As I approach a new school year in two weeks, I will probably be facing a week of pre-planning that almost inevitably focus too much on data, tested standards, and compliance to curricular conformity. Our focus will be on standardized curriculum, standardized tests, and standardized out comes, with the requisite talk about meeting the individual Read More >>
I love reading and writing and want to pass that love on to my students. I want them to love reading and writing because when you love doing something – you do it better. I want them to dive deep into pages And lose themselves in colorful worlds Created from black and white text. They Read More >>
I see many news articles about what is happening in schools. I see social media posts from people who think what’s happening in schools is great. I see posts from people who think Satan has taken over the schools and is going to turn every students trans or gay or liberal or furry or all Read More >>
Forty years ago the study “A Nation At Risk” was published. The report called out American public schools for their rising tide of mediocrity, and said that we we needed to improve our educational systems by improving our test scores. Now, forty years later, we have been waging a war to push test scores higher Read More >>
I have Star Wars on the brain, and this afternoon doing some reading, viewing, and thinking about Star Wars gave me a new insight about education. I recently finished drawing comic strip parodies of Star Wars in my comic strip; I’ve gone to see Episode 7 twice (opening night and the day after Christmas); and today I had a chance to Read More >>
As the march toward censorship moves onward in my district and around my state and country, I found myself thinking about my editor at Scholastic Professional Books, Gloria Pipkin. Gloria “discovered” me when I wrote a piece about writing tests for the Orlando Sentinel. My two books were among the last she edited before she Read More >>
With the state of Florida, the state in which I have taught for over 30 years, headed for universal school vouchers and choice, I felt a need revsit a series I did a few years back about school choice. In my comic strip, Mr. Fitz, I had poked fun the problems of for-profit charter schools, and Read More >>
The above picture is of my classroom library. Well… part of it. I have had some variation of this library in my classroom for about three decades. It is not a library I put together with any particular agenda. Well, that’s not true. I do have an agenda: I want my students to be readers. Read More >>
I once had a discussion online with someone who tried to tell me why she was homeschooling her children – because public schools were so awful with their over-testing and their obsession with data. She made it sound like the schools themselves were to blame and that the adults in public schools embraced these testing Read More >>
I haven’t posted anything new in this space in a while. Maybe it’s been the fact that I have a total of 190 students this year, which is exhausting. Maybe crossing the line past 30 years of teaching – I just received my 30-year pin from my district today – has left me a bit Read More >>