For the last two weeks, students in my class have explored multiple facets of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.  They have analyzed sources for bias, posed intelligent questions, created metaphors for the conflict and developed solutions.  I admit that it is idealistic to assume that 8th graders can solve the world's problems in two ...

For me, the term ''professional development'' conjures up images of sitting in a stale library, watching PowerPoint slides as I perfect the art of cartoon-making.  I hate spending an hour and a half every week listening to things that feel irrelevant to my vocation as a teacher.  With that in mind, I approached my principal and asked if ...

For the current unit relating to Civil Rights, students have to choose four of the ten homework options.  I deliberately use academic language and a higher vocabulary so that they can grow accustomed to the ''grown up world'' and because academic language is such a buzzword lately that doing so will keep the curriculum specialists happy ...

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 ...

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, ...

Last year, I worked hard to obtain a pile of old iMac G3's.  It's hard to imagine them being useful in the classroom, given the fact that they have less memory than an up-to-date iPod.  Yet, it was the best I could muster up.  I've learned that if I want to use better technology, I have to build from the ground up with an eventual ...

It's seven thirty thirty.  I know this, not because of the sunlight or the heat.  Rather, a box on the bottom right hand corner tells me the time.  I trust the box more than my own mental perception of the sunlight.  I count backwards in my head, proud that I am not depending on an online calculator to tell me that I have been ...