Overheard at School (School's Out Edition)

Hypothetical Teacher and Hypothetical Non-Existent Student are lounging outrageously on a picnic table, watching the other students play basketball in the hot sun on asphalt.

HNES: "You drinkin' coffee? That shit's too hot for this shit out here."
HT: "Remember the part where we don't cuss here, but yeah, it's my coffee. My mother-in-law stayed with us last night, and she made coffee this morning. And it's good."
HNES: "She stay with you at your place? What for?"
HT: "My kids graduated from the eighth grade last night. She came down to see it, and we went to my parents' house for awhile, and then she spent the night with us so she could go home this morning."
HNES: "Ohhhhh."
A pause. The only sound is the breeze rustling through HT's mustache.

HNES: "Y'all got fuckin' wasted, huh?"

I have issues. Issues I got from the internet.

I started a new job a few days ago, and the day after I brought in a box of breakfast granola bars, ate one, and left the rest in the kitchen, people apparently ate the rest and threw the box away.
That's not the issue . . . the issue is that I caught myself thinking of writing a really passive-aggressive note about it, but decided not to bother because my phone won't take a good enough picture to be legible on www.passiveaggressivenotes.com.

Also, the school district that just hired me uses Macs exclusively. My classroom machine is a big white EMac. Everything about it is backwards and wrong.

Chicago GRE: Arne Duncan has a record of exploiting school children

Although I disagree with those who are urging parents to keep their kids home tomorrow, I can't help but notice that they're being labeled as paranoid racists by Obama supporters, who seem to take it for granted that of course President Obama* would never indoctrinate or exploit school children to advance his political agenda--the thought itself is monstrous! But President Obama chose a Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, with a history of organizing massive (and massively expensive) political rallies of Chicago public school students paid for with Chicago public school funds. I cannot for the life of me understand why this record hasn't become a bigger part of the public debate over the proposed speech to school students, unless people simply don't realize it exists.

In June 2008, for instance, the Chicago public school district used over 1200 buses and drivers to bus a reported 30,000 students from all over the city to Soldier Field, where they were allowed to watch a free performance by area musicians like rapper "Ben One." The catch? The performance was part of a political rally. The students had to sit through speeches by Arne Duncan, Richard Daley and Jesse Jackson, and these weren't innocuous pep talks about staying in school.

The man who was in charge of that mess is now the head of education for the federal government, and there's nothing particularly paranoid or racist about pointing it out. Click the big blue button to read the whole thing, and if you like it, please take a moment to pass it on or vote on Digg, Windycitizen.com or Reddit.

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Meanwhile, David Codrea, Gun Rights Examiner, asks "Can ATF be reformed?"
He's not talking about recycling transmission fluid, but questioning the wisdom of an effort to "reform" the BATFE by legislation. I would add the question: "If the ATF can't be reformed, but it can't be abolished at present, is it worth it to pursue partial reforms, even knowing they won't really solve the problem? David's last piece covered the return of Carolyn McCarthy's "No Fly, No Buy" bill, which would bar anyone placed on the naughty list by the government from purchasing firearms. That's a big step to take based on a list you can be placed on without due process or even a reason given!

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* Seeing the President of the United States referred to as "Mr. Obama" or "Mr. Bush" in the press irritates me. Maybe it says in some style manual that the President is referred to as "Mister," but screw that.

Quotes of the Week: Blago Edition

Quote 1:

"What? Is he actually killing people now?"

(Uttered by Kane Gwinn (age 12) upon hearing an Illinois Senator on the radio announcing that Rod Blagojevich would visit the Senate on Thursday to "stand and speak before the body."

Quote 2:

"People say Rod Blagojevich is crazy, too, but at least he never made his cat a judge or anything."

(Uttered by a sixth-grade student at Overachieving Middle School, upon learning that Nero was famous for having attempted to appoint his favorite horse to the office of Consul in the Senate of ancient Rome.)

I Guess It Was Inevitable

Kane's class had a mock election yesterday. Kane voted for McCain.

The rest of the day, the other kids taunted him and called him a racist. It was a pretty good preparation for adult political discourse, come to think of it. We had a little talk about it, and I gave him the same advice I give grownups--if you know you're not a racist, what do you care what "they" say? Being called a racist is a sure sign that you're winning an argument, anyway.

. . . And Gilgamesh!

