my takeaway from the graduation cycle this year – bear Bryant said a lot things he never said… 🙂

(in other words, people love to put words into famous people’s mouths – regardless of whether it was actually ever said that way)

so I’ve been active in the reading cycle – although, already probably five books behind annmarie – which is okay – i’ll crush her this week b/c I have 30 picture books lined up:)

“peanuts, pogo, and hobbes” – wonderful book for my 6-8th graders – gives background on newspaper comics, in particular, the time period from 1940-70 – the author adds his testimony as well as a fairly famous editor in the Midwest – he wrote the book for his grandkids and I think his mission was accomplished for describing an era that’s gone now – for better or worse (pun intended on the comic strip by the same name:)

“chasing the hawk” by sheenan – once, there was a runner – and this runner wrote tons of books on running and was well-known for it – then, the man passed away of prostrate cancer – and nine years later, his son penned a beautiful book about his father – and the son’s struggle to figure out life – the dad was like me – selfish beyond belief in many ways – and the son was like me – beautifully destructive in many ways – I really enjoyed the book – and the running moments in the book

fingers crossed for billy’s vandy team today

maf

okay, so i think it’s only fair that the first to blog this week gets the “teacher’s favorite” award – or whatever it is they call it nowadays…

“coolidge” – so i read only one book this week – but it was long – and had depth – code words for probably slacking – sorry to disappoint all of you that root for me to finish multiple books in a week – anyway, silent cal wasn’t so silent – he just wasn’t connected well to most of that time’s political figures – the good he did? tax cuts and balanced budget – the bad? he turned his back on relief for flood victims – he did nothing to stop the depression that began in 1929 – and he wasn’t much of a leader – all that said, i really enjoyed learning about him

hope your final week is a good one
maf

so it’s probably unfair for me to go anywhere furthre without reminding the sixth grade that you don’t have to blog this week – or any other week until august – otherwise, i’d probably still get three or four blogs a week from kids thinking it’s a requirement – that said, i always look favorably to an addition to the blog – aka, mega bonus:)

next, our book is on amazon – the eighth grade POV parade book from the fall – click here to order

“on the run” by marty liquori – found at the thrift store for $1.25 – a steal – liquori was a great miler in the 70s – his book was entertaining – even if it was 30 years old – it was cool to compare with – like no runner today could write 300 pages on one year in his life – it would never be published – sadly, US running isn’t that much better than it was when he was running – except that the runners are taken care of better now

“olympic gold” by shorter – auburn library ready – from 1984 – shorter has been attributed with jump starting running in the US – quite an individual feat to do – his story is really encouraging – and the fact he was running in ’84 was even more amazing to me – he didn’t just win gold in ’72, win silver in ’76 (the guy ahead of him was stoked up on steriods – which we’d come to learn in ’89) – he kept going – he even is probably the only runner ever to earn a law degree just b/c he was bored with running:)

“mapping boston” – story of 300 years of mapping a city that has changed – a ton – my favorite fact? the size of the city has grown 4x in size since it was founded – the hills were leveled and used as filler for areas – including the area i hope to finish at in a year – can you tell i’m already excited – oh, the added fun with that book was it was superheavy so i’ve got killer arm muscles from toting it around

happy finals
mafeld

well, that is, if “war for corbotia” doesn’t come out – or my eighth grade book – or any of my other classes – i’ve put together the last three years of the blog in pdf form – so it’s technically an e-book right now – all six years are like 700 pages – more depending on the font and page size – anyway, so be careful what you write, i guess… 🙂

“the signal and noise” by silver – book on making predictions – and why we’re so bad at it – even with all the data in the world we have now – like, take the current baseball season – basically nothing like what early stat people said – and why? b/c we tend to put too much confidence in data that favors things we like – things that we think explain our world – needless to say, the book was good about making me more aware of how i can slant data to support things – and, moreover, how others do that (it’s really bad in education data)

“going long” – christmas is officially over – i bought three running books from my gift cards at christmas – and so i got and read one of my three this week – which i guess means that christmas will officially be over when i finish all three – maybe summer then – i like to save my running books for hard times – anyway, this book was a collection of runner’s world’s best from the last 30 years – although, most of the essays were from the last few years – i guess my impression was sadness – not that all the stories were sad – but i’d neglected to think much lately about a runner that died at the ’07 trials – and i felt awful about taking life for granted – again

happy ARMT week

maf