Going from a community college to an elite college....

If you think going to a community college isn't going to allow you to get into even the most elite colleges think again. Which is why I share this post from Olive-Harvey College's ig. If it's something you're determined to do, find a way and that also means talk to anyone who'll help you onto this path. Especially someone at your community college.

BTW, also consider that I went from one of the City Colleges of Chicago to Morehouse College. Morehouse is considered one of this nation's elite schools.

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Director of Transfer, Tyanna McCann, attended the Stanford Counselor Outreach Program last week. She wants you to know attending highly selective schools are within your reach, IF you plan accordingly. Be sure to stop by the Transfer Center to get the Transfer News you can use.

A post shared by Olive-Harvey College (@cccoliveharveycollege) on Jul 30, 2019 at 9:46am PDT

Business Insider: Here are all the ways being a public-school teacher has changed in the last 50 years

When I had graduated from Morehouse College in 2009 at least in the year or so after graduating I had considered going into education. Perhaps when my job situation improved go back to school and get a master's in teaching (and I also had someone who I barely know get in my ear and decide I couldn't handle). Either way it was something that was under consideration years ago.

So I find this article today about how being a public school teacher has changed. I wish I knew some current teachers who can speak on this article.

Chalkboards are now smart boards. Students are using standing desks and stability balls instead of chairs.

With changes in education, K-12 teachers must adapt to new initiatives and reforms.

Some changes to education, such as the increased use of technology, have made teachers' lives easier. But decreased investment in public school has left teachers with stagnant wages and limited resources, leading to waves of protests and strikes across the country.

Here is a look at all the ways being a teacher has changed over the last 50 years.

This part intrigues me, and have heard about this over the years and it begs the question. One change in the past 50 years:

The late 1970s is also when the number of female teachers began to increase. Women made up two in three teachers as of 1981. Today, they make up 76% of the teacher population, which has grown from 2.5 million to about 4.5 million since the '80s.

Where are the men? We need them in the classroom also. Especially for those boys who have no strong male influence in their life.

RELATED: Where are the Black male teachers?

h/t Newsalert 

Apollo 11 returns to earth July 24, 1969 - 50 years ago

EDITED Sept 3, 2019 - Sorry I missed that the title had the wrong month as I marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. Sorry for this oversight!

Today is the day that the Apollo 11 mission that put men on the moon returned to the earth. Mission commander the late Neil Armstrong, lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, and command module pilot Michael Collins were launched on their lunar mission on July 16, 1969. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong & Aldrin landed on the moon with their lunar module named Eagle.

This past spring I saw a documentary titled Apollo 11 which used footage shot 50 years ago of the events leading up the the launch of Apollo 11, then the mission itself, and then the final stages of this mission. That documentary was given a limited release in the nation during that time.

I really became fascinated with space by the time I got to high school - GO FALCONS - and had the ambition to become an astronaut. It was always fascinating that years before my birth astronauts were already going where no one has gone before in this case the moon. We didn't yet need one of those fancy spacecraft with warp drive just the tech and engineering available to go to our closest celestial neighbor.

50 years later we celebrate the accomplishments of the mission that landed men on the moon's surface. Unfortunately I see an ig post that shows that most young people in America are more interested in becoming professional YouTubers (a laudable goal) as opposed to becoming astronauts. What could stir our young people's interest (especially minorities) to take on careers in aerospace?

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A post shared by CNBC (@cnbc) on Jul 22, 2019 at 7:05pm PDT

I wanted to offer this final tidbit although it appears he wasn't directly involved with this effort. I'm sure Chris Kraft who was NASA's very first flight director in the 1960s was indirectly involved in the national effort to send a man to the moon and then return him to the earth. Mr. Kraft died two days after the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing at 95. It's still fascinating to learn the roles played by various people over 50 years ago in America's space program.

Is predictability the key to good blogging?

I wonder how many people notice the times I post on this blog. Often there are only two posts on this blog at any given time and often posted at 9:00 AM to 2:30 PM usually Monday through Saturday. Whenever I blog often though not always I take Sunday's off.

I looked through this blog's archives and saw often the posts were published at random times. It's how I've often started off blogging just whenever I felt like posting I just did. On some of my other blogs especially The Sixth Ward I try to time my posts usually starting at 8:30 AM and then when possible if there are other posts two and a half hours after that.

