I posted at length about each part of Mr. Fitz’s new mantra, “Teach Happy, Teach Right, Speak Up” on recent posts, but perhaps “at length” made the ideas I presented less rather than more accessable. I’ve always liked brief, meaningful pieces like Rudyard Kipling’s “If” and Kent M. Keith’s “Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments,” so in Read More >>
In my last post, I lamented the fact that our entire school system in the U.S. has been built around a model of assigning and assessing, of measurement. Everything we do in schools becomes about hoop jumping. The Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus closed last night, though, so perhaps hoop jumping is too dated Read More >>
It is with a heavy heart, and a sense of relief, that I have decided to end the newspaper run of Mr. Fitz and stop producing new Mr. Fitz comics at the end of its 22nd year, on March 27th, 2022. There are plenty of new strips to come before then, and I have a Read More >>
I am sure I am not the only teacher to have some of these insights, but after a few weeks away from the 2020-2021 school year, I feel a need to write them down, if only for myself. I spent this school year kind of exhausted. I was teaching with a mask on all day, Read More >>
The actor Charles Grodin passed way recently, and while others remembered his major movie roles, I instead thought immediately of a role he played in a theme park attraction at EPCOT called Cranium Command. Cranium Command is no longer open – it was part of the now defunct and re-purposed Wonders of Life pavilion – Read More >>
I hate to end teacher appreciation week on a negative note, but as it drew to a close today I found myself thinking about what the system actually appreciates instead of teachers. We are getting a new textbook for next school year. I went to an online overview of the textbook and its digital platform Read More >>
One of my mentors growing up was the pastor at my small town church, a man I fictionalized in my first novel, Making My Escape. Rev. J. was a complicated man who had spent over 20 years being an English teacher before going into the ministry. He often said he did more actual ministering to Read More >>
This is a reboot blog post. I have not been blogging lately. Because I have been tired. Because I have been teaching in two modes five or six periods every day, and I have nearly 30 students in my room for much of the day. And I have been pretty scared of getting sick. And Read More >>
It was not business as usual for any of us this year. Teaching wasn’t business as usual, and neither was drawing a comic strip about teaching. Neither was blogging about teaching (which for me, didn’t happen a whole lot). But now, on the last day of 2020, I felt a need to look back on Read More >>
My most recent post was about this school year so far and all the ups and downs and craziness involved in it. Tonight, I want to post about the things I’m grateful for, despite everything. In the midst of everything that has been going on, I have been re-reading The Book of Joy, a series Read More >>