That dating back to 3500 B.C. there are paintings on the walls of Egyptian tombs with men wearing "astralagi," which are ankle bones of various animals that were used as dice for gambling? And that "loaded" astralagi have been found as well, implying that they tried to cheat each other out of winnings, even back then. Gamblers who were caught being dishonest were then forced to work on the pyramids to repay their debt.
This ranks in the top 5 of the most interesting or enjoyable occurrences and discoveries of the last few days, including (in no particular order):
1) Upon paying the overpriced rate of $1.00 in an NYU vending machine for a 3-pack of Peppermint Patties, the very same vending machine that has eaten my money numerous times this semester when I go for much-needed-snack-break during Stats, the machine gave me two packs instead of one! I gave the extra one to a kid in my Stats class and now I think I have good vending machine karma coming to me. Watch out, SunChips!
2) There is a homeless man in the W4th Street subway station who stands at the fifth column by the downtown local E/C track. He has an assortment of hefty bags and duffel bags, a tall wooden walking stick, wears a red bandana, and talks on the payphone. I was actually under the impression that he was really talking on the payphone for quite a while, until I realized he has been there almost every day for the last 2 or 3 weeks and that if he had enough quarters to talk for such a long time he probably wouldn't be on the subway platform for days and nights on end... This made me sad, because he's actually talking the whole time, nodding his head and smiling, and I wonder if he really is trying to get in touch with someone.
3) I took a fantastically wet walk home in the Noreaster on Sunday morning. I had my headphones on, and an umbrella that kept inverting, so I decided just to close the umbrella up and get wet. There wasn't really anyone on the sidewalks and my slip-on shoes were filled with water, so I hopped around in puddles singing along loudly to Maximo Park on my headphones until I ran into someone I knew from high school on 5th avenue and felt a little sheepish since he totally caught me singing and skipping around like a 7 year old. It seems that you run into people an awful lot considering how big the city is. By the time I got home I was soaked through all four layers of my clothing, and my shoes are still not dry as of this morning.
4) I learned that there is a place near school that has delicious Thai food in huge portions for not that much money, and that it has been about 2 blocks from the department office where I work, all year long, unbeknownst to me. I will now eat Basil Udon approximately 2-3 times per week, until 2057 when I finally finish this endless doctoral program. By then, the very skinny women who waitress there will surely not only know me on a first name basis, but also offer me a discount on the lunch special, considering my longstanding loyalty and the inevitable noodle-cost-inflation that will occur in the upcoming fifty years. I will also be 78 by then so I might need to ask them to deliver instead.
5) Aforementioned gambling trivia-facts from a book I'm (supposed to be) reading right now (instead of writing in my blog) about the politics of gambling for my policy class.
17 April 2007
11 April 2007
12:54 am
I had a 2nd interview today for a summer job I REALLY want, working with high school kids on leadership & public policy issues at a summer camp program in the Bronx. I'm trying to figure out a way I can write about it without getting into issues of privacy, especially since high school kids are far more Internet savvy than my sixth graders were... The 2nd interview required that I do a demo-lesson for a small group of "alums" from the previous summer's program. I came up with an activity on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which was only allowed to be 20 minutes long, and was to be followed by the students interviewing me for 20 minutes, and finally, 10 minutes where I could interview them.
It only ended up being four girls for the lesson plan, which made it possible for me to cram my somewhat extensive activity into a measly 20 minutes and actually have all members of the group participate. I was VERY impressed by these girls [is it mostly girls in this program, I wonder?]. They come from a number of small high schools in the Bronx, part of the "small schools movement" that I have become rather disenchanted with after my experience last year in a "small school" with a social justice oriented mission statement with a rather disappointing end-result. But these young ladies made quite an impression on me. I designed a role-play activity where they were each assigned the role of someone with a different socioeconomic background, career, marriage-status, and quality of health insurance (a doctor, a banker, a teacher, a single unemployed mother, etc.) I was "the doctor," and they all needed a "life or death" operation, which would be costly enough that even those of them who had insurance would have to pay some money out-of-pocket. I asked them if they thought the doctor should be charging the same amount of money to each of these patients, despite their different levels of resources, and we linked our discussion on the fairness of charging the same or different amounts of money for surgery to the idea of "equity."
At this point, I realized only about 5 minutes had passed, and that I was going to really have to get into the whole Campaign for Fiscal Equity history & their recent progress with Gov. Spitzy. I hadn't really imagined I'd have enough time for this, so in my head, I had only half-considered what I would say. Fortunately, I'm reading about the CFE in 2 of my classes right now, so I put together a quick overview of the background of CFE on the fly--the basic arguments for equally distributing money across school districts vs. letting the wealthier districts continue to have better funding because they have more tax revenue, and how this related to our discussion about the "life or death" surgery. To my relief, they totally got it. I realized that they had probably already learned about CFE last summer, since they were prepared with such intelligent remarks as:
"That is a difficult issue to think about--if I was a rich parent, I would probably be pretty upset if my tax money was going to help a kid that wasn't even mine, but at the same time, maybe I would have some perspective and realize that kid might need the money more than my kid does."
or
"I wonder whether giving the school more money would help, because sometimes schools don't spend their money well. They buy all these books but don't fix the leaky holes in the ceiling."
or [my personal favorite]:
"Maybe instead of taking the money from the rich people, we could use some of the government's money that is spent on bombs and the war on something more useful and important, like educating our youth."