Of course you can ask the question why post here at 9 AM to 2:30 PM? Well when I went to school at Shedd school started at 9 AM and I got out of class at 2:30 PM. That's the justification no real reason for why choose to post, this blog is named for my former school so I could have posts when possible during those times.

However, if I post at 2:30 usually though not always it's for a current news item. Sometimes it might be something that is very informative, often something of a historical nature. It could be an update like this also though perhaps 2:30 should be the time to pay attention.

What about 9:00 AM? Well it might be something informative that isn't a priority. It could be a news item that I might not have been able to post about in a timely fashion (which is more common in fact). So often I suppose 9 AM isn't necessarily the time you would expect to see what exactly is current and often infrequent.

Another thing to consider is there are a number of blogs that often posts around the same time. For example a blog I don't read often enough unfortunately but is a good read is Chicago Argus authored by Gregory Tejada. Often when you read that blog the posts are posted at midnight. Usually what Tejada does is talk about the news of the day or what ever interest him at the moment.

Either way I write all this to still come up with a cogent strategy that helps with my blogging. Predictability can sometimes be a good thing, however, the main thing with not just blogging but any usage of social media is that what you share has to be interesting enough for an audience.

Want to do a Pullman strike tour?

Credit: The Chicago Neighborhoods

I was awfully slow in sharing this. On July 13, 2019 there was a tour in Pullman related to the 125th anniversary of the Great Strike of 1894 and there are more scheduled through October. I believe this strike caused the President of the time a man by the name of Grover Cleveland to sent federal forces to end it.

I found out about this event through Curbed Chicago earlier this month, however, all I did was retweet this information. It would've been cool for me to take part in this as I know more about Pullman's story and architecture, but very little of some of the labor drama that took place there.

Tour the site of the Great Pullman Strike on its 125th anniversary https://t.co/IxFHGZDoQo pic.twitter.com/NkOtsl9jWh

— Curbed Chicago (@curbedchicago) July 5, 2019

According to the above link:

Labor history tends to get short shrift in history books.

The Pullman National Monument Preservation Society, created by Barack Obama’s presidential proclamation in 2015, is trying to change that. During the Great Pullman Strike’s 125th anniversary, the group is giving guided tours each month through October.
...
The next tour is scheduled for July 13 at noon. Admission is $25, and each ticket includes post-tour reception and dessert.

WTTW has more on the history of this strike in 1894 with regards to the perfect company town that was Pullman.

They finally caught Chance the snapper

[VIDEO] If you've been following the news for the past week an alligator was lurking in the lagoons of Humboldt Park on the north side. The pictures I've seen of him show him to be small alligator, the video glimpses of him make him out to be a larger gator at least to me.

All the same Frank Robb came to Florida to trap him and he's not only been treated to the first pitch at a Cubs game he also came to turn on Buckingham Fountain. He's truly the hero of the moment.

I found this meme at CapFax just last week as the search for this gator continues. It's pretty funny especially since it seems to be true. Politicians looking for anything to tax.

Op-Doc: The Truth Behind Calorie Labels

[VIDEO] I've got to admit I've become a fan of Casey Neistat. You might know him from an HBO series that you likely never watched or from his YouTube fame. Before he was a serious YouTuber, he was mostly a film maker and what you see above is the type of videos he'd post before he started "vlogging".

Though not a stickler for it, I'm all in favor of insuring that the public, especially young children, begin to develop healthy eating habits. I've never understood how the calorie counts are determined at a number of fast food restaurants around the nation (ex. McDonald's). Well Neistat who made this video for the NY Times back in 2013 takes a look at this issue.

The next question is do you believe these calorie counts are accurate when you order from menus that provide this info?

Running time for the above "op-doc" is slightly less than six minutes.

Update

I can't believe this blog has been in publication for over a decade. When I started this place it can't be said there was a solid sustainable plan. I've always done what I've been known to do, just start posting and see what direction it goes.

Sometimes the direction can change on a dime. Perhaps talk about Bennett-Shedd (I started this blog because Shedd School where I started my schooling wasn't listed at CPS although Shedd is closed now), perhaps some local politics, perhaps even some education issues. Even wanted to turn this place into a "Ninth Ward blog" and now I'm not so sure about that.

