Back when our district was attempting to “level the playing field” for everyone by having us use the College Board’s SpringBoard canned curriculum, I invited a school board member that I was on good terms with to my classroom. I purposefully invited her on the day my 8th grade classes were reading and discussing Kurt Read More >>
We held Open House at my school on the evening of September 27th, a Tuesday night. The night before Hurricane Ian hit Florida. Given the storm about to arrive, I might have expected a low turnout. Given the storm of activist parents who are reportedly unhappy with public schools for all kinds of reasons, I Read More >>
I started late in the school year my first year of teaching in 1990 – October 8th to be precise. I was hired to trim class sizes for other teachers and take their extra students as part of a program our district had adopted called Writing Enhancement. The program kept each English teacher’s total student Read More >>
I ran this strip today in the wake of having administered Florida’s new standardized literacy test on Thursday, September 8th. The new test is actually the “FAST” test (Florida Assessment of Student Thinking). It’s also being called Progress Monitoring. When the FSA (Florida Standards Assessment) went away, there was great rejoicing. Those of who knew Read More >>
I only became aware of the term Quiet Quitting this week. My wife mentioned it, and I first thought it meant that you silently left your job without making much noise or letting them know why you were quitting. Turns out, it means continuing to do your job but doing the bare minimum. You stay Read More >>
When my wife and I took Florida’s Gifted certification courses several years ago with our (fantastic) district Gifted Specialist, she took the Creativity course one summer. When she finished it, she got the instructor a present: a bumper sticker that said, “Creative people must be stopped!” The sticker, of course, was ironic and satirical, and Read More >>
If you want your comment To be read and taken seriously Please Avoid the following: Broad generalizations and stereotyping Insults and name calling Screaming that your enemies scream too much Talking about things you don’t actually have Any experience with Assuming things about the other people online That may or may not be true Assuming Read More >>