Thanks guys. Per your advise I am going to not spray a liner. I think I will go with a box carpet or something of that sort. If it gets scratched I have someone spray a bed liner in there. I believe the tonnaeu cover will give me most of the protection I need. I do haul a lot of dirt, and wood but I will just have to utilize the trailer more. Thanks for the help.
How difficult was the self spray liner? Are you happy with it? Would you do it that way again?
Discipline is a very tough issue to tackle. In my classroom for the most part there are few discipline problems. All the students know where they stand with me. I feel that if I provide a very consistent base of rules and follow them consistently the students respect that. I have found that no matter where your line is the students will find it and hover right around it. I am not a disciplinarian and the teachers who are in my district in my opinion do not get as much out of their students as others do. The students that I have a problem with in class are the ones that either have the support of their parents for pushing the rules or the ones that have no parent involvement. If I had to choose between the two I would take the student that does not have parent support at home. Many times when you get to know them they are not bad kids they are just making bad choices. With no one at home helping them make positive choices.
Now the kid who sits in class and knows their parent will back them no matter what they do, they can be a nightmare. For example I had a female student with a low cut shirt both top and bottom with a thong pulled up so you could see it. Very inappropriate, myself being a male teacher no way I was going to address that. Thankfully I had a female Paraprofessional in my room. I asked her to get and administrator to address the girls clothing. She did and administrator also talked with the girl. This was in the morning and before lunch her mother was at school raising holy ruckus. Defending her daughter saying she has every right to expose midriff, cleavage and any undergarment that she as a parent deems appropriate. She claimed that because we are not parents that we cannot judge appropriateness of a students dress.
Its debatable that her dress was a distraction to the other students (they deal with her on a daily basis). What was not debatable was the social appropriateness of what she was doing. We teachers like it or not will help shape what is socially appropriate for many youth. We would love to not have a part in this.
One other thing to consider with these students that create chaos is that chaos is comfort. When chaos at home is all you know the quite calm of a classroom actually causes anxiety for some. The last six years I have taught special education at a Juvenal Center. Most of the students I now get are a product of a broken home life. The parents are not involved and when they are they are not teaching positive life skills. My students are the worst of the worst but when you get to know them and they get to know you very rarely do I have behavior problems in the classroom. They can be very enjoyable individuals. Part of that (but not all) is that the stress of home life and negative influences are gone.
I don’t know if my ramblings have a point but I just want to point our a little of what I see and how much of the functions of student behaviors are out of a teachers control. No matter how strict, militaristic, or payer based our classrooms are.
I wish I could get a decent kfan station, my radio cuts out after I hit Milacs lake, then I have to wait till Crosby to listen to it.
I have XM radio at the moment that helps, Yeah driving 200 miles day isn’t that bad if you don’t have any traffic I couldn’t even imagine from the north and going into the cities, I rather have this drive for now. I had a cousin that was living by West Rush and driving back and forth to school at Duluth Tech.
I use iheart radio off of my phone as long as there is cell coverage. Doesn’t use very much data at all.
In the paper over the weekend said that the median pay for St Paul teachers was $75,000/year (summers off, xmas break, spring break, other holidays). On top of that salary they receive excellent benefits.
Do you think they are any unemployed vets who would gladly teach kids these days for what equates to $125k/year? Do you think the kids would be as bold with a marine (heck, I would give them a gun too, but that’s just met) teacher?
I don’t teach in St. Paul but would love to make that kind of change. After the school year is our I also teach summer school. I take a week off right after school is out and a week for the 4th of July and then a week off before school starts. I still cannot come close to that 75,000 dollar mark and I have 15 years experience. I don’t understand where 125k/year gets equated. We don’t get unemployment benefits in the summer like construction workers do in the winter.
That being said I am comfortable with what I make. I knew going into it that I would sacrifice making a lot of money for being able to spend more time with my family. I feel a lot of people made the choice of making more money and then condemn teachers for what they make and the time off. Oh well each to their own I guess.
Violence in the classroom has increased recently and thank you for those of you that support teachers. Out side of these occurrences I still believe that the doom and gloom picture that gets painted for education may be unjustified. The things that these you people can accomplish after/during high school astounds me. We have fourth graders doing algebra, seniors graduating with AA degrees, and too many other achievements to acknowledge. The vast majority of students are not any different than you or I.
Good points. I am well versed in keeping the youngster fishing through all the broken lines and tangles. Since getting him out on the water at such a young age I would say I am advancing up the ranks to professional line untangler guy. I would put myself at semipro category currently. I embraced that part of my life long ago. If catches fish and I am tying hooks all day it was a success.
As for the person I will be going with I know he is not a fly fisherman. He may even keep one from time to time for dinner. So not really the purist. I will be checking regs. however.
Thanks for the all the input. Its all great. It sounds like I have most of the gear I need. As for the fly rod that will have to pass until I get into this a little more. Right now I am not opposed to chunking a hunk of meat in the water for a trout. One thing that I did not mention in my original post is that I will have my 10 year old son with me. Getting him success is the most import aspect of any of this. So by the sounds of it a crawler and split shot it will be for him. Do you use a whole crawler? That sounds a little big to me. I will be throwing a spinner or crank based on your input.
