Quantcast
Welcome to Teacher Lingo Sign in | Join | Help

Browse by Tags

murals and tattoos

Posted Tuesday, July 08, 2008 5:29 PM from John Spencer's Blog - A Billion Blogs of Solitude
Murals are a lot like tattoos. Once you have one, you want to canvas the entire school with them. Here's the mural we just finished, as a thank you to all the people who make education happen. This one is in our class right now. We'll finish it when we Read More...
0 Comments

why myspace is fading

Posted Monday, July 07, 2008 4:00 PM by jtspencer
The media have begun to realize what I have noticed for the last few years: that myspace seems to be fading as a trendy site. Media critics are quick to point out that Facebook is a classier, trendier social networking site. However, I don't believe that Read More...
1 Comments
Filed under:

should we teach kids to be patriotic?

Posted Friday, July 04, 2008 9:05 AM by jtspencer
Sometime after 9-11, I lost all sense of patriotism. It might have been the way people used the American flag to sell beer (not unlike Jesus Breathmints and granola bars). Perhaps it was when I first heard a country singer telling me we should stick a Read More...
2 Comments

so I'm writing a book

Posted Monday, June 30, 2008 6:21 AM by jtspencer
I'm working on writing a book. It's surprisingly hard to say people, as if it's something I've been hiding for a long time. "Hey, there's something I've always kept hidden from you. I'm really a geek." I suppose it's a little like an intellectual coming-out. Read More...
3 Comments
Filed under:

Is it wrong for a teacher to be boring?

Posted Saturday, June 28, 2008 8:59 PM by jtspencer
I walked into a language arts teacher's classroom and he vented about the lesson, "Kids just aren't at all engaged. It's just not motivating them." "What are you teaching?" I ask. "Well, it's folklore and lengend. We have to do the story of Paul Bunyan." Read More...
3 Comments

church dating

Posted Saturday, June 28, 2008 10:30 PM from John Spencer's Blog - A Billion Blogs of Solitude
My friend John calls it "beging a church jigalo," which I think has a catchier ring to it. The concept is this: finding a church is not at all like going shopping. Yet, people use the term,"church shopping," as if finding community is as simple as searching Read More...
0 Comments
Filed under: ,

I do this every summer

Posted Friday, June 20, 2008 10:07 PM from John Spencer's Blog - A Billion Blogs of Solitude
Every summer I read two authors who help me regain my sanity. It's a cleansing process, really. It helps me to realize that there is more to life than word walls and academic vocabulary and lesson plans inside of boxes. I read Donald Miller, because he Read More...
0 Comments
Filed under:

what happens in Vegas . . .

Posted Thursday, June 19, 2008 5:07 AM by jtspencer
I wrote this while I was at a PLC Conference last week. They charged fourteen bucks for internet access (the equivalent of twenty-four tacos at Jack in the Box) so I waited until now to post it: In every era of American history, there is an archetypal Read More...
0 Comments

the upside of procrastination

Posted Saturday, June 14, 2008 10:24 AM by jtspencer
So, it's the end of week one for the summer vacation. I have all eight weeks planned out and subdivided within a bulleted list. The bullets have sub-bullets. After awhile, it begins to resemble a drive-by, with bullets strewn everywhere. I suppose "drive-by" Read More...
1 Comments

does money equal success?

Posted Thursday, June 12, 2008 10:22 PM from John Spencer's Blog - A Billion Blogs of Solitude
Right now, in Major League Baseball, some of the best teams have the lowest salaries. The D-backs rank first in their division and 23rd (out of 30) in salary. Meanwhile the Dodgers are 7th in salary and trail Arizona by four games (despite having a salary Read More...
0 Comments
Filed under: , ,

I changed my mind

Posted Friday, June 06, 2008 6:47 AM by jtspencer
There's a secret game we play in the staff lounge called, "see how badass I really am." It's a place of machismo, where teachers boast about holding kids accountable and *** about angry parents. What happens is this: I say something like, "I can't believe Read More...
4 Comments

my end of the year re-think

Posted Friday, June 06, 2008 5:49 AM by jtspencer
When I first began teaching, I would start planning things for the next year. It was a simple way to soften the blow of losing 140 students and all the emotional baggage that goes with it - the guilt that some students were still mostly just a name, the Read More...
1 Comments

it takes a village

Posted Sunday, June 01, 2008 8:57 PM by jtspencer
Johnny passes by in his cap and gown as a flood of memories pass. I recall snippets of hard conversations, small arguments, difficult basketball games and the late nights where I was editing his papers. I thought of that first moment when he was a fourth Read More...
2 Comments

the placebo effect

Posted Monday, May 26, 2008 7:00 PM by jtspencer
I read recently about a research study, where they created fake marketing for a painkiller. Researchers at MIT wanted to see how people responded to the placebo being offered. Surprisingly, participants reported a higher level of success when the retail Read More...
2 Comments

yearning for community

Posted Wednesday, May 21, 2008 7:50 AM from John Spencer's Blog - A Billion Blogs of Solitude
Many of my colleagues have enormous desk calendars where they mark each passing day with a large red oversized Sharpie. I don't have a desk calendar. (Sometimes I think there must have been a teaching class I missed; perhaps when I was ditching the lesson Read More...
0 Comments
More Posts Next page »