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Having never had children, I have always respected young teachers who have to juggle the needs of their own children while they also struggle to help their students. How does a teacher with toddlers and babies find the energy and time to work all day at school and then go home and feed, engage, bathe, [...]

After my sermon to seniors yesterday about the evils of senioritis, another problem surfaced today. With all of the budget cuts in Georgia, state colleges and universities may have to make drastic reductions in the courses they offer and the people they employ. As in most states, we are experiencing troubling times, and I didn’t [...]

Wikipedia is one of the few sources that tackles the definition of senioritis: The main symptoms of senioritis include chronic procrastination, lack of motivation, a drop in academic performance, and “coasting,” which is the act of going through classes with very little concentration or application of intent. This usually happens in the last ...

Because I live so far from the school where I teach, I spend an inordinate amount of time driving alone, roughly two and a half hours to three hours daily. That quiet time is great for thinking, great for listening to music or books on tape, or even great for talking on the phone on [...]

I started my morning dealing with an intelligent and talented senior with great potential who has been goofing off most of the semester. I ended the day with two students who made really bad choices and will suffer serious consequences. Just when I thought the day was over, I discovered that a student earlier in [...]

Each Friday morning, my classes spend 10-15 minutes at the beginning of class watching “Around the Mountain,” a student-produced weekly video program about our school. Each segment includes news, interviews, humorous segments, and student spotlights. I am always astounded by how creative students are, and it’s great fun for me because about half ...

I am often amazed at the opportunities that students have today.  Since I teach in a school that includes a Math and Science magnet program, we have many intelligent and diligent students who are thinking about becoming doctors in the future, a career interest for many of the students I have taught through the years. Oh, [...]

Like many teachers, for the past week I have been thinking about the Rhode Island high school that fired all of its teachers because the school repeatedly failed to reach NCLB standards. I don’t know much about the school, but I suspect I can guess what kind of school it is. I suspect it’s in [...]

Like most states, in this bad economy, Georgia is struggling to pay for schools and teachers. Teachers were furloughed for three days in the fall, and we will probably have 3 more furlough days this semester. Next year looks just as bad, and some politicians advocate shortening the school year by as many as ten [...]

I always end each class period by saying, “See you tomorrow. Have a nice day!” or “Have a nice weekend!”  For reasons I have never understood, however, very few students respond by wishing me a nice day or a nice weekend. I was a teenager once, and I can still remember all of the things I [...]