If you had told me that walking knee-deep through the gooey gray mud of a tidal basin during a cold New England April would be one of the highlights of my high school years, I might have laughed. Right in your face, in fact. That’s if I had been paying attention. (I was not…
Ideas
Name That Student
It’s the day after Labor Day in the US and that means just about everyone is back to school now. The question is: how quickly can you learn to recognize all your new students and match the right face to the correct name? Every teacher has a special trick for getting student names right, even…
Building Bridges
Team-building exercise. Three words. One hyphen. Plenty of trepidation. I’m not a fan of team building. I should be, but whenever I hear someone at the front of a room I’m in use the words “team-building exercise,” I look for the nearest exit. If you’ve got a few hours, maybe we can trace the origins…
I Bought Myself an e-Reader
At the beginning of the summer, I bought myself an eReader. It’s a popular one from an online retail powerhouse. And it’s okay. My reasons for buying it were simple: portability and an end to space- and paper-consuming physical books. This device was going to revolutionize my reading habits (which had suffered the last few…
Anticipation
Some things are hard to wait for. Water to boil. Toast to brown. The new season of The Walking Dead to start. George Lucas to apologize for Star Wars episodes I, II, and III and give us the movies we really wanted. Not to mention the moment when your collection of new students turns into…
Mr. S. Is Here
Each summer, as the calendar quickly slipped its way toward the second half of August, time neared to gather my personal effects and bring them back to school. I had a small box with the personal items I liked to have on my desk. Foremost among these items, besides a few photos of family, was…
The Error of Our Ways
We are not perfect. But we admit our mistakes. As a teacher, you likely do the same thing on (hopefully rare) occasions. What is the worst or most embarrassing mistake you’ve ever admitted to your class?
Hi, Bob
Poor Dr. Robert Hartley. All he wanted to do was share information about his job with the third graders at the Tracy Grammar School. Dr. Robinson, the dentist, brought an oversize model tooth. Mr. Borden, the airline navigator, brought a model jet. The assistant fire chief brought a fire ax. The psychologist didn’t even have…
A Tree Hugger Apologizes
I’d like to offer a long-overdue apology to my friends the trees. I love trees. In my younger days, I will admit to physically hugging them. When I was about seven years old, one of my favorite places to spend hours playing was in the twisted trunk of a fallen, but still-living tree in the…
A Crystal Ball Question & Giveaway
It’s August 1, and for those who teach in schools with traditional academic calendars, that means… Well, I think you know what it means, and I don’t want to say much more, in case you’re trying not to think about it. But, really, what teacher ever fully disengages her brain from thinking about school, the…