Better Late Than Never!!!

I am sure I am going to hear about this on Monday. I'm sorry I didn't get this posted sooner, I haven't been feeling good this weekend. Anyway, I guess I'll give you till Wednesday to respond. I have like 22 comments to moderate so don't freak out if you don't see your comment yet. Ok, well I really enjoyed class on Friday! I thought all three of my classes did an excellent job. Zach even asked a good question for once!! I thought 3rd block turned out to be very good, with Rena taking over the teaching duties for the period. I thought she did an excellent job and handled herself extremely well considering the tough questions that were asked of her. I found it extremely interesting to hear things from her unique perspective. That is exactly the type of thing I want going on in my classroom and is a perfect example of what I talked about on the 2nd day of school regarding open-mindedness. What was your take on class for Thursday and Friday? What did you think of the video? What about the discussions that resulted? Anyone want to share their hope for 50 years from now? How would the 40 passengers of Flight 93 want us to respond to our current situation? Do we owe those 40 passengers anything or do we simply accept their sacrifice and move on? Do the Vols have any shot against Florida this weekend? Check out the poll for more on that!! See you all tomorrow!

Czar out!

Obama or McCain

I didn't remind you guys in class today (2nd Block) to respond to the blog. Even though I did mention it in class on Thursday, I will give you until Tuesday to respond. I thought you all did a fantastic job debating in class today. You conducted yourselves like adults, probably more so than many of our politicians. I think these types of discussions are extremely important, even if you don't agree with everything that is being said. Just because we disagree about an issue, we don't have the right to treat each other like trash. I think that is a big problem in government today, this whole us versus them phenomenon that seems to be growing stronger and stronger. In the end, like both Obama and McCain stated, we all fly under the same flag. That being said, how do you all feel about the discussion today? Did anything discussed particullarly interest you? Are there any topics you wanted to talk about that we missed? Once again, let me say that I am extremely proud of how you conducted yourselves today, and that makes me much more likely to try fun and informative things in the future. Until next time, you stay classy Science Hill!

Czar Ramsey out!

Rocky Top, You'll Always Be.....

Alright, so football season is right around the corner. Let me go ahead and predict that the Vols will go 15-0 this season and win the national championship. I am not worried about the overhyped Florida Gator's quarterback one bit. Speaking of hype, a lot of it has been going on this week regarding the race for the Presidency. The field is set and it's going to be a slugfest until November. So how do you all feel about the Presidential nominees? I know we have known who the participants will be for a while, but it seems like the race turned up a notch this past week. Any reaction to the Vice Presidential candidates? Did either candidate seperate himself from the other in your mind this week. If you don't have any idea, go to a major news site and read an article or two from this past week. I'm sure you will get caught up in a hurry. Anyway, I hope everything went well with the sub on Friday and I will see you all on Tuesday. Enjoy your long weekend and GO VOLS!

Czar Ramsey out!

Welcome 2 Sim City

Alright! You guys got to try out Sim City today. This is the first time I have been able to try this in the classroom so I am anxious to see how it goes. Hopefully by the end of this nine weeks, you will see the merit of this simulation. What did you all think of the activity so far? Do you see the relevance of this simulation to what we are studying? If you don't see a connection right now, I think you will eventually. I know we didn't get a whole lot of time today, but we should be able to dive right into it next week. I am anxious to see how you all do. Changing the subject just a bit, how do you think class is going thus far? Do you have any suggestions of things I could be doing or subjects you would like me to teach? I appreciate any feedback you all are willing to give. Well, I guess I will leave it at this for now. Until next time, you stay classy Science Hill!

Czar Ramsey out

New Faces, Same Places

Well, here we go again with this big blog experiment! Any ideas or suggestions on how to make this better would be greatly appreciated. I was pleased with the response that I got this morning from my 2nd block class about this blog. Hopefully, this will give you guys a chance to voice your opinions. So, we finished up our first full week of class. How do you guys think it is going so far? Any ideas or suggestions of things we should do or cover in here? We finished the Lost activity today and I know it wasn't an enjoyable experience for everyone. I hope I have made my point about the importance of order and organization. If I haven't, I really don't know what else I could do to make my point. This is in activity that we will refer back to throughout the semester. Give me your guys opinion on the project. What did you learn from this project? How do you feel about people that are indifferent? Does it bother you like it bothers me? Why? I'll leave it at this for now, but expect much more as the semester moves on.

