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Showing posts from May, 2012

Practice makes Practice

For about 15 of 25 years I have been a teacher I also coached a few different sports -field hockey, basketball, and soccer - in the after school hours. A coach's "success" is generally measured by the record of winds and losses racked up on game days.  But teams and coaches put much more time into practicing than they do in the games that "count."  At its most basic, the role of the coach is to teach your student/players the set of skills that they will need to take the field on game day and win.  In many senses, not all that different from the role of the teacher in the classroom. Like the coach, in theory, we have lots of days of practice and then a game day that "counts." But in school practice, it often doesn't seem to work that way.

Student-Teacher Appreciation

It’s teacher appreciation week. And in the spirit of teacher appreciation week, I’d like to lay down some appreciation where it is due. I have been alive for 17,066 days, and I am pretty sure that I have spent more of them in school than not in school.  In 17,066 days I have had a lot of teachers, and in some way each of them has had an impact on who I am as the teacher and the person (inseparable, from each other) sitting here on this stool, in this room, in the Vortex.   I usually divide teachers into two categories.  There are the ones who teach me something about the teacher I do not want to be.  And there are the ones who teach me something about the teacher I aspire to be. I do not want to be the worksheet teacher, or the packet teacher, or the scantron teacher. I don’t want to be the teacher who just writes a question mark next to a whole paragraph on a paper and thinks that’s helpful feedback.   I do not want to be the teacher who stands in front o...