An 8-frame day…

(And I recycle-binned three of the eight. Question: Can “recycle-bin” be a verb?)
Tomorrow’s final exam is ready to give-and-grade.
Remaining two tasks for the next 48 hours:
(1) write a “last quiz” for the “gen-ed” class* and
(2) pack for my upcoming father-of-the-bride trip to Burlington, VT…

This was taken on my walk through Thompson Woods on campus to my car at the end of the day. Gorgeous blooms on a small tree, “Aesculus pavia” (in the Hippocastanaceae, or Horse Chestnut family) known by the common names “Red Buckeye” and “Firecracker Plant.”

Species page at PhytoImages, http://phytoimages.siu.edu/cgi-bin/dol/dol_terminal.pl?taxon_name=Aesculus_pavia&rank=binomial

1 year ago (“And *still* it rains!”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2013-05-05
2 years ago (“No moth was harmed in making this photograph”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2012-05-05
3 years ago (“Landscape design studio”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2011-05-05

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* What, you ask? No “final exam”? Don’t get me started. This is one of the reasons I welcome the opportunity to retire before my 58th birthday.

“No Child Left Behind” has been such a resounding success that we’re now looking at the “Common Core”… Yes, this was sarcasm. NCLB has been a “race to mediocrity” rather than a “race to the top.” Since I have been teaching long enough (32 years) to make this comparison, I can state from experience that today’s college students — on average — are woefully unprepared to do college-level work in comparison to their parents’ generation…

[Nada A.]

Love the textures you captured.

Our district is all about the common core these days.

[Rick Schies]

I smile as I read your last set of comments. Just enough to get by so they can go out and make their millions. No investment in the real purpose of higher learning. Hopefully for them the learning bug will bite in a few years and then they will study to appreciate it.