.

In between cat naps on the parking lot/highway i realized the sad humor (dare i say irony) of sitting in traffic with hundreds of single passenger cars as i tried to get to a workshop on teaching environmental science. At least my hybrid turns off while i'm sitting in traffic. If only my brain was capable of such.

Now, if you put 13 teachers in a room together you'll end up with 50 different opinions. Teachers LOVE to be heard. At any given workshop you will end up with three types of teachers:

1) Those who get great pleasure from talking about themselves (as oppose to people with blogs). Everything they do is THE BEST and everyone should be more than happy to be graced with a detailed account of how they do everything and anything. Fortunately there were several of these people in attendance so i now know several proper ways to teach my class... but which one was the best-best? Maybe that guy from the private school who was bought 12 kayaks to help with his classroom lessons had the best-best... he seemed to get the most money so he must be right.

2)Those who feel the need to ask a question for every topic discussed. Somewhere along the way they were told that there's no such thing as a stupid question and really took it to heart and ran with it. In fact, there is such thing as a stupid question... there's also such thing as stupid people who waste everyone's time trying to appear smart by asking useless questions that prevent the rest of us from moving on to the next subject. Next subject...

3) Those sarcastic assholes (me) who pepper workshops with little comments intended to simultaneously fuck with #1 & #2 and attempting to make 'serious guy' up front laugh. Done and Done. i've got to stop listening to Henry Rollins before teacher workshops.

For quite some time now i've realized that education in this country is broken and all i can do is fix what i can within my classroom. Teacher workshops, however, always seem to throw fuel on that fire (even when they are informative... as today was). This hypocritical room of individuals were suppose to be teaching students to tread lightly on our earth yet did not practice what they preach (or teach in this case).

Looking at an activity exploring the amount of land needed to sustain various sized populations of people i brought up that they were only looking at an omnivorous diet. After having to then explain to a room full of science teacher's what omnivorous means i recommended comparing those results to how many vegetarians could be sustained on the same amount of land. Most of the more respected scientists, including Einstein, believed that humans will have to one day become vegetarians as a result of our population growth. They dismissed me like i was a leper. Moments latter we broke for our complimentary lunch and they all chowed down on their meat while i had my bag lunch from home. Way to sustain the earth.

Throughout the day people kept mentioning their kids. i was in a room full of breeders. Not very environmental-like having 3+ kids. i guess they over-look that required unit on population.

Lastly, as we were all leaving (after they threw out the coffee cups and plastic plates, and after failing to recycle complimentary soda cans) i realized that i was the only one with a hybrid. SUV's, pick-up trucks, you name it. No other hybrids.

Growing a beard, wearing plaid shirts, and sporting one piece leather hiking boots alone does not make you an environmentalist. Apparently it's all that's needed to TEACH an environmental class though. i guess i better throw out my razor.