The Master’s Degree has Been Obtained

Posted by Bob Greenberger on December 13, 2011

In January, I began my graduate career and today it ended. In between, I logged 33 credits plus an additional six credits of supplemental required undergraduate literature. At some point in the near future, I anticipate receiving a diploma in the mail, a physical memento of the achievement.

My internship runs through the 23^rd and boy am I having fun with the kids. In theory, I will then get a break before reporting back to Darien on January 24 to begin my twelve week student teaching run.

What I find interesting is that most everyone I spoke with this past year, all congratulated me on this course of action then told me what a waste of time grad school was. For something so universally recognized, it’s amazing the universities themselves aren’t revamping their programs to make them more relevant (and therefore more attractive, enhancing their own reps).

Most of my professors were enthusiastic and well-qualified but all but one of them were woefully out of touch with what is happening in schools today. There are rapid changes occurring that the curriculum has made no attempt to keep up with. For example, little was said about the changes to the Core Curriculum, Race to the Top or No Child Left Behind. We never discussed new trends such as the flipped classroom or the increasing debate over the value of using social media to teach.

There was also a tremendous amount of wasted time by curriculum overlapping one another, leaving other gaps unaddressed. And let’s not talk about how the University of Bridgeport campus was still using overhead projectors in the day of the Smart Board. There’s a lot left to be desired about UB’s lack of uniformity and consistency between what our teachers say and do in addition to general administrative befuddlement. The latter is another knock I hear aimed at most institutions of higher learning and that’s a real shame.

Did it make me any better prepared to become a secondary education English teacher? More that I readily give UB credit for but certainly not as well prepared as they could have. Nothing beats being in a school and the classroom and the teaching has to be in support of that experience.

I never thought I would take the time or find the need to have a Master’s Degree, but now that I have it (with an anticipated 4.0 no less), I will also admit it’s very cool.

Teacher’s Log: The First Three Days

Posted by Bob Greenberger on December 11, 2011

Wednesday

Obviously, the biggest issue of the day was breaking the news to the students that their teacher was gone and I’d be filling in, at least through Christmas break. There was a fair amount of jaw-dropping and questioning while I tried to keep them focused on the work to be done and moving forward.

Thankfully, the two English 10 classes were scheduled to break into groups and discuss The Whale Rider so I could wander from group to group and eavesdrop. My two World Lit classes were watching the end of Shutter Island and then talking about reality vs. fantasy which was a theme from previous works and the movie was used as a transition to the next work.

I also spent the day sifting through the few notes I was left to figure out what I needed to know and do before I went into free fall, that is, teaching without a net on Friday. I also met with the Special Ed faculty to be brought up to speed on students who had various accommodations. I also got some strong advice from the teacher who I will be working with when my student teaching begins in January.

I spent the evening building a PowerPoint presentation on Cervantes and Don Quixote to introduce the World Lit kids to the excerpt.

Thursday

The third English class was stunned, even though they already heard the news. They were a self-aware bunch, telling me how concerned they were with not being ready for the mid-terms (beginning on January 17) and how far behind they were in comparison with others. It was also clear that this group in particular was struggling with The Whale Rider, confused over the names, relationships, and narrators.

I gave the World Lit kids a writing prompt to get started, largely so I could see their writing for myself and have something reviewed and returned in a quick fashion, clearly signaling I am not following the patterns of my predecessor. They seemed to appreciate the PowerPoint which got us into one of the world’s great literary works.

My other English class spent more time talking about the book.

I graded during study hall and kept drafting notes as to where to take each class between now and the Christmas break. It’s like when I ziplined in August; I felt lots of fear on the short platform but the thrill of exhilaration once I began moving. Lots of concern at my desk but lots of adrenaline when I was in the classroom. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

It’s Showtime

Posted by Bob Greenberger on December 7, 2011

It was ten minutes before lunch yesterday when I was asked into the department coordinator’s office. One of the English faculty was leaving staff – almost immediately – and I was being assigned her classes for, at minimum, a week but more likely through the end of my internship on the 23^rd.

The teacher left behind lesson notes through Friday and little else. Once she cleaned out her desk, we saw stacks of ungraded papers, and other details that require attention. There were no notes pointing me in a direction and I had just a few hours to prep.

Today I begin working with three 10^th grade English and two World Literature classes. Thankfully, one of them dropped, so I got to ease into things. Once the kids picked up their jaws, we got to work. During my two off periods I spent time with the Special Ed teachers coming up to speed on the students in my classes who have IEP plans and what they knew about direction. I also spent time speaking with my cooperating teacher, getting her advice on how to finish the days before Christmas break.

I’ve been given a room key and access to the Aspen grading system, being treated like I’ll be in place for the duration – even though it’s a mere two and a half weeks. What comes next for the students is anyone’s guess. Me, I will complete the internship and return to Darien in January for the start of my student teaching.

There are certainly plenty of advantages to being thrown into the fire like this. It means I can immediately put my lessons into practice, get some classroom time under my belt before getting refined by my cooperating teacher, and with luck, make a good impression on the students and administration.