If you were in my history class, you'd get to do goofy stuff like listen to They Might Be Giants in class, and you could be confident that I'd find some way to call it educational:

Hey, there is a lot of review in there. The kids noticed:

1. Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal and Gilgamesh.

2. Sargon writes songs in cuneiform on a clay tablet, even though nobody cares and the world sucks.

3. There's no such word as "Mesopotamish." But there should be.

They didn't notice the reference to Mohenjo-Daro, but hey, we haven't covered that yet.

Oops . . . Spoke Too Soon!

It turns out that I may have given the bureaucracy too much credit. This morning I walked into my classroom and found my "Mr. Gwinn is Currently Reading:" sign on my desk. We put these up outside our doors and post up the books we're reading, preferably by making a copy of the book cover and putting it on the sign. They want the students to know that we read, too.

Now, I usually have at least two books at a time up there, because frankly I spend a lot of time reading when I should be doing other things. Anyway, recently I've had a copy of Practical Shooting: Beyond Fundamentals by Brian Enos on my sign. Does that bother anyone? I don't really know. No one seems to have had a problem with it, and after all, it IS what I'm reading right now. The weird thing, as I noted in my last post on the subject (see link above) is that the guy who loaned me his copy is a college student--and his copy has the word "Shooting" blacked out on the cover and the spine. I've been chuckling about the logic that says the word "Shooting" is verboten but the picture of a guy shooting a .45 is OK. Clearly that tempted fate and I should have known better.

According to my co-teacher, an administrator happened by and told her that the cover had to come down. It seems that blacking out the "Shooting" really wasn't enough; we can't have tiny photographs of handguns where children might see them. Instead, I am to write the title of the book on the sign. So I did:

PRACTICAL SHOOTING: Beyond Fundamentals
by Brian Enos.

The loan of this book had already been touched by tragedy; I left the book in a place I shouldn't have, and it got wet. It's drying out pretty well, actually, but it's obvious that it's been wet. Luckily, Brian Enos still sells this edition new, and he even signs it upon request, so I have a new autographed copy on the way for Tony. I'll keep the water-damaged version; it still reads the same.

In other news, I was teasing a student about being mean to me this morning when a boy piped up.

"I wouldn't be mean to you," he exclaimed, "'cause Mr. Yankee says you shoot guns a lot."

"Really?" I asked. "How did that come up in Mr. Yankee's class?"

"We were talking about the Constitution, and he said the 2nd Amendment is the one that says people can shoot their guns, like Mr. Gwinn does."

If you've never been used as an example to teach children about a civil right, I can just tell you: it's not a bad feeling.

Practical [CENSORED]: Beyond Fundamentals

I have a copy of a censored book cover hanging outside my classroom. This year, every teacher got a laminated sheet with a border reading (in my case) "Mr. Gwinn is currently reading. . . ." The idea is that we will hang these outside our doors, and either write the title of our current selection or make a photocopy of the cover to hang up. When I started this book, I couldn't possibly have settled for the title, because the cover is too interesting. "Practical __________: Beyond Fundamentals" it proclaims, right over the photo of an IPSC legend aiming a pistol. The twist is that this is NOT a story about my evil middle school administrators censoring my reading choices. My evil middle school administrators have always been pretty good to me, when you get right down to it. Some might even use words like "patient," "forgiving," and "tolerant." In this case, we inherited someone else's censorship.

I'm reading Practical Shooting: Beyond Fundamentals by Brian Enos. The IPSC shooters among my readers have probably read this book and maybe visited http://www.brianenos.com/ to learn in the forums. It's a fascinating book for a competitive shooter; Enos put a huge amount of thought into shooting and what it really meant back in the 1980's. Some of the details have changed, especially the way he watches the sights, but I think the principles still sound sound, as it were.

When I walked in at my local IPSC match last week, one of my new friends (who hasn't given me permission to give his name here) was waiting for me.

"Have you read this book?" he asked.

"Nope." I admitted. "I've heard about it, though."

"Well, it's perfect for you. It's written for a guy like you, who's just starting out, and always gets the hits, but wants to go faster. You ought to read it. You wanna borrow it?"

Now, I have a rule about books. I don't look a gift book in the mouth. I find that bad books are usually measurably better than good television, for instance, so I'm not as choosy as some might imagine. I pounced. Then I noticed the cover.

"Is . . . did somebody black out the word 'shooting?' On the cover and the spine?"

"Well, I'm a poor college student, you know."

"Oh . . . sure. OK, that makes sense."

