For the past ten years, I have been asking my 9th grade English students to ponder an inquiry question for the year: What is the purpose of education? We examine this question from many angles. Is the purpose of education to ensure future gainful employment? To encourage future happiness? To help students discover and practice Read More >>
I ask students, “How do your teachers usually start the first day of school?” They answer in chorus, “Rules and consequences!” I ask students, “Do you ask more questions at school Or answer more?” “We’re afraid to ask questions. We’ll get yelled at.” I ask students, “When you write, who gets to choose the topic?” Read More >>
Last Thursday I posted the following on my personal Facebook page: “The last straw has finally hit. This school year is it. And then I’m gone.” People were curious about what the last straw was. By the time I was ready to post again, the situation had changed somewhat. I then posted: “Update: This may Read More >>
I recently gave myself a severe pain in the neck by sitting at my computer too long reading the article “The End of Reading is Here” from The Atlantic. It also gave me a pain in my soul. It’s sad for an English teacher to contemplate that years of tech distraction and overly strenuous standardized Read More >>
A friend of mine who is now retired from the Orlando Sentinel editorial page and who had a hand in publishing some of my education editorials used to start the calendar year with a “full disclosure” list about the beliefs and view points he held that might influence his opinions. As I begin my 35th Read More >>
I get frustrated with the “fake” writing many teachers resort to, but on some level I understand it. Quite frankly, it’s all the system asks for, and it’s easy to teach. Give the students three articles on a topic. Teach them to write a formulaic five-paragraph essay, and boom, you’re done. It’s impersonal and tidy. Read More >>
On Friday, May 22nd, I walked 18 of my Creative Writing students, grades 9 to 11 over to Blue Lake Elementary about a mile away. The seniors have already left for the year, but one of them met us at Blue Lake. It was already getting hot out at 9:05 in the morning, but it Read More >>
I always have too many books going at once, and once in a while I put off reading a book that I really, really should have read far sooner. Many years ago when I was still teaching middle school, I had the privilege of teaching the granddaughter of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia, Read More >>
Friday night I went to my local community theater’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. I attended, in part, because a current student and her parents were appearing in it, as well as several former students in very key roles. It had been a long time since I’d seen a production, so I had forgotten Read More >>
I don’t know if anyone else experiences serendipity when they read, but I find it all the time. I’ll find the same content in two completely disconnected books! Sometimes the happy chances of serendipity occur when I am escaping into a celebrity game show. I have stumbled across three words this calendar year that I’ll Read More >>