Newspapers. You may have heard of them. You may remember them. Some of you may still receive them at your home every day. On television and in the movies, they’re something dad reads every morning over breakfast while the family buzzes around him, or on the subway to work as he is jostled and pickpocketed….
Social Studies
On the Verge of Wrapping It Up
Yes, unless you teach in a year-round school, that part of the academic year when you start looking at ways to wrap it up is here (or coming very soon). My three kids have already informed me of how few school days are actually left before summer vacation. I nearly had a heart attack! Mailbox…
Surviving Math No-Man’s-Land
At the age of 44, I finally understand just how beautifully simple it is to figure out the area of a triangle. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I thought it wasn’t beautifully simple before. It’s that I didn’t know how to figure it out before. I’ve had to teach myself math. Yes, I…
We Vote for Teachers
Ah, election time. You can hear the happy citizenry delightfully and kindly debating the merits of each other’s preferred candidate, both of whom present a truthful and glorious roadmap into a prosperous future guaranteed to last. Most wonderful of all, of course, is their always-unbroken promise to help make our students their number-one priority. You…
Invoking Curiosity
This may be the last place on the Internet to get around to mentioning the amazing feat that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) pulled off in landing Curiosity on Mars. JPL engineers have become celebrities. Ridiculously amazing and stupendously glorious photos have been beamed back from the red planet by Curiosity. A tricky, nail-biter of…
And that’s the way it was…
The evening news. Growing up in my house, watching it was part of the day’s rituals. Despite whatever was happening in the world—including Vietnam, Watergate, and long gas lines—watching Walter Cronkite was how my father spent his time digesting dinner. As someone who idolized his father, I watched and listened to Cronkite too. A few…
The Tipping Point
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…
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…
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…