Being flexible

(Long time fans of this blog already read the following from a much larger blog post from 2012. I decided to cut & paste it here since I think this topic deserves its own blog post!

 Enjoy!)


You can't act the same at every situation.


You obviously aren't going to act the same at a library and a party! 2 different things!



This also remind me about Shaquille O'Neal's 2nd book "Shaq Talks Back"

photo from Amazon.com

Shaq mentioned that he spent his early years in a Newark ghetto, then his stepfather joined the military. So he was growing up in environments in which there is a mixture of racial groups. He mentioned that he's able to adjust to "white culture" and "black culture".


Shaq said "some people would call that selling out! I call it surviving in your environment!"




Amen to that!



In a ever-increasingly integrated world, you need to be culturally flexible.



You need to be able to adjust being around people different from you!



I was fortunate in that I went to schools with students from very different situations. My classmates were a mix of a low-income, middle class and a few rich students. My classmates came from various cultures. And each school I went to (ranging from preschool to college) had a different cultural combination.



And in my current job as a substitute teacher, I work at various school, ranging from private schools with an economically privileged population to public schools with large population of low-income immigrants. I have worked with preschoolers to high schoolers.

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Being that I was a public school student, subbing at a private school was an adjustment. For one thing, most public schools I've been to have large campuses. So it was a culture shock to enter a few private school campuses, took a tour and thinking "this is the whole campus? that's it?"


Also, public schools don't have religious services occurring during school hours. Many private schools are run by religious organizations and therefore, greatly emphasize their religion as part of their curriculum. Joining that environment was a new experience for me.


To be fair, a student from a religious private school will definitely feel the culture shock if he/she transferred to a public school. He/she will be thinking "what kind of school is this? We don't do morning prayers at the new school? We had morning prayers and chapel services at my old school."


Another adjustment in subbing at private schools is adjusting to 1st world facilities. I have been accustomed to 2nd world (and occasionally 3rd world) facilities at public schools. So in a way, the private school students are more prepared for the modern and future workplace than many public school students. Plus, at many private schools, the students are provided with their own laptops or i-pads. Makes me wish I was them :) !


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Yep, I got to be flexible to go to these different environments.


Being a substitute teacher also helped me with being flexible about daily plans.


Before that, I used to very rigid with my daily plans. My attitude is "I already planned to do this, screw anyone who wants me to adjust my schedule"



That attitude changed when I started to work as a substitute teacher. There IS NO SET PLAN in that job! You learn to be flexible fast!



Of course, I still have a schedule, and I still have to say "no" to others when I already had an important thing to do.



Knowing when to be flexible and when to be rigid is an important life skill!

UHM Summer Session

I have just completed summer school (2013 edition) at UH-Manoa.

There were two summer sessions. Session 1 was from May 28 to July 5. Session 2 was from July 8 to August 15.

For session 1, I took LIS 681: Books & Media for Children

This class focused on library materials for ages birth to upper elementary school.

This class focused on books as well as digital media (ie. websites, databases, book trailers, e-books, etc)

We went over the different genres for this age group, including picture books, poetry, folklore, biographies, fantasy, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, multi-cultural literature  and science fiction. Sometimes those genres overlap in one book.

We also went over Hawaiian books for children. Obviously that's important for Hawaii, but it has a special place in the professor's heart, since her regular job is the librarian at Kamehameha Schools.

We also get to do book reports for children's book. Much easier than doing it when we were children. Though instead of posters or dioramas, we just used power-points. We also made amateur-level video book reports using a program called Little Bird Tales.

We had guest speakers from Kamehameha Schools (our part-time prof's full-time workplace), Hawaii State Library, Bricks4Kids (a Lego group for kids), and Follet (a digital media company specializing in e-books). We also had a prominent children's fiction author  Cornelia Funke speak to us via Skype.

We also had volunteer activities at the Hawaii State Library. We get to choose different weekends to do the volunteering activity. The weekend I went, there was a storytelling session and a veggie stamp activity, where the kids get to dip a vegetable in paint and stamp it on paper. It was good to see kids enjoy creativity in a setting where they dont have to worry about being graded.

This activity told me I was taking the right path in working towards becoming a librarian and maybe work with children's activities.

It was a fun class and I suggest that class to anyone interested in working with children.


For session 2, I took LIS 663: Basic Database Searching


This class is focused on online searching.

Sure, most of us take the Internet (and using Google and Wikipedia) for granted.

But do you know how to maximize your results from online searches?

And more importantly, did you know there's tons of information online that aren't even easily accessible?

Many of us are familiar with having to pay an online subscription to a local or national newspaper.

The same is true about accessing academic journal articles. And in graduate level academics, you will be asked to rely more on academic journal articles instead of just relying on Google or Wikipedia.

