Ok, my literature teacher seem to be a big fan of Ray. However he couldn't make enough copies of a short story we needed to finish.

Ok, the story was about a stalker killing women for some reason. Anybody knows where I can get one online, thank you so much!

The story you are looking for is called "The Whole Town's Sleeping." It appears as an untitled chapter in Ray's novel, DANDELION WINE. I think it was also included in the huge collection that was published by Morrow last year called BRADBURY STORIES. I am not aware of anywhere it appears online (nor should it, since it has been copyrighted by the author).

By the way, it's also one of the scariest short stories I have ever read. Have fun reading it.

I would like to thank you so much! I mean my teacher is so stupid, not for liking him, but for not giving me the stupid paper to take home!

Interesting perspective. Perhaps it would help you to know that according to some surveys, teachers spend between $350.00 and $500.00 per year out of their own pockets getting things for their students. Perhaps your teacher wanted to expose you to something they found interesting and thought you might like, but simply didn't have the money to supply it. Did you volunteer to make copies for the class so they could all take it home?

The teachers you know must be pikers, my wife spends at least $2k per year and is teaching kindergarten!

I was definately a piker as a teacher. I thought my inspirational presence and dynamic charisma was gift enough!

When I taught Middle School in East Los Angeles, with a Master's Degree in English, I taught 144 kids a day and made $23,500.00 a year. I lived in South Pasadena and had a wife and three kids with one on the way (one kid on the way, not one wife on the way!). I simply could not afford to get them anything extra curricular -- although some good and current texts would have been cool.

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[This message has been edited by Mr. Dark (edited 10-04-2004).]

That's one of the things I dislike about the profession--putting in long hours at home preparing Power Point presentations and such is part of the job and can (indeed should) be fun, but one would at least expect to be reimbursed for all that xeroxing one does every day.

My heart goes out to full time teachers. I have substituted in Minnesota and at a private school here in the Ft. Lauderdale area and there is so much more I would like to have done, but couldn't because it was usually a one day shot in a particular class.

I am glad that I was able to incorporate an interview with Ray on the phone when teaching his short story "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh." I hope that I enriched the lesson by being able to have the students hear from Ray himself as to the background of the story.

Here in Florida money is, supposedly, coming from the gambling casinos for education. But my question is "How much?"

Ah, teachers - if only our culture prized wisdom and knowledge as it once did, and students thirsted for same!
(See previous post 9/2/04 under the topic "High School Students")

Teachers:
Well, my wife is lucky, since I was a semiconductor process engineer with a reasonably good income, I encouraged her to spend a little and get what she really needed to run a decent classroom. I recently bought her a used L-shaped office desk, since the one she had was falling apart and was only 4 feet wide. They recently gave her a new Apple computer, those clever Apple guys, they sure know how to get in the minds of new customers, and it now sits on the L segment of that new desk, but they never gave her any instructions on what to do with it, passwords etc? Her classroom still has no internet connection, but it is coming soon. I set up a PC in her kindergarten classroom with lots of software for kindergarten children that I found cheap at local stores and she used that to suppliment the activities in the classroom for the last three years, well ahead of the times. I even bought her a portable AC unit so that she could get some relief from the heat near her desk, as it was always over 80 in the room.

I think most families of teachers must be sacrificing something to keep the classroom needs met. My wife is admittedly totally dedicated to her children and work, and may have more to contribute than others, but they all are called to teaching and make a tremendous difference in the lives of the children they help to get a leg up on life. I salute all who teach. Now, if we could just get the politcians who talk the talk to do the walk and provide the $ to fund the programs such as "No Child Left Behind", then our kids would be in better shape and able to compete with the world for the technology needed to stay ahead.

And get school systems that know what they're doing! I argued for 2 years that my son should NOT have been taking geometry before algebra, but they wouldn't listen...until he was a Senior, THEN they admitted they erred!!! If it weren't for the fact that I highly value education, I probably would have insisted they give him a minimum passing grade in geometry for screwing up! But that wouldn't have been fair for my son (although he certainly wouldn't have complained, any!).