Pinellas County, Florida was agricultural.

It's not agricultural now. The only thing that remains are roads such as Brian Dairy Road. Saul's Dairy is gone without leaving a trace. I know where it was because it is in my memory. Your first responds is likely that it has no consequence to you. And, you would likely be right. But it does to the students that drank milk from those dairies.

I live in what was an orange grove. A few of us have citrus trees in our back yards that create enough for me and a few friends. I tried to sell what I didn't want a few years ago and got cited by Code Enforcement. Giving them away is also a problem.

Zoning has restricted manufacturing. There are now few areas zoned for industry. However, there are still a few zones where clean manufacturing is allowed.

Manufacturing has traditionally been where your students could eventually earn a living and support a family. That has ended. What we have now is retailing, restaurants, medical services, pan handling, street walking and law enforcement. What kind of a future is that?

I was a kid from a farming community.

I helped grow the food you eat. The field in front of my house was over a mile long and a quarter mile wide. It was some times full of corn other times beans and sugar beats. We know the source of your food and the city kids really didn't care. FFA was not a positive label and most people know know the meaning of those letters.

Unfortunately the gap between those who raise your food and those that take it for a given that they will always have the food they need is not a certainty. The ignorance of students and their parents and teachers will cause a lot of pain in the not too distance future. Think about Maslow's Hierarchy of needs again.

This problem had begun when I was a high school student. It has only gotten worse since then.

Humm .... What do you think?

Visit: http://www.ffa.org/

Quotable

I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. ~William Penn

We live like kings and queens.

Your first response to that is likely, no I don't. If you answer no to most of these questions, then you do.

1. Do you grow your own food?
2. Do you prepare your own food?
3. Do you can, dry or otherwise prepare your food for storage?
4. Do you weave your own cloth?
5. Do you make your own clothes?
6. Did you build your own house or living unit?
7. Do you maintain your own house or living unit?
8. Did you make your own transportation?
9. Do you maintain your own transportation?
10. Do you set while someone else entertains you? (A YES for this one is the same as a NO.)

If you answered no to most of these, then you live your live as a king or queen.

You might think that you could live your life differently. That is not the case. Laws, rules and regulations blocks much of what you would try to do. The other obstruction is the lack of specialized tools, knowledge and skills.

Your students are caught in the same predicament.

You know the economy is tanking when they think you are eating cat food.

My three cat were out of canned cat food and they were pestering me. So I thought it was best to go to the super market and buy cat food and a gallon of milk. I was out of that too. At the cash register a kind voice said, "Don't eat the cat food." Humm .... the milk was for me and the cat food was for KittyKat, Dixie and Pixie. The cashier likely visualized me putting the cat food in a bowl and pouring on milk.

A Twitter site for teachers you might want to follow.

http://twitter.com/SchooNoodle

Reserve you Twitter name NOW!

I attempted to reserve Stephen_Lyons and discovered that someone else now has it. I then tried Stephen__Lyons and that had not been taken. I have it now and I will not part with it.
http://twitter.com/Stephen__Lyons Visit mine and you will see what I did.

Twitter is great for announcements.

Your students will think highly of you if you are using Twitter. If you don't, you risk being thought of as being an outdated jerk. I would agree with them.

The last best hope!

Readers, writers, and books are fading away: Stephen@lessonplans.com. I doubt if I get an email from anyone. That will help confirm the premise.

Yesterday I got my issue of Wired. I found this on page 43. "A device like that [Kindle] is the last best hope paper-based companies have for coping with the reality that paper is doomed." I think that reading and writing books is doomed also. Your attention span has shrunk to the point where you are unable to read a book. Without readers of books, then what follows?

If I do get an email as a result of this post, it will likely be short and rude.

I got a surprise in my mailbox.

I ordered from Amazon.com Noam Chomsky's Failed States. It should be an enlightening read. What surprised me before getting past the cover was how cheaply made it is. I've handled a lot of books and I know what they should feel like. This one has the feel of a cheap paperback even though it has a suggested retail price of $16.

It has been a few years since I have bought a book. When was the last time you bought a book or read one. That it the problem. How many books are in your house? That is another problem.

Okay, so you and your friends don't like to read. What effect do you think that has on writers?

