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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

I ride past a freshly plowed empty field and see a large corrugated fence that advertises the latest neophyte tagging crew in sloppy, choppy letters. I don’t know what is the worst of these aesthetic crimes – the graffiti on the walls or the fact that it is so cheaply done, with such dull black letters that they blend in with the ...

I'm breaking the rules of blogging ettique, by creating a long post.  Yet, I don't think I can explain the story in a shorter format.  Maybe it's just not meant for a blog.  It's the first week of school and I have a class of forty-one students for a scripted, fill out the handbook, bureaucrat-imposed ELD class.  My initial ...

On the first day of school, students completed a metaphor of school.  School is a _______ and I am a _________.  Many students chose prison, because, like prison, the school tells them what to wear, when to speak, when to pee, what to eat, what to study and (a few of them argued) what to believe.  It was interesting what others ...

After watching the latest Harry Potter movie, I was struck accuracy of what happened at Hogwarts.  In a motive of fear, the school shifted from meaningful learning to standardized curriculum.  A beauracrat from the State Department of Magic began instituting rules in order to reclaim the sense of order that she felt was missing from the ...

I met with a group of young teachers.  They remind me of people who are newly married, in the way they exude a certain idealism and passion.  I love being around new teachers, because that energy is contagious. I know that the daily grind of paper work, grading and meaningless staff development meetings will all take there ...