Sometime after 9-11, I lost all sense of patriotism.  It might have been the way people used the American flag to sell beer (not unlike Jesus Breathmints and granola bars).  Perhaps it was when I first heard a country singer telling me we should stick a boot in the ass of Afghanistan.  ''It's the American Way.''  And I began to ...

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 ...

A few years ago here in Arizona, they passed a law outlawing all junk food.  Gone are the bake sales, the candy bar fundraisers and the school pizza party.  On one level, I laugh about it.  As long as students have pockets and back packs, they will manage to find junk food.  I recently noticed this when a student was ...

I am not an administrator, so it's easy for me to criticize administration on all levels.  The truth is that I like our school principals but I hate the system that governs education.  When I ask teachers what they want in education, I usually hear something about more materials and smaller class sizes.  As long as we are making a ...

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 ...

Someone once told me that the way to find out what a society worships is by searching for the highest building and to find out where people dress the fanciest.  In the classical Greece, it was in their temples and their gymnasiums.  In Rome, it was the Coliseum - a sign of their obsession with violence and sadism, mixed with effeciency ...

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 ...

Yesterday I wrote a blog where I vented.  To my surprise, fellow teachers offered positive feedback and encouraging words.  I think that's a sign that it is slowly emerging as an online community for teachers.  I'm not sure what to think of this.  I feel ambivalent about the notion that community can exist online. On one ...

Every so often, Time Magazine runs a crisis issue about how horrible education is.  Often, I find myself agreeing with them.  It's easy to shout ''Amen'' to a criticism of No Child Left Behind. Today, I feel that way right now after reading an article about how poorly equiped schools are for handling ''geniuses.''  Yet, I ...

I am a big fan of movies.  Though I don't watch many, I think they are the legends, the myths and the folktales that we pass on from generation to generation.  Often the scripts contain profound insights about life.  So, I am listing movies that have had a strong connection to the way that I teach.  1. Goodwill ...