In the midst of pandemic back-to-school time, a lot of people who aren’t teachers seem to have a lot to say about teaching. Some of them, the people who always bash teachers, are bashing them twice as hard because teachers are a little trepidatious about, you know, possibly dying because they are being forced back Read More >>
Make the standards drive the instruction! This has been the mantra ever since standards became the focus of “standards-based education reform.” The unforeseen (or perhaps intended?) consequence of standards driving the instruction is that textbooks companies have been very careful to show that their textbooks are “aligned” with the standards. In other words, in Language Read More >>
Since there are a lot of conspiracy theories floating around these days, I have one of my own. Try this on for size: Betsy DeVos created the Corona-19 virus in a lab and is now demanding that everyone go back to school this fall in order to kill off a large chunk of the older, Read More >>
(Apologies to Sting) The teachers, they reject The school board’s fantasy Pandemic hits badly Classroom’s no place to be Inside schools, there’s thronging. There is no open space. Cough-barking, they’re close now. Masks hanging off their face. Don’t stand, don’t stand so Don’t stand so close to me Don’t stand, don’t stand so Don’t stand Read More >>
In January of this year, my wife and I performed in a community theater production of Christopher Durang’s play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. My wife and actually played sister and brother (it was weird, but Sonia was adopted, so we weren’t blood related). These were roles we’d wanted to play for some Read More >>
I got to teach online last week. It was exhilarating, fun, engaging, and inspiring. It was also exhausting. I was teaching at Stetson University’s HATS Program for Gifted kids, as I often do during the summer, but this year Stetson moved the program online. I was teaching Short Fiction – a creative writing course. I Read More >>
(Tallahassee) As a follow up to the mediocre performance of its “Just Read Florida!” campaign, Education Commissioner Pam Stewart announced last week that the Florida Department of Education is launching its new “Don’t Question! Don’t Think!” campaign. A logo for the new campaign, with the initials DQDT is in development according to officials, and will Read More >>
My school board is, at this moment, debating the reopening of my district’s public schools. I used to think our concern for having quality schools had something to do with education. I had no idea that our schools are actually the daycare system of our nation, that we are the drivers of parents’ ability to Read More >>
My wife recently left the middle school we’d both taught in for 8 years and went to high school. Interestingly, we are still sometimes having parallel experiences. She recently had her 9th graders write about their rooms at home. It was a way to see how they wrote and to learn something about them. She Read More >>
Note (7-19-2020): This post from five years ago takes on new urgency in the midst of various people in authority telling teachers, students, administrators, and staff that schools must reopen. I posted the following status update on Facebook the other day that received, for me, a lot of comments and views. It simply read: Two Read More >>