What's in a day?

On Mondays, I work as a graduate student researcher.

This can be alternately mind-numbingly boring (and reminiscent of my various stints as a Temp doing data entry) and really, really fun. Well, fun for me.

I just discovered that Eric has a "cite this article" button, in which the appropriate citations for MLA, APA, even Chicago Turabian pop up, and you can just cut and paste them into your paper. This is a phenomenal development in library technology since I last attended college.

So, what's the fun part of what I do? Well, right now, I'm reading these surveys from the principals of our Reading First schools. I'm supposed to read their open-ended responses and classify them by categories that I make up based on themes I see. The fun part is that it leads me to ask all kinds of questions about the science of teaching reading and the politics of implementing it well, and then I go look for articles and read more about it. Right now I am reading:

Stern, S., & Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, W. (2008, March 1). Too Good to Last: The True Story of Reading First. Thomas B. Fordham Institute, (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED500480) Retrieved September 29, 2008, from ERIC database. (yes I used that special citation button right there)

This article reads like a telanovela. Oh, the scandals! The lies! The deceit. And the billions of YOUR tax dollars. It's pretty good stuff.

Anyway, I read and I think, and then I type some ideas, and then I think some more. It is not a bad way to spend a day. Thinking about teaching is far less taxing than teaching.

And now, I'll go off to class for a few hours, which has turned out to be sort of easy, although I'm behind in locating a student to work with, on account of the whole tutoring program debacle, a story I would relate to you, if only I could think of a way to tell it without engaging in the defamation of certain involved parties.