How much academic freedom do you have at your school? In most places where I have worked, I have had some, but nowhere have I had as much as I do at the Weber School. In most places, if I wanted to teach a book that was not in the curriculum, a process was in…
I know I said I would talk about tools on Wednesdays, but something came up. A student left a comment on my book blog post “Do You Hate Holden Caulfield?” It seems he had a rather negative (or I should say perceived it was negative) experience. If I understand his comment correctly, he felt silenced…
The investigation into the blogging of Pennsylvania teacher Natalie Munroe has generated a great deal of discussion about whether teachers should blog or what they should blog about, while Munroe contends she’s done nothing wrong and hopes the attention her blog has received will encourage debate about the more difficult aspects of teaching. I have…
We hear so much about how today’s youth are an instant gratification society, and we should be worried, very worried, about the future. It’s refreshing to hear Andrew Young offer a different perspective in this interview with Valerie Jackson on Between the Lines about his book with Kabir Sehgal, Walk in My Shoes: Conversations Between…
Watch the first episode of Teach below. Tony Danza and I made the same mistake. The first day I took over a class as student teacher, I did all the talking. I was hoarse at the end of the day. My mentor teacher never said anything directly to me. She quietly put a cough drop…
I work in a private school and don’t have any plans to change that””certainly not anytime soon. I feel like I am on the sidelines in this great education debate. I see the comments on Twitter and read the blogs. But I have some questions. If teachers’ unions are horrible organizations who protect bad teachers…
I have been a terrible blogger lately. I’m sorry””grad school, work, and home responsibilities don’t leave me much time, it’s true, but if I am honest, blogging feels a lot like work lately. Unless I’m blogging about my reading, that is. Melanie Holtsman has come to my rescue. Dedicated to becoming a more frequent blogger,…
Drop everything and go read this post at Risha Mullins’s blog. It is amazing to me that with the evidence in their hands that what Mullins was doing was working, the principal and superintendent””and even department members””railroaded Mullins into quitting. She is a brave person, and I admire her grace under fire. If I were…
I’ve written about Tony Danza’s latest project Teach before. The series will begin airing on A&E in October. Playing around with students’ education is not appropriate for a reality show, in my opinion; however, it should be said that Danza seems to “get it” and is not completely without teaching qualifications””his IMDb bio indicates he…
I wanted to let everyone know that I will be hosting a discussion about integrating technology into the English curriculum on #engchat this Monday, August 30, from 7:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EDT. For those of you who are unfamiliar with #engchat, it’s a regular forum on Twitter for English teachers to talk about various…
