WEDON'TNEEDNOEDUCATION

(2007: philadelphia, pa. this photo is one i took while walking through the cemetary where benjamin franklin is buried. what you can't see is that i totally ate it right before this shot when i tripped on a headstone and went flying, ass first, into ben's grave. it wasn't pretty. i mean, typical. totally typical lana banana klutz, but definitely not pretty. ask me about denver . . . me, fire hydrant, concrete. yeah.)

so i advise our school's paper. it's my second year doing it and i love it, which i didn't at first. but then i bought some books, learned some things, "stole" some things (good teachers are great thieves, i've realized), got some help, then i got a lot of help from prj (good job, prj!), and with his guidance it's come a long, long, loooooong way (even in a single issue).

last year, my first, i went to the jea (journalism education association) conference in denver and was floored by how many new things i was able to learn in just four days. law, layouts, photography, sports writing, interviewing, you name it. this year, i went again, but this time i was in philadelphia. once more i found myself inundated with truck loads of insightful and practical information. but i felt like the kids should have really been there too . . .

for the upcoming convention, i vowed that the kids would be a part. and they are. the yearbook adviser, blu, and i are taking about 40 kids to anaheim for the spring convention. but our real dream is to take a smaller group--the editors from both yearbook and news staff--to washington, dc, next year.

what's the big deal? why pay all that money to go so far for a convention? to start, the jea puts on a top-notch convention. the best of the best are there, it's organized, it's highly informative, and yeah, it's fun. plus, for me personally, i teach at a school where 60% of the population is poor and latino and if they don't get exposure to travel, the arts, and literature from me, from the teachers at my school, then they likely won't ever get it. it was true for me when i was one of them and it is true for them now . . .

the only problem is: moolah. (ain't it always?) i was going to gripe about not having more funding. and in fact, this is a revised post, because i did gripe about that and more still, but then, you know, that's not really the district's fault. it's actually the government's fault. SHOCKAH! yeah, i know, can you believe it? while i forgive the immediate powers that be, i do have several ugly words that i'd like to sling at governor schwarzenegger, who has drastically cut california school monies . . . monies he had promised time and again since first being elected into office. but i've learned to not trust politicians. especially ACTOR-politicians. (wait, isn't that redundant?)

at any rate, i suspect that the absence of money will be a constant in this line of work. something my family doesn't let me forget (always reminding me about what could have been had i continued with law school).

ah, well, car washes here we come! thank god california is sunny and warm nearly all of the time . . .