Positively Persistent Teach (on summer break)
I am a Pre-kindergarten teacher transplanted in Florida from Ohio. I use this space to collect teaching ideas, discuss politics, and go all fan girl over my favorite books or tv shows. I worked with Tumblr to develop the #education tag and think the #education community on Tumblr the best thing to happen on the internet bar none. I can't promise that this blog will always be positive, because believe it or not, I'm only human (as Garfield would say). However, my teaching philosophy centers around focusing on the positive and being persistent about learning and the kids that I get to call my own for a year.
Never give up on a kid or yourself.
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Showing posts tagged guns
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Octavius Dontrell Lamb, 20, was shot and killed. Unless we help, he will be given a pauper’s burial - no service and an unmarked grave.
Edit: Paypal account has been corrected.
Donations can be made via paypal to melissa-harmeyer@uiowa.edu! If asked, please mark the purpose as being a donation or other to stop your donation from being taxed on Melissa’s end. The other option is gofundme, however, its fees include a few dollars from every donation which is why paypal is preferred.
Octavius Lamb was the student of Melissawrites. When she learned the news of Octavius’ death she wrote this post. Her school recently learned that there would be no funeral or proper burial, and Melissa has asked me to get Tumblr’s help:
Hi PPT,
I hate to reach out to you especially under these circumstances, however I don’t know anyone with a stronger voice.As you read, one of my students was killed on New Year’s Day.This is a student who was a leader in JROTC and student government at school. When I student taught at the school I am currently now employed at he started a petition to help get me hired. He once reported that someone stole a pop from a fundraiser to me. He was a good and honest young man.His family cannot afford to give him a funeral. His mother is homeless, his sister (another former student of mine) just had a baby at 17 and is living with her boyfriend, his other brother (and yet another former student) is locked up for the next 15 years. This young man was his family’s only hope, as mentioned on my blog he had a full-ride to school and turned it down to take a job (as a dishwasher of all things) to help provide for his family. He was not gang affiliated.As a school we are attempting to provide a funeral for him, because if we don’t, no one else will. If the funds are not raised in time he will be given as what’s known as a pauper’s funeral in Chicago which leave him with an unmarked grave and no service. He doesn’t deserve this.I’m turning to you to see if you can help me put out a blast to raise the funds for this incredibly sad event. I know that you do so much in the Tumblr world, however I don’t have nearly the followers that you do. I hate having to turn and beg for something like this, but if you could help in any other way, it would really mean the world to me.Thanks so much,MelissaMelissa, there’s no need to beg. This is how a community helps one another.Melissa is under a very, very tight timeline. Her principal meets with the family on Monday. The cost of the funeral and burial is $5,000. Melissa’s goal to raise is $1,000 before Monday morning. I am hoping we can exceed it.Donations can be made via paypal to melissa-harmeyer@uiowa.edu!. If asked, please mark the purpose as being a donation or other to stop your donation from being taxed on Melissa’s end. The other option is gofundme, however, its fees include a few dollars from every donation which is why paypal is preferred. Melissa realizes this means asking for a considerable amount of trust, but I can vouch for her honesty.
Even the smallest of donations will help. Octavius Lamb deserve a fair-well worthy of the life he lived. I believe that the magic and love of Tumblr can help accomplish this. Please show Melissa the same love and support you’ve shown me over the years. Spread the word, reblog (and reblog again) — using the text post so it shows all the info), post it on facebook, tweet it, and tell your mother.Thank you.I told my mother. My parents donated 10 on top of my donation and my cousin’s. Did you tell your mother?
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Octavius Dontrell Lamb, 20, was shot and killed. Unless we help, he will be given a pauper’s burial - no service and an unmarked grave.
Edit: Paypal account has been corrected.
Donations can be made via paypal to melissa-harmeyer@uiowa.edu! If asked, please mark the purpose as being a donation or other to stop your donation from being taxed on Melissa’s end. The other option is gofundme, however, its fees include a few dollars from every donation which is why paypal is preferred.
