First Sign of Spring

I guess I should've called the title of this blog the second sign of spring. We've already had the first sign of spring, the "bubble test." Yes, last week the students at our school started taking one of the two "high stakes" tests that will label our school as adequate or inadequate. Of course these tests include a section called "Study Skills" that has questions about reference books from the 19th century and not one question about search engines, databases or other online sources of information. We're trying to teach our students to use reputable, reliable online sources of information and we have to take time out of our teaching to teach students how to use something they may never use again in their lifetimes. It is the information contained within the book that is important, not the book. Most libraries don't waste money on the periodical indices that our students are being tested on.. . oh well.

Anyway, as I was driving home from work today, I was studying the trees for the first sign of green. At one magical point, you can see a green "aura" around the trees before they actually leaf out. I looked on the north side of the highway and the south side of the highway and couldn't see any green on the trees. Then I looked straight ahead and saw another sign of the coming of spring. . . dead bugs on the windsheild!

Hello

I've set up this blog with the hopes that I may end up writing a few times a week. I need some incentive to write for myself. I'm in class every day with my students encouraging them to write and sometimes I feel like a fraud because I only write when I have to. I've set the blog up the same way I set up my student's blog, with anonymous comments allowed so you don't have to be a registered blogger to leave comments. You can sign your comments if you want to though.


PS. My profile says Morning Star Editor because that's the name I originally used to set up an account for the school blog, the Lame Deer Morning Stars.