I remember wishing for a flood about 3/4 of the way through the process. I would go to school the next day and tell my colleagues that I wasn’t able to finish it because all my work had been ruined. At certain points the process was so exacting that a personal disaster felt preferable to having to finish the damn thing.
Read MoreWhy I Teach
by Alaina In a recent InterACT blog post, Kelly Kovacic gave a 90 second summary of why she teaches. In solidarity, bloggers in Washington and Arizona are posting blogs to pay tribute to why each of us teaches. Why do
Read MoreThose Who Can, Make Movies
At a Microsoft conference for educators last summer I got to take home a bunch of pink erasers (I was hoping for something sleeker). The erasers read “make mistakes”. The folks at one of the most successful corporations on the planet know that mistakes lead to great ideas and that they should be made regularly. We need to start rewarding innovation and risk-taking if we want good, or even great teachers. And those are the very things that will be punished if we think that a standardized test taken by a hungry or moody teenager can tell us everything we need to know about good teaching.
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If I Had a Film Crew
I, rarely, watch movies about teachers – mainly because it drives my husband nuts when I yell at the screen because a teacher has pulled a karate move with inner city students, has placed chains on doors to lock out crime, or is connected
Read MoreElections, Squirrels, Teaching, and Shiny Things.
An old adage suggests that if one wishes to understand why something truly happens, the question“why?” must be posed at least five consecutive times. This allows the questioner to get below surface-level influences and arrive at the root cause. I
Read MoreNow what do we do?
So Election Day has come and gone and many people are thinking what's going to happen next? How are things going to change? What do I do? Well, you are going to do your job. That's what you are going
Read MoreMr. Weatherbee is So 20th Century
Was I destroying the fabric of our democracy by being a fair and sensible principal? Will the kids would grow up to assume that most decisions made by adults were equally fair and sensible? YIKES!
Read MoreNot-So-Strange Bedfellows
As co-founder of a small charter high school, I decided to interview Mike Klonsky, Chicago-based leader in the modern small-schools movement. Mike and I have a lot in common: we agree that small schools offer a more humane and functional alternative to big schools. We also share the belief, as evidenced by research and our own experiences, that small schools have lower teacher turnover, experience less violence, and allow for greater teacher autonomy.
Read MoreSorry, Superman.
You can keep waiting for Superman, but he’s not coming. I find the title of a certain highly controversial documentary to be ironic, because it is problematic in its symbolism, alone. To invoke such iconography during the debate over
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Coffee Talk
One of my favorite skits on Saturday Night Live was “Coffee Talk,” in which a Mike Meyers-inspired character, Linda Richman, praised the likes of Barbara Streisand, said everything “looked like butta,” and encouraged viewers to “talk amongst themselves” with a one-word command: “discuss.” Yes, the characters on this
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