It didn't seem very polite to ask whether it had been his idea or someone else's, but someone has taken a black marker and laid a box of thick black ink over the word "Shooting" on both the front cover and the spine of the book. On the other hand, the guy in nerdy 1990-vintage Oakley sunglasses with a compensated 1911 in a firing stance apparently passed muster at the college of his choice.

What do I think of the book? It's interesting, and I think I read it at the perfect time--I may have needed someone to remind me that I didn't take a class with Todd Jarrett so I could try to imitate Todd Jarrett perfectly, but so I could take his ideas and try them out and learn from them in developing my own style. As with the Gun Blog .45 from Para-USA, the highest recommendation I can give you is that I've ordered my own copy to mark up an re-read when I give this borrowed copy back.

I Can Explain

Just checked my voicemail, and I had a rather testy message from one of the officers at the Ambulance Squid, now several hours old. "Don, Beavis and Betty were looking for you. They want to go to the Girard football game and it's getting late, so call me at the shed when you get this." Well, it's almost 10:00 p.m., so I don't think I'll bother her right now. We DO cover the Virden and Girard football home games, you see, but since each team is playing nearly an hour away tonight, I'm guessing they weren't at the Girard field for very long before they figured out why I hadn't shown up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with caffeine overdose in hand.

Yes, my fellow Americans (and all you lovable foreigners,) it's football season again, and that means, if you're on a small-town ambulance crew on Friday nights, spending your Friday evenings watching high school football. There are worse punishments in life, but tonight I was exhausted from a long day and a good workout. I bought a paper on the way home and checked it out. My alma mater, the Bulldogs, are playing the Pretzels tonight (no, I'm not kidding) and the game is . . . . away. One down.
The other school we cover, the Big Red (Who have a vicious rivalry with the New French Lick "Juicy Fruit"--OK, that one I made up) are playing the Wildcats . . . . away. Oops. Oh well, kids, I wouldn't worry about it. The greater Girard metropolitan area has many inviting tourist attractions such as car lots and a Whirl-A-Whip, and is always worth the drive down nearly-scenic Illinois Rt. 4, which offers many scenic views of both soybeans and corn.

There's talk of consolidating Virden and Girard schools now, and people are starting to puff up their gills and feathers and dander and whatnot in impressive threat displays to Defend Our Beloved Schools. Except me, and here's why:

1. Consolidation is probably a great idea. Illinois has more school districts for its size than any other state. We are riddled with tiny rural districts that pay lots of redundant administrators and have to maintain their own athletic, transportation, and probably other systems. A consolidated district would be more stable, would be able to mix and match students between more buildings, and could make the transportation work better--probably.

2. It probably has no better chance this time than the previous three or so times it's been tried in my lifetime. It seems to get floated every decade or so. People draw battle lines (most of them on football fields or basketball courts, it seems) and the idea of consolidating becomes a symbol of what the evil, progressive world keeps trying to foist off on us, like gay rights and New Coke. Virden and Girard are vicious rivals of long standing in our athletic programs, and that seems to override all other considerations. Personally, I always figured that if Superman could work with Lex Luthor and Captain America could be on the same side as Joe Stalin (think about it, it's so true!) then we should be able to welcome our toothless, meth-addled brothers from the south with open arms. But not everyone is as loving and respectful as I am.

Overheard in a Middle School

"That's some blog you've got up!" the big man told me. "We might have to talk, I don't know!"
He was smiling as he went out the door. Meet the Staff Night was beginning at Overachievers Middle School, and he'd only stopped in our room to get directions, but he'd caught me updating this site.

My poor co-teacher cringed. "Are you going to get in trouble?"
"No, I don't think so. That's Billy Dee's dad, isn't it?"
"So?"
"So, Billy Dee is the kid who stapled a picture of himself shooting a camouflaged AR-15 to his 'Things You Should Know About Me' poster, isn't he?"
"Oh, I don't think anybody did that," she said, giving me the sideways-through-the-eyebrows look that little Italian ladies give you when they think you're off your rocker.
"I'm not in here for that class, but it was right here on the front table a couple of days ago. I showed it to you. It was your assignment!"

A comfortable, if lengthy, silence ensued.

"Besides, did you see his dad's t-shirt? 'Tactical Explosive Entry School?' I don't think he's too worried about me."
"Do you really think there's a rifle on there? I did not see that! Where is it? I put them in the hall!"

We trundled out to the hall. We are not a graceful pair. She's pregnant and I'm me.