Either way another update to mention to you all is regarding the domain. I feel referring to this blog as the Shedd School blog or John G. Shedd Public School blog is outdated. I've had some ideas on a domain name which have been executed over the years.

For example I wanted to use ninthward.us until I allowed that domain to expire. Here are a few ideas for domains

sheddschoolbadger.com
bennettsheddbager.com
sheddbadgercity.com
bennettsheddbadgercity.com
badgercityninthward.com

You might see a pattern here, I really would like to use badger as part of the domain name. Badger was during my time in school the original mascot of Bennett-Shedd Elementary School. I understand that now Bennett's mascot is a lion and if Bennett School had any sports teams they would be refered to as P.R.I.D.E (or you can also say pride of lions). I can't believe that I'm just old enough to refer to myself as old school. So to use badger as part of this blog's identity is an homage to Bennett's original mascot.

I've learned recently that a former principal and Bennett-Shedd noted that this blog got his attention with the Shedd School identity. So as of now I have some decisions to make as far as this blog's direction and identity. If this blog gets an audience based upon association (and as always I hope to gain a bigger audience beyond that), hopefully it just shows that I'm on the right track. Time will tell!

The site of the former Halsted Indoor Mall #tbt

I snapped these shots of the site of the former shopping center on 115th & Michigan during the summer of 2014. I never released the shots back then, but I wanted to share the context of this site with this article from the Chicago Reader which was actually published in 2003.

It illustrated the history of the former Halsted Indoor Mall which was once housed in a building that once contained a Zayre store. The shopping center here contained both a Foot Locker store and a beauty supply as well as a Jewel-Osco. However at some point all these stores have since closed. The Jewel-Osco closed once a new store was built at the new shopping center located at 119th Street and Marshfield (or on the west side of I-57) should be around 2007 or 2008.

I do remember shopping with my family at the old Zayre store and the old Jewel store you see in the photos below was another shopping destination over the years until the new store opened across the I-57 expressway. One ominous piece of information I learned shopping here one day, my mother was told by another customer that they did snatch purses in that store. YIKES!

At some point after 2012 the former Halsted Indoor Mall was razed, I see this looking at Google Streetview. And that largely ends the saga of the former space which seemed to riddled with some issues involving it's management by the people who operated the space and certainly the people who owned it. The property itself remains vacant with the idea of at some point perhaps something else will be developed here. Perhaps more retail or even some mixed-use retail and residential.

Below are the photographs from summer 2014. I wish I had a pic of the sign on the corner of 115th & Halsted which even the last time I drove by here still had a sign for the Halsted Indoor Mall although the building no longer stands.

Day in the life of an Amtrak conductor

[VIDEO] Once upon a time back in about the first grade, I wanted to work on trains. During that time I took my first cross country train trip to Washington, DC on board Amtrak. I got some nice children's activities books and example of which I got somewhere at home. It reminds me of my very first train trip, my parents even allowed me to keep the ticket stubs and the ticket jacket which unfortunately I've since lost.

I didn't know what they called all the people onboard the train. I didn't know anything about conductors or engineers or even the attendants. So I gave them jobs such as train owners or train drivers. Hell I didn't even know who did what on CTA as I dealt with them far more often than Amtrak over the years.

Either way transportation is fascinating, dealing in the movement and delivery of people and goods. Keeping things on a consistent schedule and insuring the safety of people and quality of goods. And to be able to see plenty of different places on your travels, potentially travel the world no matter the mode of transport is a very exciting career.

This is why I'm sharing this video from Amtrak careers which shows the day in the life of an Amtrak conductor. If only YouTube had existed in the 1980s I'd know more about this job and what it entails. Good thing for me is, it's not too late to take on this role and enjoy some of the peripheral benefits of travel that it entails.

Metra Electric delays during last nite's PM rush

[VIDEO] If you were traveling on the old IC line aka Metra Electric District you experienced some delays especially if you left from any station between Randolph Street to 51st Street. The video you see above aired on CBS 2's 6 PM broadcast.

Per  a tweet from a dedicated twitter page for the Metra Electic District electical power had been restored though trains would operate with residual delays

Metra Alert ME - Electrical power has been restored. Inbound and outbound train movement has been cleared to proceed. Trains will be operating with extensive delays - UPDATE #2

— Metra Electric (@metraMED) July 3, 2019