This year’s April showers not only brought the budding of May flowers, but also many other awesome joys! First let’s admire the natural beauty of Spring… Pause and “smell” the… flowers: And now onto the highlights of an Awesome April: From successfully proctoring the PSSA to a group of 22 nervous 3rd graders, as well…
read more »Dear Teach For America / Teach For Us blog friends, Due to a combination of circumstances out of my control, I had to leave the 2012 corps a few months ago. However, I am still in the Teach For America program, and the joys of teaching have been so incredible that I look forward to…
read more »While the NCAA’s March Madness may just be reaching it’s grand finale round of games, I am declaring that the “Madness” that had inhabited Room 306 during the past month is over. We survived. I am not exaggerating when I say we really had reached a state of madness by the time our blessed Spring…
read more »The Texas House of Representatives just voted to reduce the number of end-of-credit exams required for graduation from a record 15 (five each year from freshman to junior year) to just five. The push to scale back our testing regime came from all corners of the state and enjoyed near-unanimous support from both parties. The…
read more »I got an e-mail from TFA linking to a blog post on Teacherpop(1) entitled “Feel Unprepared To Teach? You’re Not Alone.” Based on the headline, I thought that this pertained to my interests. The author, citing the Gates and Walton-funded National Council on Teacher Quality’s State Teacher Policy Yearbook report for 2012, begins by showing…
read more »The Pennsylvania Department of Education Mastery Charter Mann Special Education Audit Week, in a Nut Shell: -Stressful-like your life, your work, and your students are under a microscope-interviews, observations, clarifying questions… -Negative-let me just give you this scene: The woman in charge of the audit (the State DOE employee) leaves the administrative/Special Education Team’s Mid-Audit “Feedback Meeting”…
read more »February has been a trying month, at best. In the past few weeks, I have found myself wondering if I will be able to get out of bed in the morning due to exhaustion, and along with that I have been trying anything and everything just hoping for a snow day.. But February just keeps…
read more »It’s now been four weeks since I came back from a truncated paternity leave(1). It is killing me to go to work these days. Each morning I change his diaper and he’s started to get infectiously smiley right when we wake up. I try to get my wife some breakfast and take our dogs out…
read more »Today, at 16:08 (not that I was keeping close tabs or anything), Teach for America sent me an e-mail telling me that I made it to the Final Interview. Whew. Part of me was confident that I’d make it–that I’d ultimately become a TFA corps member–but another part was convinced that I wouldn’t make it…
read more »Today, is the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. A man I have come to admire for his strong faith, just beliefs, and brilliant boldness. His ideas on education, and education equality, are ones I find I can easily agree with. Not only because they are right and just, but because I know where Dr.…
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