Howie Balaban: Back to School - Time for a Short Break

Over the summer of 2020, while everyone was home or should have been home, I applied to, was accepted at, and enrolled in a teaching certification program offered through SUNY Buffalo State. I wrote about that experience in this virtual space on a pretty regular basis. The idea was to chronicle my life as a nontraditional student returning to school at age 40. 

Howie Balaban: Back To School - Summer Interlude

Starting on Monday, August 31, I’ll be a full-time student for the first time since May of 2002. Thanks to the advent of virtual classes because of COVID-19, the availability in my schedule allowed me to register for a total of six classes this fall. I’ve already started the assigned reading for two of them, so at worst, I’m ahead of Elle Woods at her first day in Law School.

Howie Balaban: Back To School - Week 8 & 9

It’s been about two weeks since I last updated any interested parties on my back to school adventure, and in those two weeks, I managed to write enough for the two classes I was taking in Summer Session number two that I finished both a few days early.

Yup. D-U-N. Done.

Howie Balaban - Back To School: Week 6 & 7

I know, I know. I’m behind on the class updates. My apologies.

When the first summer session of classes ended on June 26, I was riding high. My confidence was stellar and my attitude was one of “can-do-ness.” I felt I’d made the right decision.

When the professor from one of the classes sent me an end-of-session email in response to the last turned in assignment, his comments reaffirmed my decision to go back to school to pursue a teaching career. I got an “A” in that class, and to date I have not yet received a grade for the other class.

Howie Balaban - Back To School: Week 5

That noise you heard the other day was the loud barbaric yawp erupting from me and my house. Two classes down!

(Yes, I just alluded to Dead Poets Society. It’s a great movie.)

As of Friday morning, both classes I’d signed up for on this back to school adventure saw their respective boxes checked. I finished all the work for one class this past Thursday (more on that in a moment) and had left myself one actual assignment to do Friday morning. With a little bit of help from my soon-to-be 6th-grade daughter, I finished that final task by interviewing her. I won’t get into too much detail about what the professor had asked for, but let’s just say that what I turned in should have worked if outside-the-box thinking is the way to go. 

Howie Balaban: Back To School - Week 4

This post should go live on this site early in the week, and by that time, I will be able to say I’ve got merely days left in the first summer session of courses in my back to school journey.

Days.

Four out of five weeks are complete. One class I can say with certainty has been quite enjoyable, as it has focused on how much technology has infiltrated education and how teachers should try to strategically integrate it into their plans. Though I have not “met” any of my classmates, I have “spoken” with a handful of them through a Google Hangout in order for all of us to collaboratively work on what I believe will be one of the last assignments. That assignment, I think, will be due by the end of the week. After all, the last day of classes is Friday, June 26.

Howie Balaban: Back to School - Week 3

Remember last week in this space when I told you I hit my stride? Apparently, that stride was a jog. In the days that followed, whatever I did worked well enough for me to increase that pace. By the time I went to sleep this past Friday, I had left myself less than an hour of work to complete before Monday morning. 

Howie Balaban: Back To School - Week 2

Success!

Well, so far.

After two full weeks of summer classes, I feel like I have hit my stride. When I went to sleep Sunday night I had managed to get to a point that allowed me to do a little work each day for each of the two classes I’m taking. Prior to that, some of the assignments had been allowed to pile up, and I was spending far too much time digging out of a hole I’d inadvertently dug for myself. This happened for a number of reasons, but rest assured nothing was late or done haphazardly. 

Howie Balaban: Back To School - Week 1

Quarantine is really, really boring. As we’ve discussed on our Dads Must Be Crazy Podcast, though, there are things we here at Niagara’s Watercooler are doing to stay sane. I’ll let Bobby and Craig discuss their goings on during the podcast time. 

Here, though, in this space, I’ll be discussing a bold, daring, new venture of mine that is quite possibly more scary than writing the book I started last year. (Yes, that’s still ongoing. However, it’s on the back burner, set to low heat right now.) Remember how it felt to start a new school year, or a new job, or to live on your own for the first time?

Greetings From 19 Year Old Craig Bacon

I was searching through a box in the attic Monday morning when I stumbled across all my writing from my college classes. I took a lot of creative writing courses and other English classes so there is a pretty big file of writing. There are poems, fictional essays, literature reviews, and other ramblings of a smart-ass college mind.

Look! A Shiny Thing!

Apparently, Donald Trump's wife lifted a few lines of her own speech from Michelle Obama's 2008 speech when Trump's wife spoke at the RNC earlier in the week. I didn't see it happen because I am just not interested in either convention this year. But I didn't need to see it happen because there have been literally thousands of memes and posts about it on my social media feeds. I try to ignore the posts and get to more interesting stuff, but people just cannot let the shiny thing go away.

Shedding Light on Monologues for the Blind

When I thought of what to write about this week, I really wasn’t sure. Maybe a heartfelt goodbye about my year away at college, seeing as I will not be attending again in the fall (more to come there). Or maybe I could write about how people interact with each other around different company. I’ve had what seems like a lacking week when it comes to being able to think, and so writing this week has seemed to be a difficult task. While I write for the readers — of course —  I also write to help myself articulate my own thoughts. But I haven’t had many thoughts recently. So maybe this is the place to have them, for everyone to see. Rather than write down my observations of others thoughts and my own after I filter through them, maybe I should let you observe mine as they come to me, and draw your own thoughts on it. A little experiment I guess.

REMINISCING: Down to Earth, Or How I Learned at NCCC East

Today, I’m looking back at a time of life that many people look back on with great fondness. I’m talking about those college years. No, I did not go away to college. I didn’t even stay at a local dorm. I was a proud Niagara County Community College student. Well, maybe student was stretching it just a little bit. I had great grades, but I didn’t always make it to class.

No Means to No End

So let’s back everything up to High School. Sophomore year. I decided I wanted to be a physical therapist. I was going to go to school for 6 years, getting a degree, and traveling the U.S. as a physical therapist for a bit. A year later, I was going to be a language teacher, or a translator. Then I finally realized I did not know what I wanted to do. I still don’t. At this very young stage in life, we were all asked to basically plan the rest of it. We were asked what you wanted to do with your life. And everyone tried as hard as they could to answer the question. Including me.

The Development of Cognition

As children we are very naïve and innocent creatures. We assume nothing but good in everything, and we don’t really notice or care to understand when something criminal or immoral happens. Our biggest worry is what toy we’re going to play with. The most upset we got is when we couldn’t eat dessert before our vegetables (or imagine something else inherently petty; the effect is the same). As we grow up, so do we develop, and our problems and values do the same. At thirteen and fourteen, as we grow slightly older, we start to understand long term versus short term gratifications. We start to see that not everyone is a good person, acknowledge — maybe not be able to understand necessarily —  when something criminal happens. Our biggest problems expand, and we continue to develop. We decide who we question, why we question them, what we like, what we don’t like, and how we live — our values.