The A-Team: Mr. Hough Returns to School

Hi fans,

So once again, the state government is demanding I 'work' in order to receive a paycheck... no more paid summer vacation for me.

(frown face.)

While sitting around the house playing video games, tending my yard, soaking up sun, and (not) sleeping is fun and all, the State has convinced me that working is, in fact, 'where it's at.' We'll see. I get to jump back into a classroom and, once again, attempt to teach the indifferent youth of America a bunch of stuff they'll end up forgetting the minute they step out of class when the bell rings.

Hooray.

This year, my school is placing me in charge of what I like to call 'The A-Team,' or 7th Grade, Team A (I personally like 'A-Team' better... sounds more explosion-y). The A-Team is made up of all the kids that scored a 1 or 2 (but mostly 1) on Florida's infamous, standardized disaster, the FCAT. This is the lowest score possible, so these kids need the most help in school.


Enter Mr. Hough.

My administrators tell me that this position of mine was established due largely to my 'visual, hands-on style of teaching.' I do a lot of projects, too, and I do I think this is part of the reason... but only to a small extent. I think the real reason they stuck me in this spot and not, say, one of the veteran, senior-ranking, teacher-of-the-year types was because they did not want to lose any of those veteran, senior-ranking, teacher-of-the-year types.

The A-Team has the sound majority of the discipline problems, it has the sound majority of the students with learning disabilities, and it has the sound majority of the students who are ESL (speaking English as a second language). With all this in mind, it's easy to see why some people get burned out relatively quickly working with this sort of roster. Our school, like the loving parent that it is, shielded their favorite children (those teacher-of-the-year types) from the A-Team, and instead placed their red-headed, stepchild-from-a-previous marriage (Yours Truly) in the thick of it to handle the situation.

Booya for me. I guess that's what I get for not submitting my lesson plans in a timely manner.

Now, oddly enough, I tend to enjoy the organized chaos that comes with working with kids like this, though - I hate quiet classrooms. They're creepy.

Anyway, the administration decided that if I were to be wrangling kids of this nature, and seeing how I'm so project-based and all, they'd upgrade my room to something larger than the broom-closet I've been teaching in for the last two years. So that right there's the silver-lining to this ol' posting: Mr. Hough has some new digs. Cowabunga.


Behold the pics. Enjoy.

- Brian

- From the front door of the classroom -

- Art and project displays from previous years, set up for the parent open house -

- More of the same -

- From my desk in the back of the room-

- Another shot from the front of the room -

Election Day

hi readers.

now, while florida has been known to suck on occasion since we’ve been down here, it has also proven to be quite awesome from time to time. take the weather, for instance. when not bracing for a hurricane, one really can’t beat the tropics. palm trees and 80 degree weather in november? yeah, i’ll take that over the cold drizzle and grey overcast skies of snowless michigan right now. and being this close to all of the theme parks, ocean, and beaches? slightly more stuff to do here than in clare. granted, you have to pay $1200 a month in rent, and you do run the risk of being shot at or killed in a car accident via one of the many, many stellar drivers we have down here... but, that's the price you pay for location.

what i’m getting at, folks, is that florida has a tendency of surprising you with little flashes of awesome when you’re least expecting it (of course, this also swings the opposite way, but let’s try to stay optimistic here). the hough family was recently made aware of yet another one of florida’s perks: the ability to vote early.

florida isn’t the only state in the union that does this, i know, so i’d urge you to look into whether or not that’s available to you in your own backyard. here in America’s Penis (if you look at a map of the continental united states, this is what florida looks like… seriously, people), kris and i decided to take full advantage of this and ‘get our vote on.’ as its somewhat still frowned upon to leave babies unattended down here (apparently the ol’ 'leave-the-baby-under-an- upside-down-laundry-basket-with-a-brick-on-top' trick doesn’t "fly" anymore), we had to take the cannonball with us to the local early voting location – the nearest branch of the orange county library.

expecting a four-hour stand-a-thon, the hough family geared up like we were setting off into the serengeti. parking was terrible, and we had to fight our way through hordes of volunteers out supporting their candidate of choice (mostly local positions - county commissioners, stuff like that - no mccain people about... though there were plenty of obama people to be seen). the circus ended up being a little easier than we had anticipated, and running the entire gauntlet ended up only taking about an hour. i had alayna strapped to me in a harness, and she only started acting up when i was in the voting booth.

the people around me most likely did not appreciate this.

anyway, the moral of the story (if there even is one) is this: vote early. do it. get it out of the way. seriously. regardless of whether or not you’re voting for the erratic old guy/bat-shit crazy lady combo or the socialist/foot-in-mouth combo, save yourself the trouble of standing in line for hours and hours on november 4th and make that crap happen.

if you don’t, you don’t get to complain about anything for the next four years. and complaining is an american right.

fight for your rights, america... fight for your rights.