Some of my favorite quotes from this school year

• "I can't read a book" - Allyson Oakes 3/28/08
• "The sun WILL come out" - Allyson Oakes 3/28/08
• "I want the axe so I can slit my throat" - Molly Rhinehart 3/28/08 in response to the LOST game we play in class
• "Braveheart didn't talk to Frodo!" -??? who knows what Shannon Essick was talking about here???
• "...and smate Godzilla" - Kraig Berglund 4/8/08
• "It's like...a male donut" - John Schmidt (sorry John!) 4/10/08 regarding the donuts I brought to my first period class that didn't have any holes in them.
• "CHALUPA!!!" - a long story about Jordan Douglass
• "SPACESHIP!!!" - another long story courtesy of Adam Dyble
• "...your partially white too." - fascinating insight from the mind of Hannah Austin
• "Czar....??....that spells caesar" - a wonderful observation from Brianna Keebler
• "But where are we going to get the pot?" - Allyson Oakes 3/28/08, once again another gem from Ally during the LOST game.
• "My pop tart is not genetic..." -Shannon Essick again, enough said
• "Essays...like Mexicans??" - Jadiah Green after I assigned several writing assignments. I am pretty sure this could be offensive but it was funny!
• "My lecture is so good...I'm getting arousing applause!" - Coach Ramsey 4/11/08, probably one of the most emarassing moments of my teaching career. I meant a rousing ovation but it didn't come out that way. A student later asked why I wasn't standing when I lecture which further embarrassed me.
• "Class, what do you call the dumbest, slowest, weirdest, ugliest person in the world? 'Coach Ramsey' the class replied" - I'm not sure who contributed this part but it came from my arch nemisis' paper, Derek Pfeiffer.
• "In Ramseytopia, Ramsey doesn't read books, he stares them down till he gets the information he needs" - Once again, I don't know who wrote this line, but it came from Danielle Miranda's paper. I do realize it is a Chuck Norris ripoff, but it is still funny.

If you have any others, feel free to share them!

Czar out!!!!

A stroll through the mind of Ramsey

I figured that while I am sitting here watching the Mets destroy the Phillies that I would go ahead and post the sequel to my first blog. I am happy with the responses to the first blog and I hope you all continue to participate and make this fun. I don't want you guys to focus solely on what I write. My opinions are simply that, opinions, and they are not the only ideas out there. I would like you to read my thoughts and the thoughts of others and to respond to both. My goal for this blog, once again, is to create a community and a place to exchange thoughts and ideas. On that note, I think you all did a tremendous job with the classroom discussion today. I know I am not the greatest teacher, but my goal is to be the best teacher I possibly can be, and I hope that this activity will make my classroom more effective and meaningful. I take it personal when my students fail because their failure is a direct reflection of my teaching ability. I may joke around a lot, but make no mistake about it, I take my job seriously. I believe in what I teach and I believe that I have a great group of students to teach. Days like today encourage me as a teacher and means a heck of a lot to me personally as well. I want you all to have fun, but I want you to learn and grow as well. We had wonderful discussions in all three classes today and I left Science Hill feeling like we accomplished something. I was thrilled to see so many of you take this activity seriously and discuss the issues with both knowledge and passion. I'm not really going to specify exactly what questions I want you to answer in this blog, but I am instead going to open it up to you to direct the discussion. I want you to discuss with each other, not me. Remember, attack the issues, not each other!!!! I will not tolerate any student that is disrespectful (but I don't think that will be a problem with this group). Did anything we discussed today in class have an effect on you? What did you agree or disagree with and why? Discuss today or anything else relevant among yourselves. I will try and post responses as well. Thank you all for being such great students!!! You will truly be a memorable senior class to me. Until next time, you stay classy Science Hill seniors!!

My First Ever Blog!

Let me start by saying that this is my first ever blog and I am definitely taking the trial by fire approach. I will apologize ahead of time for the many mistakes I am sure to make. I am quite certain though, that my wonderful students will be quick to point those mistakes out to me. I have had this idea for some time now, and I originally had planned on using Myspace or Facebook to publish my blog. I was directed to this website by our technology coordinator and I believe it will be much better than my original plan. My goal is to create meaningful discussions among my students and I hope that this will be an avenue that promotes this discussion. I believe we make our best decisions when we utilize a number of different opinions and make an informed choice. That being said, I appreciate any ideas you may have to make this more effective. The spring term students will be utilized as my experimental learners (not guinea pigs because apparently that offends Javan). I hope you all will give me honest, critical feedback on ways to make this thing work! So, let's begin with what I spoke about in class today. I talked about seeing things from different perspectives and the importance of gathering information before we make decisions. I also spoke about disagreement and how compromise quite often leads to better results than doing things on your own. I closed by discussing my feelings about people who are indifferent (don't really care) concerning the many problems we face today. I want to know how you feel on this subject (indifference). Am I just completely and totally wrong? Is it alright to be indifferent about big issues? Shouldn't we all (at least those who utilize their right to vote) be informed about the major concerns in this country before we make decisions? What about the war in Iraq? Is it ok for someone to simply not care about what is going on there? Whether you agree or disagree with what I said in class, let me know how you feel about some of these questions.