Several millennia ago, not long into my first year as a classroom teacher, my principal called me into her office one early morning. She said she had a question for me. Honestly, I was expecting her to ask, “Just how long do you think you can keep up this charade?” The first few weeks of…
teacher
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…
What kind of month is May?
May can be a month unlike any other. Leaves fill out the trees. Mosquitoes sing their sweet, bloodthirsty song. Lawnmowers throttle back to life. Sweaters settle in for a long summer’s nap. Students and teachers look to the thinning calendar and—Oh no! How few days are left? There’s so much to do! So much! Noses…