How to start the morning......

My life is now constructed to offer weekends off.  That means sleeping in til the princely hour of 6:30 am, dawdling over coffee, and slicing up some stupendously good slab bacon to slow roast in the oven.

In other words; In shorter form,  'AHHhhhhhhh.............'

Said coffee was tippled in the hot tub this morning, watching the sunrise march across the trees surrounding the castle.  A relaxing place to consider upcoming challenges, and their defeat.

Case in point, the advanced electrical diagnosis course I begin teaching in a few days.  It hasn't begun yet, but I am already being CC'ed into the e-mail stream of the institution.  Perhaps as a warning..... who can say?

The recent self-withdrawal of a student generated a meeting of ties, wherein this list of issues was carefully constructed at great mental expense.  In other words, they managed to crayon down his reasons for abandoning their expensive program....

•  None of the vehicles run.

•  The quality of the vehicles deteriorated throughout the course of the school year.

•  Nothing was spent to keep vehicles functional.

•  Did not having access to tools and equipment.  Items were locked up with limited access.

•  The evening instructors had to bring in their own tools due to lack and unavailability of tools.

•  The lab was not clean and orderly.

•  The lab was always full not allowing the evening students the space to bring in projects.

•  The lifts were never available.

•  Supplies, when available, were very limited.

My own thoughts as I read this generated my own internal list in response.

• How many vehicles has the administration bought in recent years for the students to learn on?   (Zero)
• How much has been spent to keep what vehicles there are, functional?  (Zero)
• How much has been spent on equipment specifically for the college level program to use?  (Zero).

It all adds up to a challenge for me, which I accept without whimper.  It's the same challenge  most tech instructors face at one time or another.   Build a stellar instructional atmosphere with little or no help from administration, and often times their direct opposition.

My mind set is familiar, long practiced, and time honored with success:

SCREW them.  Get the hell out of my way.  MY students are going to LEARN.

Besides.... I only have eight weeks or so to make this magic happen.  Not enough time to fix the glaring issues with the school, nor do I wish to bother trying.  But..... maybe enough time to do something really good for the students.