This past week, the National History Day program announced that it lost one of its biggest benefactors. Though National History Day (NHD) doesn’t announce the benefactor’s name, it does reveal how much it’s going to hurt the program — a total net loss of $800,000, annually. If you don’t know what the National History Day […]
Opinion
Posted inOpinion
Why are we Doing this Thing Called Public Education?
A close friend of mine was confused. He wondered why teachers “post 1000 memes that make it seem like our job is stressful, underpaid, and makes us into alcoholics.” But when he talks to teachers, we say that we love teaching. He was right. We complain… a lot! But sometimes we need the outlet because while […]
Posted inFeatured
Discovering Dostoevsky in Middle Age: Why Education Is Usually Wasted on the Young
“Did I tell you that’s what I did when I was flying red eyes? I would stare out the window at the stars and get frightened by the enormity of the universe.” – High School Best Friend, Pilot, Autodidact Cory was my best friend in high school. To this day, he remains one of my […]
Posted inOpinion
An Awful Moment: Choosing to Say Goodbye to a School
Fellow educators, many of us on the front lines in the schools of America are bearing witness to “an awful moment” in the history of education. We are losing many soldiers, as the fight becomes too hard to bear. As many of you in education know, education is clearly supposed to be about the students. […]
Posted inTeacher Leaders
“Active Monitoring” Standardized Tests Is a Joke
Most states have a guide for how educators should properly proctor a standardized test. Chief among the list of directions is teacher behavior while students are testing. Those of us proctoring tests are bound to come across the term “active monitoring” (AK-tiv * Mahn-it-ORR-ing) N. – educational jargon-ese for teachers doing nothing other than staring at their […]
Posted inOpinion
On Sickness: From a Teacher who Can’t Come to School Right Now
As teachers, we hold the fate of our students in our hands. When we’re sick, we often show up anyway because sometimes even a sick teacher outmatches a substitute who may or may not know the content being delivered. A couple weeks ago, I severely injured my leg. Let’s just say: once you’re over a […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Yes, Failure IS An Option
We’d be hard pressed to find an innovation that has changed our modern living as much as the light bulb. When Thomas Edison and his employees experimented with methods to bring about an incandescent light, they finally arrived – almost by accident – on using a cardboard filament. After its success, he famously quipped “I […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
Why Engaging Students with Politics is Worthwhile
One of my friends approached me last week while at church. Now an administrator, he was a teacher who taught at Dover High School at the height of the ‘intelligent design’ debate, where a school board wanted it taught instead of the theory of evolution. He taught biology, nonetheless. In initiating the conversation, he said, “I […]