So, I sit here tonight, not relaxing with a magazine but finalizing a presentation on Cervantes and Don Quixote so we can begin the class as scheduled.

Exciting times ahead.

Fox News Pisses Me Off

Posted by Bob Greenberger on December 5, 2011

I don’t often pull stories from other sources for discussion here, but this one really bothers me. After all, last night, Deb, Kate, and I sat down for our traditional viewing of The Muppet Family Christmas which we still find funny and adorable. While we wish it were uncut (sequences were dropped for copyright reasons), it certainly holds ups and makes the holidays feel real in our house.

A good friend sent me the following story, taken from the Huffington Post and just pìššëš me off. Read it for yourself and we can talk.

It ain’t easy being green, but according to Fox Business, Kermit the Frog and his Muppet friends are reds.

Last week, on the network’s Follow the Money program, host Eric Bolling went McCarthy on the new, Disney-released film, The Muppets, insisting that its storyline featuring an evil oil baron made it the latest example of Hollywood’s so-called liberal agenda.

Bolling, who took issue with the baron’s name, Tex Richman, was joined by Dan Gainor of the conservative Media Research Center, who was uninhibited with his criticism.

“It’s amazing how far the left will go just to manipulate your kids, to convince them, give the anti-corporate message,” he said.

“They’ve been doing it for decades. Hollywood, the left, the media, they hate the oil industry,” Gainor continued. “They hate corporate America. And so you’ll see all these movies attacking it, whether it was Cars 2, which was another kids’ movie, the George Clooney movie Syriana, There Will Be Blood, all these movies attacking the oil industry, none of them reminding people what oil means for most people: fuel to light a hospital, heat your home, fuel an ambulance to get you to the hospital if you need that. And they don’t want to tell that story.”

Indeed, there was no mention of the benefits of oil drilling in the Muppets, but there was also no discussion of any other aspect of the industry. Richman, played by Chris Cooper, was out to destroy the Muppets theater. Kermit and his friends, then, were not committed environmentalists (though one must imagine the frog is concerned with his swampy homeland) but simply puppets looking to save a place they once loved.

Still, Gainor blamed the film, and its predecessors, for Occupy Wall Street and the environmental movement.

“This is what they’re teaching our kids. You wonder why we’ve got a bunch of Occupy Wall Street people walking around all around the country, they’ve been indoctrinated, literally, for years by this kind of stuff,” Gainor said. “Whether it was Captain Planet or Nickelodeon’s Big Green Help, or The Day After Tomorrow, the Al Gore-influenced movie, all of that is what they’re teaching, is that corporations is bad, the oil industry is bad, and ultimately what they’re telling kids is what they told you in the movie The Matrix: that mankind is a virus on poor old mother Earth.”

Uncle Bud, R.I.P.

Posted by Bob Greenberger on November 29, 2011

My Uncle Bud was born seven years before my father, but they were incredibly close as siblings. During the Depression, my grandmother would send them for two loaves of bread, knowing they would consume one en route home, filling them up to help stretch their dinner. Bud took my dad to Ebbets Field for Brooklyn Dodger games and they both often spoke of the time Dad disappeared and Bud panicked only to discover my father happily wandering home on his own.

Bud went to Dartmouth before serving in the Navy during World War II. He rarely spoke of his time in the service but he proudly retained pictures of him in his dress whites. After the war, he went into advertising sales, spending most of his career selling space in trade publications for a division of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

He lived in his parents’ Brooklyn apartment well into his 40s, never quite meeting the right person. As a result, I grew up seeing my grandparents and Uncle Bud every Sunday, watching in amazement as he and my father engaged in verbal repartee. They were raised on the Vaudeville comedians who transferred their routines to radio and film. Their rapid-fire exchanges displayed not only wit but intelligence. I longed to get in on the fun and years later, Robbie watched me and Bud repeat the exchanges, also anxious to get in on the experience. He was delighted when Bud catered the exchanges to him.

I remember Bud attending Old Timer’s Day at Shea Stadium on my birthday, giving me a 007 toy briefcase complete with hidden spy gear. He was there for the significant events in our lives, happy to be there, and deeply caring.

When he finally found Helene and they married, he was never happier. The pair was always present for family events and ceremonies could always be counted on to have a smile and a story. As they settled into an apartment in Far Rockaway, we would make occassional visits and were always welcome.

When they both retired in the 1980s, they began a comfortable life together that was filled with arts and culture. Eventually they bought a place in Florida and became snow birds, reducing our visits to twice or so a year but we spoke in between visits, Bud always keenly interested in our accomplishments.

The cancer that robbed Bud of his life this morning never dampened his interest in the world around him or the family. It slowed him down and eventually confined him to an increasingly smaller world, but his mind remained keen. We did not have a chance for a proper goodbye.

His passing takes down another limb from the ever-diminishing Greenberger family tree and we are all deeply saddened by his passing.

The Magic is Back

Posted by Bob Greenberger on November 25, 2011

There has been a tremendous amount of talk in our world about reboots, successful or not, and I just got back from experiencing the year’s single best relaunch of a tired property. Deb, Kate, her guy Mike, and I saw The Muppets and pretty much smiled all the way through, guffawing with pleasantly regularity and wiping away a tear every now and then.

