Big Head??

Here's this week's Learn Me Good comic strip, based on a true event that happened last year.  I was NOT expecting her to say that!

Um, no one wants to see that, dude

They finally fixed my air conditioning! I think. Today was quite a bit cooler, due to a nice rainstorm this morning, so that may have skewed my perception. But for a while, the unit was running, and it was nice and cool. I turned off the fans and closed the windows. Later in the afternoon, it seemed a bit warmer, but still not nearly the sauna that it had been. What a relief!

This year, there is a kindergarten class on the 3rd grade hallway. This is not exactly optimal space planning, in my opinion, but it is what it is. Our hall's bathroom schedule thus includes this kindergarten class, and of course, they happen to go immediately preceding my class.

This morning, I took my class down to the restroom at our appointed time, and the kinders were still down there. As we stood there waiting for them to finish, this little boy walked out of the bathroom with his pants down around his ankles and his tighty whities visible to the whole world.

This kid wasn't showing the appropriate level of embarrassment that one would expect from someone with their drawers hanging out. He wasn't looking around the hall wild-eyed shouting, "LOOK AT ME!!!" but he also seemed ready to get a drink of water and get in line in his condition.

I figured since there were no other men around that I should step in and handle the situation. I gently escorted the lad back into the bathroom to get things taken care of, telling him, "Come on, nobody needs to see that."

Getting him taken care of was trickier than it seemed though. For one thing, his pants were down below his knees, but they were still buttoned up and belted up. He started tugging them up, and they wouldn't go over his hips. He also didn't seem able to undo his belt to loosen them up enough to pull back up. I finally realized that I would have to actually get my hands dirty, so to speak (would this be wet work?), and I helped with his belt. He at least was then able to unsnap his pants and pull down his zipper so that he could get his pants back up to, well, pants level.

But then he couldn't get the zipper up. So I had to help him with that too. And with getting his pants closed again. And with getting his belt done again.

Once again, I confirmed the notion that I would NOT be a good or happy kindergarten teacher.

Identity theft!

There was a story in the Dallas Morning News yesterday about how several Texas school districts are handing pertinent information, such as Social Security numbers, over to a private software company. The information in question happens to be identifying data for kindergartners in these schools. Oh, and all of this is being done without the parents' permission.

That just sounds wrong on principle. But here is the statement in the article that really stood out to me:

A privacy expert says thousands of 5- and 6-year-olds are vulnerable to identity
theft as a result.

When I read this, I just had a mental image of little schoolchildren crying and claiming, "But I didn't get my chocolate milk yet! You gave it to someone else!"

REMINDER!!!

Please continue to tell people about Fractorix, as the more views it registers, the more visible it will become to people outside of the education field. And if you haven't yet left a comment over on YouTube, please go and do that!