You know what I always wanted to do? Teach summer school. Despite the trials, tribulations, triumphs, and trickery of teaching an entire, standard-length school year, there was a sizable chunk of my addled brain that wanted to teach summer school. In fact, a few times I had constructed entire designs for a special summer academy…
Data Driven Decision Making
Thoughts on Pineapplegate?
I never would have thought that one of my favorite exports from Hawaii and the animal that inspired my favorite cartoon character would play such an interesting role in the discussions surrounding education reform. Yet there they were, the pineapple and the hare, driving students and teachers to distraction. In a bit of absurdity that would…
The Sky Is Not Falling Currently
The sky fell last week. Or didn’t you notice? Or maybe you realized exactly why the sky fell and you reacted appropriately—with either a “You go, democracy!” or a “Well, it’s time to find a work-around.” The sky to which I am referring is not the actual sky, that blue blanket across our heads that…
One for All? Let’s Hope Not
Sometimes you just want to break up the monotony of class work and assessment like a demolition team breaks up an old high rise. Dynamiting your lesson plans is a drastic measure. You’ll need them tomorrow. But wouldn’t it be nice if, just for today, you could demolish a standard-issue, prewritten unit test and replace…
Clinging to the Lost Art?
While I was getting all misty-eyed about my years at Chapman Elementary School the other day, I stumbled across another interesting piece of debris in the jumbled, cobwebbed recesses of my memory. Sentence diagrams. There were a few diagrammed sentences sticking out of the boxes where my fourth and fifth grade remembrances are kept. Those…
Accurately Assessing Math Knowledge
There’s this one kid who always seems to be underfoot when I go home at the end of the day. Everyone claims he’s my youngest son. Even he claims it’s so. Who knows? I do seem to have quite a few memories of him being around since the moment he was born. I walk through…
Questions About Curriculum
Curriculum – noun – 1. The courses offered by an educational institution 2. A set of courses constituting an area of specialization. Cross – adjective – 1. Involving mutual interchange 2. Extending over or treating several groups, conditions, or classes. Maybe it’s because I’m an education nerd, or maybe it’s just because I think it’s…
Techno Uh-Oh
I’ll never forget the first time I saw an interactive whiteboard on display. It was at a teacher convention, and I think that when I saw it I suddenly had visions of myself jogging around the flight deck of Discovery One on my way to Jupiter.* That hulking piece of interactive technology, mounted professionally at…
The Challenge of Class Size, Part One
The time: My third year of teaching. The place: My classroom. The point: Thirty-one desks in my classroom, thirty-one students coming through the door for a language arts class. The result: Awkward. Keep in mind that I had, of course, seen my class lists, but the actual appearance of those thirty-one students in my classroom…
How much is too little?
Some classes latched onto the idea of a thesis statement like a kid latches onto a new video game. Other classes approached understanding a thesis statement with all the wariness, trepidation, and uncertainty of a Paleolithic tribe handed a ringing smartphone. Mapping out a lesson (or series of lessons!) that introduced the thesis statement and…