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 ...

She wasn’t the closest friend, just a girl that would sit and talk cartoons with us when we all knew we were too old to be watching cartoons. It was the last great chance to be a kid before high school.  Our crowds were too far apart.  She was popular and pretty and she went to parties where they served more than just root beer.  ...

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 ...

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 ...

After reading a recent blog, suggesting that teachers should self-censor and stay politically inactive, I feel compelled to write this blog.  Telling teachers to shut up and focus on their classrooms is like telling Martin Luther King Jr to shut up and preach or Schindler to shut up and run a factory.  The truth is that, if we want to ...