Look around your school. Who would be the person to talk to your students about race and how it affects minorities? Who would start the conversation about Alton Sterling or Philando Castille? If you cannot think of anyone, there is an issue. If you don’t think children need to discuss racially charged incidents, there is an […]
Opinion
My AP Scores Were Disappointing. Now What?
I awoke at 5 AM on Tuesday morning to log into the College Board’s website and obtain this year’s AP results for my AP Government and Macroeconomics courses. I spied the remains of a patriotic-looking Americana chocolate cake sitting on my kitchen counter, safely wrapped in aluminum foil. I grabbed a fork and took a […]
How Far is Too Far to Save a Life?
The phone rings at midnight. Â That’s never a good sign, right? Â We imagine our relatives in a terrible accident, something gone wrong for our parents, or our children in trouble. Â But when you are a school administrator, you have to figure there is a chance the school caught fire, got burgled, or generally something went […]
Travel for the Teacher: Better than Professional Development
As I write this, my family and I are preparing for a long voyage overseas. A few months ago, I learned that I had been accepted to the Disquiet International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal. This series of workshops with famous writers is held in one of Europe’s most historic and beautiful cities. Perhaps even […]
Summer Vacation Memes For Teachers
Summer vacation is here and teachers should be relaxing away from the craziness of school. As you relax and “rest up” for the 2016-2017 school year, look at these summer vacation memes and laugh. How many of us are unsure of the days of the week this summer vacation? Pinterest will be the death of […]
More Tales from the Dark Side… Best Parent Conference Ever
You are sitting at your desk after a long Thursday, drinking your cold coffee.  No, it’s not iced coffee; it’s just left over from this morning. You open your email and your stomach turns over. The subject line of the email says Parent Conference Scheduled, and it’s from your principal.” The email tells you that you […]
10 Things You Can Do Now that It’s Summer Break
Man, being a teacher is such a sweet gig. I mean, we get out of school at three o’clock every day, have our weekends free, have super-long vacations, and we get the summer off? Okay, so maybe all of that’s not true (most of that’s not true), but unless you’re at a year-round school, you still […]
Damn You, Kid, For Making Me Cry
When the end of the year comes around, we teachers like to take that last snapshot of our classroom and the wonderful contents in it. Sometimes we get more than we bargain for; sometimes tears are shed. This is their story. And damn them for making me cry. [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” […]