Day 119: Snow days are tough to return from strong. Kids seem to forget structure and routines. Now add the fact that it’s a half day … and an afternoon schedule so my homeroom misses gym … and the fact that we’re starting with an advisory lesson with loads of role plays that can get kids…

Day 118: One of my favorite teaching analogies is that teachers have to operate like really good race cars. I’m not talking about NASCAR; I mean the really neat F1 cars that go on road courses in Europe. Those cars can’t just go 200 miles per hour the entire race. They have to have other gears…

Day 117: As you may know, I write something in this space every single day of the school year. This is my 117th entry of the 2012-13 school year. This entry is different from most, because I wasn’t in school for most of the day. I spent most of my day in East Providence, at the…

Day 116: Some days, you get lucky. Thursdays are typically painful and long. But 6A was chill through a block and a half of Trashketball, then calmly worked on the review packet. 6C was a little antsy during their test, but hell, “a little antsy” is better than most days. And then came 6B and 6D,…

Day 115: This is a day late, so I’ll be brief. Yesterday was mediocre. 6C came in a hot mess. I dragged 6A and 6B through a crummy lesson. Disheartening? Hardly. Why the crummy lesson? Because I told myself the night before, around 10 pm, that I had too much to get done, and that I…

Day 114: When I started writing every day about teaching, each day seemed to have a theme. Holding students to high expectations. Feeling disheartened. Students proving to me just how impressive they can be. And so on. Lately, in looking back over what I’ve written, this seems to be the case less and less often. Today,…

Day 113: Warning: This will be a somewhat manic depressive post. Very good news to report, and also bad. I’ll start with the good. As I’ve written before, I am trying to commit myself to having some sort of a life outside of school. You know, seeing friends, grabbing a drink, etc. Last night, my friend…

Day 112: Interesting start to the day. As it turns out, despite it being nearly spring, Boston wasn’t quite done with snow yet. I woke up to discover I had to dig my car out of my driveway, and my drive to work was less-than-safe. I nearly skidded out three times on non-plowed roads. In related…

Day 111: I had visitors observing my classroom during Periods 1 and 2. In my mind, the class was OK. As usual, a little dead first thing in the morning. Management was easy, though, and kids by and large seem to have understood where I was coming from. The lesson itself was pretty neat – we…

Day 110: Consequence of being a day late, and ridiculously tired: I remember nothing useful from yesterday. My kids were unusually into the advisory lesson on sharing their cultural backgrounds. I had the pleasure of dealing with my kids testing fourth period, after they’d been at it for 100 minutes already. In other words, sheer joy.…