Sometimes I look out at my classes and just see adolesents dealing with the same issues I dealt with as a teenager - like conflicts with parents and parents and balancing one's social, academic, and extracurricular commitments. However, I know that some have much heavier baggage.

A couple days ago, I was remindered of this again. A student who has been in and out of my class this year approached me and said she had to be honest about something. She was recovering from being addicted to heroin and meth. She had also been a dealer. After being clean for 30 days, she slipped back into it again. She missed school a couple days last week because she wanted to avoid a situation that would have dragged her further into it again. She was trying to stay clean, again.

I told her that the Industrial Revolution project was not as important as her health. We talked about modifying the project so she could still attend five meetings a week and pass the class.

She missed another three days in a row. I hope she is ok.

Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire has really hit home. I already admired the man for his intelligent satire on the Daily Show, but his comments last week are right on. Today's America is as polarized as ever. I know that is in part the nature of an election year, but it has gotten nasty. Neither side appears willing to work with the other and the attacks are getting more and more personal.

Yet, it is not just the parties that are responsible, they are playing the game that the media loves. The media is creating theater out of political partisanship. They are encouraging us to not only pick sides, but to hate the other side. Just today I was talking to another teacher who has braved putting a John Kerry sticker on her car. At least once a day someone flips her off or honks in anger. No doubt there are some Kerry supporters doing the same thing to cars with Bush stickers (though probably not in my part of town). As much as I want to say my side is not as bad as their side, it is (well, almost as bad, at least). It is frustrating. I consider myself a level headed individual capable of critical thought, but the extremists of the parties and the media are asking to me to simply buy their package, without question. Now I certainly buy one more than the other, but I hate that I have to demonize the other side. They aren't the enemy; they are my in-laws, students, and neighbors.

When I was in college, I worked as the photography editor for the campus paper. It was very conservative. Despite having a fairly large activist population, the news, opinion, and feature sections rarely reflected these views. While I had an image of an unbiased free media, I saw the reality to be something completely different. Now media organizations gain audiences by their presentation of the information - just look at Fox and CBS.

As Jon Stewart claims, they are hurting us, dividing us. They let the presidential candidates manipulate the facts, talk around the questions, and use generalities when specifics are needed.

If only I could break my addiction to current events. I'll get off my soapbox now. Maybe I'll go buy Jon Stewart's book.

If you haven't seen the Crossfire video, try this: jonstewart.mov or Tuckergate: The Video.

Here is a quicktime of his first show since the Crossfire incident.

So much to do, so little time. The Wiki project is dead. I was originally planning to introduce it today, but with the wedding, two kids, two preps, tests to grade, my obsession with upcoming election, etc. - it just wasn't happening. And it is not actually dead - just postponed. I intend to do the same project, but revolve it around World War I instead of the Industrial Revolution. This should give me time to figure out the ins and outs of MediaWiki, work with Bernie on the project format, and prepare the kids to use a Wiki.

Instead, I have dusted off an old WebQuest on the Industrial Revolution, updated the links, and I am ready to go. Now I can grade those tests...

In sharp contrast to my last entry, this web site has documented all of the Iraqi deaths in 2003. We talk about over a 1000 Americans killed, but often forget about the Iraqis. The regular people who are just trying to live their lives on a day-to-day basis - something I relate to...

Over the weekend one of my sisters got married. It was a wonderful occassion - much like my own wedding eight years ago. While there were a handful of small tensions in the weeks leading up to the event, the rehersal dinner and wedding could not have gone any better. The married couple was dashing, as was my beautiful wife and handsome kids.

In the next couple weeks I am going to be developing a Wiki-based project on the Industrial Revolution. While my current unit is solid, it has never really grabbed me. After talking to Bernie and Karl over at SDSU, I was convinced that I could do better using a Wiki.

After deciding to use the Wiki engine SnipSnap, I discovered that it was incompatable with the server space I had just purchased. Luckily I had a plan B, now I am going with MediaWiki - the same engine the runs Wikipedia. After trying to install a number of server based applications in the past, I was quite fearful of this process, but between server control panel and the auto-install option for MediaWiki I did in less than a half an hour. Absolutely amazing.

Now comes the hard part, putting the project together. I have a pretty clear idea of what I want it to look like, as I learn how to use MediaWiki, we'll see if that vision is even possible.

For now, here is the starting point to the project : Industrial Revolution - WorldHistory

Thursday night I was coming down with a cold and was contemplating calling in sick. By the time I went to bed, I figured I should just go on in, it was going to be an easy day - a French Revolution timeline for world history and a causes of the Civil War activity for U.S. history - no problem. I could sit, grade some papers, and not over do it.

Wrong.

I decided that I should debrief the Bush/Kerry debate - after all I offered a little extra credit for students to watch it and then complete an assignment. As the discussion slowed down during first period I looked at the clock - 50 minutes had passed. Wow. OK, just this class. Didn't happen. Each period we had very insightful discussions about the candidates, the issues, and the election. It was probably the best "interactive" day I've had all year. Now it is tough trying to be fair and balanced especially when a majority of the kids seem to lean VERY right. Luckily, I've been following this election so closely that I have the Democratic and Republican arguments down so when the kids accused me of supporting one candidate or the other, I was able provide the opposite argument.

Needless to say, I was tired at the end of the day, but the day went fast. I love my job, but some days, I love my job more than others. I guess I need to change my lesson plan calendars again.