At some point in a teacher’s summer, one’s thoughts turn to the coming school year. Instead of hitting the snooze button 47 times in a row, you hit it 32 times one day, then 18 times soon after, until you’re finally down to just twice. You find yourself glancing longingly at your local teacher store…
Math
Surefire Study Skills
People who have known me for more than a few years won’t be surprised to learn that my study skills prior to college were what experts call “atrocious.” And, as long as I am in a confessional spirit, I should probably extend an apology to my students. I don’t think I was at all good…
What Is the Shape of Your Summer?
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…
Light Dawns on Marblehead
In college in the previous millennium, I had the pleasure of becoming good friends with a fellow New Englander out of Concord, Massachusetts. These days he’s a physical education teacher in Pennsylvania, but back then we were simply undergrads who liked robust, raucous, and challenging dialogue. We were once engrossed in a conversation with some…
Do Small Groups Work?
Whether back in the Stone Age when I was a student or in that other millennium when I was a teacher, the small-group thing never quite worked for me. As a student, unless I was in a small group with kids who were not my close friends, it was always too easy to spend too…
The Language of Math
Obtuse and acute, am I right? I mean, median and mode. On average, I’d say I only get a fraction of the decimals divided and the remainder carry on. Maybe we should table this discussion before it multiplies out of control. The cardinal rule I am certain of when it comes to math literacy is…
More Math Excitement, Please
Something I noticed while looking at my calendar: There’s always a day or a week or a month devoted to books or literacy or something language-artsy. Sure, on March 14 (3.14) we had Pi Day. That was a tough one to explain to a lot of people, but it was mathematics-related nonetheless. It may be…
Best Uses for a Spare Moment
Depending on whom you ask, the ability to think on one’s feet can either be a good or bad thing. Now, your initial reaction might be, “Hey, Todd! Being able to think on your feet is a good thing. Especially if you’re a teacher.” And I would agree with you, of course. There’s no way…
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…
I Wash My Hands of Responsibility
By now you’ve no doubt received all of your National Hand Washing Awareness Week greeting cards from friends, relatives, and secret admirers. It happens this time every year, our mailboxes stuffed with sincere or humorous cards reminding us to wash our hands to fight off the never-ending assault of germs and bacteria. There’s always that…