At that point I just wanted to get up and hug them all and say PLEASE HIRE ME. My other options for summer employment include teaching summer school (Lord, save me if I decide to do that), or sitting on my butt in a coffee shop all summer grading papers online for a pittance of a paycheck.
When they interviewed me, the girls were so professional and earnest, it was great. They were taking notes on a graphic organizer as I responded, and politely took turns asking me things about my teaching experience, my leadership skills, what I would do if I caught a high school student on MySpace instead of doing her work one day, and how I would break up a fight if one happened. Then I got to ask them about their experiences and when pressed for their "most and least favorite" experiences with the program, they kept referencing how much the program had taught them about their potential and saying things like: "now that I've been here all year, I understand the importance of understanding multiple points of view, supporting my beliefs with facts and reasoning, speaking my mind, and making sure my voice is heard." It was like watching an infomercial for a self-help & personal liberation workshop (you know, since I've seen so many of those).
I have to wait a few more weeks to hear back about this job, but I'm hoping for the best... I miss working with kids, and it would be refreshing to write about kids doing & saying great things instead of kids strangling each other and throwing books out the window.
It only ended up being four girls for the lesson plan, which made it possible for me to cram my somewhat extensive activity into a measly 20 minutes and actually have all members of the group participate. I was VERY impressed by these girls [is it mostly girls in this program, I wonder?]. They come from a number of small high schools in the Bronx, part of the "small schools movement" that I have become rather disenchanted with after my experience last year in a "small school" with a social justice oriented mission statement with a rather disappointing end-result. But these young ladies made quite an impression on me. I designed a role-play activity where they were each assigned the role of someone with a different socioeconomic background, career, marriage-status, and quality of health insurance (a doctor, a banker, a teacher, a single unemployed mother, etc.) I was "the doctor," and they all needed a "life or death" operation, which would be costly enough that even those of them who had insurance would have to pay some money out-of-pocket. I asked them if they thought the doctor should be charging the same amount of money to each of these patients, despite their different levels of resources, and we linked our discussion on the fairness of charging the same or different amounts of money for surgery to the idea of "equity."
At this point, I realized only about 5 minutes had passed, and that I was going to really have to get into the whole Campaign for Fiscal Equity history & their recent progress with Gov. Spitzy. I hadn't really imagined I'd have enough time for this, so in my head, I had only half-considered what I would say. Fortunately, I'm reading about the CFE in 2 of my classes right now, so I put together a quick overview of the background of CFE on the fly--the basic arguments for equally distributing money across school districts vs. letting the wealthier districts continue to have better funding because they have more tax revenue, and how this related to our discussion about the "life or death" surgery. To my relief, they totally got it. I realized that they had probably already learned about CFE last summer, since they were prepared with such intelligent remarks as:
"That is a difficult issue to think about--if I was a rich parent, I would probably be pretty upset if my tax money was going to help a kid that wasn't even mine, but at the same time, maybe I would have some perspective and realize that kid might need the money more than my kid does."
or
"I wonder whether giving the school more money would help, because sometimes schools don't spend their money well. They buy all these books but don't fix the leaky holes in the ceiling."
or [my personal favorite]:
"Maybe instead of taking the money from the rich people, we could use some of the government's money that is spent on bombs and the war on something more useful and important, like educating our youth."
At that point I just wanted to get up and hug them all and say PLEASE HIRE ME. My other options for summer employment include teaching summer school (Lord, save me if I decide to do that), or sitting on my butt in a coffee shop all summer grading papers online for a pittance of a paycheck.
When they interviewed me, the girls were so professional and earnest, it was great. They were taking notes on a graphic organizer as I responded, and politely took turns asking me things about my teaching experience, my leadership skills, what I would do if I caught a high school student on MySpace instead of doing her work one day, and how I would break up a fight if one happened. Then I got to ask them about their experiences and when pressed for their "most and least favorite" experiences with the program, they kept referencing how much the program had taught them about their potential and saying things like: "now that I've been here all year, I understand the importance of understanding multiple points of view, supporting my beliefs with facts and reasoning, speaking my mind, and making sure my voice is heard." It was like watching an infomercial for a self-help & personal liberation workshop (you know, since I've seen so many of those).
I have to wait a few more weeks to hear back about this job, but I'm hoping for the best... I miss working with kids, and it would be refreshing to write about kids doing & saying great things instead of kids strangling each other and throwing books out the window.
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