If you're at UH, your tuition/taxes/financial-aid is paying for your access to academic journal articles via online academic databases

The databases include, but not limited to

Academic Search Premier
Medline
Sociological Abstracts
Biological Abstracts
ERIC
PsycINFO
and much much more

And the LIS 663 class is mostly about how to maximize your search results on those academic databases.

We learned how to best navigate the systems  and  use the best term combinations to get the articles you want.

Our searching skills were tested by homework in which you have to search for obscure information and you have to document your search with screenshots!  Tons of fun if you had tons of hours to search the info!

And our searching skills are also  tested by doing an online search in front of the whole class.  Yep, you might get asked "find me which college sports have the most corruption" and you will show the whole class how you might find that information.

That might sound intimidating, but the good news was the professor, Rich Gazan, is one of the coolest guys around. He is an easy person to get along with and he is very helpful.

Professor Gazan also has tons of knowledge from his previous work experience in online indexing as well as his academic research.

We also had guest speakers who talked about using medical databases, citation-based searching, as well as flaws with Google Scholar and Google Books. [Google owns Blogger too, so I hope they don't censor this post either]  We also had a guest speaker who got his PhD from UH-Manoa, who is now in charge of an European commission on climate change. Our assignment? Find articles that prove and disprove his claims on climate change.

And towards the end of the summer class, we learned about altmetrics, which I went over on the following blog post
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2013/08/mister-worldwide.html


It was a long 6 weeks with tons of work, but we have survived and had some fun along the way.  I totally suggest that class, especially if Rich Gazan is the teacher!

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It was a good summer.  I got 2 classes over with, learned some things, enjoyed the computer labs and the outside scenery at UH!

I also got loan money, which help since my regular job (sub teacher) was on vacation.

Lots of work accomplished!

Now, it's time for party. Until the Fall Semester that is!

actions and consequences

Most of us know someone who went down the wrong path.

And in some cases, we actually have good memories being around that same person who went down the wrong path.

But at the same time, having good memories of someone DOES NOT mean that person shouldn't have face consequences of that negative behavior


However, some people think that the people they like shouldn't face the inevitable consequences of their stupid decisions.

For example, this teacher named Kate Selker was upset that one of her students was shot in the head, nevermind that her student was intruding on someone else's home!

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/09/young_black_and_shot_in_the_head/

And as the title showed, the teacher played the race card, acting as its racist to shoot an intruder who just happens to be a  different race from you!

And that teacher recited all the good memories of her former student, as if that erase the fact that her student was just asking for trouble when he intruded on someon's property!

Look I don't care how many good memories you have of the student, if he was intruding on someone's property, he is asking to be shot at!

After all, anyone mean-spirited enough to intrude on your property can be mean-spirited enough to attack you, stab you , put you in a choke-hold, rape you,  knock the phone out of your hand as you call 911!

You cant blame the property owner for shooting the intruder.


Look, I used to hang out with this guy named Justin Gonda. This was mostly during my junior year in high school. We used to chill by the school's shop building during lunch recess. There were about 3-4 other people with us, along with a few guests who occasionally came by.  Those were the funnest times I had during my high school years.

However, a few years after high school, Justin Gonda was arrested for sexual assault! He's in jail now!

You know what? It doesn't matter how much good times me and Gonda had in the past, Gonda committed a serious crime and has to take the consequences.


If this leads him to a direction where he gets assaulted or  killed (maybe by his victim's relatives? maybe by other inmates? etc?), he has to accept some of the blame himself!

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And this race card that Kate Selker is using is STUPID!

She said she used to trespass on properties when she was a teen and felt she got away with it because she's white, and her student didn't because he was black.

Selker  might think trespassing was no big deal for her. But if she had gotten shot while trespassing, I won't feel much pity for her! She's just lucky she didn't got caught!

Also,  Selker thinks it's racist for an property owner to shoot an intruder who happens to be a different race. That is so stupid. Selker's problem is her idiotic "white guilt", her "need" to over-compensate for "white privilege".



This over-compensating for white privillege is stupid and unnecessary! It's not racist to expect non-whites to behave properly! After all, Martin Luther King wanted people to be judged by the content of their character. Any fool who intrudes on another person's home shall be judged as a bad character, regardless of skin color!



Everyone needs to accept responsibility for their actions. Sure, some of us have work much harder to gain the respect of others. Sure, some of us face more obstacles than others. Sure, some of us have heard ugly racial insults said to our faces. Sure, some of us didn't have the economic resources that others have! Sure, some of us have physical or mental limitations that others don't have!

But it doesn't erase the fact that everyone still need to do the responsible thing and accept the fact that there are negative consequences for doing negative things!