"There it is. See?"
"Ohmygod I didn't even see that! Reach up there and turn that around backward!"
"Are you kidding? You can't do that! You're not in Rockford anymore, lady. This is Illinois. That's not how things are done here. It's no big deal."
"Just turn it around so no one sees it."
"OK," I told her, curling the photo a bit. "But if he asks, I had nothing to do with it. There, feel better?"
"I just don't want to get into trouble. And I don't want him to get into trouble. You know how it is."
"Yeah. Should we do something about the big 'Shoting' title or the 'Watch out, I'll break all your clays' part? Or the giant mushroom-cloud explosion in the center of the paper?"

I have got to stop doing that. :D

Blackwater Blog Weekend: Overheard At The Range

I swear I am not making this up:

ME: "OK, now, nobody panic, but I just found this grenade pin in the Suburban and I don't see the grenade. I'm sure it's nothing."

Todd Jarrett: "Now, you got one of them bad bullets Dan made, here, so this one went a little low on you . . ."
ME: "You haven't seen that? That's the liver shot! Bas Rutten taught me that!"

ME: "I'm going to go home and tell the IPSC club, 'Hey, I really find I shoot a lot better when Todd Jarrett is yelling instructions in my ear and handing me magazines. Can this be arranged?' I think that's a reasonable request."

ME: "%#$&ING ZOMBIE, I KEEL YOU! RAWR!"

The most interesting thing about Todd Jarrett, to me, is his teaching. I don't know whether Jarrett has ever read "the research" as school administrators put it, but he does all the right things. The man is a professional educator, not a shooter sharing some tips.

• He's constantly positive. He'll take your diagnostic group, explain what caused each flyer (if he doesn't know, then you got a "bad bullet") and then give you his estimate of your "main group." Thus, with a flyer in the head and another at the navel, he figured I'd really shot a group of about 3.5 inches right in the upper chest on one exercise. Another shooter was struggling with plates. He missed five. He set up and took forever before toppling the last plate--and only the last plate. What did Jarrett say?
  "OK, now what did you do right on that last one? I'll tell you if you don't tell me."


• He's energetic. The man is going all the time. No class time is wasted. At most, you get enough of a lull to load magazines while he sets up the next stage. This can be a little overwhelming when he's really moving along, especially with ear protection in, and you wonder sometimes how you're expected to make it through the longest stages remembering what comes next. The answer is that Jarrett will be running beside you, his hand on your belt, yelling out what you do next.
  


• The class is always doing something. Jarrett does demonstrate, and as he says, being the instructor means you shoot as much as you want. But you will feel busy every moment, and watching him demonstrate is an active time. Everyone is learning by doing, and setups are done with an eye toward maximum reps for everyone. We've burned through a LOT of ammo.


• Every shooter in the class, regardless of ability, has a small but measurable goal at all times. There's one aspect of your stance or grip that Jarrett has been reminding you to watch, or there's a benchmark in terms of rounds on target, time, or accuracy. Today I was trying to get a full magazine out on target during 2-second drills. Some others, who were more comfortable with the draw, were trying to get a head shot with the last round. Some people were trying to get four rounds on target, others were just trying to keep all hits in the A zone. Each had his own indvidual goal, and each knew his goal.


• Aside from positive feedback, Jarrett clearly structures the class to make sure people end each section on a high note. He systematically builds confidence in students that way. If you struggled with the stage where you had ten things to think about at once and the movers and the plates drove you nuts, you still have a couple of simple close-range drills to do before dinner. They're not exactly easy stuff, but they're stuff you can do, and you end on that confident note. Good teachers do this because they understand students--that is to say, people--as well as their subject matter.
  

So the real question here is this: "Can I write this trip off as a professional mentoring opportunity?"

I'm Not Dead Yet

Both my computers 'sploded, but I didn't die. I have a borrowed monitor for the desktop and a battery on the way for the laptop, and some hope that I'll be back on a daily basis soon. Right now I'm typing this on my parents' super-fast new machine connected to their super-slow dialup connection. I came down here to steal their newspaper while they're at the antique show, but that's so 20th century. This is too slow to allow me to check my email via the web client, so if you sent me an email, I haven't gotten it. Sorry.

