Philosophy Without A Home

I went on a job interview yesterday. Asst. Manager for a retail store. I shop whenever I have the money, I figure that makes me an expert on retail stores. The HR person interviewing me insisted on asking about my experience working in retail. Now I don't have much experience in a retail store. That is to say my experience consists of working at a gas station a few years back. I shop though and that should make me an expert. So I don't understand when the HR lady, who herself is not a retail store manager, asked me how I thought it was possible that she could hire me to supervise when I would know less than the associates I was supposed to be supervising.

I'm loving this idea by J Krause . I remember my days as a high school student. I was about as lazy and cocky as it was possible for a high school student to be, yes I know that is saying a lot. I did the minimum amount of work necessary to pass and probably less than that on many occasions. I did however pass, though sometimes I think just because the school didn't want to deal with me one more year. This may be good or bad depending on your point of view. It's good, because evidently I generally have a better grasp of the knowledge and skills that make up the high school curriculum than the average high school student. I personally don't see the harm in graduating from high school if you have the knowledge and skills high school is supposed to teach. It's bad because I never learned what to do when my limits were tested. I was never held back because of my lack of effort. I might have been given a poor grade, but never held back. After high school I went off to co

gTeachers Strike Originally published April 25, 2008 – 5:48 am by Brendan Can you imagine 400,000 people staying home from work? As a teacher I am often asked how I would fix schools in America. I always say the easiest way is to raise starting salaries to about $60,000 a year then wait seven to ten years. I figure the raise in pay will attract so many eager new students that colleges will be raising standards to keep classes to a manageable size. In about four years schools will have so many new applicants they can pick the best of the best. Then after a few years teaching we will start to feel the effect of these new high quality teachers. Before I get flamed like crazy this is not the entirety of what I would do if by some weird coincidence I actually had that sort of power and influence. It’s more of a discussion starter for a question that is more rhetorical than real. I would like to qualify that we do have many outstanding teachers in our schools. I think almost every educato

Teacher Pay Originally published May 21, 2008 – 6:15 am by Brendan When the folks at Global Scholar asked if anyone would like to be a blogger and not get paid I actually jumped at the chance. I’m one of those guys who has a book somewhere inside, but I can never seem to get it out. I figure it is because I can never seem to follow through with the first piece of advice any writer will tell you: sit down and write everyday. So here I am writing everyday. I’m pretty new at this blogging stuff, or old if you think about it. (As a motorcycle enthusiast I was writing about my travels before I knew blog was a word) I do have two blogs as a sort of diary for my boys that I hope they will take over when they get old enough. The surprising thing to me was how many blogs are out there just on the state of education. Today I looked at Educationwonk , Coach Brown , Scenes from the Battleground , And Three Standard Deviations to the Left , among others. It was Three Standard Deviations to the

I used to blog for my old company, but they took the blog down. I am not actually allowed to own the writings I put up on that blog, but as I reference them on occasion in my writing I am putting those articles up in my archives here for reference sake. I'll put the tag GS on those articles noting that they were originally published on the http://schoolfinder.globalscholar.com/blog/ Firing Teachers Originally published May 22, 2008 – 6:48 am by Brendan Yesterday I wrote about attracting the best and the brightest teachers. There are two basic things that need to change if we are going to attract the best and the brightest teachers. (This is not to say that some of the teachers now aren’t the best and the brightest.) The first is to raise teacher pay and the second is to increase the respect for the profession of teaching. It always shocks me how many people think teachers don’t work for their money. It also shocks me how so many people, when they find out I am a teacher