Apparently I miss the running around, lack of sleep, and always being a step ahead of your kiddos part of teaching because I decided to come home from visiting my relatives with a puppy. We are working on following directions quickly.

In today’s NYT op-ed, David Brooks responds to growing literature by Charles Murray and Robert Putnam that the divergence in opportunities for high and low income students is stark and growing. In his usual attempt to straddle the political divide, Brooks writes: “Liberals are going to have to be willing to champion norms that say…

This is the first chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes (Book of Priests). The tone of this book is so different from any other in the Bible that it sparked an endless debate from moment it was included. It is not a book of prophecy. It is not a book about going to heaven or…

I had hoped to have more time to update my blog while I am here in Philly but as I expected they’re keeping us pretty busy. The way I actually first found this site was when I was researching TFA. I was looking for opinions from strong supporters of the organization, strong opponents, and everything…

When I joined the 2011 corps I was slated to be a high school social studies teacher. At institute I was trained as such. However, once I arrived in Detroit, it turned out there were fifteen high school social studies and ELA teachers competing for many fewer jobs. By mid-September ten of us were still…

Just read a very interesting article about a new educational grad school called Relay School of Education that was started by many founders of the most successful charter schools (KIPP, Uncommon). It offers a two year masters degree program meant to help teachers succeed in their classrooms that very year. Interestingly, success in the program (and…

A friend of mine wrote a fabulous blog post about TFA’s attrition rate during Institute (currently 11%) and its root cause: recruitment (read it at: http://yoteach23.teachforus.org/2012/06/22/attrition-still-at-11-blame-recruitment-not-institute/). I couldn’t agree more with his sentiments, and I think TFA’s recruitment style has impacts far beyond Institute. For those not familiar, the recruitment process is something like the following:…

Gary Rubenstein points out that the attrition rate has not declined over the past twenty years, and uses this fact to conclude that institute has not really improved over time. I think framing our discussion of institute in this way misses some of the bigger goals and weaknesses of TFA.   As many CMA’s pointed…

I’m still not quite ready to reflect on my year… so I’ll let my kiddos do the talking for me. I gave all 3 grades an end of the year survey. I have included some of the more entertaining or awesome or sweet responses… both good and bad. Overall I was encouraged with the positive…

Sorry I haven’t updated my blog for a couple weeks, I got mono and I spent a week and a half on the couch lol. Today I finished my first full day of Induction as a 2012 Detroit Corps Member. Induction functions as an orientation to the region and community in which we will be…