A few things I've been doing while not posting much:

• More IPSC shooting, using the P220 and the Glock 30. Still not placing last. My new goal is to finish in the top 50% of Production class. Last night was a relatively boring classifier match, just three targets on each side of a barrier with a mandatory reload before switching sides, with no-shoots between each target and the next. But it was a big night for the boys, since they both got to go. Last week, Donovan made it, but Kane's behavior just wasn't up to par. Last night, we stayed until the end as Kane picked up brass and pasted targets and generally charmed everybody.
  
• Refinished the old P220 using Lauer's DuraCoat in "HK Black." Years ago, pre-child, the gun was between the mattress and frame of a waterbed when my dog punctured the mattress and flooded the frame (and then the bedroom.) My SIG was built in 1989 and has that awesome SIG-Sauer bluing that was essentially surface prep for rust. I stripped all that rust but then left the thing in the white for the longest time.
  This week I fixed that. The HK Black DuraCoat worked really well, although the airbrush didn't really start working until I ditched the CO2 canister and hooked up the air compressor. It turns out that it matched the coating on the aluminum frame perfectly. So far, it's been impervious to everything I've done to it. I'm still experimenting with colors for the bar and dot in the sights. I'll probably go back to white, but I'm using metallic gold in the front right now and it's kind of neat--like shooting an old revolver with a gold bead.
• I went nuts on laundry the other day and actually got all of our laundry done. There was no dirty laundry anywhere in the house. It lasted almost an hour.
• I'm working on finding out what I have to do to get my Master's finished this year. I believe my certification requirements have been met, but I would only need one more class to get the Master's. Might as well.
• Still working on that upstairs bathroom I started so long ago. It's been a great summer, but it's been busy. I offered to make a bet with My Bride that the bathroom would be done by Christmas, but she declined. Maybe she's learning not to underestimate me. That would be nice.
• Today I cleaned our bedroom. This sounds like a small thing, but the clutter in there was unbelievable.
• Tomorrow the Camaro goes to the Chevy dealership. I've managed to convince myself that the heater core and its connections are fine, and the intake manifold doesn't seem to be leaking, but I finally noticed that when I pour water into the radiator, it actually runs out from somewhere on the passenger side of the block, apparently below the exhaust manifold. I can't see it, but it's a steady stream until the water runs out. I'm worried that they're going to tell me that the block has actually cracked and there's water pouring out of the water passage in the block itself. That would probably cost more to fix than the car is worth. Then the question becomes this:
  Do I go full-on redneck and part out a Camaro in my backyard? Or do I try to sell it to some kid who wants to throw a 350 in there?
  

"Education" My Big, Broad, White Butt

Gotta go! There's a surplus rifle match in nearly-beautiful nearby Taylorville today, and I'm going to give my K31 a workout if I can find the range.

In the meantime, read this and weep for the future of our nation. You know, public education gets blamed for a lot of things in this country, sometimes fairly, sometimes not. But when your system works this well, how can you expect people to bother about being fair to you when there's a problem? How could anyone not blame us first for all the ills of society when our solution to everything seems to be to demand twice the money for solutions that have been proven to be making the problem worse?

Lest anyone think I'm exaggerating, here's the short version: two years ago, Illinois legislative Democrats made a deal with the Governor to get their "educational grants" up to $20,000 rubber-stamped by the IL State Board of Ed. If one of these legislators sponsors a recipient, ISBE sends out the money. With me so far?
The vast majority of the money went to campaign lackeys and ward heelers, and the Tribune found back then that many weren't running any education program of any kind. They were just pocketing the bri . . . uh, money. This year, they looked again, and found out it was worse. The solution?
Next year we're doubling the amount of money available for the grants.

(H/T to Second City Cop for this one.)

That's how education works in Illinois. Succeed and we'll assume you cheated. Fail, lie, cheat, make the problem worse than it was before you came on the scene, and we'll double your budget.

Overheard in a Classroom . . .

"Wait . . . . so 'The Philippines' is a real place?"

I love geography.

Guess the Book

I saw something in the library at school today that caught my eye, and I had to check it out. I was giving a history test back in the biography section when it jumped out at me.
"I must have it!" I thought. "Neither of my readers will believe I found it in the library of a public middle school in Illinois."

I'm going to make you guess first, but I'm betting nobody will know it. Two hints:

1. You don't have to guess the title, just the name of the person. You've all heard of the person in question.

2. Chapter Three: Gunshop or School? (We all know the right answer, don't we?)


I'll send a little something--a very little something--to the winner, defined as the first person to post the correct first and last name of the person featured in this biography. This ain't The Price Is Right.