What happened to Junior Achievement?

I remember Junior Achievement. I was attending Midland High School at the time. After that, I lost contact with it for many years.

Junior Achievement wasn't in Saginaw High when I was there. I then taught in the Meridian school system. It wasn't there either. That may have been that Meridian was a rural school system and the people there didn't think that it was of any worth. There you were either a farmer or you worked by the hour for Dow Chemical or General Motors: you were an hourly or salary employee. One of the school board members wanted us to punch in and out with a time clock. If it was good enough for him, then it was good enough for teachers.

Junior Achievement had been in small town high schools. It see that it has now in the elementary and middle schools, if at all. It is now and that is another loss.

What happened to cause this to happen? There are multiple causes. Think about it.

Follow me with Twitter.

http://twitter.com/StephenLyons03

The fate of a high school dropout

Here in Florida there is a high dropout rate.

At this point in time, I don't want to think or write about it.

Get ready for the new school year.

Learn to use resources like TeacherPlanet and Lessonplans.com and your will be a more effective teacher.

http://www.teacherplanet.com/calendar/calendar.php?op=cal&month=7&year=2009

http://www.lessonplans.com

Thank you for reading the Educator's Blog

Tell me what you want me to write about. Stephen@lessonplans.com

A great loss of a 22 year-old.

It is with great sadness that I tell our class about the death of the Ballroom Instructor Stephan Matkowski (22), Tuesday night Inst before us, who died in a plane crash on Sunday in Virginia on the way home from competition in New York with one of his students and her husband the pilot (Checker's executive) and owner of the plane! It is so incredibly sad!
He will be greatly missed by myself for sure! He always had such a positive attitude about life and always made the transition of his class to ours very easy and fun! He was a huge part of the studio with his Ballroom background and will be really missed by the owners! Stephan was there before the new owners took over!
See you tomorrow!
Diane

Link to Michael Jackon's daugher speaking.

You can here the words spoken by Michael Jackson's daughter at his funeral. These are the most important words ever spoken.

http://www.breitbart.tv/i-love-him-michael-jacksons-daughter-gives-tearful-farewell-at-memorial/

We have become a nation of freaks.

Hi Ronald,

Those fat women next door and their kids in the pool are the continuation of nothing good. They should not be allowed to create more of their same kind. They are representative of a destructive force that is killing us and the source of our current problem.

We have become a nation of freaks.

Stephen

It's only a light bulb!

The light bulb in the attic needed to be replaced and the ceiling is very low. It is only a crawl space and little Ray enthusiastically wanted to do it. He's father thinks he is a genius. I'm sure you have experienced parents like that. Off little Ray went. When he got to the fixture, he didn't know what to do and he couldn't follow my directions but one. Ray, "Get out of there, I'll do it myself."

Remember this joke? How many ____ does it take to change a light bulb. Three: one to hold the bulb and two to turn the ladder.

It is seven times more likely that it is dad.

I was at the Green Bay grocery story and on the way out I looked at the front page of the Tampa Tribune. There I saw this headline: Child porn's dirty secret: Dads often behind lens.

Read all of it at this link.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/jul/05/na-child-porns-dirtysecret-dads-often-behind-lens/news-metro/

A food binge at a restaurant

I took Nancy and Kyle (Nancy's son) out for breakfast. I thought I had enough money. Kyle was 20 at the time. He is a large boy, perhaps twice my size. Kyle ordered much more than I have ever ordered for breakfast. I thought at the time that I would let it pass because of his size. Nancy ordered very little and I cut back.

The food arrived and Kyle only ate a small percentage of what he ordered. There was enough left for Nancy and Kyle's lunch. I thought they would just take it home with them. Kyle would have none of that. He would not eat it and he would not take it home. I began doing a slow burn inside. I did not like what was happening. I paid the bill and that was the last time I took Kyle with us.

What Kyle did was execute a food binge. The consumption binge is everywhere and at all levels and it destroying us. It's happens when someone fills their Hummer. It happens when someone leaves lights on in the house so they will not have to turn them on when they come home. It happens when the obese shops at Sam's and fills their large cart with food. On and on it goes and it will eventually end. Kayle ended and so did Nancy.