Was I destined to end up working for The Mailbox? That’s hard to say. Destiny is a difficult subject. Are teachers destined to always have to create their own supplemental materials? If I lingered around my blog for a few minutes, I bet I’d be able to make out many grumblings. With the emergence of…
supplemental teaching resources
The Challenge of Class Size, Part Two
For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. For every outsize class bursting a room at its seams, there’s an equal and opposite small class, begging for intimacy and intensity. As I noted previously, in my third year of teaching I had a class that required every available desk in my room. Thirty-one students….
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…
Wrapping Up Teacher Appreciation Week
To tie a bow on Teacher Appreciation Week, I got to thinking about a question we put to teachers on The Mailbox Facebook page. We asked whether there was a particular student-given gift a teacher remembered better than others. There were some great replies, everything from homemade spring rolls to a waffle iron to a…