I believe unions should only fight for better benefits, higher wages, and working conditions. These are the only issues I will discuss as a union executive board member, and I don’t believe my union(s) should take moral stands on issues like the Iraq War or abortion or other issues, divisive or not. Also, I don’t expect [...]

I thought I’d post some updates on the goings on I’ve discussed previously. When my class created bulletin boards about the 1920s for The Great Gatsby, things did not go exactly as planned. Being literal-minded students, almost everyone basically created the exact same research piece–exactly as I had written up the assignment. A ...

The district agreed to help us bring down class sizes for freshmen and sophomores from 31-32 to 28, which would be great. This would mean a lowering of students per day of 15-20 students for some of the English teachers. 140 students a day sounds much better to me than 160. Just for perspective, when [...]

This morning, during finals mind you, the teaching staff was mandated to attend a staff meeting concluding 15 minutes prior to the first final of the day. We sat down, already grumpy since our time is crunched because of a special schedule we use for finals week, and we received a 20 minute lecture about [...]

Currently my school is looking to create an intervention system which exists during the school day. The requirements we must meet are: it must occur during the day, must not require any new cost, and must not require any new staff. Tough restrictions, but we have to think of something. So far, we have decided to [...]

I decided to clean off the shelves in my room of older material, and I realized just how many conferences, trainings, and other professional development sessions I’ve attended. I must have put 20-25 thick binders into boxes and over 150 files into those boxes as well. My second epiphany was that most of the trainings were [...]

I stumbled upon a piece of information from a fellow colleague that our finals schedule may be changed despite finals being a couple weeks away. I guess a meeting for department heads is scheduled for tomorrow to discuss the issue. The rationale for the change is that “a few” teachers are not following the schedule [...]

I’m not teaching as well as I should want to right now. I’m just going to throw out my frustrations in a venting session and call it good. Catharsis time. 1. My classes are just too large! My smallest class has thirty kids, and all of my courses are literature and writing courses. I’m getting [...]

The union president and the Boss Lady approached me (since I'm on the union Exec. Board) this week about meeting to help ensure that teachers fulfill their supervision duties and work their contracted hours. I will admit that I usually feel somewhat negative when I hear the Boss Lady state her desire to make sure teachers work their hours because ...

I went to the high school state football championships this last weekend and watched a coach lose the title game for his team. His inability to adapt and poor play calling at critical moments (really, it was greed leading to opponent points) took the victory from the kids; the leader decided the outcome rather than allowing the kids the ...