Octavius Lamb was the student of Melissawrites. When she learned the news of Octavius’ death she wrote this post. Her school recently learned that there would be no funeral or proper burial, and Melissa has asked me to get Tumblr’s help:
Hi PPT,
I hate to reach out to you especially under these circumstances, however I don’t know anyone with a stronger voice.As you read, one of my students was killed on New Year’s Day.This is a student who was a leader in JROTC and student government at school. When I student taught at the school I am currently now employed at he started a petition to help get me hired. He once reported that someone stole a pop from a fundraiser to me. He was a good and honest young man.His family cannot afford to give him a funeral. His mother is homeless, his sister (another former student of mine) just had a baby at 17 and is living with her boyfriend, his other brother (and yet another former student) is locked up for the next 15 years. This young man was his family’s only hope, as mentioned on my blog he had a full-ride to school and turned it down to take a job (as a dishwasher of all things) to help provide for his family. He was not gang affiliated.As a school we are attempting to provide a funeral for him, because if we don’t, no one else will. If the funds are not raised in time he will be given as what’s known as a pauper’s funeral in Chicago which leave him with an unmarked grave and no service. He doesn’t deserve this.I’m turning to you to see if you can help me put out a blast to raise the funds for this incredibly sad event. I know that you do so much in the Tumblr world, however I don’t have nearly the followers that you do. I hate having to turn and beg for something like this, but if you could help in any other way, it would really mean the world to me.Thanks so much,MelissaMelissa, there’s no need to beg. This is how a community helps one another.Melissa is under a very, very tight timeline. Her principal meets with the family on Monday. The cost of the funeral and burial is $5,000. Melissa’s goal to raise is $1,000 before Monday morning. I am hoping we can exceed it.Donations can be made via paypal to melissa-harmeyer@uiowa.edu!. If asked, please mark the purpose as being a donation or other to stop your donation from being taxed on Melissa’s end. The other option is gofundme, however, its fees include a few dollars from every donation which is why paypal is preferred. Melissa realizes this means asking for a considerable amount of trust, but I can vouch for her honesty.
Even the smallest of donations will help. Octavius Lamb deserve a fair-well worthy of the life he lived. I believe that the magic and love of Tumblr can help accomplish this. Please show Melissa the same love and support you’ve shown me over the years. Spread the word, reblog (and reblog again) — using the text post so it shows all the info), post it on facebook, tweet it, and tell your mother.Thank you. -
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”Joe Scarborough, the Republican congressman turned MSNBC host, stunned viewers on Monday with a wrenching 10-minute monologue confessing to a change of heart on gun control following the devastating massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
“I am a conservative Republican who received the NRA’s highest ratings over four terms in Congress,” Scarborough said during the lengthy statement in which his eyes sometimes appeared filled with tears. He said he has “always taken a libertarian’s approach to Hollywood’s 1st Amendment rights and gun collectors’ 2nd Amendment rights.”
But he said “the ideologies of my past career were no longer relevant” after Friday’s tragic events, in which 20 young children and six adults were brutally cut down by one disturbed young man armed with assault weapons.
“Entertainment moguls do not have an absolute right to glorify murder while spreading mayhem in young minds across America,” he said. “And our Bill of Rights does not guarantee gun manufacturers the absolute right to sell military-styled high-caliber semi-automatic combat assault rifles with high capacity magazines to whoever the hell they want.”
“Politicians can no longer be allowed to defend the status quo,” Scarborough said. “They must instead be forced to defend our children.The New York Daily News, “Conservative Joe Scarbrough Stuns With Call for Gun Control” (via inothernews)
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The NRA Is No Match for the Parent Lobby
The NRA is a mighty thing. But as mighty as it is, it is no match for the political power of the “parent lobby” in this country. If we parents ever decided to take a stand between our children and the gun lobby, we would perhaps be shielding thousands of our kids from the deadly bullets yet to come.
READ MORE from Andrew Cohen
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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Mr. President: it’s for them and their families that you must do something about reducing gun violence.
You must.
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NPR: Texas Lawmakers Aim For Guns On College Campuses
Is the answer to mass shootings on college campuses to arm students and staff? Eight states are considering legislation that would allow people to carry a concealed handgun into the lecture hall, the library or the dorm. Ground zero for the debate is Texas, where a proposed law would remove “premises of higher education” as gun-free zones.
“Right now, so-called gun-free zones, I think, ought to be renamed Victims Zones,” says state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a San Antonio Republican who is sponsoring a bill that would allow handguns on campuses. “I just don’t want to see a repeat in Texas of what happened at Virginia Tech.”
Wentworth was referring to the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007, when a student killed 32 people on campus and injured many others before turning the gun on himself.
Last September, the University of Texas at Austin had its own scare. Colton Tooley, a 19-year-old math major wearing a dark suit and ski mask, started shooting an AK-47 assault weapon in the air, then ran into a library and committed suicide. No one else was shot. Campus police were praised for their quick response.
Wentworth and other supporters of the proposed law say a citizen with a handgun can possibly take out a campus shooter before police arrive “because when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”
(Click to continue reading).
I’m sorry, but I feel like this is crazy business. If there was a shooter, and someone did have a gun in a large lecture hall to try to take him out — what if they are a terrible shot and only hurt more people?
