I’ve had Chimamanda Adichie’s “The Danger of a Single Story” bookmarked for months now, but I finally got around to watching the 20-minute TED talk this past week. In it, Adichie describes her childhood in Nigeria, her college experience in the United States, and, as one might imagine from the title, the potency and potential…
read more »“Mister, you always wear Air Forces on casual Friday. You should get those new Jordans.” “Yeah? Do you think they’d go well with this outfit?” “Naww mister, you gotta dress more like a middle schooler.” ————— “Mister, you know that you’re the best from all my teachers?” “What do you mean?” “My other teachers, when…
read more »Overheard during a lesson on arithmetic sequences R: “Oh my gawddd, this stuff is so awesome.” There is a remarkable disconnect between how much stuff has been happening in my classroom, school, life, etc., and how little I feel like blogging about it. Maybe my desire to write is directly proportional to the amount of…
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“By perseverance the snail reached the ark.” – Charles Spurgeon
read more »I’ve been reading a lot of interesting dialogue and debate regarding TFA and other “corporate” reform measures (not my favorite term, but unfortunately the most widely understood). It started back in January when an ed student and TFA naysayer posted a rather spiteful comment on Wess’s post “Bang for your buck”, and I ended up…
read more »And just like that, February break is over. Apparently, only Rhode Island has a week of vacation in the middle of February, which probably contributes to our relatively late ending date, but I’m not complaining—by the end of school last Friday, I barely had the energy and mental wherewithal to wish my kids (and secretly,…
read more »I realize that it’s Monday, which means I’m breaking my firmly-established tradition of updating only on weekends, but this needs to be said. As a teacher, it is so easy to find things to complain about. The work day is too long. Lunch is too short. The copy machine never works. Certification coursework sucks. Administration…
read more »I haven’t posted any knockout success stories from the classroom in a while, so to make up for that, today I have two. Emerging from a January filled with extremely late nights, management woes, and stress over teacher evaluations (more on that in a future post), it’s encouraging to celebrate the evidence that I’m nevertheless…
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O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel,…
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Taking a break from my usual blogging pattern of circumstance-reflection-revelation, here’s a humorous little list that most of you teachers out there should be able to relate to. You know you’re a teacher when… … you have to resist introducing yourself by your last name when meeting someone new. … your hands are perpetually covered…
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