Teaching is easy! Teachers get 9 weeks off for the summer, two weeks off around the winter holidays, a week in spring and maybe a week in the fall. Teachers also get at least 7 other holidays off sprinkled throughout
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All I Want is a Comma for Christmas
This past week I went to lunch with a large group of teachers on my staff. We spent the usual time discussing our common students: the good, the bad, the ugly, and all the issues we were each dealing with
Read MoreWe Are All Jason
Dedicated to Kate Gilbert. There is a way to be good again. Anyone who’s read the Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini remembers that line. And anyone who tries to be good empties their cup and asks anew, what will it
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School Images Matter: What Do They Say?
You’ve heard the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words,” right? I believe this is true and especially important when it comes to imagery that represents schools today. School images influence public perception about what “good” education looks like
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The Broken Teacher
This blog was inspired by Jess Ledbetter’s November blog entitled, Pressures of Teaching: Decreasing our Effectiveness? It’s definitely a serious issue that deserves our attention and further study. There are countless reasons why teachers become highly stressed: high stakes exams,
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Reality Check for English Language Learners
Snippets of surreptitious conversational Spanish dart around the classroom amid scattered outbursts of giggles. I review the color-coded highlighting of sentence parts in our newest sentence formula involving superlative adjectives, pointing to the laminated neon cards magneted to the
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The War Against Cognitive Dissonance
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does the tree make a sound? According to George Berkley 1750, who I studied in philosophy 101 at NAU, neither the tree nor the forest
Read MoreThank You, Voters!
Election season has come and gone. No matter which candidate you supported, there is one thing that all of us can celebrate; a break from endless campaign commercials! Another thing that Arizonans can celebrate is the number of bonds and
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Sound the Alarm
Finally, after several attempts, my district’s maintenance and operations budget override passed on election night. Let’s all raise our glasses shall we!! The yes votes tallied 5,018 while the no votes came in at 4,164. Two years ago the MUSD
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