The Fuckery Continues

This post, and the rest of my blog contains OPINIONS.
It's what I think.
It may have no basis in fact.
It may be lies.
It may be composed of half-truths and stuff you'd find inside a squid.
Or, it's all just what I think.

This caveat brought to you out of prudence.... the last time everything was going to shit for me and I wrote about it, the asshole attorney and assorted work comp fucks decided to send a link to my blog to the company I work for. It's okay for someone to do that now, really. Since no one has listened to me so far, perhaps this would get the attention of the right people. Although I doubt it, it seems that we have a lot of useless and clueless drones. None of them could do my job to save their lives. Many of them probably shouldn't even be around children.

I have never mentioned the company by name... not because I wish to protect the reputation of a company that doesn't need or deserve it, but out of respect for the privacy of the kids I serve. I don't use their real names,or the name of my school. I don't share this blog with people I work with now or have worked with in the past. I have never sent a link to any of the parents of kids in my programs, either. 

Full disclaimer can be found at the bottom of the page.
Read it.
Let me know if you have questions about any of my OPINIONS, which is what this entire blog is composed of.
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The latest... we're going to segregate children by age/grade level over summer. Because... um. I don't know.

Another shitty idea, brought to you by the people who think it's a good idea to leave a verbally abusive asshole in charge of children, pay different people different levels of crap wages to do the same job and when it's pointed out, act like it's all your fault somehow. Then, when you take your concerns to management up the line, they retaliate by doing mean things.
By using their position within the company to shit on people.

They even feel okay about it.
Because they're probably narcissistic assholes.
I'm not qualified to diagnose the first half of that... but definitely qualified to recognize the second. 

I sent this off this evening to Fluffy and Fluffy Jr. They think that they're making me part of the 'team' by calling me TEAM and asking for my input on two of our units for summer. I will find out on Tuesday if I'm going to be stuck working with/for them all summer or I can be sliced and diced and go through an enormous amount of pain and have a shitty summer which would be totally worth it to avoid them. There aren't words to describe what assholes they really are, but I keep trying to educate them anyway.

The hostile work environment has already cost them several veteran staff members, and I happen to know they're about to lose at least two more. I'm sorry to see them go. You'd think someone at corporate would wonder why so many long-term employees in the same bunch would quit at once... but so far, it seems like no one really gives a shit.

We're widgets. Poorly paid and not respected.

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If you can please get me a paper copy of the parts of the curriculum I'm supposed to address, I can add my (scrawled in notebooks and piled on the kitchen table) notes to those pages when I find out exactly what you want and hand them back to you this week. That would be a lot easier for me.

I'm not entirely clear on what you need from me regarding the summer stuff anyway... it's all written up and laid out. All that remains, if we are to follow the curriculum, is to look at the book and do the stuff in it.

We read the book, we do the activities, modifying them as needed for the group across a broad age range, fill in around the edges with more hands-on stuff and move on.

All of us are very good at that. If our supplies are provided in a timely manner (at least one week ahead of each unit) then we can organize them and plan and be ready for the week's activities.

More hands-on... For example, there is nothing in the curriculum that explains or demonstrates capillary action, something that trees and other plants use, something that would be fun for the kids. Do you want me to write up and add stuff like that? How do I know there will be time to do those things?

Are we going to be allowed to use the kitchen this year? Last year the person who represents food services decided that we wouldn't even be able to use the refrigerators owned by the school district because she was angry that we weren't going to do the summer feeding program.

I would hope that we would appeal such a decision to the school district if the situation arises this year, as we have never harmed anyone's equipment and been good stewards in the places we use.

So the things that require cutting up and serving food may be problematic and we might have to substitute other activities. It would be nice to know that now instead of later.

One of my recent Goodwill purchases is a brand new roll of bulletin board paper that's green and leafy and perfect for a backdrop for both trees and birds and insect and arachnid project display. I think the more stuff we make and display, the better.

I have a few projects to add to ( or replace) the ones already presented in the book. Some of the things these people come up with are inefficient, not as fun, or can be done better and with less trouble. I think I have most of the supplies needed for those projects, too.

Examples.. instead of printing out a piece of paper talking about tree rings, I will bring in a couple large slices of an actual tree so the kids can count the rings... smell the wood, feel the bark, touch an actual tree.

Instead of planting a tree and measuring its growth, which will be slow and not change much in the two weeks of that unit, let's plant seeds and send them home with the kids after watching them sprout and grow a little so they can watch them grow and bloom over summer.

We can still bring in a tree to measure and watch. I may even know someone who would give us a tree in a pot to watch and take care of. But other than an Alder tree, which is considered a junk tree and probably won't be found in nurseries, trees simply don't grow fast enough to generate any excitement.

Since it's summer, we can't use fall leaves, but it would be awesome to make leaf pictures. We could identify the types of leaves, what kind of tree they came from and display our creations. We could also use leaf punches and brightly colored/tropical colored papers and make our pictures more like summer. I have a copy of this:

http://www.amazon.com/Look-What-Did-Leaf-Naturecraft/dp/0802774407

I was happy to see a butterfly garden as part of the supplies. It's something I did with my own kids more than once.
That was one of my ideas before even seeing the curriculum book, so I'm excited about it.

I own an eyeclops bionicam.
http://eyeclopsbionic.com/eyeclopsbionicam.php

Perfect for looking at bugs and assorted things like leaves. I'll bring it for summer, whether I'm there or not, but it's for adult use only. Adults operate it, kids watch on the TV screen. :)

Paint and brushes. I have those. A lot of them.

I have pipe cleaners. Duct tape. A ton of things that can and should be used over summer.

Regarding making the big group projects from papier mache... flour and water paste is not as efficient as white glue and water. It gets moldy and ferments quickly, especially when it's hot and there is poor air circulation, both big factors in our summer location.

Also, with so many kids being gluten intolerant, the flour is an allergen. Am I supposed to be pointing things like this out?

The curriculum calls for play doh, but model magic is less expensive and also contains no gluten. Play doh and many other products are made with flour. We'll need to order a case of it, but that's easy to do.

Please clarify what you'd like to see.

I'm very fast at typing/writing down my thoughts and can get whatever you want done in a very short amount of time, but I'm not entirely clear about what you need from me.

It would be very helpful for those of us working together this summer to have a chance to get together and brainstorm before summer program starts.

I have supplies at my site that I can contribute to summer.

We all do.
Not asking us about it and not giving us an opportunity for input is not cost effective or efficient. If we'd all been able to meet and plan we'd probably have a good portion of summer supplies already accounted for.

It would be nice to share the ideas we have with each other in an open forum for other sections of curriculum and general summer activities, too. Dividing up the book/plans is sort of... insular.

We've done zero planning regarding our summer environment, (that WOW factor we're famous for in our area) what material contributions we need to make for decorations etc for week 1,  we've had no commentary or input on bike/scooter days, water play days or any other special activity plans.

With the decades of experience we have as a team in conducting a great program for summer, one that people return to year after year,  it doesn't make sense on any level to have left us completely out of the general planning.

It makes your job more difficult and does exactly the same thing to us.