Now here's a great comment to that same article!

myqjones 

The story is very much more complicated than it sounds.  Ms. Selker fails to mention the other children involved - Mr. Landry's two year old daughter, and the yet to born child carried by his pregnant wife.  Coulter did not "jump" a fence - he scaled an 8 foot tall spiked gate into a fully enclosed fenced drive way right next to the bedroom window where Mr. Landry's family was sleeping at 2am at night.  The drive was deeply shaded from the streetlight across the street by large trees and bushes.  And, the final major issue - this is New Orleans - the single most dangerous city in the US, with the least effective police force with well known slow response times.  Mr. Landry was standing in the enclosed drive, in the dark, with an intruder, family to protect, and low expectation of police response.
Now, this is just me, but if the intruder so much as twitched, they would be shot - center mass, with intent to kill (there is no such thing as shooting to wound, if you think you need to pull the trigger, then shoot to kill).  If they aren't completely disabled, then shoot again.
I would take my chances with the law after that.  My wife, child, and unborn child safety takes precedence over any vagaries of the law.

Mister Worldwide

Today, in a database searching class, we went over altmetrics.

Here's wikipedia's description from it's Impact Factor page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor

Alternative metrics, or "altmetrics", often measure impact at an article level and include article views, downloads, or mentions in social media.

 Some samples described in class has to do with how many times an article has been cited, linked, e-mailed or downloaded.

One slide showed the geographic distribution of a scholarly article getting read.

With Blogger, you get to track the same info with your blog.


Here's a screenshot of that example

 

My "all-time" stats 

(well actually since 2007, when Blogger started tracking these things)

(the green & white  blob on the right just blocks out other info, related to what web browsers are linking to my blog, I put that green & white  blob   courtesy of Jing)

But yeah, I do have an international audience. Even from Latvia a tiny European country.

This list only shows the top 10 countries. Those that didn't have 208 pageviews got left out. :(

But for the pageviews for this week 

Got a lot of Latvian fans this week.

A little more diverse group of countries listed there

 But my quest for world domination is not complete. India is the 2nd most populated country in the world but is not on either list. Also, neither list had gotten an African or Middle Eastern country.  Hopefully whoever was spreading the word in Latvia will soon spread the word in Africa, the Middle East and India. 

PS: I know rapper Pitbull is the real "Mr Worldwide". Much respect to him!

It Never Gets Easier

Most of us have experience with friends or relatives say or do stuff that annoys you even when they don't intend to. 

But you know that their behavior has to stop.

And you know you'll go insane if you don't say anything.

And you don't want to tell them off in front of everyone, partly to save them from embarrassment, partly to save everyone else the trauma of seeing friends/relatives arguing!

Me, I'd rather just send a letter or an e-mail telling them how I feel about their behavior!

Telling them from a distance usually gives them time to think before they react.   Whereas telling them in a face-to-face conversation gives them time pressure to react now, which can cause you or them to say something they might later regret.

I have just sent a letter to someone in my family.  It'll probably be in his/her mailbox today. He/she probably read it by now!

It is a very serious topic and I want that person to get his/her act together before we meet again!  It's at the point where I am telling that person "if you keep that up, I will boycott any gatherings in which you are present". Yes, it's that bad!

I have sent similar letters to other people over the years. It's never comfortable to do so.

It never gets easier, but it just has to be done! 

Not a fan of UPS policies

If you're doing online shopping, make sure you know how your stuff is being delivered before clicking the checkout button.


If the company ships your stuff directly by United Parcel Services (UPS) you may want to re-consider!


You see, UPS does NOT tell you what time they're coming by your house!

So you're expected to wait at home ALL DAY just to receive your package!

Who has time for that?

And if you live in a secured building (like I do), they can't just come in and leave your stuff by your door. Plus, I don't want stuff left outside by my door. You never know who'll be thinking  "hey, free stuff".


And even worse, their delivery workers are not allowed to call the customer's  phone # when they come by my home to confirm I'm home!

That is the most stupidest delivery  policy known to humanity!

So if you're not home when they come by (and they don't tell you when they'll come by), you got to go to their facility to pick up your item.

Their facility on Oahu is on an isolated road near the airport! If you're a bus rider, you got to get off by Nimitz and walk multiple blocks on Lagoon Drive!

And UPS doesn't automatically deliver to the nearest UPS store even if you request it! You have to call the UPS Store yourself and hope they'll allow you to receive your stuff there! 

Fed Ex isn't that messed up. They're willing to hold your stuff at the nearest FedEx Office instead of making you go to their isolated facility to get your stuff!


For deliveries, I'd rather just rely on the U.S. Post Office. I know all the jokes and complaints about the U.S. Post Office.  But I don't have any problems with their package delivery! They have easy access to my apartment, they leave a key in my mailbox, and with that key I can just open the bigger mailbox to get my stuff!  No need to stay at home all day just to wait for the delivery worker! And no need to go to an isolated facility in the middle of nowhere! 

