Sometimes I feel as if I don't fit into the system of education.  I wonder if I am just crazy or if I am part of a silent minority (perhaps even majority) who feel the same way.  So, I am making a list of paradigm shifts that I think many teachers, administrators and politicians need to make. I hate lists, but I really felt like turning ...

Ever since I was little, I had an easy time writing.  For some reason, the words came to me quickly, with little need to learn an organizational structure.  A vocabulary was like a candy store, where two things that were virtually identical had slightly different flavors and textures and I enjoyed the candy store - not in the sense of ...

    I’m sitting at my computer reading an editorial for grad school.  The man is trying to justify why teaching is a science and not an art.  I find it insulting, but I am engaged. I can tell that he wants to believe that, if teachers received the perfect training then anyone could be a teacher. I take a time-out to write ...

I am embaressed to admit it, but I like Shakira - and not in the way that most men usually think about Shakira.  No, it's not the rock hard abs and belly dancing that impresses me.  Instead, I actually like her music. (For the record, I also like chick flicks, but I am not metro)  My wife left the cd playing in the car and I skipped ...

Solitude is missing from current educational system.  Students, while they are at school, must plough through book work, handouts and lectures in a ridiculous pace.  Everything is disjointed and disconnected, often taught in subjects that are irrelevant to their lives.  Last year, after weeks of drought, it finally rained - and not ...

After reading the answers from Bell Work, I feel confident that my students know the causes of World War II.  We engage in a dodge ball type game that enables them to see imperialism and colonialism.  I allow them to break into alliances to teach the alliance system.  We discuss this and then move onto the Treaty of Versailles ...

Twenty students claim their favorite seats within minutes of the lunch bell ringing.  The skeptic in me initially assumes that it is a first week rush, a desire to get out of the one-hundred and ten degree heat. The students will find out that our Student Leadership Meeting is actually pretty difficult and the numbers will diminish.  I ...

Every few years, the educational community chooses a catchy new trend and markets it as the greatest method students will ever experience.  When I was a child, the trend was writing in journals.  As I grew older, it was graphic organizers.  Later, Word Walls (which are making a comeback based upon the assumption that students are ...

When I first began teaching, I used the class website as a way to communicate with students.  It was very teacher-oriented and I was proud of the work I had accomplished.  When I realized that I wanted student involvement, I decided that I would allow them to create articles.  It would be a social studies magazine.  Over time, ...

Sitting in a staff meeting, I pull out the agenda and begin drawing cartoons.  Instead of reading PowerPoint presentations, we work collaboratively (read ''group think'') on a school wide mission statement.  ''Make sure it is attainable, measurable and . . .'' I am jarred by the word ''measurable'' as the speakers words trail off in the ...