School is Here

Well, it's time. Tomorrow morning is the first day of school. With kids, anyway. Our "school" isn't ready yet. We're hoping my Monday. In the meantime we've taken the last 3 days and planned out how we're going to cart our 48 kids around Kihei from now until Friday. We're in good shape. I get to do my Learning Style / Multiple Intelligence activity I've been doing for years. Only this time it's with 3 times as many kids who are a lot younger than I've ever done it with. Piece of cake!

Tonight, I got my first phone call from a parent. (All the teachers have school-paid for cell phones). Little Billy is nervous about tomorrow and she wants me to talk to him. Done. So Little Billy's coming to school tomorrow.

So I haven't had a chance to talk about where our program is. It's actually housed in a Research & Technology Park. Our building is next to the Air Force's supercomputer that is the 11th largest in the world. There are serious, big-brained cats here and we're going to share their bathrooms with 48 booger-filled germ factories. Whoo Hoo!!!

There's been a few...uh...compromises...well...I'm not going to talk about my co-workers too much. I like them, I have to work with them and I don't want to do anything that'll make things weird. But there's a few things that are a bit more traditional - almost reactionary that make me go hmmmmmm. We're going to be giving kids an opportunity to be in the Civil Air Patrol. It's cool that middle school kids are going to get a chance to take flying lessons, but it's run by the Air Force. The kids who participate will have uniforms and march in parades and it's pretty militaristic. Slightly uncomfortable. I've had a brief discussion with one of my co-workers about the pledge of allegiance. I don't know if we're going to be doing it, but I'm not going to participate in that. I will stand respectfully, but I haven't participated in that in a long, long time - even when I was running for office. I'm willing to discuss it with kids (and parents) and I don't plan on making an issue of it.

There's a bit more emphasis on testing than I'd like. But there is a lot more freedom to do cool stuff - which I'll be taking advantage of. And the after school programs are going to be cool, too. More information as it comes.

Today, we had a weird problem. To use all the computers we have, and for me, to do the podcast (and eventually a radio show) we need a bunch of headphones. No problem, we have them. But the issue of lice came up. If we're sharing headphones then lice can spread like plague. So we're brainstorming ideas. Finally, I went online and found that certain essential oils can prevent lice. So after school, I drove out to Paia, to my favorite store - Mana - and grabbed some lavender & chamomile. Mixed with distilled water and alcohol...we should be lice free.

OK, it's off to bed...if that f-ing dog ever stops barking.