So yeah, I'm avoiding the UPS as much as possible.

Though if UPS changes their policy, let me know! 
 

my time at NVMS

Time to stop holding things in!

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I was working as a Para-Professional Tutor (PPT) at Niu Valley Middle School (NVMS)  from April 2010 to May 2011.

Actually, my job interview was on February 2010 but my employment started on April 2010. Typical DOE red tape!


Anyways, I  was a one-on-one tutor for a few students who need special services.

I can't tell you too much detail about the individual students I was working with, nor how I was supposed to help them. Part of it is because of confidentiality rules, plus I don't want to embarrass the individual students I was working with.

However, it's some of the staff members who ought to be embarrassed of themselves.

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First off, SPED teacher  Randi (Sagawa) Passantino who I'll just refered to as "Miss RSP"  in the rest of this blog post.




Good news: good spirit, good enthusiasm.

Bad news: very disorganized, poor leader.


She doesn't tell new PPTs what they're supposed to be doing or how they're supposed to be doing things until it is too late!  And she only does it after the fact and loud enough for everyone to hear! 

Good leaders tell you and prep you ahead of time! "Miss RSP" doesn't!

Good leaders try to correct you in a way on an individual level in at least a semi-private setting (ie. correct you softly at the teacher's desk). "Miss RSP" does the exact opposite. She'll embarrass staff members in a loud tone in front of everyone.

I mean, it's one thing to yell at  some fool playing around in class! It's one thing to yell when the students won't be quiet when I start the class!  But minor mistakes are to be corrected in a softer tone of voice. "Miss RSP" doesn't believe in a softer tone of voice, ever! Therefore, "Miss Blank" is all noise, no sense!

It is also impossible to talk with "Miss RSP" in a low-key environment. She walks away when I tell her "I won't know if you don't tell me". Real leaders don't walk away when being told that!  "Miss RSP" isn't a real leader,  is all ego, no humility!
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Math teacher Stephen Duncan allows chaos to occur in his homeroom. And he has the nerve to tell me "what happens in this class stays in this class". WRONG MOVE MISTER!

I reported that statement to the vice-principal  who thought that statement was "so stupid". The vice-principal agreed with me when I said "anything that happens in class is fair game".

Stephen Duncan, instead of telling me "what happens in this class stays in this class", why not put more effort in controlling your class?  

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And talking about class management, PPTs are supposed to be silent  passive observers  whenever the classroom teacher don't even put much effort in classroom management.  This was the instruction by one of the former vice-principals (Kelly Bart) when I mentioned to him about the chaos occurring in a Japanese-language class.

The teacher was a temp hire (regular teacher was on maternity leave) and was excessively lenient.  There was constant trash talking and running around among the students in the class

Yet the VP Bart's order to me was to be a silent passive observer and just help the student I was assigned to help.

(by the way, I was supposed to help that student, even in classes where I have no expertise, ie. Japanese language)

Anyways, I was so angry about the situation, I went to the other VP and the principal on this issue! I was then told I can call security if anything goes on, as long as I got the teacher's permission. Afterwards, the temp teacher finally put more effort in classroom management.

In the last quarter, that class finally had a different temp teacher. He was more of a disciplinarian without being overly harsh. He was one of the coolest people on campus!  The bad kids didn't like him, but the good kids did!

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Because PPTs are supposed to silent observers when other kids are causing chaos,  I no longer work as a PPT!  

 I'm tired of being silent when chaos occurs in class!

I'd rather be a substitute teacher than a PPT! Even if the students give subs a hard time, at least I'm allowed to put  effort in classroom management   instead of just being a silent passive observer!  I'm done with being a silent passive observer!

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There was also this Student Service clerk Winnie Yuen. She asked the usual introduction question "where are you from?" I told her I was from this island. She then asked "where are you really from?" EXCUSE ME I just answered your question!  Racial profiling from someone who acts as if only Asians and Polynesians can say they grow up in Hawaii. I like see her tell people in Idaho or Mississippi that she's a US citizen! Ha! 

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Other that though, I like most of the people at NVMS!  

The head secretary (officially called the SASA) Eric Ikawa is one of the coolest people on Earth. 

Rick Nagata is a great social studies teacher! 

Monica Boehm is no longer there, but she's an engaging English teacher with real passion in the subject!

Mr Doi is a real PE teacher. He actually teaches the students about the games, whereas my PE teachers were just like "here's the ball, make a team and go play" 

Ms Lozis teaches the video-making, which is a class I wish I had when I was in school! 

I also remember the fun conversations with EA Traci Smith!

 Candice Kuo was the librarian, very nice sweet woman!  Same with counselor Angie Inoue. 

Shon was the after-school activity guy! A cool guy!

And if I forget the other staff members I got along with, I apologize!

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