Ladies and gentlemen, please pay attention, because this is how it’s done.

It starts with understanding the property, what has worked in the past and what has not. More than that, though, it is loving the property and all it is about. No one at Disney had the first clue what to do with the property since buying the characters from Jim Henson’s heirs. Yes, Henson wanted the House of Mouse to take care of his people after he was gone, and they’ve held on to them without really having anyone loving them.

You need passion to bring back a property that has been deemed tired and irrelevant by most. Jason Segal demonstrated that passion, oddly enough, in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. He parlayed that into a meeting with the Disney execs and showed them he had the clue: he loved the Muppets and their wacky world. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Watching Television

Posted by Bob Greenberger on November 23, 2011

Since Deb and I switched to watching our entire television output via DVR (and less frequently via DVD), we tend to run days or even weeks behind the general viewing public. As a result, I am a little slower to form opinions, especially about the newer shows but we’re pretty caught up for the moment.

My first thought about the new season, which is now over two months old, is that it is particularly lackluster. There are several we’ve tried and like enough to stick with for now but have not fallen in love with as we have with older shows.

Right now, the best adult prime time drama remains The Good Wife while I continue to think Shonda Rhimes’ Grey’s Anatomy is the best structured show (notable for how it’s freshening things in its pivotal seventh season).

We were about to drop The Playboy Club before NBC beat us to it. Whatever lessons the producers thought they learned from Mad Men were clearly missed. Pan Am is suffering from the same creative shortcomings as the NBC dud and it’s no surprise ABC is yanking it for the spring. In both cases, they used tried and true tropes (crime and espionage respectively) to bolster a dearth of interesting characters. Pan Am has a fine sheen to its look and retains some of the legendary airline’s glamor, but none of the characters are really growing into strong figures. For a show about sexy women, Playboy thoroughly missed the mark with poor characterization and wretched writing. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Feeling Calmer

Posted by Bob Greenberger on November 20, 2011

I am now, and always have been, goal oriented. I work best with a To Do list and as spare time arrives, I use it to work ahead.  Being in grad school since January has left me feeling pressured, on a treadmill with no end in sight.

Until now. I have my end of the semester projects coming due and as I have endeavored to complete each one, I check them off the list. Suddenly, over the last 24 hours, the list has markedly shrunk.

This week I deliver my English Methods portfolio and my Unit Project to Social Studies Methods. My final two waste-of-time papers for my Internship portfolio are also completed. I have had two different people edit my Psychology White Paper, which is due next week. I’m also prepared for the group presentation in Psych. And the Reflection for Psych is now completed.

All that’s left is a Media Literacy project for English, which I started pulling material for over a month ago and can now focus on that.

While classes don’t end until December 12, I am feeling some of the pressure from school lift so I can now focus more of my attention on the Unauthorized History of Star Trek (you have all Liked it over on Facebook, right?).

Oh, and then there’s the holidays. By this point on the calendar, I prefer having the majority of the shopping done so we can avoid the malls after Thanksgiving but we didn’t buy anything for others until yesterday so in my mind we’re behind. Strangely, I’m not feeling too much pressure about it. It’ll get done as will the decorating, the cards, and the other prep.

There’s a certain feeling coming over me, one of completion that is making me feel remarkably calm.

Ciao, Cablevision

Posted by Bob Greenberger on November 15, 2011

I came home from summer camp one year back in the mid-1970s, and my parents said we now had something called HBO. First, I noticed the clear improved picture on the familiar channels but I was astonished to see uncut full-length movies on a single channel. Being a teen, I was particularly fond of the R-rated offerings I was otherwise unable to see. They explained that we now had what was called cable television and as chance had it, the company was based nearby.

In 1975, we had a fledgling in-house radio station WJER that saw us playing whatever we felt like and pump it into the cafeteria. Our leader, Brian Isaacson, was also dabbling with video production and we all collaborated on a thirty minute production which, he assured us, would be played by this new company, Cablevision. That was my introduction to the joys of public access cable television. We completed our venture and I was part of the group carrying the precious ¾” video tape to the Cablevision offices at the edge of our housing development.

I have only vague memories of what was on the tape or why we wound up speaking with the Dolans, the family that ran the operation.  I do recall coming away with a negative impression of the Dolans, an opinion that has never wavered through the years.

After my family left for California, but I stayed behind to have my own life, I also became a Cablevision subscriber – not out of any loyalty, but because they were the only game in town. The same circumstances followed me and Deb as we relocated to Connecticut in 1992. So, Cablevision has been part of my life for pretty close to forty years.

We finally cut the cord this week. ATT’s Uverse finally had a mix of offerings and prices that made sense for us to make the switch. They must have been busy with similar cases because even though we made the decision months ago, Saturday was the first available appointment that worked for us. As promised, the technician arrived on schedule and stayed for the estimated four hours as we diligently switched our cable, phone, and internet connections to ATT. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

The Stan Lee Universe is Out

Posted by Bob Greenberger on November 11, 2011