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St.
Mary’s January Newsletter
By Kathy Ayette
I have made no secret of my deeply held belief that computers are
sentient beings out to get us. However I am a reasonable woman who
realizes that computers are a fact of modern life, and like it or not,
I have to deal with them, especially in my classroom. My SmartBoard is
really just a fancy monitor, and my gradebook is a computer program.
For most of the first half of the year it seemed as if my classroom
computer and I had reached a state of détente. We weren’t what you
would call close allies. No, we were more like two wary entities,
forced to work together for a common goal. We seemed to function with a
minimum of friction until this week. Oh fool that I was! I should have
seen the signs. My attendance page was taking ever so slightly longer
to come up. I found myself putting off entering grades because I didn’t
have the time. Then this week the computer showed its true ugly colors.
I had twelve set of grades that I needed to enter since this was the
last week of the grading period. I had tried to enter grades at home
but found that my home computer was in league with my school computer.
The problem was that each page was taking an excruciatingly long time
to load. You know that little twirling doo-hickey that is supposed to
let you know that your page is loading? Well that little whirling
dervish just kept whirling and whirling and whirling...you get the
picture. So I decided that I would try to enter grades at school. I
needed to take down the Christmas decorations in my room and put up
some winter decorations. I reasoned that as I waited five or six
minutes for each page to come up, I could take down some glittery
angels or whatever. Now I do occasionally exaggerate for the sake of
humor, but this time I am not exaggerating. Sometimes it took a good
five minutes or longer before the twirling doo-hickey stopped twirling
so I could go on to the next step. Yes indeed. Thanks to technology, I
spent two hours and a half on a task that used to take me ten minutes
if I took a five minute coffee break. I am sure all of you techies out
there are ready to inform me that my computer isn’t out to get me. It’s
just that my gradebook is in “the cloud” and because of the amount of
information I have stored, and the fact that many other teachers are
also trying to access their information, the service is a little slow.
Right, so explain this. I have arthritis which makes getting up and
down from a chair a little difficult. And I wear bifocals so I have to
sit down to type in assignments and grades or else I can’t see what I’m
doing. The majority of the pages took an eternity to load, but ever so
often, and with no discernable pattern, a page would load almost
immediately. It would take just enough time for me to be halfway out of
my chair. Finally today, when our head practitioner of the dark
computer arts came to check it out, my gradebook pages popped up
immediately. Can there be any doubt that my computer was taunting me?
But human beings don’t fret. We still have the upper hand. It doesn’t
take much effort to pull a plug from an outlet. (Cue maniacal
laughter.)
School resumed on January 3. On January 11, the second graders received
the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time. The second graders
were honored the following day with a traditional St. Mary’s “donut
reception”. (We do seem to have a lot of donuts around here!) In about
two weeks the second graders will begin formal preparation for First
Communion.
The highlight of the year for our sixth graders is going to Glen Helen.
Glen Helen is an outdoor nature learning center. The students and their
teacher Mrs. McCoy will leave for Glen Helen on January 17 and return
on January 20.
The Science Fair is scheduled for January 27 with students from grades
5 through 8 participating.
Catholic Schools Week begins at the end of the month. The celebration
opens at the weekend Masses on January 28 and 20 and continues until
February 3.
Until next month, here’s wishing that all the computers in your life
treat you kindly.
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