She greets the students with a faux smile and haggard eyes, offering the same rehearsed line, ''pick up your bell work,'' and like androids, they wander to their assigned seats.  Though she resembles a Wal-Mart greeter, the classroom most closely resembles a McDonalds.  With the prefabricated, inoffensive posters, brightly ...

Sometimes I feel as if I don't fit into the system of education.  I wonder if I am just crazy or if I am part of a silent minority (perhaps even majority) who feel the same way.  So, I am making a list of paradigm shifts that I think many teachers, administrators and politicians need to make. I hate lists, but I really felt like turning ...

Yesterday, staff development was actually very relevant.  However, it was painful.  The question at hand was, ''Why did our school fail to make AYP?''  Looking back, I failed to differentiate between AYP and ''Why is our school a failing school?''  They used those terms synonomously, while they are actually quite ...

Our school is like a prison.  From the uniforms to the bland walls to the security cameras and the cafeteria food.  The average student is told what to do at all times - when to eat, when to pee, when to play (but not too rough), what to say, when to speak, when to write, what to copy down from the board.  In a littany of commands ...

I sit in the library at 7:30.  School does not start for another hour, but those in ''leadership'' must attend this biweekly meeting.  I use quotation marks because, if you could see me right now, I actually stopped talking for a moment to use the hand signal for quotation marks.  See, I am not really a leader.  I facilitate a ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

As I approach the driveway, Joel stands there with a hose, spraying the grass.  I expect him to drop everything and run to his daddy.  Instead, he waves and smiles, then returns to his duty of running up the water bill and increase the Phoenix drought.  Christy and I laugh as we watch him jump in mud puddles.  In the midst of ...