I kind of reached a breaking point last week. No, wait. I did reach a breaking point last week. I will no longer sit by when I hear people say obviously wrong things. You know, the kind of wrong things about teaching and what affects teaching you hear every day if you watched Faux News. [...]
I don’t often post political issues here, but I was doing a bit of reading this morning and felt the need to consolidate some of the posts as well as express some opinions on the issues. Of course, we all read the news, and know of the constant and abusive attacks on teachers and education [...]
What a difference a year makes. Or not. No, it did make a difference. A year ago, I was in the middle of my 3rd year of teaching. Do you remember your third year? If it sucked, because you felt like an utter failure at every single lesson, every single exam, and everything else you [...]
“Tom Johnson” has a blog about the introduction of some nasty piece of technology into the schools in our country. It is horrible, disruptive technology that is changing the learning and teaching that is taking place in schools in a dramatic manner. This tech is that horrible and dreaded No. 2 pencil. Yikes! Can you [...]
Well, I have gotten into the school year, and I am getting comfortable in the routines. It was more difficult this year with three preps, so I have spent some time getting more prepared and have had to focus constantly on how I am planning. Some things I have done to make sure I am [...]
Okay, disaster almost struck yesterday. I had an open (refillable) bottle of water on my desk at school yesterday when the phone rang. I run across the room to get it (school doesn’t start until Tuesday for us, so no learners in the room) and I bump my desk. Can you see where this is [...]
For one of my classes (two sections) I was given an 89 Gig Ipod Video. This class is (badly) called the Gateway class, and it is a quarter of Post Alg 2 mathematics in Finance, a quarter of Mathematics in Art, a quarter of Mathematics in Technology / Computers, and a quarter of Mathematics in [...]
I finished reading “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman about two months ago. Wow. It really makes you think about our place in the educational system. I have a whole bunch of quotes noted on the back cover that I can use later. The most striking quote I picked up on in the book [...]
H tried this with Intermediate Algebra (my district’s Alg 3-4) and found it to be lacking. That makes sense to me, because Alg 3-4 is more complex. At least Alg 4 is. The first semester of Alg 3 is really just a review of Alg 1-2. Well, not to be discouraged with what H found [...]
I was kind of quiet over the last two weeks. I drastically underestimated how much time was required for the last two weeks of school. Who knew creating review packets, grading huge projects, and getting all of the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed would take up so much freaking time! Not me. My first [...]