Cool! Bela and crew are playing here tomorrow night, at the zoo, but I just can't do the zoo fer music. Theyre back at the Fitzgerald theater in December. I can do the Fitz!

(slight hijack) So are you taking a teaching gig? Special Ed? Or are you taking grad classes yoself? Oh yeah, and happy birthday some time near here. Have you broken the 40 (gas) mark yet?:)

Gotta do the Bela deal, although I may have a class that night depending on what happens. I believe I'll be in grad school this fall for special ed. I'm just waiting for all the paperwork to clear and some kind of official notification. In the mean time, I'll try to focus my sub gigs in that direction. I'll be driving some serious miles, which creates an excuse for more music! I'm also looking for productive road stuff books on tape etc...

I'll wake up as a 39 year old tomorrow morning! Thats a lotta gas marks. Isn't yours coming around pretty quick?

Cheers laddie! I passed my 41st mark last Sunday, I believe you can still see the trail over western Wisconsin.

Cool on the school. Are you going in Binghamton?
Can you do CDs in your commuter vehicle? I have the technology now. Perhaps a swap II? hmmm?

Swap 2 return of fair use
 

Hey! Thanks for the sponsorship. I've been very slow to get moving on it this year so muchas gracias.

I decided to go to a PA school, Mansfield, which should simplify my certification situation. I'm going to try to get certified in both states. Another thing in Mansfields favor is they are building up their on-line capacity so I may eventually be able to catch a class or two from home. Right now they offer a few undergrad classes and I believe their library science degree is completely on-line.

I'm still rolling tape in the truck but I'm willing to copy from cd. Lets do it, give me a week or so to think about the playlist though... fun stuff!

Groovy.
What made you decide the Special Ed focus? (for me, some of the best and toughest teacher moments Ive had have been working with special ed kids.)
Are certification requirements similar in NY and PA? I had life certification in TX,and in MN its a 5-10 yr licensure set up.

Legal music is on. I'll start thinking too. Something to keep you rolling.

Warning jumbled thoughts
 

Many many reasons... I started subbing again to see if I still had the itch. I took all the assignments so I could look at the whole system and found that my best moments were working with individuals and small groups of kids in the resource rooms. PA and NY are at odds when it comes to special ed. PA is an inclusion (the sp ed teacher assists the classroom teacher) state and NY leans toward pulling kids out as necessary, although I did some classroom work at the middle school. I find it easier to empathize with the sp ed kids than kids with all the tools who don't use them. I also had a couple of crazy moments that I really didn't understand with an emotionally challeged kid and I'm just intrigued.

I'm not absolutely certain that I'll stick with the kids though. I did a semester of volunteer work in college with adults trying to get their GEDs and I found it to be very rewarding. That opens up prison work and a bunch of other areas. Right now, I need to find out how people with disabilities learn and how to assess disabilities. The program will be applicable to learners of all ages so this is where I'll start.

NY has a screwier certification system than PA. In NY its more about jumping through hoops because of the incredible bureacracy. PA is tougher in terms of classwork but the requirements are related to learning to teach. My temporary cert in NY will run out just before I get my Masters completed so I'm going to get my PA cert with my degree and try to play the NY system at the same time. All the rules will be rewritten before I graduate but thats where I am now.

I wrote you a jumbled reply last evening then zapped it somehow. Now revived, I'll keep thinking on it.

Working with special ed has the great advantage of being more intimate. Youre in small classses or even one on one. I think that's what I like most- the opportunity to build a relationship- cause thats what teaching is, really. And the stuff that has grinded me the most is the volume, classes pushing 35 students. For the record: all 2-12 focused instruction classes should be limited to 18 or less. PreK-1 should be 10-15 max.

And I'm teaching art which has, what I love, the capacity to engage everyone at some level. And for kids or adults with any communication barrier, I've experienced some moving stuff.-from a kid with multiple severe physical disabilites working up the nerve to even touch clay without flipping out to amazing savant level stuff, and then the more usual sincerety, confidence, discovery, frustration, and joy. And art is messed up with emotion and voice, there's the therapy aspect, whether you call it that or not. Kids have been able to express, vent, and have some measure of success. For most of the e d kids its been about building some basic trust and resiliency. Thats tough. Stuff that breaks your heart.

I would think those two statements would go hand in hand, all too often.:(

When its good, its very very good.:)

I'm gonna throw these in here b/c I think Griff and Warch will dig these artists...

I've been a total Rhapsody whore since signing up a month or so ago. Been listening to a lot of good stuff that I just don't own...everything from metal to hip-hop to blues. Been going down the bluesy/rootsy path quite a bit this week:

Keb' Mo'--Keb' Mo' and Just Like You: Good modern bluesman. Haven't heard anything out of him in a while.

Wilco--A.M., Summerteeth, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: I've owned Being There for ages now, but just never bought any of their other stuff. I'm always happy to see St. Louis-area musicians do good. Still haven't seen the movie about them (I Am Trying to Break Your Heart) yet. Just fantastic musicians. Hard to categorize them.

Uncle Tupelo--Anodyne: Didn't care much for them when they were actually around, but I dig them now. Though the animous split into Wilco and Son Volt might have been the best thing to happen to them.

I have all of Son Volt's CDs queued up...maybe I'll listen to them tomorrow...haven't heard any of their stuff since Trace came out 50-11 years ago.

Muchas Gracias Sycamoro.

We did a reload of the cd carousel today to weed out the tired stuff and put in some goodies.

Some of what went in:
Johnny Cash -American IV -The Man Comes Around Caught Pete getting weepy during Bridge Over Troubled Water, album contains Hurt and Personal Jesus as well

Taj Mahal -The Best of from 1971 replaces my vinyl he's done a lot since then but it is sweet stuff.

Bela Fleck & The FleckTones -Little Worlds This is the 3 cd set they are touring for now. Its a must see concert if its your kinda music.

Red Hot Chili Peppers -Californication and -By the Way

Bluegrass
 

The next live show for me will be Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys. I'm taking my old man out in public to catch this early bluegrass master.

Alan Lomax--Popular Songbook: Lomax could be best-described as a music chronicler. Among the work he did was a series of recordings for the Library of Congress in the 1930s and 40s, featuring blues and folk music from the South. Younger peeps might know the music via Moby, who sampled some of the above-mentioned recordings for his 1999 album, Play.

This happened to pop up on Rhapsody last week as a featured selection, so I quickly downloaded it for a listen. Great stuff...highly recommended.

Steve Earle
 

I've been listening to some newer stuff from Steve off the Jeruselum album and some live. Rockin stuff, anti-war, anti-death penalty, pro-union (in the UMW sense not the NEA)...

Emusic's catalog is expanding and they've changed their pricing structure. They are adding lots of live stuff. Picked up some live Taj Majal... nice sounds