I am so excited I can barely type!  My husband mowed the lawn yesterday. (I am wincing at what you must be thinking what the heck does she have a lawn for!!! I am workinging on that I just bought the house.) Anyway it had been awhile and the grass was high so wehave all of these clippings.  He told me that he was going to buil my composter this weekend.  HOORAY!!!  HOORAY!!!!  HOORAY!!!  My goal is to reduce the amount of trash going to the curb.  Did you know that you can even compost newspaper or other paper bits?  I am so excited.

Had to share.  If you know of any common pitfalls or have some good hints to share please email me or make a comment here.  I want to do this right. 

I know on this website that public schools aren't always popular.  People on Zaadz seem to think that the public schools are set up to grind the knowledge into the child and grind out her individuality.  This pains me deeply.  So many times in the pods I have read a comment about how public school teachers are awful and don't know what they are doing.  Most of the time the thought is not written directly, but being in the public school system in the state of Florida for 10 years now (WOW I am getting old) I have come to recognize the attitude.

Here is what I know:  Because I teach in public schools the state can mandate my constant professional development.  I am constantly learning.  My job is to teach the teachers new ides and help them reach the students who have previously fallen through the cracks.  I am not afraid of standardized testing.  I used to hate the high stakes test that we have here, and I still hate the pressure the students feel, but without it some teachers would not have realized the problem.

And there is a problem.  A BIG ONE.  My school is an urban school.  That means that over 65% of our students get free or reduced lunch.  We are an ESOL center, meaning we have over 27 languages spoken on our campus by students who are trying to learn English.  We are an ESE center which means we have just about every exceptionality from Down's Syndrome to Autism on our campus.  We are racially diverse as well.  And we like it that way.  When I went to private school as a young child, there were no people of color there and certainly no non-English speakers.  I was lower middle class and definitely a minority because all of the other families were much higher on the socio-economic scale.  Additionally I had to test to get in.  They did not have to accept me and I remember my parents worried about my test results until we received them.  At our school, we take everyone, and we have to teach the students we have. 

Our students are struggling with reading.  Often in lower income houses the emphasis is not as much on learning as it is on subsistence.  If You read Ruby Payn'e A Framework for understanding Poverty, you would see the variances in values that exist within the classes.  When you are on the bottom of MAslo's pyramid, you are not reading Awakening the Buddha Within.  You are thinking about your next meal and how to get money for the rent and the utilities.

This year there are two non-readers in the eighth grade that are breaking my heart.  Nothing we have tried works with them so far.  I have decided to work with them after school myself even though I am not their class room teacher.  My point to sharing this is: I want people to see the work and passion that lies inside a public school.  We have our problems.  True. Are their bad apples?  Yes. But we work hard at making it better everyday.

When I started blogging I was just writing random thoughts.  Yes, I am working on my diet and making my whole life greener, but once I stop eating meat, there isn't much to say.  I realized over the last couple of days that many people don't see what goes on in a public school.  And a lot of assumptions are made.  So I will be returning to this idea to share our school's progress over the course of the year.  Wish me luck!  I am on my way in now (For free of course I have been working for free the entire month of July) to help the new teachers set up there rooms and begin to prepare for the children coming on August 8th.

Sarah T. 

I feel like I totally gave in to the man.  I went to Vegas last week for a conference on Differentiated Instruction, which is all about meeting the needs of the child wherever she is.  So that is feel good stuff talking about helping students maximize their potential who may have been marginalized otherwise.  So I was excited about the conference.

But I was not excited to go to Vegas.  We are struggling right now and Vegas is not  a place to go if you are trying not to spend money.  Additionally, I was traveling with my boss and a coworker, both people I love and respect but don't subscribe to most of what I believe about environmentalism and politics.  

 The long and short of it was I did my best not to be overly wasteful, but felt like I was drawn in to many of the excesses that seem almost inherent in the place.  The saddest thing to me was that in the airport on the way home the news of the bombing of Beirut was on the televisions.  None of the people I was with cared.  6 people in our whole concourse were even watching.   I feel more and more isolated from the crowd daily.  I sometimes wonder when it became ok to not care about others and ignore the consequences of our actions.  During WWII people sacrificed happily for the war effort, but today the cars that I see with yellow ribbons aree big suvs that guzzle the gas.  Conservation and sacrifice are not part of our national dialog in any real way.  

What makes me the most upset is that I am having trouble changing myself, and I want to change.   

So I am hitting some road blocks! I should have read your comments prior to the holiday weekend. Cheese and eggs a go-go!  I have got to figure out how to make cookies without the eggs!  I have a vegan cookbook, and have been using it for us, but my mother-in-law and my parents were in town and I kind of relinquished my kitchen to them.  Although we did grill up some wicked good veggies on the 4th and I made sure they were organic.

 My one success this week has been that I finally found a pair of shoes that I like that were not made of leather and I can wear them to work!  My husband however has totally backslid.  Every day is another opportunity to see through my goals though.  Today I am right on track so I am pretty happy about myself :)

So, all my life I thought I was this radical liberal who stood up for causes.  I went to political rallies, I was a member of amnesty international and I listened to NPR like it was my religion.  The I met my husband.  He lived in Fort Lauderdale, 6 hours away, and would drive to see me every weekend.  On his way here he would listen to books like China Inc, and Walmart: The High Price of Low Costs.  He would share with me what those books said, making it forever impossible for me to spend my money in support of sweatshops and bad business practices that put people in danger and discriminate.  Where my whole familydonated  to Habitat for Humanity , His whole family volunteered so often they had hammers with their names on them.  He has been a challenge to me.  He has forced me to truly live what it is that I believe in.

 So here is what I am working on right now: 

1.  I have gone to a vegetarian diet because of the horrible environmental damage caused by the poultry and cattle industries.  I am working on going Vegan, but my education level about what to eat is still in the early stages.  I try to buy organic products when I can find them and have found a number of organic housewares websited that I will list below.

 2.  I am sickened by how much trash I generate so I as soon as we finish the current remodeling project that we are doing, I am going to use the scrap lumber to build a composter as well as three raised beds to grow vegetables. (All edibles have to be above doggie height at my house :)

3.  Our local power company and the federal govt. give monetary incentives to those who get solar power panels and use less of the power off the grid.  My goal is to have the panels in place beDec.

4.  Greg's dad died after suffering with leukemia one month after our wedding.  We are going to start a non-profit that is modeled after the Habitat for Humanity Restores.  The money will go to a research group in South Florida that we think is well on their way to finding a cure.  

Those are my projects, if you have any input to help me out, I welcome it!  My main questions are:

1.  How many solar cells are generally needed to power the average  home?

2.  Does anybody have any advice about how to transition into a vegan diet?

3.  I need good plans for a composter that can be made from 2x4s.  I also have an abundance of chicken wire that I could use.  I need a fairly sturdy structure that my dogs would not be able to get into.  They LOVE smelly things!